Abortion has become one of the most contentious issues in contemporary American politics and court jurisprudence. The most well-known Supreme Court case–and the first–on the topic is Roe v. Wade (1973). The Court, in a 7-2 decision, held that a woman has a “fundamental right” to privacy under the Fourteenth Amendment, which extends to abortions. Roe also famously created the trimester framework. Under this framework, states are not allowed to ban or regulate abortions during the first trimester of a pregnancy. During the second trimester, states could regulate only to the extent that it is “reasonably” related to the protection of a woman’s health. During the last trimester, fetal viability, the fetus’s ability to survive outside of the womb, provides states a “compelling” interest to regulate or even prohibit abortions (with some exceptions for the life and health of the mother).  Although Roe is the most famous abortion case, it […]

Facts/Holding:  On June 11, 2021, the North Carolina Supreme Court concluded that censure of Judge Pool was appropriate, following a recommendation by the Judicial Standards Commission.  Censure is a formal statement of disapproval, with no physical or monetary consequences. It is a legal action often taken when a judge, cabinet member, or the president conducts themselves in a manner that violates the Code of Conduct they agree to when entering a position in government.  In the case of In Re Pool, C. Randy Pool had presided over a North Carolina general district court as a judge for 18 years, serving as a Chief Judge from 2006 until his retirement in November 2019. In 2019, a woman attempted to extort former Judge Pool by threatening to share sexually explicit messages the two shared if the former judge refused to pay her $5,000. This launched an investigation by the Judicial Standards Commission, […]

It has been almost 22 months since the first U.S COVID-19 case, and the country has lost over 750,000 lives in that time span. This pandemic has not only generated massive change in how people structure their lives, but it has also raised important questions and debates about the role of government in public health and the constitutionality of certain public health measures.  This past September, Joe Biden directed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a regulatory agency with the Labor Department, to require private businesses with 100 or more employees to implement either COVID-19 vaccine mandates or require weekly testing. In early November, the order was officially given. There are many angles and complexities to this policy but it raises the general constitutional question of whether the federal government has the power to implement national vaccine mandates at all.  The United States has a long history of mandatory vaccines […]

Facts of the Case Epic Games, Inc. v. Apple Inc. is a recent high-profile lawsuit involving antitrust laws in the state of California. It has the potential to pave new paths for content creation companies, such as game developers like Epic, to profit from their products without certain traditional restrictions.  The story began in August 2020, when Epic Games, the owners of the extremely popular game Fortnite, created their own in-app payment system to bypass Apple’s App Store payment system. Typically, Apple takes a 30% revenue cut of any purchases made within apps, citing their role as distributors and required digital upkeep as grounds for the built-in charge. In response to Epic’s direct payment system, Fortnite was promptly removed from the App Store and Epic Games quickly filed a preliminary injunction against the tech giant. While ten counts of various kinds were levied against Apple, all but one were struck […]