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Category: Legal System

  • Luigi Mangione Draws Crowd For First Court Hearing

    The defendant wore a bulletproof vest and shackles. A woman in the crowd wore a “Free Luigi” scarf. Outside, throngs of people cheered and chanted his name.

    So it went Friday at a court hearing for Luigi Mangione, the man accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel on Dec. 4.

    Mangione, who has become something of a cause célèbre for people upset with the health insurance industry, made his first court appearance since his Dec. 23 arraignment on state murder and terror charges.

    Mangione, 26, didn’t speak at the hearing.

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  • The Fall Of Eric Adams

    New York City residents are wondering if mayor Eric Adams will resign, or be removed from office by the governor, or be summoned to an Inability Committee , or limp along ineffectively until his term ends on December 31, 2025. The city’s mayoralty is hanging by a thread with four Deputy Mayors resigning, and top staff under indictment or leaving. Depending on a judge’s ruling, Adams may no longer be under indictment himself because Donald Trump interceded with the United States Attorney on his behalf. So egregious was the action that six prosecutors with solid republican bona fides resigned rather than sign onto the obvious travesty of justice.

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  • How Movements Can Make Courts Play A Role In Defending Democracy

    Courts are often seen as a last line of defense for democracy. In the month since Donald Trump took office, over 60 legal challenges have been filed against his administration’s executive actions. Yet many Americans are concerned with how U.S. courts will fare in the new tests to their role as defenders of democracy. What if the courts are compromised or politicized? Do they still have a role and can they still be influenced?

    In my country, Zimbabwe, our parliament is gearing up to change the Constitution to extend the president’s term of office (and its own term) indefinitely, effectively abolishing the need for future elections.

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  • Green Groups Sue Over Oil And Gas Drilling In Protected Waters

    Conservation groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity, Oceana, Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council, filed two separate lawsuits against the Trump administration on Wednesday.

    Both complaints focus on the administration’s moves to open more of the nation’s waters to drilling for oil and gas.

    “President Trump’s executive order would roll back millions of acres of ocean protection, jeopardizing our coastal economies and the people who rely on healthy, thriving oceans,” said Joseph Gordon, Oceana campaign director, in a press release from the Center for Biological Diversity.

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  • RCMP Violated Charter Rights During CGL Arrests, Court Finds

    A B.C. Supreme Court decision issued yesterday is “precedent setting,” according to a lawyer for three Indigenous land defenders arrested in 2021 along the Coastal GasLink pipeline route.

    “The courts found the conduct of the police officers abused the court’s process. This is an extraordinarily rare finding, and it demonstrates how serious the police officers’ misconduct was,” Frances Mahon said during a press conference following the decision.

    “In particular, it was a rebuke to the C-IRG members who thought it was appropriate to say the most egregious, racist things about beautiful Indigenous women when they thought nobody could hear them.”

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  • Burying The CIA’s Assange Secrets

    A United States judge dismissed a lawsuit pursued by four American attorneys and journalists, who alleged that the CIA and former CIA Director Mike Pompeo spied on them while they were visiting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in Ecuador’s London embassy.

    “The subject matter of this litigation,” Judge John Koeltl determined, “is subject to the state secrets privilege in its entirety.” Any answer to the allegations against the CIA would “reveal privileged information.”

    Few publications followed this case as closely as The Dissenter. It unfolded at the same time that the U.S. government pursued the extradition of Assange, making any outcome potentially significant.

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  • Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition Prevails Over Housing Commission

    On February 11, the Montgomery County Circuit Court (the “Circuit Court”) sided favorably with the motion for equitable relief from the Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition (BACC) against the Housing Opportunities Commission (HOC.) The BACC filed a lawsuit to stop HOC from selling Moses African Cemetery to a private developer, Bethesda based Charger Ventures. The decision was appealed to the MD Supreme Court. In a split decision, the Maryland Supreme Court remanded the case back to the Circuit Court and provided BACC and plaintiffs with the opportunity to amend their complaint and demand equitable relief, including financial damages for HOC’s desecration of Moses Cemetery.

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  • Defend Lisa Davis

    The attacks on the Uhuru Movement Continue.

    On March 31st, 2024, Lisa Davis, vice chair of the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace, and Reparations, was attending a pro Palestine weekly vigil in South Orange, New Jersey, when a disturbed zionist aggressively ran towards the protestors, verbally assaulted her and aggressively got into her face.

    The crowd had to intervene to make him back off. It is clear from the videos that it is the zionist who was the aggressor against Lisa and the demonstrators.

    But New Jersey is protecting him and is falsely charging Lisa Davis with organizing a special event without a permit and for making excessive noise while using an amplification device.

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  • Federal Judge Mandates Return Of Scrubbed Health Resources

    A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to reinstate content that was recently removed from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) websites, including LGBTQ-inclusive informational pages.

    “The judge’s order today is an important victory for doctors, patients, and the public health of the whole country,” Zach Shelley, an attorney with Public Citizen’s Litigation Group and lead counsel on the case, said in a press release. “This order puts a stop, at least temporarily, to the irrational removal of vital health information from public access.”

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  • Pennsylvania Governor Sues Trump Administration Over Frozen IRA Funds

    Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro announced a lawsuit on Thursday against President Donald Trump’s administration for freezing funding made available through the Inflation Reduction Act.

    As Utility Dive reported, Trump ordered a freeze to IRA funds in an executive order made his first day in office. According to the governor’s office, Pennsylvania state agencies have not been able to access the Solar for All funds or other IRA funding, despite a federal judge ruling on Monday that the current administration must comply with a previous order that blocked the IRA funding freeze, CBS News reported.

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  • Trump Is Provoking A Constitutional Crisis

    States, public interest organizations, schools, doctors, unions, immigrants, federal workers and individuals have filed more than 60 lawsuits challenging Trump’s legal authority to take these actions. At least nine judges throughout the country have temporarily halted several of them.

    Courts have put temporary holds on Trump’s attempts to: end birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants, freeze billions of dollars in federal spending appropriated by Congress, transfer incarcerated transgender women to men’s prisons, remove scientific data from the websites of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, give his de facto co-president Elon Musk unfettered access to sensitive Treasury Department records, and put 2,200 United States Agency for International Development (USAID) employees on leave.

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  • Princeton Students Go To Trial Nearly A Year After Gaza Encampment

    Nearly one whole year after students at Princeton University held an encampment on their campus in solidarity with Gaza, 12 students and one postdoctoral fellow will head to trial. In a statement released by Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divest (PIAD) — the main organization behind Princeton’s Gaza solidarity encampment — organizers claim that the trial date “arose from a dangerous process of intimidation and coercion.”

    The trial is scheduled for April 14-16 and the students face charges of “defiant trespass” for briefly holding a building occupation at Clio Hall, home of the Princeton Graduate School’s administrative offices.

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  • US Court Blocks Trump Administration Sending Immigrants To Guantanamo

    A federal court on Sunday halted the Donald Trump administration’s attempt to transfer three Venezuelan immigrants, detained in New Mexico, to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.

    Earlier that day, the men’s lawyers argued in a legal filing that the detainees “fit the profile” of those the administration had targeted for transfer to Guantanamo.

    The filing also stated that they were “Venezuelan men detained in the El Paso area with (false) charges of connections with the Tren de Aragua gang,” CNN reported.

    The lawyers urged a US District Court in New Mexico to block the transfer, arguing that the “uncertainty” surrounding the detainees’ legal rights and access to lawyers warranted an injunction.

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  • United Nations Censures United Kingdom’s Abuse Of Terrorism Act

    Four U.N. special rapporteurs have written jointly to the U.K. government demanding explanation of its inappropriate persecution of journalists and political activists under the Terrorism Act.

    They state that those persecuted:

    appear to have no credible connection to ‘terrorist’ or ‘hostile’ activity.

    The cases taken up by the United Nations are those of Johanna Ross (Ganyukova), John Laughland, Kit Klarenberg, Craig Murray (yes, me), Richard Barnard and Richard Medhurst. Under this U.N. special procedure, the letter is sent to the government in question which has 60 days to respond. This letter was sent by the U.N. to Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government on Dec. 4. No reply having been received, it has now been published.

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  • Columbia Students Sue University For Attacks On Pro-Palestine Activism

    Three students from Columbia University filed a lawsuit on Monday morning against the school administration for their suspensions related to their pro-Palestine activism on campus. Among the claims in the complaint, the students state that the university violated its own policies during the disciplinary process, that the university targeted the students for their views, and that it violated New York’s landlord tenant laws when it evicted the students from university housing.

    “The university just pulled out all the roadblocks and threw out its rule book in an attempt to punish and silence the plaintiffs however they could,” James Carlson, an attorney representing the students, told Drop Site News.

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  • Louisiana Issues Arrest Warrant For New York Doctor Over Abortion Pill

    A grand jury in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has indicted and issued arrest warrants for a New York physician who prescribed abortion pills to a pregnant minor in Louisiana, which has one of the strictest abortion bans in the country.

    The case directly targets the most common abortion method in the U.S. and challenges protections for out-of-state providers in Democratic-led states.

    In addition to physician Margaret Carpenter and her company, Nightingale Medical, PC, the grand jury unanimously issued an indictment and an arrest warrant for the minor’s mother.

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  • Over 1000 People Block The Strand Outside Hearing For Just Stop Oil

    Over a thousand people have taken part in a peaceful demonstration blocking the road outside the Royal Courts of Justice. Inside, the appeal against the draconian sentences given to 16 Just Stop Oil supporters last year is continuing. The mass appeal concerns 16 supporters with combined sentences of 41 years handed down between July and September 2024. [1] [2]

    All 16 Just Stop Oil supporters were jailed in the months following the publication of a report to the government written by ‘Lord Walney’, a paid lobbyist for the oil and arms industry that called for groups such as Just Stop Oil and Palestine Action to be banned in a similar way to terrorist organisations.

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  • Toolkit For The Movement: Guides For Community Defense

    Recent years have seen our community and movement partners on the frontlines wracked by COVID-19, ongoing systemic anti-Black racism, accelerating climate disasters, and growing authoritarian repression, which have all disproportionately harmed those we work alongside: those who survive at the margins and those whose existence and resistance threatens the intolerable status quo. 

    Toolkit for the Movement is a collection of resources to support and protect our communities. This includes information on what to do if an agent knocks at your door, FOIA basics for activists, and more.

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  • Despite Pardons, Many Formerly Incarcerated Black People Still Face Uncertainty

    Michelle West waited 32 years.

    Convicted in 1994 of nonviolent drug offenses, she was ordered to federal prison for two life sentences , plus an additional 50 years.

    On Sunday, former President Joe Biden commuted her sentence, meaning she will walk away from a low-security correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut , this week as a free woman.

    Kemba Smith Pradia waited 24 years .

    She had been out of federal prison since 2000, after former President Bill Clinton commuted her 294-month sentence. But it took another 24 years, until Biden’s final full day in office, for her federal drug conviction to be cleared from her permanent record.

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  • Trump Attempts To Freeze Federal Spending

    Last night, at the behest of President Donald Trump, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a sweeping freeze on the flow of congressionally approved federal funding.

    The decision has had a deeply harmful and chaotic effect already and is an unlawful overreach of executive power that ignores Congress’ constitutionally mandated control of federal spending and undermines the checks and balances that have, for hundreds of years, maintained democracy in the United States.

    Several states have already legally challenged the guidance.

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  • Pentagon Directive To Expand Access To Military Courts Falls Short

    More than two years after ProPublica sued the Navy over its failure to provide public access to military courts, the Department of Defense has for the first time directed U.S. military branches to give advance public notice of preliminary hearings, a crucial milestone in criminal cases.

    These “Article 32” hearings end with a recommendation about whether the case should move forward, be dismissed or end in a nonjudicial punishment.

    DOD General Counsel Caroline Krass issued the guidance earlier this year, directing the secretaries of the Navy, Army, Air Force and Homeland Security (which oversees the Coast Guard) to post upcoming preliminary hearings, provide access to certain court records and publish results of military trials — known as courts-martial — on a public website.

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  • Court Strikes Down Federal Rule That Would Have Allowed ‘Bomb Trains’

    A federal court today struck down a 2020 rule that would have allowed trains to travel the country filled with an unprecedented amount of explosive liquefied natural gas (LNG).

    The liquefied natural gas from just one rail tank car — without even considering a whole train — could be enough to destroy a city.

    “We’re pleased that the court saw the danger this rule posed to our nation’s communities,” said Earthjustice attorney Bradley Marshall. “As we pointed out, it would only take 22 tank cars to hold the equivalent energy of the Hiroshima bomb.”

    The federal effort to cut critical safeguards for liquefied natural gas started on April 10, 2019, when President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to initiate rulemaking to allow liquefied natural gas transport by rail.

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  • Trump, Allies Sued Over DOGE Plans In Union-Backed Lawsuits

    The largest federal employee union and a national teachers union are among the first to file lawsuits challenging President Donald Trump‘s planned government efficiency organization effort.

    The groups seek to rein in the Department of Government Efficiency, an effort to cut government spending that will be led by billionaire and Trump ally Elon Musk. DOGE will advise Trump on spending cuts and regulatory reform.

    Leading up to his inauguration, Trump promised to fire federal workers who don’t report to the office and drastically reshape the civilian public workforce of 2 million people.

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  • Landmark Agreement Boosts Native Ecosystems On Point Reyes

    A historic agreement has just been struck to settle a decades-long land-use conflict over the future of cattle and wildlife on Point Reyes National Seashore. Under the deal, most of the beef and dairy ranches on Point Reyes National Seashore will depart, and former ranch lands will be managed as a Scenic Landscape Zone according to a new General Management Plan approved by the National Park Service. Tule elk will have the freedom to roam unmolested throughout Point Reyes National Seashore, opportunities for public recreation will improve, and the land will have the opportunity to return to native coastal grassland.

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  • Court Of Appeals Hears Arguments Against Line 5 Tunnel Project

    Attorneys representing Native American tribes and environmental organizations brought their case Tuesday before a three-judge panel in the Michigan Court of Appeals to challenge a 2023 permit from the Michigan Public Service Commission — one of three needed for Enbridge to proceed with its controversial Line 5 tunnel project.

    Enbridge’s Line 5 is a 645-mile pipeline stretching from Northwest Wisconsin through Michigan into Sarnia, Ontario, carrying 540,000 barrels of light crude oil, light synthetic crude and natural gas liquids daily through the Straits of Mackinac connecting Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.

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  • Sixth Circuit Rules Against Net Neutrality; EFF Will Continue To Fight

    Last week, the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the FCC, rejecting its authority to classify broadband as a Title II “telecommunications service.” In doing so, the court removed net neutrality protections for all Americans and took away the FCC’s ability to meaningfully regulate internet service providers.

    This ruling fundamentally gets wrong the reality of internet service we all live with every day. Nearly 80% of Americans view broadband access to be as important as water and electricity. It is no longer an extra, non-necessary “information service,” as it was seen 40 years ago, but it is a vital medium of communication in everyday life.

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  • After 23 Years, Prisoners Remain In Guantanamo Without Charges

    January 11 marked the twenty-third anniversary of the opening of the US military prison on occupied land in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Clearing the FOG speaks with Andy Worthington, an investigative journalist and author of The Guantanamo Files. Worthington explains that the United States opened the prison in Guantanamo to avoid legal restrictions. He describes the connections between Guantanamo and the CIA ‘black sites’ where prisoners were tortured and who the men are that were recently released as well as who remains. There are calls for Joe Biden to release all of the men and end the scandal of the prison at Guantanamo Bay before he leaves office.

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  • US Transfers 11 Detainees Out Of Guantanamo Bay Prison

    The United States sent 11 Yemeni detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility to Oman, the Pentagon said on Monday, leaving 15 people at the infamous detention centre.

    The transfer was initially slated for October 2023 but the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel and Israel’s subsequent war on Gaza delayed the transfer, according to an admission from US officials in May last year.

    “The United States appreciates the willingness of the government of Oman and other partners to support ongoing US efforts focused on responsibly reducing the detainee population and ultimately closing the Guantanamo Bay facility,” the US military said in a statement.

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  • Asheville Blade Journalists Sue Over Illegal Arrests

    A news co-op in North Carolina and two journalists convicted of trespassing offenses filed a federal lawsuit alleging that their constitutional rights were violated by Asheville Police Department officers.

    In December 2021, residents in the Asheville community gathered at Aston Park for five evenings to urge the City of Asheville to leave people without any shelter alone in the park after it closed at 10 p.m. They took a stand on Christmas, refusing to disperse. Police responded by sweeping the encampment and arresting six people.

    Two of the people arrested were reporters for the Asheville Blade—Matilda Bliss and Veronica Coit.

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  • Kenya’s High Court Delivers Blow To Neoliberal University Funding Model

    The Kenya High Court delivered a landmark ruling on December 20, 2024, that declared the new funding model for higher education unconstitutional. The case, brought before the court by the Kenya Human Rights Commission and other organizations including the National Student Caucus, challenged the legality and fairness of the new model launched last year.

    In his ruling, Justice Mwita declared the new university funding model unconstitutional for several reasons. The high court noted that it violates Section 53 of the Universities Act by introducing policies that conflict with the law.

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