SCOTUS Asked To Hear Appeal Of Black Lives Matter Activist | An Argument Against The Death Penalty
December 10, 2019
ICYMI
|The Supreme Court yesterday decided not to take up a challenge to a Kentucky law that requires doctors to describe ultrasound images and play fetal heartbeat sound to abortion seekers — even if those seeking abortions do not want to see or hear that information. Doctors at Kentucky’s only abortion clinic challenged the law and contended the state’s requirements compelled their speech and violated their First Amendment rights. SCOTUS rejected the case without comment or dissent — even from the more liberal justices.
NO JUSTICE NO PEACE
|Adam Liptak with The New York Times covers the case of a Louisiana police officer suing Black Lives Matter activist, DERAY MCKESSON. The officer was injured during a protest Mckesson was attending when a demonstrator (not Mckesson) threw a rock at him and injured his jaw and brain. The officer claims, without providing details, that Mckesson had incited the violence that led to his injuries. Liptak reports that on Friday the ACLU asked the Supreme Court to take up the case and hear McKesson’s appeal.
PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS
|Greg Stohr with Bloomberg reports that the Supreme Court has asked the Trump administration for advice on an effort by the liquidator of Bernard Madoff’s firm to recoup $3 billion that was transferred overseas. Stohr explains, “The justices are considering whether to hear an appeal by investors who say trustee Irving Picard is impermissibly trying to apply U.S. bankruptcy law to foreign transactions. A federal appeals court let Picard sue the investors.”
PLENTY OF AMMO
|“The first gun rights case at the U.S. Supreme Court in a decade looks like it might get tossed on a procedural hiccup, but questions raised at argument Dec. 2 about the heightened standard of scrutiny that gun rights advocates would like to see for gun regulations preview what the court’s next Second Amendment case could look like.” That’s Kimberly Strawbridge Robinson with Bloomberg Law reporting that there are plenty of gun cases waiting in the wings to endure any flops that might wind up at SCOTUS.
TOP-ED
|Former Ambassador to the United Nations, U.S. Energy Secretary, and Governor for the State of New Mexico, BILL RICHARDSON, writes in The Hill that the Supreme Court was right to stop the Trump administration from hastening federal executions. He says of his own views on the death penalty issue, “Once a defender of the death penalty, I changed my mind back in 2010 as New Mexico’s governor when I signed into law our state’s repeal. When I considered the evidence, I concluded that the death penalty was not an effective deterrent to violent crime and the data in this regard is clear.”