On May 7, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit struck down a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rule that required more than 6 million employers to post certain types of notices at work informing employees of their rights under the National Labor Relations Act. While notifying employees …
Just in case you weren’t convinced that overcriminalization is giving good kids criminal records, an Eagle Scout (the highest rank in the Boy Scout organization) is being charged with a felony for an honest mistake. David “Cole” Withrow, a North Carolina high school senior, is an Eagle Scout, an honor …
H.R. 1724, the Kids First Research Act of 2013, sponsored by Representative Gregg Harper (R–MS), would end the Presidential Election Campaign Fund (PECF). That’s the good news. But then the bill would authorize spending existing PECF funds on a new 10-year pediatric research initiative via the National Institutes of Health …
Sixteen-year-old Kiera Wilmot, described by her principal as “a good kid,” had good grades and had never been in trouble at school—let alone with the law. Now she is facing felony charges for a “science experiment gone wrong.” Kiera mixed household chemicals in an eight-ounce water bottle at school. The …
On Tuesday, Congress took a definite step in the right direction toward addressing the serious problem of overcriminalization by announcing the creation of a bipartisan House Committee on the Judiciary Over-Criminalization Task Force of 2013. The task force, which will be chaired by Representative James Sensenbrenner (R–WI), will consist of …
The American Civil Rights Union’s (ACRU) Election Integrity Defense Project last Friday sued two Mississippi counties that have more registered voters than voting-eligible citizens. The ACRU, headed by former Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell and former Attorney General Edwin Meese, claims that the counties are not complying with Section …
How should courts respond when the legislature does not adequately fund operation of the criminal justice system and thereby denies a defendant his constitutional rights? The Supreme Court avoided answering that question Monday, but the Court cannot avoid it forever. Fifty years ago the Supreme Court held in Gideon v. …
The Senate soon will take up ill-advised legislation (S. 743) misnamed the “Marketplace Fairness Act” to authorize every state to force out-of-state businesses to serve as the state’s sales tax collector, overruling the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1992 decision in Quill Corporation v. North Dakota. As Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) said …
This week, the Supreme Court issued a historic decision that will help prevent U.S. courts (and activist judges) from interfering in foreign policy issues that are—and should be—the constitutional prerogative of the executive and legislative branches. Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum involved the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), which was passed …
