Earlier this month, the Supreme Court of the United States reversed a decision of the Alabama Supreme Court that failed to recognize the validity of a same-sex adoption ordered by a Georgia court on the ground that the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision ran afoul to the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the United States Constitution.
In February, Ohio Governor John Kasich signed into law Ohio House Bill 294, which cuts over $1 million in funding to Planned Parenthood under the guise of improving women’s health care.
In late January, Indiana joined other US states in the recent trend of restricting the use of solitary confinement by prohibiting seriously mentally ill inmates from being held in restrictive housing.
Finding post-release employment for ex-offenders is extremely difficult, but it may be getting easier, thanks to President Obama’s “ban the box” initiative.
Despite the fact that Planned Parenthood is prohibited by law from receiving federal funding to provide abortion services, anti-abortion Republican lawmakers threatened to shut down the federal government in order to defund the organization, which provides a variety of necessary health care services for women who are unable to afford them otherwise.
California recently reached a settlement agreement in a lawsuit filed by prisoners who had been indefinitely placed in solitary confinement that aims at returning thousands of isolated prisoners to general population.
A federal appeals court found that exceedingly strict voter ID laws in Texas violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 due to the laws’ disparate impact on minorities.
In his push to overhaul the nation’s criminal justice system, President Obama commuted the sentences of 46 inmates who are currently incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses, making him the president who has commuted the most sentences in more than 40 years.
Civil rights groups across Florida have filed a lawsuit seeking an emergency injunction in response to a new law that will impose a 24-hour waiting period on women seeking abortions after they receive “informed consent.”
Despite many states’ efforts to place moratoriums on the death penalty, North Carolina lawmakers take a step toward resuming executions for the first time in nine years by passing House Bill 774, dubbed the “Restoring Proper Justice Act.”
States such as Pennsylvania and Florida have recently elected to halt executions over concerns about the drugs used in lethal injections, but not without opposition from lawmakers.
Even in the face of the botched execution of Clayton Lockett and Attorney General Holder’s support of a moratorium on the death penalty, some states continue setting execution dates.
Attorney General Eric Holder recently stated that he believes all executions should be halted until the Supreme Court hears a pending Oklahoma case arising out of an inmate’s botched execution.
While legislators in New York are pushing to create a philosophical exemption to vaccination requirements, legislators in other states are moving to narrow similar personal belief exemptions.
Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has revamped the company’s insurance policy in an attempt to close controversial “insurance gaps” created by the service.
