Ledell Lee was pronounced dead 12 minutes after his April 2017 execution began. But the Arkansas man always maintained his innocence, and two groups now claim DNA evidence could be used to exonerate Lee nearly three years after his death.
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An architect of the brutal CIA interrogation and detention program developed after the Sept. 11 attacks defended the agency and its practices on Tuesday as those techniques become the focus of an effort to dismiss key evidence against five men charged in the terrorist plot.
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Two days after an abortion clinic opened its doors March 1 in Mount Juliet, a small city near Nashville, the city’s commission held a first reading of an amendment to its zoning ordinances that placed strong restrictions on where surgical abortions could be performed in the city.
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A cadre of civil liberties groups have filed an amicus brief in Devin Nunes’ defamation lawsuit against Twitter, claiming the Republican congressman’s attempt to unmask users behind parody accounts could lead to a First Amendment violation.
Read moreAn attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union asked an 11th Circuit panel Tuesday to reinstate a mentally and physically disabled Georgia inmate’s lawsuit seeking better medical care.
Read moreA federal judge in Boston ruled Tuesday that the government’s suspicionless searches of international travelers’ smartphones and laptops at border ports of entry and airports violate the Fourth Amendment.
Read moreUpholding a statewide injunction, the Eighth Circuit found Wednesday that an Arkansas law prohibiting panhandling is a violation of freedom of speech.
Read moreA class of South Carolina motorists backed by civil rights groups filed a federal lawsuit claiming state officials effectively criminalize poverty by automatically suspending the driver’s licenses of people who can’t pay outstanding traffic tickets or fines.
Read moreIt was an order long expected by those on both sides of the abortion debate: With about two and a half weeks until an Alabama law criminalizing the procedure was set to take effect, a federal judge issued an injunction Tuesday blocking the state from enforcing the ban.
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U.S. immigration authorities separated more than 1,500 children from their parents at the Mexico border in the Trump administration, the American Civil Liberties Union said Thursday, bringing the total number of children separated since July 2017 to more than 5,400.
Read moreA federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked enforcement of Georgia’s restrictive anti-abortion law that makes it nearly impossible for women to get an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.
Read moreOne pregnant woman seeking asylum in the U.S. was sent back to Mexico after having escaped kidnappers there just four months earlier. Another went into labor in a makeshift immigrant camp near the international bridge linking the Mexican city of Matamoros with Brownsville, Texas, as other women in the camp came to her aid.
Read moreThe American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey sued state election officials Tuesday, asking a federal judge to declare that a donor disclosure law aimed at social welfare groups violates rights to free speech and association.
Read moreA federal judge in Washington shut down arguments from the government Friday that a new Homeland Security rule that fast-tracks deporting undocumented immigrants has not yet been implemented because immigration officers are still in training.
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Tennessee’s neighbors did it and next year, it could be the Volunteer State’s turn. After states to its north, south and west passed tight restrictions and even outright bans on abortion, Tennessee is considering a similar restriction that would ban abortion the moment a woman receives a positive pregnancy test.
Read moreWhen the American Civil Liberties Union used facial recognition software to cross-check 120 California legislators against a database of 25,000 publicly available mug shots, the algorithm falsely identified 26 of the lawmakers as someone who’s been arrested.
Read moreA Homeland Security rule that fast-tracks removal of undocumented immigrants is facing a new legal challenge from civil rights groups who say the Trump administration’s plan to ratchet up deportations is reckless and will create a “show me your papers” regime.
Read moreAs more states aim to tackle criminal justice reform, voting rights advocates contend the legal financial obligations of former felons continue to deprive them of the right to cast a ballot.
Read moreAt the anniversary of the trial that pitted evolution versus creationism and put a Tennessee town on the map, all the courtroom’s a stage and all the lawyers merely players.
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