The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a divorced Virginia woman could not be forced to surrender the proceeds of a federal employee life insurance policy that she received as her ex-husband’s named beneficiary.
A deeply divided U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a procedural default in state court did not bar a Texas death row inmate from seeking relief in federal court based on the assertion that he was denied the effective assistance of counsel at sentencing.
The Supreme Court has affirmed the authority of federal regulators to try to speed local government decisions on proposals to build or expand cellphone towers.
After taking up and hearing arguments in a case considering whether a delay caused by a state’s failure to fund counsel for an indigent’s defense should be a factor in determining whether the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial was violated, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the case as improvidently granted.
Defining “property” may seem an easy task. But for the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court it may be much trickier as they consider whether a nonbinding recommendation for an investment fund qualifies as “property” that can be the subject of attempted extortion.
Drawing a legal line to determine when human genetic material ceases to be a creation of nature and instead becomes a patentable product is not easy — even for the U.S. Supreme Court.
If a Wisconsin defendant on trial for two sexual assaults cannot cross-examine the out-of-state lab analyst who prepared his underlying DNA profiles, have his constitutional rights under the Confrontation Clause been violated?
The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last week that a defendant cannot be retried, even when his acquittal was based on a judge’s blunder, was cheered by defense attorneys.
Less than a year after creating a narrow right to make a federal ineffective assistance of counsel claim in a post-conviction proceeding despite a procedural default in state court, the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court tried to carve out the contours of that ruling during oral arguments in Trevino v. Thaler.
The Supreme Court will soon decide what one justice called its most important criminal procedure case in decades: whether to allow police to take DNA samples from people who have been arrested.
In a case that raises the question of whether judges, rather than juries, can constitutionally decide factors that could trigger an increase in the minimum sentence, the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court seemed reluctant to shake up a sentencing scheme that Congress and the courts have relied upon for more than a decade.
The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court seemed divided over whether the federal Medicaid Act preempts a North Carolina law authorizing the state to recoup as much as one third of any medical malpractice jury award or settlement, regardless of how much of the award was designated for medical expenses.
The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court tussled on Wednesday over the issue of whether a plain error sentencing appeal must be decided according to the law in effect at the time of sentencing or at the time of appeal.
Oral arguments in two Fourth Amendment cases before the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday focused on a common question: just what does a dog’s nose know?
The Supreme Court opened its new term Monday with a high-stakes dispute between businesses and human rights groups over accountability for foreign atrocities.
Despite facing criticism from GOP lawmakers, a pricey Hawaiian judicial conference attended by lawyers, judges and two Supreme Court justices took place last weekend.
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that unions must give nonmembers an immediate chance to object to unexpected fee increases or special assessments that all workers are required to pay in closed-shop situations.
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that people who committed crack cocaine crimes before more lenient penalties took effect and received their prison sentence afterward should benefit from the new rules.
The Confrontation Clause does not bar an expert from testifying at a criminal trial that a DNA profile produced by an outside laboratory matched the defendant’s state lab DNA profile, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in a fractured opinion.
The Supreme Court has ruled that sales representatives for pharmaceutical companies do not qualify for overtime pay under federal law, a big victory for the drug industry.
The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a rape conviction over objections that the defendant did not have the chance to question the reliability of the DNA evidence that helped convict him.
The Merit Systems Protection Board provides the exclusive avenue of judicial review for federal employees’ adverse employment action challenges, even when those employees argue that a federal statute is unconstitutional, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled.
A U.S. Supreme Court justice stands in his august chambers concentrating on his latest project while a law clerk looks on in admiration. Is the subject a petition for certiorari that seeks to upend decades of constitutional precedent? Hardly.
A defendant that prevailed in a personal injury case filed in federal court could not recover its costs for translating documents from Japanese to English, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in a 6-3 decision.
A government investigator was entitled to absolute immunity from liability for allegedly providing false testimony to a grand jury, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in a unanimous decision.
A criminal defendant could assert an ineffective assistance of counsel claim with respect to plea deals that his lawyer failed to communicate to him before they expired, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled 5-4.
Sometime jury members can’t come to an agreement in criminal cases. But when jurors are prepared to acquit a defendant on the most serious charges in a case and are deadlocked on the lesser included charges, can a defendant be retried or has jeopardy attached?
The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide whether the costs of document translators are covered under a federal statute that requires the losing party in litigation to pay for “compensation for interpreters.”
A prisoner was not “in custody” for Miranda purposes when he was isolated from the general prison population and questioned about conduct that occurred outside the prison because he was informed he could leave when he wanted, was not physically restrained and the door to the room was sometimes open, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled.
A second term for President Barack Obama would allow him to expand his replacement of Republican-appointed majorities with Democratic ones on the nation’s appeals courts, the final stop for almost all challenged federal court rulings.
