A very important court case to decide if Donald Trump can be charged with a crime will be held in Washington on Tuesday.
The lawyers for the ex-president, who is a Republican, will say that being president protects him from being accused of election fraud in 2020.
Mr Trump, who said he will go, is accused by a special lawyer of trying to change Joe Biden’s win.
The result of this hearing could greatly affect what happens to Mr. Trump in the future.
His lawyers are using the same argument to defend him in another group of election charges he has in Georgia.
It is likely that this problem will go to the US Supreme Court during the 2024 election, where Mr. Trump is expected to win the Republican nomination.
Long legal arguments about whether he has immunity could make his criminal trials take longer than expected, possibly even after the November election when he will likely be up against Democratic President Joe Biden.
For many years, the ex-president has used presidential immunity to avoid facing civil and criminal cases against him.
The US Constitution does not say that the president is immune from lawsuits, but courts have usually agreed that government officials should be protected from being sued.
There is no past law that says what should happen if a president is charged with a crime.
In legal papers before this court date, the special lawyer prosecuting him, Jack Smith, told the court that if Mr Trump is not allowed to be charged, it could mean that presidents can break the law to stay in office.
The judge said being president doesn’t mean you can never go to jail.
On Monday, in a post on social media, Mr. Trump said that he was not trying to get elected when he questioned the results of the election against Mr. He said he was just doing his job as the president by pointing out voter fraud.
Three judges in Washington DC will talk and listen to arguments at the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, and then make a decision later on.
The courtroom is a few blocks from the US Capitol. His fans stormed the Capitol to prevent Joe Biden from being confirmed as president in January 2021.
Mr Trump’s lawyers will use his Senate acquittal for his actions before the violence to support their case.
“His appeal document says the president can’t be charged for a crime if the US Senate already said he didn’t do it. ” The accusation against President Trump is not legal or allowed by the constitution. It needs to be rejected.
A survey by CBS News shows that most Americans think that Mr. Trump should not be shielded from being prosecuted for things he did while he was president.
The trial for the election fraud case is supposed to happen on 4 March, but it is paused because the appeals court, which has two judges picked by Democratic presidents and one by a Republican, hasn’t made a decision yet.
No matter what the judges decide, most people think the case will go to the US Supreme Court. Conservatives have more judges there, with 6 out of 9.
Last month, the highest court said no to Mr. Smith’s request to speed up a decision on Mr. Trump’s immunity claim.
Last month, the Supreme Court said it will hear Mr. Trump’s appeal against Colorado for not allowing him to be on the ballot because of a rarely used part of the US constitution.
Tag: US Supreme Court
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US court hears historic case involving Trump immunity
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Clerk issued $360,000 legal bill as she refuses to marry a gay man
A person who used to work in an office and wouldn’t give a marriage paper to a same-sex couple has been told by a judge to give money to the lawyers of one couple.
Kim Davis was told by a jury last year that she broke the law by not letting a Kentucky couple get married.
On Tuesday, she was told to pay $260,000 in fees and an additional $100,000 for damages she already owed.
Ms Davis went to jail for a short time in 2015 because she didn’t follow the US Supreme Court‘s decision to make same-sex marriage legal.
She said she didn’t give the couple a marriage license because she thinks marriage should only be between a man and a woman. She mentioned her religious beliefs as an evangelical Christian.
Her lawyers said the legal costs were too high, but the judge disagreed and said Ms Davis has to pay because they won the case.
Judge David Bunning said the couple wanted to prove their right to get married and they did it.
Judge Bunning is the same judge who sent her to jail in 2015 because she refused to give out marriage licenses. This was seen as disrespecting the court.
She got out of jail because her staff helped with getting the licenses she needed.
Ms Davis asked the highest court in the US to hear her case in 2020, but they said no.
MrErmhold is running for the position of county clerk, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.
Ms Davis did not win the election to be the clerk of Rowan County in 2018. -
Biden’s ‘ghost gun’ rules reinstated by the US Supreme Court
While the White House’s appeal is pending, the US Supreme Court has permitted limits on untraceable “ghost guns” to remain in place.
A Texas judge stopped a 2022 rule requiring serial numbers on self-assembled “ghost gun” kits, which would have made them legally a firearm, in July.
To stop the new restriction, gun rights organisations and gun owners filed lawsuits.
The choice is being made as pressure mounts on the White House to do more to combat gun violence.
The policy will remain in effect while the White House challenges the Texas verdict, according to the 5–4 opinion of the Supreme Court on Tuesday. The Supreme Court might eventually hear that appeal again.
Ghost weapons can be self-assembled and occasionally 3D printed, therefore they might not have a serial number and might be hard to track down. The purchase of the assembly kits has not previously been subject to background checks.
The new regulations introduced by the Biden administration in August to control the spread of “ghost guns” went into force. The regulations mandated that “buy build shoot” kit producers obtain licences, stamp serial numbers on the kits’ frames or receivers, and require retailers of these kits to hold federal licences as well.
However, US District Judge Reed O’Connor in Texas concluded that when the Biden administration classed “buy build shoot” kits as guns, it exceeded its legal power under the 1968 Gun Control Act.
According to the White House, there were 20,000 suspected ghost guns discovered during criminal investigations in 2021, a ten-fold increase from five years earlier, and urgent action must be made against unregistered weapons.
More guns are in civilian hands than there are US inhabitants, making Americans the nation with the highest per capita gun ownership in the world.
In 2021, the most recent year for which complete statistics are available, more than 48,800 Americans died as a result of gun injuries, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
Supreme Court decisions in recent years have primarily increased individual gun rights. The US Constitution protects a person’s right to carry a weapon in public for self-defense, the nation’s top court said last year.
The court will hear a case in its upcoming session, which begins in October, regarding the issue of whether or not those who are the targets of domestic violence restraining orders are permitted to keep their firearms.
Mr. Biden and Democrats are attempting to enhance gun regulations through methods other than establishing federal laws because to the intense partisanship on the subject in Congress.
These include decisions made by the executive branch, such as the ghost gun regulations, and laws passed at the state and municipal levels, typically in districts with majorities of Democratic Party legislators.
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Biden visits US-Mexico border for the first time since assuming office
The trip came after the announcement of a new immigration policy that rights groups say could endanger the lives of asylum seekers.
US President Joe Biden visited the US-Mexico border for the first time since taking office in January 2022.
The hours-long visit on Sunday followed the Biden administration’s recently announced policy initiative to address an increase in undocumented border crossings.
The politically charged issue has dogged the Democratic president since he took office, with Republican critics accusing the administration of being too lenient and rights groups alleging that the newly announced measures will endanger the lives of asylum seekers.
The stop in the city of El Paso, Texas, took place as Biden travelled to Mexico, where he is set to meet President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Monday before attending a three-way summit with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau the following day in Mexico City.
“They need a lot of resources. We’re going to get it for them,” Biden told reporters in Texas, where he met border agents at the Bridge of the Americas, which connects El Paso to the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez, and is one of the busiest ports of entry between the two countries.
During the visit, Biden watched as border officers in El Paso demonstrated how they search vehicles for drugs, money and other contraband. He later inspected a section of the tall fencing along the border between El Paso and Ciudad Juarez.
Meanwhile, in a sign of the deep political tensions over immigration, Republican Governor Greg Abbott handed Biden a letter on his arrival that said the alleged “chaos” at the border was the “direct result” of the president’s failure to enforce federal laws.
Controversial asylum policies
Last week, the Biden administration unveiled new immigration rules it anticipates will “substantially reduce” the number of people seeking to cross the southern border, Biden told reporters at the time.
The rules create a new programme that allows a legal pathway for as many as 30,000 Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan nationals to enter the US a month and receive two-year work permits, provided they have sponsors in the US and pass background checks.
In turn, the policy allows US authorities to expel to Mexico residents of those four countries who irregularly cross the border and bar them from accessing the programme. Mexico has agreed to accept 30,000 expelled residents of the four countries in a month, according to the administration.
Rights groups say the policy is harmful to individuals who have no other choice but to irregularly cross the border to seek asylum. They charge the new policy is an extension of the former President Donald Trump-era Title 42, which allows authorities to rapidly expel adult asylum seekers crossing the border, citing COVID-19 health concerns.
After a lengthy court battle, a US federal judge in November ordered Title 42 be lifted, but the US Supreme Court late last month agreed to consider whether Republican-led states can challenge the end of the policy, leaving it in place for the time being.
In the wake of last week’s announcement, Heidi Altman, policy director at the National Immigrant Justice Center, accused the Biden administration of “openly rejecting” US law, which “clearly says it is legal to arrive at the border & seek asylum”.
On board Air Force One on Sunday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters that the administration was trying to “incentivise a safe and orderly way and cut out the smuggling organisations”.
He said the policy was “not a ban at all”, but an attempt to protect migrants and refugees from the trauma smuggling can create.
Drugs, economy top Mexico visit
Following the border visit, Biden was set to continue on to Mexico, where the increase in crossings, as well as efforts to fight the trafficking of fentanyl and other drugs that have fuelled a deadly addiction crisis in the US, were set to top the agenda of the bilateral meeting with Lopez Obrador.
On Saturday, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Washington was “making strides” with its partners to seize illicit opioids and other drugs, calling it an “ongoing effort”.
Mexico has long been plagued by cartel-related bloodshed that has seen more than 340,000 people murdered since the government deployed the military in its war on drugs in 2006. On the campaign trail, Lopez Obrador promised to move away from the militarised approach, but critics say he has made only superficial changes. Still, he has said that Mexico City is seeking investment in regional economic development from Washington.
Days before Biden’s visit, Mexican security forces captured a son of notorious drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who is serving a life sentence in the US.
On Tuesday, efforts to strengthen economic ties are set to dominate a trilateral summit of the leaders of the US, Mexico, and Canada.
The meeting comes amid an ongoing Mexican energy dispute with the US and Canada, with Washington and Ottawa arguing that Lopez Obrador’s efforts to give control of the market to his cash-strapped state energy companies breach the United States-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) trade deal.
The US and Canada have launched dispute resolution proceedings against Mexico, casting a pall over hopes of supporting cooperation in jobs and investment.
Source: Aljazeera.com -
Alan Miller: Execution of a triple murderer by lethal injection postponed due to inability to quickly locate a vein
Due to time constraints and difficulty getting into Alan Miller’s veins, the lethal injection execution was postponed.
Officials in Alabama have halted the lethal injection execution of a prisoner on death row because they couldn’t find a vein before the midnight deadline.
Alabama corrections commissioner John Hamm said the decision to call off the scheduled execution of Alan Miller was made after it became clear they could not get the process underway in time.
The last-minute reprieve came nearly three hours after the US Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution to go ahead.
“Due to time constraints resulting from the lateness of the court proceedings, the execution was called off once it was determined the condemned inmate’s veins could not be accessed in accordance with our protocol before the expiration of the death warrant,” Mr Hamm said.
The execution team had begun the process of trying to establish intravenous access, but he did not know for how long.
The execution was abandoned at around 11.30 pm on Thursday – half an hour before the state’s death warrant was set to expire.
Miller, a delivery truck driver, was convicted of killing three men in a workplace shooting rampage in 1999 near Birmingham, Alabama.
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Kansas abortion vote: Major victory for pro-choice groups
The conservative US state of Kansas has decided in a referendum to protect abortion rights – in a major victory for pro-choice groups.
Voters overwhelmingly said they did not wish to amend the state constitution to assert there is no right to abortion.
It was the first electoral test of the issue since the US Supreme Court allowed states to ban the procedure.
If the ballot had gone the other way, lawmakers could have moved to further restrict or ban abortion in Kansas.
The ballot question in Kansas had been hotly anticipated since the US Supreme Court two months ago overturned Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.
Projections suggest Kansans voted by more than 60% to uphold the state’s constitutional right for women to access abortion.
It’s just a projection for now, and the official result will be confirmed in a week.
When Roe v Wade was overturned, President Joe Biden said abortion rights would be an issue for the voters. What’s happened in Kansas has turned that theory into evidence.
The referendum result is being seen as a landslide, in a state that Republican former President Donald Trump won by a convincing margin just two years ago.For Democrats and pro-choice groups, this is a sign that Americans are deeply unhappy with abortion rights being overturned – and see the Supreme Court’s decision as out of step with the public.
The US holds national mid-term elections on 8 November, with Democrats fighting to retain control of Congress.
Mr. Biden said the result showed “the majority of Americans agree that women should have access to abortion”.
One voter, Taylor Hirth, wept as she celebrated the result with her nine-year-old daughter at a watch party in Overland Park, Kansas.“I’m a rape survivor, and the thought of my daughter ever becoming pregnant and not being able to do anything about it angers me,” she told the BBC.
“I never thought this would happen here, but we have worked so hard here to get the vote out. Republicans underestimated us.”
Value Them Both, a Kansas-based anti-abortion group said that “Kansans endured an onslaught of misinformation from radical left organizations” over the past six months, that “spread lies” about the amendment.
“This outcome is a temporary setback, and our dedicated fight to value women and babies is far from over,” a message on its Twitter page said.
Kansas officials said voter turnout across the state was significantly higher than expected on a primary voting day when Republicans usually outnumber Democrats by two to one.
With feelings running high in the month before the vote, a Catholic church and a statue of the Virgin Mary were defaced with red paint and a pro-choice slogan.
On the eve of the ballot, some Kansans had received misleading texts urging them to “vote yes” to protect choice, but the opposite was true – a “yes” vote was to take away access to abortion. Tech company Twilio said it had suspended the anonymous sender from its platform.
Although Kansas is staunchly conservative, its abortion regulations are less strict than many other Republican-led states.
It allows pregnancies to be terminated up to 22 weeks with other restrictions, including a mandatory 24-hour waiting period and mandatory parental consent for children.
The legislature of the Great Plains state is controlled by anti-abortion Republicans, but its politically vulnerable governor, Laura Kelly, is a Democrat. She had warned that changing the state constitution would throw Kansas “back into the dark ages”.
More than a dozen Republican-led states have moved to ban or further restrict abortion since the Supreme Court decision on 24 June.
But 10 states across the US, including Kansas, have the right to abortion enshrined in their state constitutions, provisions that can only be overturned through referendums.
Other states, like California and Vermont, are holding votes in November seeking to enhance protections for abortion in their state constitutions.
Source: cnn.com
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U.S. Supreme Court declines to allow Biden’s shift on immigration enforcement
Supreme Court on Thursday declined to reinstate President Joe Biden’s policy shifting the focus of America’s immigration enforcement toward public safety threats, handing a victory to Texas and Louisiana as they challenge a plan they call unlawful.
The justices on a 5-4 vote denied the Biden administration’s request to block a federal judge’s ruling that had prevented immigration officials from carrying out the enforcement guidelines while litigation over the legality of the policy continues. But the court said in a brief order that it would fast-track the Biden administration appeal and hear oral arguments in December.
Biden’s policy departed from the hard-line approach taken by the Democratic president’s Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, who sought to broaden the range of immigrants subject to arrest and removal. Biden took office last year promising a more humane approach to immigration.
In announcing the new guidelines last September, Biden’s administration noted that U.S. officials have long relied on setting enforcement priorities due to the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the country illegally.
The policy would give agents more discretion to consider individual circumstances and prioritizes threats to national security or public safety.
Republicans have criticized Biden’s administration, saying fewer detentions and deportations have encouraged more illegal border crossings.
Texas and Louisiana sued in a federal court in Texas over Biden’s policy, arguing that under federal law officials lack discretion and are obligated to detain immigrants who commit a broad array of crimes or who have been ordered removed.
U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton agreed on June 10, suspending the policy nationwide. Tipton was appointed by Trump.
On July 6, the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to block Tipton’s ruling pending an appeal.