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Minimum Competence
Hosted by Andrew and Gina Leahey · EN
Minimum Competence is your daily companion for legal news, designed to bring you up to speed on the day’s major legal stories during your commute home. Each episode is short, clear, and informative—just enough to make you minimally competent on the key developments in law, policy, and regulation. Whether you’re a lawyer, law student, journalist, or just legal-curious, you’ll get a smart summary without the fluff. A full transcript of each episode is available via the companion newsletter at www.minimumcomp.com.
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Legal News for Tues 7/7 - Meta Faces $1.4t Demand, Forced-labor Tariffs are Pretext, USPTO Abandon "Board of Peace" Trademark and Combatting DSTs with 100% Tariffs
1w ago00:12:19Tap to summarizeThis Day in Legal History: Sandra Day O’Connor Nominated to the Supreme CourtOn July 7, 1981, President Ronald Reagan announced that he was nominating Sandra Day O’Connor to the Supreme Court of the United States. If confirmed, she would become the first woman ever to serve on the Court in its then-191-year history. The Senate confirmed her later that summer by a vote of 99 to 0, and she took her seat in September 1981.O’Connor’s path to the Court was, in its own way, a commentary on the barriers women faced in the legal profession. She had graduated near the top of her class at Stanford Law School in 1952—ahead of, among others, William Rehnquist, who would one day be her Chief Justice—and yet law firms in California would not hire her as a lawyer. One offered her a job as a legal secretary. She built her career instead in public service and in Arizona politics, eventually rising to become the majority leader of the Arizona state senate, the first woman in the country to hold such a post, before moving to the bench as a state judge. When Reagan, who had promised during his campaign to appoint a woman to the Court, chose her, he was reaching past the federal appellate judiciary—which had almost no women on it—into state government.On the Court, O’Connor became famous as a pragmatic, case-by-case decision-maker who resisted sweeping rules, and for roughly a quarter century she sat at the ideological center, casting decisive votes on abortion, affirmative action, campaign finance, religion, and the limits of federal power. Her approach frustrated those who wanted bright-line doctrines from either side, but it made her, for a generation, arguably the most powerful jurist in the country—the swing vote whose reasoning lower courts and litigants had to anticipate.Her nomination matters in legal history not only because it broke a barrier that had stood since 1789, but because of what came after it. Once one woman had sat on the Court and served with distinction, the question was no longer whether a woman could do the job but why it had taken so long. O’Connor herself was characteristically understated about the symbolism, insisting that she wanted to be judged on the quality of her arguments rather than her place in history. But the two are not really separable. The fact that a brilliant lawyer could be turned away from every firm that interviewed her, and then go on to become the deciding vote on the highest court in the land, is a reminder of how much talent the profession wasted for how long—and of how quickly a barrier that seems permanent can fall once someone is finally allowed through it.Meta has disclosed that four states are seeking as much as $1.4 trillion in penalties heading into an August trial over claims that the company deliberately designed Facebook and Instagram to addict young users. The figure—close to Meta’s entire market value of around $1.5 trillion—came out in a court filing in which Meta argued the number is wildly excessive and, in its words, “has no analog in the history of consumer protection enforcement.”California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey are among the states suing Meta, alleging that the company engineered features to keep teenagers compulsively engaged—infinite scroll, autoplay, manipulative notifications—while publicly downplaying the harm to young users’ mental health. The case is set for trial in Oakland in August. The eye-popping penalty number comes from how state consumer-protection laws are structured: they typically set a fixed statutory fine per violation, and the states arrive at $1.4 trillion by multiplying that per-violation fine by an enormous number of alleged violations, one for roughly every affected young user, across years of conduct.Think about how that math works and why it produces such a staggering figure. If a law says you owe, say, a few thousand dollars per violation, that sounds modest—until the “violations” are counted in the tens or hundreds of millions because each affected teenager, each exposure, is its own violation. Statutes written to punish a corner store for mislabeling a product start to generate astronomical numbers when applied to a platform that touches nearly every teenager in a state. That’s the tension at the heart of this filing: the states say they’re simply applying the law as written, and Meta says applying it that way produces a number no legislature could possibly have intended.The significance here isn’t really the trillion-dollar headline, which almost no one expects to be the actual outcome. It’s what the fight over the number reveals. Penalty calculations like this are leverage—they shape settlement negotiations and signal how seriously a court might treat the underlying conduct. The case is one of the most important tests yet of whether decades-old consumer-protection statutes can be turned against the design choices of social media platforms, and whether “we built it to be addictive” can be treated as a deceptive or unfair business practice. However the penalty question resolves, the theory of liability is the thing to watch.Meta says US states are seeking $1.4 trillion in penalties in August youth safety trial | ReutersA coalition of twenty-two Democratic state attorneys general has come out against the Trump administration’s plan to impose tariffs of up to 12.5% on 59 countries and the European Union, tariffs the administration justifies as a response to trade in goods made with forced labor. The attorneys general, led by California’s Rob Bonta, call the levies unlawful and describe them as a pretext to resurrect tariff authority the Supreme Court has already rejected.Tariffs are taxes on imports, and the Constitution gives the power to levy taxes primarily to Congress. Presidents can impose tariffs, but only when Congress has delegated them that authority through a specific statute, and each of those statutes comes with its own conditions and limits. Earlier tariffs from this administration were struck down when courts found the President had stretched his delegated power past what the law allowed. Now the administration is invoking forced-labor concerns as the legal basis for a new round. The Democratic attorneys general argue that this is the same overreach in a new costume—that dressing tariffs up as a human-rights measure doesn’t cure the underlying problem, which is that the President is claiming a taxing power Congress never handed him.Consider the practical reach of what’s proposed. The attorneys general say these tariffs would hit roughly 99% of imports. A tariff, whatever its stated purpose, is ultimately paid by importers and passed along to consumers in higher prices. So the debate isn’t only an abstract argument about the separation of powers—it’s about who gets to decide to raise the cost of nearly everything Americans buy from abroad, and whether that decision belongs to one person in the executive branch or to Congress. The forced-labor rationale is genuinely important on its own terms; forced labor in global supply chains is a real and serious problem. But the attorneys general are making a structural point: even a good goal doesn’t authorize a power the law doesn’t grant.The significance is that this is another front in an ongoing constitutional struggle over how far presidential trade power extends. The attorneys general are signaling they will litigate, and the courts have already shown, in striking down the earlier tariffs, that they are willing to police the boundary. Watch for whether this dispute follows the same path to the Supreme Court, because the answer will shape not just this set of tariffs but how much unilateral economic power any president can claim by pointing to a sufficiently sympathetic justification.Democratic AGs oppose Trump plan to impose tariffs on forced labor concerns | ReutersThe U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has abandoned an unusual set of trademark applications it had filed to register the phrase “Board of Peace” on behalf of President Trump, walking away from the filings after sharp criticism from congressional Democrats and questions about whether the agency had any legal authority to file them in the first place. The government filed an express abandonment of the applications, ending what one member of Congress called an unlawful venture.A trademark protects a brand—a word or logo used to identify the source of goods or services in commerce. Normally, a person or company files their own application, or has their lawyer file it for them. What happened here is that the Director of the Patent and Trademark Office, the head of the very agency that examines and grants trademarks, filed applications to register “Board of Peace” on the President’s behalf. And that raised an immediate legal problem: the Lanham Act, the federal trademark statute, generally forbids filing an application on behalf of another person unless you are that person’s attorney—and the Director specifically was not acting as Trump’s lawyer.Think about why that rule exists and why the arrangement looked so troubling. The agency that decides who gets a trademark is supposed to be a neutral referee. When the head of that agency personally files an application for the President, the referee has stepped onto the field to play for one team. Even setting aside the specific statutory bar, it collapses the distinction between the government official who grants rights and the private party who receives them. Critics questioned not just the legality but the transparency of the...
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Legal News for Mon 7/6 - Detention Limits for Migrants, Final E. Jean Carroll Verdict Against DJT, and SCOTUS' Next Big Term
1w ago00:07:48Tap to summarizeThis Day in Legal History: The Execution of Sir Thomas MoreOn July 6, 1535, Sir Thomas More was beheaded at Tower Hill in London, convicted of high treason against King Henry VIII. More had been one of the most powerful men in England—a lawyer, a scholar, a former Lord Chancellor, the King’s own friend—and he went to the scaffold because he would not say the words the King demanded.The dispute was, at its heart, about supremacy. Henry VIII had broken with Rome and declared himself Supreme Head of the Church of England, and Parliament had passed the Act of Supremacy and an Act of Succession requiring subjects to swear an oath acknowledging the King’s new status and the legitimacy of his marriage to Anne Boleyn. More refused to take the oath. Crucially, he did not denounce the King. He said nothing at all. He believed that by staying silent he stayed within the law—that under the old maxim, silence gives consent, and no court could convict a man for what he had not said.The Crown answered that theory with new law. The Treason Act of 1534, which took effect in early 1535, made it treason to “maliciously” deprive the King or Queen of their “dignity, title, or name”—and the government argued that More’s conspicuous silence about the King’s supremacy was itself a denial of it. More was tried on July 1, 1535, before a panel that included Anne Boleyn’s father, brother, and uncle. The decisive testimony came from Richard Rich, the solicitor general, who claimed More had privately rejected the King’s title in conversation in the Tower. More insisted the testimony was perjured. The jury deliberated for about fifteen minutes and found him guilty. He was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered; the King, in what passed for mercy, commuted the sentence to beheading.More’s case endures in the legal imagination because it sits at the fault line between law as an instrument of power and law as a limit on power. More was a formidable lawyer who tried to use the law’s own rules—the presumption that silence is not a crime, the requirement of proof—to protect his conscience, and the state simply rewrote the rules and manufactured the proof. His famous last words, that he died “the King’s good servant, but God’s first,” draw the line between obedience to the state and obedience to something the state cannot command. Four centuries later, we still cite More when we argue about compelled speech, about the right to remain silent, about loyalty oaths, and about what a person owes a government that has turned the machinery of law against him. He is a patron saint of lawyers precisely because he lost—because his trial shows how thin the protection of law can be when those in power decide they would rather have a conviction than a fair one.A federal appeals court has ruled that Immigration and Customs Enforcement cannot detain migrants for more than ninety days without giving them a chance to seek release at a bond hearing. In a 2-1 decision, the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals—one of the most conservative in the country—sided against the administration, a ruling that could affect thousands of people held in detention in states like Texas and Louisiana.When the government seeks to deport someone, that process can take months or even years, and in the meantime the government often detains the person. The legal question is whether the government can simply hold someone indefinitely while the case grinds on, or whether at some point that person is entitled to a hearing where a neutral decision-maker asks whether they actually need to be locked up—whether they’re a flight risk or a danger, or whether they can safely be released on bond while they wait. The administration argued that certain migrants are subject to “mandatory detention” with no such hearing at all. The Fifth Circuit said that after ninety days, that position runs into constitutional trouble.Imagine being held in a jail cell for months, not because a judge decided you were dangerous, but because a statute was read to mean nobody ever has to ask the question. The core idea the court is protecting is an old one: the government generally cannot deprive a person of physical liberty without some individualized process, some moment where a human being reviews your particular case. A bond hearing is that moment. It doesn’t guarantee release—it guarantees that someone with authority has to look at you and decide.The Department of Homeland Security said it disagreed with the ruling and remained confident in its legal position on mandatory detention, which signals a likely appeal, possibly to the Supreme Court. But for now, the decision draws a line: prolonged civil detention without any bond hearing is constitutionally suspect, and the length of confinement matters. The ruling is significant not only for the thousands of detainees it directly affects, but because it comes from a court that rarely rules against this administration—a reminder that even sympathetic judges have limits when the question is indefinite detention without a hearing.Appeals court bars mandatory detention for migrants past 90 days without bond hearing | Fox NewsCourt Blocks Immigration Detention Without HearingsThe Supreme Court has refused to hear Donald Trump’s appeal seeking to overturn the jury verdict finding him liable for abusing and defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll. With the Court declining to take the case, the 2023 verdict and the roughly five-million-dollar judgment against him stand.In 2023, a civil jury found that Trump sexually abused Carroll in a New York department store in the mid-1990s and later defamed her by branding her account a lie. He was ordered to pay her about five million dollars. Trump appealed and lost in the lower courts, then asked the Supreme Court to step in. Last week the Court denied that request. When the Supreme Court denies review—what lawyers call denying “certiorari”—it isn’t endorsing the verdict or ruling on the merits. It’s simply declining to hear the case, which leaves the lower court’s decision in force. But the practical effect is the same as a loss: the judgment is final, and there are no more appeals to pursue.It helps to separate two things people often blur together. This is a civil case, not a criminal one. Carroll didn’t send anyone to prison; she sued for money and for the harm to her reputation, and a jury of ordinary citizens weighed the evidence and believed her. The Supreme Court’s role at this stage isn’t to re-try the facts—juries find facts, and appellate courts generally don’t second-guess them. The question the Court was asked was narrower and more legal, and the Court decided it wasn’t worth their time to review.The significance here is partly about accountability and partly about the ordinariness of the outcome. A private citizen brought a claim, a jury sided with her, the appellate courts affirmed, and the highest court in the country let that stand—the system working exactly as it’s supposed to, regardless of the defendant’s power. It’s also a marker of the limits of that power: the office does not come with a trapdoor out of a civil judgment. The verdict is now as final as verdicts get.Supreme Court rejects Trump effort to overturn E. Jean Carroll sexual abuse and defamation verdict | NBC NewsThe Supreme Court’s next term, beginning in October, is already set to feature major cases involving gun rights, voting rules, LGBT rights, immigration detention, and corporate disputes. One of the highest-profile cases concerns whether states and local governments may ban assault-style rifles such as AR-15s, with challenges coming from Connecticut and Cook County, Illinois. Gun rights advocates argue that these weapons are commonly owned and protected by the Second Amendment, while government officials describe them as military-style firearms that pose serious public safety risks.The Court will also hear a voting rights dispute over Arizona rules that would impose stricter proof-of-citizenship requirements for voter registration and allow removal of suspected noncitizens from voter rolls. A lower court blocked parts of that law after finding that they conflicted with federal voter registration protections. Another case involves whether certain immigrants with criminal convictions can be held for long periods during deportation proceedings without receiving bond hearings. The Trump administration is asking the Court to uphold that detention policy, while a lower court found that prolonged detention without a hearing can violate due process. The Court will also consider a religious rights case from Colorado involving Catholic groups that want an exemption from nondiscrimination rules tied to a state preschool funding program. That case adds to the Court’s ongoing disputes over how to balance religious liberty claims against LGBT anti-discrimination protections. The term will also include business-related cases involving ExxonMobil and Suncor, Apple and Epic Games, and PepsiCo.US Supreme Court to hear gun, LGBT, voting rights cases in next term | Reuters This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://www.minimum...
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Legal News for Thurs 7/2 - SCOTUS Shadow Docket Swells, MN Shuts Down Wrongful Conviction Unit, Judge Blocks USPS Restrictions on Mail-in Voting
2w ago00:08:18Tap to summarizeThis Day in Legal History: Civil Rights Act of 1964On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. It was one of the most important pieces of legislation in American history, and it fundamentally transformed the legal landscape by banning discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in public accommodations, employment, education, and programs receiving federal funding.The Civil Rights Act was the product of the Civil Rights Movement—years of courageous activism by Black Americans and their allies who marched, protested, and demanded that the law recognize their equal humanity and their constitutional rights. The movement included iconic figures like Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, John Lewis, and countless others whose names we’ll never know but whose courage changed America.The Act made it illegal for hotels, restaurants, theaters, and other public places to refuse service based on race. It made employment discrimination illegal. It empowered the federal government to withhold funding from schools and institutions that discriminated. It created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to investigate and remedy workplace discrimination.Before the Civil Rights Act, the law itself endorsed discrimination. Southern states had explicit “Jim Crow” laws that required racial segregation. “Whites only” signs hung on businesses, schools, water fountains, and bathrooms. The law said Black Americans couldn’t use the same facilities as white Americans. The Civil Rights Act said that’s unconstitutional and illegal. It didn’t end racism—racism persisted and persists today—but it transformed the law from a tool of discrimination into a tool of protection. The Act represented a moral and legal turning point. It affirmed that the Constitution’s promise of equal protection applies to everyone, regardless of race. It showed that the law can change when people demand justice. It demonstrated that the Civil Rights Movement’s sacrifice—the beatings, the arrests, the deaths, the long struggle—could actually transform American law and create a more just society.The Civil Rights Act remains one of the most important achievements in American legal history. Every civil rights protection we have today—protection against employment discrimination, housing discrimination, educational discrimination—traces back to that law signed on July 2, 1964. It’s a reminder that legal change comes from struggle, from people willing to demand their rights, and from a government finally willing to recognize the dignity and equality of all its citizens.The Supreme Court’s use of its “shadow docket”—an informal process for issuing emergency decisions with minimal explanation—has expanded dramatically, and the justices are sharply divided over whether this is appropriate.The Supreme Court has a formal process for cases: parties file briefs, the Court hears oral arguments, justices deliberate, and then the Court issues a written opinion explaining its reasoning. This is the public docket. But the Supreme Court also has an emergency process called the “shadow docket” for last-minute requests for emergency relief. For example, if someone is about to be executed and files an emergency request for a stay, the Court needs to decide quickly. Traditionally, the shadow docket was used only for these genuine emergencies. But in recent years, particularly under the current Supreme Court, the shadow docket has been used for major constitutional decisions. The Court will issue orders on the shadow docket with little or no explanation, effectively deciding important cases without full briefing, oral arguments, or written opinions.Imagine if a school made major policy changes through emergency procedures meant only for fire drills, without explaining the policy or letting people comment on it. That’s what’s happening with the Supreme Court’s shadow docket. Conservative justices defend the practice, saying the Court needs flexibility to respond to emerging issues. Liberal justices are furious, arguing that major constitutional decisions require full briefing and transparent reasoning. They point out that decisions on the shadow docket often don’t explain the Court’s reasoning, making it impossible for lower courts to apply the law or for Americans to understand their constitutional rights. The shadow docket has been used for decisions affecting voting rights, abortion, immigration, and religious freedom—major constitutional questions that deserve full public deliberation.The shadow docket allows the Supreme Court to reshape constitutional law without public explanation or accountability. It enables the conservative majority to implement a constitutional agenda without transparent reasoning. It divides even the justices—a sign that this practice is controversial even at the highest level. The shadow docket represents a concerning shift toward less transparent, less democratic judicial decision-making on matters of profound constitutional importance.US Supreme Court supercharges its ‘shadow docket,’ dividing the justices | ReutersThe Minnesota Attorney General has shut down its unit dedicated to reviewing and overturning wrongful convictions, citing budget constraints. The decision has shocked criminal justice advocates who view wrongful conviction review as a core function of government. Here’s the context: Innocent people sometimes go to prison. Witnesses misidentify them. Evidence is planted or fabricated. Police coerce false confessions. Lawyers provide inadequate representation. DNA evidence may later prove innocence. Many states have created units—often within the Attorney General’s office—dedicated to reviewing cases where there’s evidence of wrongful conviction and seeking to overturn convictions when appropriate. These units have freed hundreds of innocent people from prison. In Minnesota, this unit reviewed cases, worked with innocence organizations, and petitioned courts to overturn convictions when evidence showed innocence. Now that unit is being shut down.If you discovered you had been wrongly convicted and imprisoned for a crime you didn’t commit, you would want the government to help free you. You would want the justice system to correct its own mistakes. Wrongful conviction units exist to do exactly that—to correct serious errors in the criminal justice system. When the government shuts down its wrongful conviction unit, it’s saying it will no longer systematically look for innocent people who have been wrongly imprisoned. Think of the human cost. People serving decades in prison for crimes they didn’t commit may never have their convictions reviewed. Their appeals for help will go unanswered. The government agency that should be most interested in justice—the Attorney General—has decided it can’t afford to help innocent prisoners.This decision signals a deprioritization of wrongful convictions and prisoner justice. It means innocent people will remain in prison because the state won’t investigate their claims. It undermines public faith in the criminal justice system. It suggests that budget concerns are more important than freeing innocent people. Criminal justice advocates worry this is part of a broader pattern: reduced funding for public defenders, reduced funding for innocence organizations, and now elimination of the state’s own wrongful conviction review unit. The decision raises a fundamental question: Do we actually care about justice, or do we only care about convictions?Minnesota attorney general shuts unit reviewing wrongful convictions, cites Trump funding cut | ReutersA federal judge has blocked the U.S. Postal Service from implementing restrictions that would have made mail-in voting more difficult. The ruling is a significant victory for voting rights advocates.The Postal Service proposed new restrictions on how mail-in ballots could be delivered. These restrictions would have required mail-in voters to meet stricter deadlines, reduced ballot processing times, and imposed other requirements that voting rights groups argued would disenfranchise voters, particularly voters in rural areas and voters with disabilities who rely on mail-in voting. Voting rights advocates sued, arguing that the restrictions would violate the right to vote. The federal judge agreed and blocked the restrictions.The right to vote is fundamental to democracy. Mail-in voting is a way many Americans exercise that right—people who are elderly, disabled, working on election day, or living in areas far from polling places depend on mail-in voting. When the government imposes restrictions that make mail-in voting harder, it’s making it harder for people to vote. The Postal Service argued it needed to implement restrictions for operational reasons. The judge said operational concerns can’t be used to interfere with voting rights. If the Postal Service needs to adjust its operations, it has to do so in ways that don’t undermine the right to vote.This decision protects mail-in voting access at a time when voting rights are under increasing attack. It affirms that the right to vote can’t be sacrificed for bureaucratic convenience. It signals that courts will step in if government agencies try to restrict voting access. As more Americans rely on mail-in voting, protecting mail-in voting access is essential to protecting voting rights. The decision reflects a judicial recognition that voting is a fundamental right and that restrictions on voting dese...
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Legal News for Weds 7/1 - Birthright Citizenship Survives, Transgender Athletes Can Be Banned, and Trump's Power to Fire Independent Agency Heads
2w ago00:06:23Tap to summarizeThis Day in Legal History: Revenue Act of 1862On this day in legal history, July 1, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Revenue Act of 1862, one of the most important financing measures of the Civil War. The Union war effort required enormous amounts of money, and Congress could no longer rely only on tariffs, loans, and traditional sources of federal revenue. The act created the Office of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, the direct predecessor of today’s Internal Revenue Service.This new office gave the federal government an administrative structure for assessing and collecting taxes across the country. The law also expanded the federal government’s role in the financial lives of ordinary Americans. It imposed a 3% tax on annual incomes between $600 and $10,000 and a 5% tax on incomes above $10,000. Although modest by modern standards, this was a major shift in American tax law because it treated income itself as a source of federal revenue.The act also included taxes on goods, licenses, businesses, and other transactions, helping create a broader national tax system. Its purpose was practical and urgent: to raise the money needed to preserve the Union. But its legal significance went beyond the battlefield. The Revenue Act of 1862 helped normalize the idea that the federal government could collect taxes directly from individuals. The Civil War income tax was later allowed to expire, but the machinery of federal tax administration had been built.Decades later, the Sixteenth Amendment would give Congress clearer constitutional authority to impose a national income tax. July 1, 1862, therefore marks a turning point in the legal history of federal taxation and the growth of national administrative power.The Supreme Court ruled that President Trump’s executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship is invalid. In an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Court held that children born in the United States to parents who are undocumented or only temporarily present still meet the requirements of the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause. Roberts wrote that the Constitution makes those children citizens at birth because they are born on U.S. soil and are subject to U.S. law.The executive order, signed on January 20, 2025, never took effect because federal courts blocked it while lawsuits moved forward. Earlier, the Supreme Court had limited the power of lower courts to issue nationwide injunctions, but the legal challenges to the order continued through class-based and case-specific proceedings.The Court’s majority relied heavily on the history of birthright citizenship, including English common law, the purpose of the 14th Amendment after Dred Scott, and the 1898 decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark. Roberts rejected the administration’s argument that citizenship should depend on whether a child’s parents had permanent allegiance or domicile in the United States.Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed that the order was invalid, but he based his reasoning on federal statute rather than the Constitution. Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch dissented in different ways, arguing that the majority misread the 14th Amendment’s history or failed to address important limits on birthright citizenship.Supreme Court strikes down Trump’s order ending birthright citizenship | SCOTUSblogThe Supreme Court ruled that Idaho and West Virginia may enforce laws limiting girls’ and women’s school sports teams to athletes the states classify as biologically female. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the main opinion, saying the laws do not violate Title IX or the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.The Court was unanimous that the challenged laws do not violate Title IX, but the justices split over the constitutional issue, especially as applied to Becky Pepper-Jackson, the West Virginia student at the center of one case. Kavanaugh reasoned that Title IX permits schools to have separate teams based on sex and that, when the law was enacted, “sex” referred to biological sex. He also said states have important interests in safety and competitive fairness, and that courts should not be required to create individualized exceptions for athletes who have taken puberty blockers or hormones. The decision reversed lower-court rulings that had blocked Idaho and West Virginia from enforcing their bans.Justice Clarence Thomas joined the majority and wrote separately to emphasize his view that sex is binary and biological. Justice Neil Gorsuch also wrote separately, focusing on the idea that Title IX, as a funding statute, must give schools clear notice of any conditions attached to federal money. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, agreed that West Virginia’s law did not violate Title IX but dissented on the constitutional question. Sotomayor argued that the Court should have allowed more factual development on whether Pepper-Jackson, who had not gone through male puberty, was actually similarly situated to cisgender girls for athletic purposes.Court rules that states can exclude transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports teams | SCOTUSblogThe Supreme Court declined to hear Cathy Harris’s appeal after lower courts allowed President Trump to remove her from the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board. Harris, a Democratic member and former chair of the board, had challenged her firing under a law that limited removal of board members to cases of inefficiency, neglect, or misconduct. The Court’s refusal came one day after it ruled 6-3 that similar removal protections for Federal Trade Commission members were unconstitutional. Because Merit Systems Protection Board members had nearly identical protections, Harris’s case was strongly affected by that new ruling.The same appeals court decision that rejected Harris’s claim also upheld Trump’s firing of Gwynne Wilcox, a Democratic member of the National Labor Relations Board. The Merit Systems Protection Board is especially important because it hears appeals from federal employees who have been disciplined or fired. Harris warned that the decision weakens the board and threatens the independence of the civil service system. Her removal had temporarily left the three-member board without enough members to decide certain cases, though a later Senate confirmation restored a quorum. The ruling may also affect other lawsuits brought by officials Trump removed from independent agencies. More broadly, the decision gives the White House greater authority over agencies that were originally designed to have some protection from direct political control.After FTC ruling, US Supreme Court turns away labor board member fired by Trump | Reuters This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe
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Legal News for Tues 6/30 - SCOTUS Calls Fed Independent, OKs Late-arriving Mail Ballots, and Coca-Cola's Post-Chevron Tax Fight Trial Balloon
2w ago00:07:54Tap to summarizeThis Day in Legal History: Ada Kepley GraduatesOn June 30, 1870, Ada H. Kepley became the first woman in the United States to graduate from law school. She earned her degree from Union College of Law in Chicago, an institution later associated with Northwestern University School of Law. Kepley’s achievement came at a time when women were largely excluded from the legal profession, not only by custom but often by formal barriers to admission. Her graduation showed that women could meet the academic demands of legal education, even when courts and bar authorities were not yet ready to treat them as full members of the profession.After earning her law degree, Kepley faced the central contradiction of the era: a woman could study law, but that did not mean she could practice it. Illinois did not yet permit women to be admitted to the bar, so her degree did not immediately translate into the professional status it would have given a man. That barrier reflected a broader legal culture that treated law as a public profession reserved for men, while assigning women to private and domestic roles. Kepley later became active in reform causes, including temperance and women’s rights, using her legal training as part of a wider campaign for social change. Her story also overlaps with the long struggle of women lawyers such as Myra Bradwell, whose exclusion from the Illinois bar reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1873.The issue was not simply whether one woman could become a lawyer, but whether the legal system would recognize women as independent civic actors. Kepley’s graduation therefore marked an early victory in legal education, even though the fight for professional admission continued after her. It reminds us that access to education and access to legal authority are related, but not the same. On this day in legal history, Ada Kepley’s law degree stood as both a milestone and a challenge to a profession still trying to decide who belonged inside it.The Supreme Court ruled that President Trump could not immediately remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook while her legal challenge continues. In a 5–4 decision, the Court denied the government’s request to pause a lower-court order that kept Cook in office. The majority said the government had not shown it was likely to win on its argument that the president has broad, largely unchecked power to remove a Fed governor “for cause.”The Court emphasized that the Federal Reserve is designed to be politically independent, especially because it controls monetary policy, interest rates, and other decisions that should not shift simply because a president wants different policy outcomes. The majority rejected the idea that the president’s stated reason for removal is automatically beyond judicial review. It also rejected the argument that almost any concern about a governor’s conduct, ability, or integrity is enough to satisfy the “for cause” requirement. Instead, the Court said “cause” must be meaningful and connected to whether the governor is truly unfit for the position, not just a pretext for replacing her with someone more politically aligned.The Court ultimately resolved the stay request on a narrower ground: Cook had not received the basic process required before removal. At minimum, she was entitled to notice of the evidence against her, a chance to respond, and some deadline or procedure for doing so before a final decision was made. Because that did not happen, the Court allowed the injunction keeping her in office to remain in place. The ruling does not necessarily mean Cook wins the entire case, but it means she stays on the Fed board while the litigation continues.The decision is a major statement that the president cannot treat Federal Reserve governors like at-will employees. It preserves the Fed’s independence, at least for now, and signals that courts can review whether a claimed “for cause” firing is legally valid.Court prevents Trump from firing Fed governor | SCOTUSblogThe Supreme Court upheld Mississippi’s rule allowing certain absentee ballots to be counted even if they arrive after Election Day, as long as they are postmarked by Election Day and received within five business days. In a 5–4 decision, the Court reversed the Fifth Circuit and held that federal election-day laws set the deadline for when voters must make their choice, not the deadline for when election officials must physically receive the ballot.Justice Barrett’s majority opinion treated the case as a narrow timing dispute. The challengers argued that because federal law sets a single national Election Day for federal elections, all ballots must be received by that day. The Court disagreed, explaining that the word “election” has historically referred to the voters’ act of choosing a candidate. Under that view, a voter has made the choice when the ballot is cast or mailed by the deadline, even if the ballot arrives later.The Court also relied on federal law governing military and overseas voters, which repeatedly assumes that states can set their own ballot-receipt deadlines. That mattered because if federal election-day statutes already required all ballots to be received by Election Day, those references to state receipt deadlines would make little sense. The majority also rejected the challengers’ arguments about election integrity and voter confidence, saying those are policy arguments for legislatures, not reasons for courts to rewrite the federal statutes.The dissent, written by Justice Alito, saw the issue differently. In his view, having an election on a particular day historically meant completing the collection of ballots on that day. He argued that the electorate’s collective choice is not fully expressed until ballots are received by election officials.States may continue to count mail ballots that are sent by Election Day but arrive shortly afterward, unless Congress clearly says otherwise. The decision does not require every state to adopt Mississippi’s rule, but it confirms that federal Election Day statutes do not automatically ban late-arriving, timely mailed ballots.Justices uphold state law allowing for late-arriving mail-in ballots | SCOTUSblogIn my Bloomberg column this week, I argue that Coca-Cola’s transfer pricing fight with the IRS is more than a dispute over one company’s tax bill. It is an early stress test for what tax administration looks like after the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in Loper Bright, which ended Chevron deference and gave courts more power to decide what ambiguous statutes mean. Coca-Cola is trying to use that shift to challenge a major Tax Court loss, arguing that part of the IRS’s victory depended on regulatory deference that no longer exists. The company has already paid roughly $6 billion, and its total exposure could be far higher, so the stakes are enormous.The underlying tax issue involves transfer pricing, or how related companies price transactions between themselves. The IRS says Coca-Cola’s foreign affiliates paid too little for the right to use the company’s valuable trademarks, formulas, and other intangible property, which left too much profit overseas and too little taxable income in the United States. Coca-Cola’s argument focuses in part on “blocked income,” where foreign law limits what a local affiliate can pay to a foreign parent. The IRS says Section 482 gives it broad authority to reallocate income to prevent tax avoidance, even when foreign payment restrictions are involved. Coca-Cola says the IRS regulation supporting that position was upheld in a world where courts deferred to agencies, and that world is now gone.I’m not arguing that Coca-Cola is necessarily wrong. The IRS can overreach, and courts should not automatically uphold tax regulations just because the tax code is complicated. But I do argue that the post-Chevron shift may have a strong distributional tilt toward large corporations, especially multinationals with the money and incentive to reopen old disputes or press aggressive refund claims. If Coca-Cola succeeds, other companies will likely look for similar arguments, particularly in areas of international tax where Treasury regulations have long depended on broad statutory language and judicial deference.What I think Treasury and the IRS should do now is take inventory. They need to identify which regulations were built on assumptions of deference, which parts of the transfer pricing system are most vulnerable, and which international tax rules are most load-bearing. Congress also has a choice to make, even if it makes that choice by doing nothing: should Treasury write the practical operating rules for multinational taxation, or should federal judges decide those questions case by case? The key point of my column is that statutory ambiguity did not disappear when Chevron died; it simply moved from agencies to courts.Coca-Cola Transfer Pricing Fight Is a Post-Chevron Stress Test This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe
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Legal News for Mon 6/29 - Luigi Hearing, TPS Migrants Told to Prepare to Leave, and $69m Bail Bond Price Fixing Settlement
2w ago00:08:44Tap to summarizeThis Day in Legal History: Furman v. GeorgiaOn June 29, 1972, in a narrow 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court delivered what many thought was a death blow to capital punishment in America. In Furman v. Georgia, the Court held that the death penalty, as it was then being administered, violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment because it was imposed arbitrarily and inconsistently.The case involved William Henry Furman, a man convicted of murder in Georgia. Furman was sentenced to death. But the critical issue wasn’t whether Furman committed the crime—it was whether the death penalty itself was constitutional. The Supreme Court’s nine justices were deeply divided. Five justices voted to overturn the death penalty as then applied, but they disagreed on why. Some thought the death penalty was always unconstitutional. Others thought it could be acceptable if applied fairly, but the current system was arbitrary.Here’s why the decision was so important: Under the death penalty laws at the time, juries had nearly unlimited discretion in deciding who lived and who died. Two people could commit the same crime, but one would receive a death sentence while the other received life in prison. There was no clear standard. Race played a role—Black defendants were disproportionately sentenced to death. Geographic location mattered—you were more likely to be executed in the South than elsewhere. Whether you could afford a good lawyer mattered. The Supreme Court found this arbitrariness violated the Eighth Amendment. The Court didn’t say states could never execute anyone, but it said the current system was too random and unpredictable.The Eighth Amendment says the government can’t impose cruel and unusual punishment. If the death penalty is imposed so randomly that there’s no consistency—no clear rules about who lives and who dies—then it becomes essentially random. It’s like a lottery where the prize is death. That randomness itself violates the Constitution’s guarantee that punishment won’t be arbitrary.The immediate effect was stunning: Furman invalidated every death penalty statute in the country. Roughly 600 death row inmates had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. For four years, there were no executions in America.But the story didn’t end there. States quickly rewrote their death penalty laws to address the Court’s concerns about arbitrariness. They created more detailed guidelines for when death was appropriate. They required separate penalty hearings where juries would hear aggravating and mitigating factors. By 1976, in a case called Gregg v. Georgia, the Supreme Court approved these new, more detailed death penalty statutes. Executions resumed in 1977.What’s remarkable about Furman is that it shows how constitutional law can shift dramatically. A 5-4 decision blocked capital punishment across the nation. But when states rewrote their laws to address the constitutional concerns, the Court allowed executions to resume. The case demonstrates both the power of constitutional law and its limits. The Constitution banned arbitrary death sentences, but it didn’t ban capital punishment itself—states just had to impose it in a more systematic way.Furman remains one of the most consequential Supreme Court decisions in American history. It shows that the Constitution evolves to address serious injustices—in this case, the arbitrary imposition of death. The case is a reminder that when the Supreme Court identifies a fundamental constitutional violation, it can force the entire nation to reckon with it. For four years, there was no capital punishment in America because the Court said the system violated the Constitution. When executions resumed, they were more regulated and systematic, at least nominally, because the Court had demanded consistency and reason in what had been an arbitrary process.Luigi Mangione, the suspect charged in connection with the killing of a health insurance company executive, appeared in court for a hearing on significant legal matters related to his case. The high-profile nature of the case has drawn intense media attention and raised important questions about corporate accountability and public anger at insurance companies. Here’s what’s at stake: A health insurance CEO was killed in what many saw as a targeted attack motivated by anger at insurance company practices. Mangione was arrested and charged. The case has sparked national debate about the role of insurance companies in healthcare and whether the widespread frustration with how they deny coverage is justified.The case raises questions about institutional responsibility. Insurance companies make profit-driven decisions about what medical treatments to cover and what to deny. When patients can’t get coverage for necessary treatment, people die. Families go bankrupt. The anger is real and widespread. The question for the legal system is: Does that anger justify killing?The answer from the law is no—violence is not an acceptable response, even to unjust systems. Mangione’s hearing addresses procedural questions about bail, evidence, and the rights of the accused. Whatever the merits of anger at insurance companies, everyone—including those accused of crimes—deserves due process, the right to challenge evidence, and the presumption of innocence.The case highlights the tension between systemic injustice and individual criminal responsibility. It’s raising national conversation about what we owe each other as a society when institutions harm people. It’s also a reminder that the legal system must protect both victims and the accused, even in cases that inspire strong public emotions. The case will likely result in a trial that examines both the facts of the killing and, implicitly, the role of insurance companies in healthcare.Mangione faces hearing ahead of trial over US health insurance CEO’s killing | ReutersFederal immigration officials have signaled that migrants with temporary legal status should either pursue permanent residency or prepare to leave the country. The policy shift is part of the Trump administration’s broader restrictive immigration agenda.Many migrants in the United States have “temporary protected status” (TPS) or similar temporary visa categories. These are people who fled violence, natural disaster, or persecution in their home countries and were granted temporary permission to stay and work in America. They contribute to the economy, pay taxes, and have built lives here. Some have been in America for decades. But temporary status is not permanent. The Trump administration is now saying that those with temporary status should either apply for permanent residency or leave.Imagine you’ve been told you could stay in a house temporarily. You’ve lived there for 10 or 20 years. You’ve built a home. Your children were born there. You have a job and community. Now someone is saying you must either buy the house or leave. For many migrants with temporary status, there’s no legal pathway to permanent residency. The Trump administration makes it hard to qualify for permanent status. Some people simply can’t meet the legal requirements. They’re faced with an impossible choice: apply for status they don’t qualify for, or leave the country where they’ve built their lives.This policy will likely push many migrants to leave the United States, disrupting industries that depend on their labor and breaking up families. It reflects the Trump administration’s philosophy that immigration should be severely restricted. It also highlights a fundamental problem: the legal immigration system doesn’t create pathways for people who are already here, contributing to society, and building lives. The policy raises questions about what we owe people who have contributed to our communities, even if they don’t yet have permanent status.Migrants in US on temporary status should seek permanent residence or leave, Homeland Secretary says | ReutersBail bond insurers have agreed to pay $69 million to settle a class action lawsuit accusing them of illegally fixing prices and coordinating to keep bail bond costs artificially high. The settlement represents a significant victory for consumers who have been overcharged for bail bonds.When someone is arrested and held in jail, they can often post bail to be released while awaiting trial. If they can’t afford bail, they can buy a bail bond from a bail bond company. The bail bondsman posts the bail amount to the court, and the defendant pays a percentage of that as a fee. The problem: Bail bond companies were allegedly coordinating with each other to keep their fees uniformly high rather than competing.In a free market, if one company charges too much, customers go to a competitor who charges less. But if all the companies secretly agree to charge the same high price, there’s no real competition. Customers have no choice—they have to pay whatever price is set. That’s price-fixing, and it’s illegal. The companies allegedly communicated to ensure all bail bond fees stayed high, eliminating genuine price competition. This hit poor people hardest—those who are arrested and can’t afford bail are often the people least able to afford high bail bond fees. The settlement requires the insurers to pay $69 million, which will go to class members who overpaid for...
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Legal News for Fri 6/26 - SCOTUS Immigration and Gun Rights Signals Pretty Clear, Real Estate Class Action Transparency Ruling Major Shift
3w ago00:08:22Tap to summarizeThis Day in Legal History: Windsor and ObergefellOn two separate June 26ths, exactly two years apart, the Supreme Court made history by recognizing marriage equality as a constitutional right. These decisions fundamentally transformed American law and represented victories for millions of Americans.On June 26, 2013, in United States v. Windsor, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was unconstitutional. DOMA had defined marriage, for federal law purposes, as a union only between one man and one woman. This meant that even though some states had legalized same-sex marriage, the federal government refused to recognize those marriages for tax purposes, immigration, federal benefits, and countless other legal matters. Edith Windsor, a woman who had been married to her female partner for over 40 years, faced a massive federal estate tax bill after her wife’s death because the federal government refused to recognize their marriage. She sued, arguing that DOMA violated the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection. The Court agreed. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that DOMA “violates basic due process and equal protection principles applicable to the federal government.” The decision meant that same-sex couples legally married under state law now had to be recognized by the federal government. It was a stunning victory—but not a complete one, because some states still didn’t allow same-sex marriage at all.Two years later, on June 26, 2015, in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court took the final step. In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry under the Fourteenth Amendment. This was different from Windsor. Windsor said the federal government must recognize marriages that states allowed. Obergefell said states must allow same-sex couples to marry in the first place. The decision meant that in all 50 states, same-sex couples could get married and have their marriages recognized and protected by law. Justice Kennedy again wrote the majority opinion, describing marriage as “the foundation of the family” and emphasizing that the right to marry has been recognized as vital in our history and tradition. He wrote about the personal dignity of same-sex couples and their commitment to each other: “It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves.”For most of American history, the law told millions of Americans they weren’t allowed to marry the person they loved. The law denied same-sex couples basic rights that heterosexual couples took for granted—hospital visitation, inheritance, tax benefits, the ability to make medical decisions for each other. Windsor and Obergefell said that’s unconstitutional. They affirmed that equal protection of the law means you can’t be denied basic rights because of who you love.These two decisions, decided on the same date two years apart, represent one of the most dramatic shifts in constitutional law in decades. They show how the Constitution evolves to protect fundamental rights, and they demonstrate that the arc of justice, though long, bends toward equality. Millions of same-sex couples across America now have the legal right to marry, to have their marriages recognized, and to be treated equally under the law. For many, these decisions represented not just legal victories but personal affirmations that their relationships, their love, and their families matter.The Supreme Court has signaled its approval of restrictive immigration policies, suggesting the Trump administration will succeed in making immigration law more difficult for immigrants and more favorable to enforcement.The Supreme Court has been reviewing several immigration cases involving Trump administration policies designed to restrict immigration. Based on recent oral arguments and the Court’s questioning during those arguments, many observers believe the Court will side with the Trump administration on immigration issues. This represents a significant shift. For decades, the courts have sometimes limited executive power over immigration, recognizing that even though the President has broad authority over immigration, the Constitution still applies. Immigrants have constitutional rights, including due process protections before being deported. But the current Supreme Court appears skeptical of these limitations.The President does have significant power over immigration—deciding who can enter the country and who must leave. But the Constitution doesn’t disappear just because immigration is involved. People facing deportation deserve notice, a chance to be heard, and due process. The Supreme Court appears to be tilting toward giving the Trump administration even broader immigration power, with fewer constitutional protections for immigrants. This signals that restrictive immigration policies will likely succeed in the courts.If the Court rules in favor of the administration’s immigration policies, it will embolden more restrictive immigration enforcement. Immigrant communities will face greater risks of deportation. The ruling will signal that courts defer heavily to the Executive Branch on immigration matters, even when constitutional rights are at stake. This represents one of the most significant shifts in immigration law in decades, moving away from judicial protection of immigrants’ constitutional rights and toward deference to executive immigration enforcement.On immigration, Supreme Court accedes to Trump’s restrictive agenda | Reuters The Supreme Court has ruled to expand Second Amendment protections and has indicated it intends to take more gun rights cases in the coming years. This signals a fundamental shift in how the Court views the right to bear arms.For decades, the Second Amendment was interpreted as primarily protecting gun ownership for militia purposes. But in 2008, in the case District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to own guns for lawful purposes like self-defense. That decision was controversial—it overturned decades of precedent and limited gun regulations. Since Heller, courts have struggled with the question: If people have a constitutional right to own guns, what gun regulations can the government still impose? The Supreme Court has now signaled it’s willing to expand Second Amendment protections even further. The Court has indicated it will hear more gun rights cases, and recent decisions and comments suggest the Court will protect gun ownership rights broadly.The Constitution protects free speech, but you can still have laws against yelling “fire” in a crowded theater. The question with the Second Amendment is: What reasonable regulations can the government impose while still respecting the constitutional right? Gun rights advocates say any regulation is an unconstitutional restriction. Gun safety advocates say common-sense regulations like background checks and waiting periods are reasonable. The Supreme Court is signaling it will take the gun rights side of that debate and will continue expanding Second Amendment protections beyond what was previously recognized.This signals that many gun regulations that have existed for years—regulations that public opinion supports—may be struck down as unconstitutional. States will lose authority to regulate firearms. The Court’s expansion of Second Amendment rights will make it harder for the government to pass gun safety legislation. This represents a dramatic constitutional shift away from allowing gun regulations and toward treating gun ownership as a nearly absolute right. It will likely lead to more mass shooting deaths if gun safety measures are struck down, but it reflects the current Supreme Court’s deep commitment to gun rights.US Supreme Court expands Second Amendment rights, eyes more gun cases | Reuters A federal judge has ordered that settlement records in a real estate class action case be unsealed and made available to the public. The ruling represents a victory for transparency and accountability.In class action lawsuits, many companies settle rather than go to trial. The settlement typically includes both money paid to class members and a “confidentiality agreement” that keeps the details of the settlement secret. These confidentiality clauses often protect the company’s reputation by keeping the details of what went wrong hidden from the public. In this real estate class action, a federal judge decided that the public’s right to know outweighs the company’s interest in keeping the settlement secret.If a company deceives consumers or engages in unfair practices, and then settles the lawsuit while keeping the details secret, the public never learns what happened. Other consumers stay in the dark about the company’s practices. The company’s wrongdoing goes unexamined. The judge found that when a company settles a public lawsuit involving alleged harm to consumers, the public has a legitimate interest in knowing what the company did and what it agreed to pay. Transparency protects consumers and holds companies accountable. Settlements should not be used as a tool to hide corpor...
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Legal News for Thurs 6/25 - Sanctuary City Protections and Facial Recognition Transparency in NJ, and Trump Admin Must Explain Covering Civil Rights Mural with Tarps
3w ago00:07:56Tap to summarizeThis Day in Legal History: Shelby County v. HolderOn this day in legal history, June 25, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Shelby County v. Holder, a major case on the future of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In a 5–4 decision, the Court struck down Section 4(b) of the Act, which contained the formula used to decide which states and local governments were subject to federal oversight before changing their voting laws. That oversight system, known as preclearance, had required covered jurisdictions to get approval from the federal government before making changes to election rules. The purpose of preclearance was to stop discriminatory voting practices before they could affect an election. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, concluding that the coverage formula was based on outdated data and no longer reflected current conditions.The Court did not strike down preclearance itself, but without a valid coverage formula, the preclearance system was largely left without practical effect. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented, joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. Ginsburg argued that Congress had created a strong record showing that voting discrimination still existed and that the law remained necessary. Her dissent included the now-famous warning that throwing out preclearance because it had worked was like “throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.” The decision had immediate consequences because several states that had previously been covered by the formula moved forward with voting-law changes soon after the ruling. Supporters of the decision viewed it as a limit on outdated federal control over state election systems. Critics saw it as a major weakening of one of the most effective civil-rights laws in American history. The case remains central to modern debates over voting access, election administration, federalism, and Congress’s power to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment.A federal judge has rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to force New Jersey cities to comply with federal immigration enforcement demands. The ruling is a major victory for sanctuary cities and immigrants’ rights advocates. Here’s the context: Sanctuary cities are municipalities that limit their cooperation with federal immigration authorities. These cities typically instruct their police departments not to ask people about immigration status during routine stops, and they decline to detain people solely based on federal immigration requests (called “detainer requests”) unless there’s a warrant signed by a judge.The Trump administration argued that sanctuary city policies undermine immigration enforcement and violate federal law. The administration sued, claiming cities cannot refuse to cooperate with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). New Jersey cities argued they have the right to set their own police practices and that cooperating with federal immigration enforcement diverts local police resources from public safety priorities. They also pointed out that when police are seen as working with immigration authorities, immigrant communities become afraid to report crimes or cooperate with law enforcement, which makes the entire community less safe.Local police have limited resources. A city police officer has to decide whether to use their time investigating a robbery or helping federal immigration agents deport someone. Local communities have a right to prioritize local public safety. Moreover, if immigrant families fear that any contact with police will result in deportation, they won’t report crimes, won’t testify as witnesses, and crime will increase. The federal judge agreed with New Jersey. The court found that cities have the authority to set their own police practices and cannot be forced to participate in federal immigration enforcement, particularly when federal authorities can get judicial warrants if they believe someone should be detained.The ruling protects sanctuary city policies This decision affirms that local communities can set their own law enforcement priorities and aren’t required to become extensions of federal immigration enforcement. It recognizes that immigrants are part of communities and that community safety depends on immigrants trusting local police. The ruling will likely inspire other sanctuary jurisdictions to defend their policies against federal challenges. It represents a significant pushback against the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement agenda.Judge tosses Trump administration’s challenge to New Jersey cities’ ‘sanctuary’ policies | ReutersNew Jersey’s Supreme Court has ruled that police departments cannot keep their use of facial recognition technology entirely secret. The decision represents a significant victory for transparency in law enforcement. Here’s what happened: Police departments have increasingly used facial recognition software to identify suspects by comparing surveillance video or photos to databases of mugshots and driver’s license photos. The technology can help solve crimes, but it also raises serious concerns about accuracy, bias, and privacy. Civil liberties groups have argued that if police use facial recognition to investigate people, the public and defendants have a right to know about it.Transparency is especially important because facial recognition technology has known accuracy problems, particularly when identifying people of color. If a police department relies on facial recognition to identify a suspect, and that technology is biased or inaccurate, the defendant needs to know that to challenge the evidence in court. New Jersey police departments had been claiming that their use of facial recognition was a “trade secret” or “law enforcement technique” that they could keep secret. The New Jersey Supreme Court said no.If the government uses technology to investigate you, you have a constitutional right to know about it and to challenge it. You can’t mount a proper defense if you don’t know what evidence was used to identify you or how reliable that evidence is.The court found that transparency about police use of facial recognition is essential to the defendant’s right to a fair trial and to public accountability. Facial recognition technology is too important and too prone to error for police to keep its use secret. This ruling sets a precedent that police departments cannot hide behind “trade secrets” to avoid disclosing their investigative methods. It opens the door to litigation challenging facial recognition evidence on grounds of accuracy and bias. It also signals that courts recognize the dangers of artificial intelligence and surveillance technology and will require transparency and accountability around their use.New Jersey court limits secrecy around police use of facial recognition tools | ReutersA federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to provide a detailed explanation for covering a mural at the Kennedy Center that depicts civil rights imagery and historical figures. The ruling centers on questions of censorship, government power, and artistic freedom.The Kennedy Center, a performing arts venue in Washington, D.C., displays a mural that includes imagery related to the civil rights movement and depicts various historical and cultural figures. The Trump administration decided to cover the mural with tarps, presumably because it objected to the political or social messaging of the artwork. Civil liberties groups and artists sued, arguing that covering the mural violated the First Amendment by suppressing speech and political expression. The Trump administration claimed it had legitimate reasons for covering the mural, though it didn’t initially specify what those reasons were. The federal judge said the government cannot simply cover up art without explaining why.The First Amendment protects people’s right to speak and express themselves, including through art. When the government covers up art or speech, it’s engaging in “prior restraint”—stopping speech before it happens. Courts are extremely skeptical of prior restraint because the whole point of the First Amendment is to prevent the government from censoring expression it dislikes. The government has to have a very good reason to suppress speech, and it has to be transparent about its reasons. The Kennedy Center mural at issue appears to have been covered by the administration for political reasons—it objected to the message. That’s exactly the kind of censorship the First Amendment is designed to prevent. The judge’s order requires the administration to explain its reasoning, which will allow the court to evaluate whether the government’s stated reasons are legitimate or whether this is simply political censorship.This ruling protects artistic expression and prevents the government from secretly censoring art it dislikes. It affirms that the Kennedy Center’s mural is protected speech, not just decoration. It also sends a message that when the government restricts speech or expression, it must be transparent and justify its actions in court. The case reflects broader concerns about executive power and the limits of what a president can do to suppress expression, art, or speech that the administration objects to.US judge orders Trump administration to explain tarp obscuring Kennedy Center ...
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Legal News for Weds 6/24 - NY Hate Speech Social Media Law, YouTube Settles Social Media Algorithmic Harm Case, Federal Judge Vacates Trump Courthouse Immigration Arrest Policy
3w ago00:07:24Tap to summarizeThis Day in Legal History: DobbsOn June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a case that fundamentally changed American constitutional law. The case centered on a Mississippi statute that prohibited most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. In a 6–3 ruling, the Court held that the Constitution does not protect a right to abortion. The decision expressly overturned Roe v. Wade, decided in 1973, and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, decided in 1992. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion, arguing that abortion was not a right deeply rooted in the nation’s history and tradition. The ruling returned the authority to regulate abortion primarily to the states.Almost immediately, abortion access began to vary widely across the country, depending on state law. Some states enforced near-total bans or severe restrictions, while others expanded protections for abortion access. The decision was also significant because it narrowed the use of substantive due process, the doctrine under which courts have recognized certain unenumerated constitutional rights. Supporters of the ruling argued that the Court had corrected a constitutional error and restored democratic control over abortion policy. Critics argued that the decision removed a long-recognized liberty interest and placed major personal medical decisions under state control. Dobbs also sparked renewed debate over stare decisis, the principle that courts should generally follow precedent.For many legal observers, the case became a defining example of how changes in the Court’s membership can reshape constitutional rights. June 24 therefore stands as the date the Supreme Court ended the federal constitutional right to abortion and transformed the legal landscape of reproductive freedom in the United States.New York’s Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, has upheld the constitutionality of a law designed to restrict hate speech on social media platforms. The ruling represents a significant victory for free speech limitations in the digital age. Here’s what happened: New York passed a law requiring social media platforms to remove or restrict content that incites hatred or violence based on protected characteristics like race, religion, ethnicity, or national origin. The law’s supporters argue that online platforms have become the new town squares where public discourse happens, and that hate speech can radicalize people and lead to real-world violence. Critics worried the law was too broad and would violate the First Amendment by punishing protected speech.For generations, the government couldn’t regulate speech just because it was hateful or offensive. The First Amendment protected even deeply offensive speech. But online platforms create a new kind of public space where algorithms amplify divisive content, and a single post can reach millions. The question the court had to answer was: Can states regulate hate speech on these platforms the way they might regulate incitement to violence? New York’s highest court said yes, the law likely passes constitutional scrutiny.The court found that the law targets speech that genuinely incites hatred and violence, not merely offensive opinions. It’s narrowly tailored to achieve the state’s legitimate interest in preventing violence and discrimination. This ruling opens the door for other states to pass similar laws. It represents a potential shift in how courts balance the absolute protection of offensive speech against the harms caused by hate speech in the digital age. Tech companies will likely face increased regulation around hate speech, and the definition of what counts as unprotected incitement may narrow. The decision reflects a judicial recognition that online speech operates differently than traditional speech and may warrant different legal treatment.New York’s top court says hate speech social media law likely passes muster | ReutersGoogle’s YouTube has agreed to settle a lawsuit with a plaintiff rather than face a second trial over questions of social media liability and content moderation. The settlement ends litigation that challenged YouTube’s responsibility for user-generated content that allegedly caused harm. Here’s the broad strokes context: Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is a federal law that shields online platforms from liability for content posted by users. In other words, if someone posts defamatory content on YouTube, the person who posted it can be sued, but YouTube itself typically cannot be held responsible.The logic is that Section 230 encourages platforms to host diverse content by protecting them from lawsuits about every post. However, plaintiffs have been arguing that Section 230 doesn’t shield platforms from all liability, and that platforms have a responsibility for content they actively moderate or promote. Imagine you own an apartment building. If a tenant commits a crime in their apartment, you’re not responsible for that crime. But if you knowingly rent apartments to criminals or knowingly create conditions that enable crime, that’s different. The question in social media cases is: When does YouTube’s moderation and recommendation algorithms cross the line from passive hosting into active promotion that removes Section 230 protection?YouTube settled rather than litigate this question again, suggesting the company wanted to avoid another trial where a jury might rule against it. The settlement amount and terms weren’t disclosed. Settlement doesn’t necessarily mean YouTube admitted wrongdoing, but it does avoid a precedent-setting jury verdict that could have limited Section 230 protections. This case illustrates the ongoing tension between platforms’ desire to host diverse content and their responsibility to moderate harmful material. As social media litigation continues, Section 230 protections may continue to erode, forcing platforms to be more responsible for content they host or recommend.Google’s YouTube settles case over social media harm to children | ReutersA federal judge has vacated (struck down) Trump administration policies that authorized immigration agents to arrest undocumented immigrants at courthouses. The ruling represents a significant limitation on immigration enforcement tactics. The Trump administration issued policies directing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to conduct arrests of undocumented immigrants in and around courthouses, even during court proceedings.The policy’s supporters argued it was an effective enforcement tool that would apprehend deportable aliens. Critics argued the policy undermined the judicial system because it chilled access to courts. If immigrants fear being arrested when they go to court, they won’t report crimes, testify as witnesses, or seek legal protection from domestic violence. They’ll be afraid to appear for required court appearances related to immigration proceedings. The federal judge agreed with the critics.The courthouse is supposed to be a safe space where people can seek justice. Historically, both federal and state judges have issued standing orders prohibiting ICE arrests in courthouses because such arrests interfere with the administration of justice. If people are afraid to go to court because they might be arrested, the entire justice system suffers. Witnesses won’t testify, victims won’t report crimes, and the judicial process breaks down.The judge found that the administration’s policies violated well-established principles protecting courthouse access and were an abuse of enforcement discretion. The ICE agents conducting the arrests violated state court rules and judicial orders protecting courthouse integrity. Why this matters: This ruling reaffirms that even immigration enforcement—an area where the executive branch typically has broad authority—must respect core judicial functions. The decision protects immigrants’ ability to access courts without fear of enforcement. It may encourage undocumented immigrants to report crimes, testify in cases, and pursue legal remedies. Immigration advocates see this as a significant victory. Immigration enforcement officials may argue it limits their ability to apprehend deportable aliens. The decision reflects a judicial judgment that courthouse access is so fundamental that even immigration enforcement must yield to it.US judge vacates Trump immigration courthouse arrest policies | Reuters This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe
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Legal News for Tues 6/23 - LA "Sanctuary City" Fight with Feds, Voter Roll Database Limits, and OpenAI, Cloud Computing, and the R&D Credit
3w ago00:07:10Tap to summarizeThis Day in Legal History: Title IXOn June 23, 1972, President Richard Nixon signed the Education Amendments of 1972, a sweeping federal education law that included what became one of the most consequential civil rights provisions in American history: Title IX. Title IX stated that no person in the United States, on the basis of sex, could be excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. The language was brief, but its legal effect was enormous because it tied sex-equality obligations to the federal funding received by schools, colleges, and universities. That structure gave the federal government a powerful enforcement tool: institutions that accepted federal education money also had to comply with anti-discrimination rules.Although Title IX is often remembered for transforming women’s and girls’ athletics, the law was never limited to sports. It also affected admissions, scholarships, hiring, classroom access, pregnancy discrimination, and later legal debates over sexual harassment and institutional responsibility. Before Title IX, many educational institutions openly limited opportunities for women, including through quotas, unequal athletic resources, and restricted access to professional programs. The statute helped turn those practices into legal liabilities rather than accepted traditions. In later decades, courts and federal agencies would shape Title IX’s meaning through regulations, enforcement actions, and major cases interpreting what counts as sex discrimination in education. Its influence reached far beyond individual lawsuits because schools had to rethink policies, reporting systems, athletic budgets, and equal-access obligations.Title IX also became a model for how civil rights law can operate through spending power, using federal money as the hook for national anti-discrimination standards. Its passage showed that a single sentence in a larger statute could become a foundation for generations of legal, political, and cultural change. On June 23, 1972, the federal government did more than amend education law; it created a durable legal framework for challenging sex discrimination wherever public money supported educational opportunity.A federal judge in California dismissed the Trump administration’s lawsuit challenging Los Angeles’s limits on cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. The administration had argued that the city’s ordinance was unconstitutional because it restricted the use of city resources to support federal immigration operations and limited the collection of citizenship-status information. U.S. District Judge Fernando Olguin rejected that argument, finding that Los Angeles was regulating the conduct of its own employees and agencies rather than trying to control the federal government. The dismissal was not necessarily the end of the case, because the judge allowed the administration to file an amended complaint. Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto praised the ruling, saying it confirmed that local governments can decide how to use their own personnel and resources. The lawsuit was filed after immigration-related protests in Los Angeles and after Trump sent troops to the city in response to unrest over deportation operations. The case is part of a broader Trump administration effort to challenge local “sanctuary” policies in Democratic-led jurisdictions. Similar administration lawsuits against Boston and Chicago have also been dismissed by federal judges. The White House did not immediately comment on the ruling. The decision leaves Los Angeles’s ordinance intact for now while giving the federal government another chance to revise its legal claims.US court dismisses Trump administration lawsuit over Los Angeles immigration policy | ReutersA federal judge in Washington, D.C., blocked the Trump administration from using a revised immigration database to help states check voter rolls. The database, known as SAVE, is used by the Department of Homeland Security to verify citizenship and immigration status, but the administration had changed it to make bulk searches easier for state and local officials reviewing voter eligibility. U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan sided with voting-rights and privacy groups that argued the changes made the system less reliable and could wrongly remove eligible voters from registration lists. The challengers said the database can be outdated, especially when naturalized citizens are still incorrectly listed as noncitizens. The judge also found that the revamped system raised serious privacy concerns because it gave users access to sensitive information, including Social Security numbers. DHS criticized the ruling and framed the case as part of its effort to prevent noncitizen voting. The ruling comes as the Trump administration has tried to expand the federal government’s role in election administration before the November 2026 midterm elections. Courts have already blocked several related efforts, including parts of executive orders involving proof-of-citizenship requirements and mail-ballot restrictions. The administration has also faced setbacks in lawsuits seeking full voter-roll data from states. For now, the decision limits how the federal government can use immigration records in voter-roll checks.Judge blocks Trump’s use of revamped immigration database for voter checks | ReutersIn my Bloomberg column this week, I wrote about OpenAI’s request that Treasury update an outdated R&D tax credit rule for computer-related research expenses. My argument is that OpenAI’s position should not be dismissed as just another technology company asking for a more generous tax benefit. The problem is that the existing rule was designed for an older world of identifiable physical computers, not modern cloud computing, data centers, GPUs, and reserved compute capacity. Section 41 allows a research credit for certain amounts paid to another person for computer use in qualified research, but Treasury regulations narrow that benefit by requiring that the computer be owned and operated by someone else, located off the taxpayer’s premises, and not be a computer for which the taxpayer is the “primary user.” That “primary user” test made more sense when a taxpayer could point to a discrete machine, but it becomes unstable when a company is buying access to capacity inside a provider-owned cloud or data center.I argue that reserved or exclusive use of computing capacity should not automatically be treated as ownership or abuse, because modern AI research may require dedicated capacity for security, speed, and performance reasons. The real question should be whether the taxpayer is buying a third-party service or has effectively acquired, operated, or taken control of the infrastructure. Treasury can still protect against abuse without treating ordinary commercial cloud arrangements as disguised ownership. I suggest that a practical safe harbor could presume service treatment where the provider owns, operates, maintains, and houses the equipment off the taxpayer’s premises while bearing the incidents of ownership. That presumption should remain rebuttable where the taxpayer bears ownership-like risks or is simply routing its own equipment through another entity to claim the credit.The broader point is that modernizing the rule would not need to turn the R&D credit into an AI subsidy machine, but it would prevent an old regulatory framework from excluding a major category of modern research. The column closes with the idea that tax rules meant to police fake outsourcing should not end up penalizing real outsourcing just because the computing world no longer looks like it did when the rule was written.OpenAI’s Call for Modernized R&D Credit Rule Makes Perfect Sense This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe
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