The Supreme Court will hear argument in a Texas capital case over whether Dexter Johnson may file a second federal habeas application under AEDPA. His Atkins intellectual-disability claim cites a newer diagnostic manual, while Texas argues it does not rest on a new constitutional rule.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed Basile Outlaw's direct criminal contempt conviction, finding that his vulgar remark to Philadelphia Judge Roxanne E. Covington caused only a transient courtroom delay and did not significantly obstruct justice under the state Crimes Code.
Twelve defendants associated with the University of Michigan were indicted in the Eastern District of Michigan for allegedly conspiring to send interstate threats and, for two, witness intimidation and property destruction, aimed at forcing the university and businesses to cut ties with Israel.
House Judiciary Democrats, led by Jamie Raskin, released a 50-plus-page report on evidence involving 11 women in the Epstein files, including five accusing Trump of rape or assault. They allege Todd Blanche steered Ghislaine Maxwell away from discussing a survivor and that DOJ withheld documents, and they call for a special counsel. The White House denies the allegations.
— via Above the Law, Kathryn Rubino
An ICE vehicle in Houston appears to have deliberately run over Miguel Parra-Hernandez. Harris County's district attorney says the strike looked intentional, and the photo ICE released of its intended target reportedly shows a man who died in 2017, undercutting the agency's account.
— via Above the Law, Techdirt
A Wyoming lawyer in a fringed buckskin jacket never lost a criminal case before a jury, and hasn't dropped a civil case since 1969. His client list ran from a nuclear whistleblower's family to Imelda Marcos to the Ruby Ridge standoff. Guess who before the next page reveals it.
— via Above the Law, Kathryn Rubino
A Florida woman now faces felony terrorism charges after venting threats against a sheriff's office to an AI chatbot, which flagged the chats to human reviewers who looped in the FBI. The legal catch: prosecutors may struggle to prove she ever expected a human, not just software, to read her words.
— via Volokh Conspiracy (Reason), Eugene Volokh
Hearn's lawyers say prosecutors had a damage assessment proving he couldn't have caused $1,000 in harm: and sought his felony indictment the next morning anyway. A 21-page letter now demands federal watchdogs investigate Pirro's office, a flip-flopping witness and Interior's own warnings about the pool's failing liner.
— via Above the Law, Kathryn Rubino
Legal scholarship argues the Supreme Court has spent decades dressing up police violence as either lawful force or no violence at all, draining the system of legitimacy from the inside. A new reading of "the police power" traces how courts invented and entrenched that authority in the states, not Washington.
— via JOTWELL, Eric J. Miller
A mother already served her 25-year sentence for killing her 3-year-old, so an appeals court tossed her bid for resentencing under a domestic-violence law as moot. Judges also refused to let her stay anonymous: a lawyer's brief mention of possible "mental harm" didn't cut it.
— via Volokh Conspiracy (Reason), Eugene Volokh
The DOJ is now recruiting Marine Corps lawyers "of any rank" for 179-day immigration prosecution stints in New York and California, no surge announcement required. It's the same trick the Pentagon used to send 600 military lawyers into immigration courts, and it comes as DOJ has lost 21 percent of its attorneys.
— via Above the Law, Kathryn Rubino
Milbank finally matches its special bonus, two months after the fact. Meanwhile Laurence Tribe says Trump craves emperor status, junior associates are still chained to their desks at 10pm, and a departing Broadview Six prosecutor is going after her old boss on the way out.
— via Above the Law, Above the Law
The prosecutor accused of blowing up the "Broadview 6" case just quit, and she's naming names. Her resignation letter says U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros knew about her grand jury conduct in real time, even as his office threatened to fire her for defending herself.
— via Above the Law, Liz Dye
A federal judge who blew a 0.27 and flubbed his ABCs stays on paid leave through September 2027, still pocketing his roughly $250,000 salary. He'll need sober test results and senior status before he can hear cases again.
— via Above the Law, Staci Zaretsky
A UK regulator threatened 4chan with prison time and an £18 million fine for ignoring an information notice, then followed up with a provisional decision demanding £20,000 plus daily penalties. A federal judge just had to decide whether Ofcom counts as a foreign government for lawsuit purposes.
— via Volokh Conspiracy (Reason), Eugene Volokh
The Second Circuit just ruled border agents can search your phone with no warrant and no suspicion at all, upholding a fraud conviction built on evidence pulled from a traveler's unlocked device at JFK. One law professor argues the court got it backwards, since these searches target ordinary crime, not the smuggling and tariff concerns that justify searching luggage.
— via Volokh Conspiracy (Reason), Orin S. Kerr
