On Wednesday, November 9th, 2022, millions of Americans awoke to the reasonably predictable news that the Republicans won both houses of Congress, securing majority control of the legislative branch. This reality, albeit utterly false, seemed almost a certainty in the weeks leading up to the 2022 mi ...

Background The United States Constitution includes various protections for religious beliefs. These include the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause, both incorporated in the First Amendment. The Free Exercise Clause grants citizens the right to practice their religion freely, as lon ...

Background As of June 2021, Medicaid provided healthcare to over 76 million people who would otherwise not afford it. Medicaid is a conditional program, meaning that states must use government funding in compliance with specific conditions established by Congress. Those conditions include broad r ...

Now, we look at our final case of this four-part series, a 2015 SCOTUS case, where notably a government regulation passed strict scrutiny. Thus, even though a law may infringe on a fundamental right, the strict scrutiny standard can be used to hold the law or policy constitutionally valid if the gov ...

Background Adam Briggs, Paula Briggs, Joshua Briggs, and Sarah H. Briggs are all owners of property in Harford Township, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania. Their property lays adjacent to property leased by Southwestern Energy (SWN), a U.S. natural gas and energy company.  On Nov. 5, 2015 the B ...

Facts: In 2004, John Ramirez murdered a convenience store clerk, which resulted in him being sentenced to the death penalty. On Feb. 5, 2021, Texas notified Ramirez of his execution date, which was scheduled for Sept. 28, 2021. Consequently, Ramirez filed a prison grievance requesting that the St ...

Facts of the Case In 1981, Lynn Goldsmith, a famous photographer of rock stars and the like, published a would-be famous image she took of Prince. Newsweek had commissioned Goldsmith to photograph him as his alluring style of music and performance entered pop culture. The magazine went on to use ...

Background In 2018, North Carolina created Senate Bill 824, which required that all citizens have with them “one of ten forms of authorized photographic identification” in order to vote. The North Carolina section of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) filed a m ...

North Carolina has long been the battleground for gerrymandering litigation. Harper v. Hall is the most recent example, in which voters sued legislators and the state’s elections board over the congressional map for the 2020 election. They claimed it violated the Free Elections Clause and Equal Prot ...

Facts of the Case In February of 2015, National Association of African American Owned Media (NAAAOM) and Entertainment Studios Networks (ESN), both owned by Byron Allen, filed suit against Comcast Corp. ESN and NAAAOM are “100% African-American owned” California based television and motion pictur ...