court

A Texas court has issued a stay of execution for Robert Roberson, a man whose 2003 murder conviction has raised serious questions about the validity of “shaken baby syndrome” as a medical diagnosis.

Thursday’s decision arrived with only a week remaining until Roberson’s scheduled execution date on October 16.

Roberson, a 58-year-old autistic man, was accused of having killed his two-year-old daughter Nikki Michelle Curtis in January 2002, after he brought her to a hospital emergency room unconscious.

He has maintained that Nikki had been sick and fell from her bed overnight. But prosecutors argued that her head trauma must have been caused by “shaken baby syndrome”, a diagnosis popularised in the late 1990s as evidence of physical abuse in infants and toddlers.

But that diagnosis has been increasingly rejected, as doctors and medical researchers point out that the symptoms of “shaken baby syndrome” — namely, bleeding or swelling in the eyes or brain — can be caused by other conditions.

Roberson’s defence team has argued that Nikki suffered from chronic pneumonia in the lead-up to her death, and the medications she was given, including codeine, contributed to her death.

In Thursday’s decision, the judges on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals agreed to pause his execution in light of a similar case being overturned in 2024.

Judge Bert Richardson contrasted the shifting nature of the medical research with the finality of execution in his concurring opinion.

“There is a delicate balance and tension in our criminal justice system between the finality of judgment and its accuracy based on our ever-advancing scientific understanding,” Judge Richardson wrote.

“A death sentence is clearly final and, once carried out, hindsight is useless. Thus, when moving forward in such a way, we should require the highest standards of accuracy so that we can act with a reliable degree of certainty.”

But the court limited its judgement to reopening Roberson’s petition for habeas corpus, which questions the constitutionality of a person’s imprisonment.

It declined to reconsider Roberson’s case as a whole. That prompted some of the judges on the court to issue a partial dissent.

Judge David Schenck, for instance, argued that “a new trial is necessary and mandated by our Constitution”, given the new evidence that has emerged in the two decades since Roberson was sentenced to death.

“The merits of Roberson’s claims and the cumulative effect of the evidence Roberson presents — in his fifth application as well as his previous and subsequent applications — would be more properly and more swiftly assessed at this point by a jury in a new trial,” Schenck said.

He added that a new trial would also offer the state of Texas “an opportunity to present this case on its merits”.

Still, some judges on the panel said they were opposed to reopening the case, arguing that the shift in medical consensus did not rule out an act of violence in Nikki’s death.

“Arguably credible and reliable scientific evidence still exists to suggest that shaking a child can cause serious injury or death,” Judge Kevin Yeary wrote in his opinion.

This is not the first time that Roberson’s case has been delayed. He has spent nearly 23 years on death row and was also slated to be executed a year ago, in October 2024.

But that execution date was scuttled in an extraordinary series of events. With his execution scheduled for October 17 of that year, a bipartisan group of legislators in the Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence agreed to issue a subpoena for Roberson on October 21 — effectively setting up a battle between the legislature’s will and the court’s.

The subpoen sparked a court case about the separation of powers in Texas: A witness could not answer a legislative subpoena if the justice system executed him first.

Further, the members of the Texas House committee had argued that a 2013 state law barring the use of “junk science” in court cases had failed to be applied in Roberson’s case.

The case reached the Texas Supreme Court, which halted Roberson’s execution while the matter was resolved. Execution dates are set with at least 90 days’ notice in Texas, resulting in a prolonged pause.

On July 16, after appeals from Roberson’s defence team, a new execution date was set for this month.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, has accused critics of Roberson’s sentence of “interfering with the capital punishment proceedings” and has repeatedly pledged to push forward with the execution.

But even those involved in Roberson’s original capital murder trial have sought to see his sentence overturned.

Brian Wharton, the lead investigator in Roberson’s case, had once testified in favour of the prosecution. But last year, he told the Texas House committee that he supported Roberson’s appeal, given the new evidence that has come to light.

“He is an innocent man, and we are very close to killing him for something he did not do,” Wharton said.

On Thursday, one of the jurors who helped convict Roberson also published an opinion column in the Houston Chronicle, asserting that she was “wrong” to side with the prosecution.

“If we on the jury knew then what I know now — about the new evidence of Nikki’s missed pneumonia, how her breathing would have been affected by the Phenergan and codeine doctors gave her that last week, the signs of sepsis, and all the things that were wrong with the version of shaken baby syndrome used in the case — we would have had a lot more to discuss,” Terre Compton wrote.

“Based on all that has come out since the trial, I am 100% certain that Robert Roberson did not murder his child.”

Texas has executed 596 people since 1982, the most of any state.

A French court has rejected the appeal of a man found guilty of raping Gisele Pelicot after she was drugged by her husband and increased his sentence to 10 years.

Husamettin Dogan, a 44-year-old construction worker, was convicted of sexually abusing Gisele Pelicot, 72, in a landmark case last December, with witnesses testifying in his appeal earlier this week that Dogan was “fully aware” Gisele Pelicot was asleep while he was assaulting her.

“The court and jury sentence Husamettin Dogan to 10 years in prison” along with “mandatory treatment for five years”, presiding judge Christian Pasta said on Thursday. Standing in the dock at the court in the southern city of Nimes, Dogan did not react to the verdict.

Pelicot returned to court this week to face the only man, out of 51, who appealed against his guilty verdict. She called for “victims to never be ashamed of what was forced upon them”.

Prior to Dogan’s sentencing, French prosecutor Dominique Sie called for his jail term to be increased to 12 years – the term prosecutors had initially sought – because of “Dogan’s stance, in all its rigidity, as he absolutely refuses to take any responsibility”.

“As long as you refuse to admit it, it’s not just a woman, it’s an entire sordid social system that you are endorsing,” Sie said.

Dogan claimed he was not a “rapist” and insisted he thought he was participating in consensual sexual activity.

Witnesses in Dogan’s appeal this week included Pelicot’s ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot, who previously received a prison term of 20 years, the maximum sentence, for orchestrating the assaults in the former couple’s home in Mazan.

During the trial last year, Dominique Pelicot admitted that, for more than a decade, he drugged his then-wife of 50 years so that he and strangers he recruited online could abuse her. He also filmed the assaults, which included at least 50 men.

In Tuesday’s hearing, he denied ever coercing or misleading Dogan. “I never forced anyone,” he said.

He also refuted Dogan’s assertion that his invitation was to participate in a sexual game. “I never said that,” he said.

Dogan visited the couple’s home on June 28, 2019, where he is accused of assaulting Gisele Pelicot for more than three hours. Dogan, however, has said he only realised that something was wrong when he heard the woman snoring.

Investigator Jeremie Bosse-Platiere also testified on Tuesday. He cited video footage of Gisele Pelicot’s assault to assert that Dogan was fully aware Gisele had not consented.

“Anyone who sees the videos understands this immediately,” Bosse-Platiere said.

The police commissioner described a video in which Gisele Pelicot was seen moving slightly, causing Dogan to immediately withdraw.

“We understand that he is worried that his victim might wake up and freeze in a waiting position,” said Bosse-Platiere.

“After 30 seconds, seeing that it was a reflex caused by pain or discomfort, he reintroduces his penis into her vagina.”

Investigators found a total of 107 photos and 14 videos from the night Dogan visited the couple’s home in the southern town of Mazan.

Gisele Pelicot appeared at the proceedings on Wednesday, telling the court that Dogan had raped her and must “take responsibility” for his actions.

Gisele’s decision to waive her right to anonymity during the initial trial was celebrated as a bold move for transparency, raising awareness about the prevalence of sexual assault and domestic violence in France and around the world.

She also attended the proceedings in person and faced her abusers in court. She was named a knight of the Legion of Honour, France’s top civic honour, in July.

Her case has resulted in greater momentum to reform France’s laws on rape and sexual assault.

Lawmakers in France’s National Assembly and Senate have pushed for an update to the definition of rape under the country’s penal code, in order to include a clear reference to the need for consent. A final bill is expected to pass in the coming months.

“There needs to be an evolution for you, and for society, from rape culture to a culture of consent,” French prosecutor Sie said on Thursday.

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The US Supreme Court have been presented with arguments in a case attempting to overturn Colorado’s conversion therapy ban for minors.

Back in June 2019, Colorado became the 18th state to prohibit the harmful and discredited practice from being used with its

So-called conversion therapy refers to any attempt at changing a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity and can often involve cruel and dangerous methods such as electroshock therapy, nausea-causing drugs, verbal and physical abuse, food deprivation, and forced prayer.

While it has been widely condemned by health experts and scientific bodies worldwide, the US Supreme Court has recently considered the possibility of overturning Colorado’s ban on the harmful practice —a move that could roll back similar laws in other states.

On 7 October, the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, heard oral arguments regarding the Chiles v. Salazar case – which stemmed from Christian therapist Kaley Chiles’ lawsuit against the state of Colorado.  

In her petition, the licensed professional counsellor, who is represented by the conservative legal group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), claimed that the state’s conversion therapy ban violates her freedom of speech under the First Amendment.

During opening arguments, Chiles’ lawyer, James Campbell, alleged that Colorado law forbids counsellors like his client “from helping minors pursue state disfavored goals on issues of issues of gender and sexuality.”

“This law prophylactically bans voluntary conversations, censoring widely held views on debated moral, religious and scientific questions. Aside from this law and recent ones like it, Colorado hasn’t identified any similar viewpoint-based bans on counselling. These laws are historic outliers,” he alleged.

During Colorado’s opening argument, the Solicitor General Shannon Stevenson defended the state’s ban, citing that “state power is at its apex when it regulates to ensure safety in the healthcare professions.”

“Colorado’s law lies at the bull’s eye center of this protection because it prohibits licensed professionals from performing one specific treatment because that treatment does not work and carries a great risk of harm,” she continued.

“No court has ever held that a law like this implicates the First Amendment, and for good reason. First, the law applies only to treatments, that is, only when a licensed professional is delivering clinical care to an individual patient. In that setting, providers have a duty to act in their patients’ best interest and according to their professional standards.

“The First Amendment affords no exception. Second, because this law governs only treatments, it does not interfere with any First Amendment interest. It does not stop a professional from expressing any viewpoint about the treatment to their patient or to anyone else.”

In addition to the above, the court heard an argument from the US Federal Government’s Principal Deputy Solicitor General Hashim Mooppan, who came out in support of Chiles, stating that the Colorado law is “subject to strict scrutiny under the First Amendment.”

During the question portions of the hearing, many of the conservative justices pushed back against the state’s law, with Justice Samuel Alito expressing concern that it was “blatant viewpoint discrimination.”

Justice Amy Coney Barrett also posed the question of whether states can “pick a side” regarding the standard of care.

In response to Barrett’s question, Stevenson said: “The state can show we’re regulating a treatment and we’re regulating consistent with the standard of care. There is a confirmation, a security that the court can have that there is no other motive going to suppress viewpoints or expression.”

While addressing Campbell’s argument, liberal Justice Sotomayor described Chiles vs Salazar as “an unusual case,” citing that there has been no enforcement of Colorado’s law within the last six years.

She also pointed out that state officials did not consider Chiles’ faith-based counselling as a violation of the state’s ban before adding: “So how does that fit into being an imminent threat of prosecution? Yes, you have an argument; they’ve disavowed it. How does that give you standing?

In response, Campbell said he didn’t believe Colorado officials have disavowed enforcement, alleging that “the state was relying on a misreading of the allegations in the case to say there’s no standing.”

He also claimed that several anonymous complaints have been filed against his client, alleging that the state is now investigating them for violating the conversion therapy ban.

During a post-hearing press conference, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser told reporters: “This practice is harmful – it’s been banned on bipartisan basis in Colorado and many other states. It tells young people that who they are is not OK, leaving lasting harm.”

Weiser also pushed back on Campbell’s claim that the state was investigating Chiles, revealing that “there have been no official proceedings or efforts to take any action against the petitioner.”

In the wake of the hearing, an array of LGBTQIA+ activists and organisations have slammed the attempt to reverse Colorado’s conversion therapy ban, including Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson.

“So-called ‘conversion therapy is not therapy, it is an abusive, discredited pseudoscience rooted in shame, rejection and fear. It often resorts to guilt, coercion and trauma in a disturbing effort to make someone believe they are less than simply because of who they are,” she said.

“These appalling practices can destroy families, worsen mental health outcomes and rob people of their faith communities. Laws like Colorado’s are crucial in ensuring that parents can trust licensed mental health professionals to keep youth safe, supported and able to get the care they need without fear of judgment or bias.”

The Supreme Court is expected to reach a decision in Chiles v Salazar in June 2026.

To listen to the full 90-minute hearing, click here.

The Lakers’ first practice of the week gave them hope of what they can look like whole when Marcus Smart takes the court.

Smart has been dealing with Achilles tendinopathy most of training camp and has been limited in practice. But coach JJ Redick said after practice Tuesday that Smart “did most of practice, including some live play.”

Redick said LeBron James and Luka Doncic — along with Maxi Kleber (quad) and Gabe Vincent — did “modified, mostly individual work.”.

“Marcus participated in some live [practice] and then was out at the end,” Redick said. “Yeah he was awesome. He was awesome. He, I think given the workload of today, I was impressed that he was able to sustain his level of intensity for as long as he did.”

Redick said Doncic was out for “load management.” Then Redick laughed.

Smart has been one of the NBA’s better defenders over his career, winning defensive player of the year for the 2021-22 season while playing for the Boston Celtics and being named to the All-Defensive first team three times — 2019, 2020 and 2022.

That will be a big part of his role with the Lakers, and during practice they got a glimpse of his defensive tenacity.

“Yeah, he guarded me a little bit at the first of practice,” Austin Reaves said. “You still feel that pressure. You feel the intensity that he brings on the defensive end, and that’s going to be big for us. We need that. We need him to be the best version of himself. With that communication that he brings, especially defensively, he’s been in the league a while. He knows how to win at the highest level. So, very excited to have him.”

After the Washington Wizards bought out his contract, Smart received several calls from Doncic about joining the Lakers.

Smart eventually signed with the Lakers for two years and $11 million.

At practice Tuesday, Smart left an impression.

“He looked great. He was moving great,” Jarred Vanderbilt said. “But like I said, his main power is that he’s vocal. So being able to help the guys. Communicate, that’s a big part of defense also. Being physical is one of them, but also being vocal, being able to communicate. I think he does both at a very high level. So, he can definitely help us on that end of the floor.”

Vanderbilt is the Lakers’ other top defender, his versatility allowing him to guard multiple positions.

He was asked to envision what the Lakers’ defense will be like with himself and Smart together on the court.

“Aw, man, just causing havoc,” Vanderbilt said. “Not only physically but just vocally. He’s a vocal guy as well, so it’s being the anchor of the defense, flying around, setting that tone defensively. Like, I’m excited. I can’t wait to share the court together.”

LeBron James ad

At some point after practice, the Lakers were asked if any one texted them about James’ cryptic post about “#TheSecondDecision” on Monday.

It left many wondering if James was talking about retiring.

He was not. It was about an ad for Hennessy that was posted on social media Tuesday morning.

“You guys are idiots,” Redick said when asked, laughing as he spoke. “We all knew it was an ad, right? No, I think most people that text me are also aware that it’s probably an ad, so it wasn’t. … Nobody was freaking out.”

Still, James is entering his NBA-record 23rd season.

“I just got a couple calls, like, ‘what is this?’” Reaves said, laughing.

Rui Hachimura wanted to know what was going on.

So he contacted James just to be sure.

“I mean, [I got] a couple texts. But I texted him too,” Hachimura said. “But he was using a [weird] emoji. I don’t even know. I didn’t understand at all. But he loves to do that type of stuff. Surprises, right?”

Oct. 7 (UPI) — The Supreme Court‘s conservative justices signaled Tuesday they were likely to side with a Christian therapist who argued that Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy violates her free speech rights.

The case stems from a lawsuit by Kaley Chiles, a licensed counselor whose practice is based in Christianity who says the Colorado law prevents her from assisting her minor clients who seek “to live a life consistent with their faith.”

Conversion therapy can include psychological, behavioral, physical and faith-based practices that are intended to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identification. Opponents point to evidence that it is harmful and leads to more serious psychological problems for people who experience it. Roughly half of states have banned it.

However, the court’s justices argued whether the conversion therapy banned by Colorado’s law is harmful to minors and if it was a violation of the Constitution’s free speech protections or regulation of medical treatment.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said that Colorado’s law would mean different treatment for an adolescent male who approaches a licensed therapist hoping to lessen his attraction for other males versus another adolescent male who wants to feel something different.

“It looks like blatant viewpoint discrimination,” he said.

Colorado is one of 23 states that ban conversion therapy, which is the practice of attempting to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity through therapy.

Critics call the technique a pseudoscience, and the American Psychological Association and several other mental health and LGBTQIA+ organizations have come out in opposition to its use.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said a Supreme Court ruling striking down Colorado’s law could imperil not only efforts to prevent conversion therapy but other healthcare treatments that medical experts say are harmful or ineffective.

“For centuries, states have regulated professional healthcare to protect patients from substandard treatment,” he said, according to NBC News. “Throughout that time, the First Amendment has never barred states’ ability to prohibit substandard care, regardless of whether it is carried out through words.”

James Campbell, the lawyer for Chiles argued that the studies showing the harms of conversation therapy are flawed because they lump together voluntary conversations between a client and therapist with coercive measures, like shock therapy.

Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal firm, is representing Chiles in the case.

Shannon Stevenson, the state’s solicitor general, argued that the harm in conversion therapy “comes from telling someone there’s something innate about yourself you can change.”

“Then you spend all kinds of time and effort trying to do that,” she said. “And you fail, but you bore the burden.

A lower court ruling said the Colorado law is a restriction on mental health treatment, not on speech. In a ruling by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, justices said the ban aligned with medical consensus that conversion therapy is “ineffective and harmful” and “rationally serves” the interests of the state in protecting minors.

Stevenson reiterated that argument saying that “Colorado’s law regulates treatments only and because it enforces the professional standard of care,” not speech.

However, conservative members of the court didn’t seem to buy that argument.

“Just because they’re engaged in conduct doesn’t mean that their words aren’t protected,” Chief Justice John Roberts said.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, one of the court’s liberals, brought up how the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors. She asked if Colorado’s law wasn’t just the functional equivalent” of Tennessee’s law.

“I realized that there were two different constitutional provisions at issue, but the regulations work in basically the same way, and the question of scrutiny applies in both contexts,” she said. “So it just seems odd to me that we might have a different result here.”

Hashim Mooppan, a principal deputy solicitor general representing the Trump administration, argued that Tennessee’s law concerned drugs and medical treatment while Colorado’s law was focused on what is said during talk therapy sessions.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court justices on Tuesday heard a free-speech challenge to state laws against “conversion therapy” and sounded likely to rule the measures violate the 1st Amendment.

California and more than 20 other states have adopted laws to forbid licensed counselors from urging or encouraging gay or transgender teens to change their sexual orientation or gender identity.

They were adopted in reaction to a history of dangerous and discredited practices, including treatments that induced nausea and vomiting or administered electric shocks.

Lawmakers and medical experts said these efforts to “cure” LGBTQ+ teens were cruel and ineffective and caused lasting harm.

But these “talk therapy” laws have been challenged by a number of Christian counselors who believe they can help young people who want to talk about their feelings and their sexual identity.

The court on Tuesday heard an appeal from Kaley Chiles, a counselor from Colorado Springs, Colo. She says she is an evangelical Christian, but does not seek to “cure” young people of a same-sex attraction or change their gender identity.

But she sued, alleging the state law seeks to “censor” her conversations and threatens her with punishment.

She lost before a federal judge and a U.S. appeals court, both of whom said the state has the authority to regulate the practice of medicine and to prevent substandard healthcare.

But the justices, both conservative and liberal, said the Colorado law appeared to violate the 1st Amendment.

“What’s being regulated here is pure speech,” said Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

Moreover, he said, the state law enforces a double standard. It would punish a licensed counselor who agrees to talk to a teenage client who wants to “overcome same-sex attractions,” but not if she encourages the teen to accept or affirm those attractions.

Justice Elena Kagan said she too saw a potential 1st Amendment violation. And Justice Sonia Sotomayor said there was less evidence that talk therapy alone has caused real harm.

In defense of the law, Colorado state solicitor Shannon Stevenson said the law applies only to licensed counselors. It does not extend to others, including religious ministers.

The practice of medical care “is a heavily regulated area. A doctor doesn’t have a 1st Amendment right to give wrong advice to patients,” she said.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett and others suggested counselors could still face a medical malpractice lawsuit, even if the court rules the state law violates the 1st Amendment.

President Trump has often locked horns with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, with the once left-leaning court putting a persistent drag on his first-term agenda.

And now, even after remaking the bench with his own appointees, the president is still tangling with the West Coast’s federal appellate court — a situation poised to boil over as the circuit juggles multiple challenges to his use of the National Guard to police American streets.

“I appointed the judge and he goes like that — I wasn’t served well,” Trump told reporters Sunday, lashing out at U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut of Portland after she temporarily blocked the deployment federalized troops.

“To have a judge like that, that judge ought to be ashamed of himself,” Trump said, referring to Immergut, who is a woman.

The president has long railed against judges who rule against him, calling them “monsters,” “deranged,” and “radical” at various points in the past.

Trump has also occasionally sniped at conservative jurists, including U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, whom he called “disgraceful” after the court rejected his bid to overturn the 2020 election.

But this weekend’s spat marked a shift in his willingness to go after his own appointees — a turn experts say could become much sharper as his picks to the appellate bench test his ambition to put boots on the ground in major cities across the U.S.

“The fact that a pretty conservative judge ruled the way she did is an indication that some conservative judges would rule similarly,” said Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University and a constitutional scholar at the Cato Institute.

The 9th Circuit handed the administration an early victory in the troop fight this spring, finding that courts must give “a great level of deference” to the president to decide whether facts on the ground warrant military intervention.

That ruling is set to be reviewed by a larger appellate panel, and could ultimately be reversed. The circuit is also now set to review a September decision barring federalized troops in California from aiding in civilian law enforcement, as well as Immergut’s temporary restraining order blocking the deployment over the weekend.

In the meantime, the 9th Circuit’s June decision has served as a guidepost for states seeking to limit what Oregon called a “nationwide campaign to assimilate the military into civilian law enforcement.”

“That decision is binding, and it does require a substantial degree of deference on the factual issues,” Somin said. “[But] when what the president does is totally divorced from reality, that limit is breached.”

Immergut appeared to agree, saying in her ruling that circumstances in Portland this fall were significantly different than those in L.A. in the spring. While some earlier protests did turn violent, she wrote, recent pickets outside Portland’s ICE headquarters have featured lawn chairs and low energy.

“Violence elsewhere cannot support troop deployments here, and concern about hypothetical future conduct does not demonstrate a present inability to execute the laws using nonmilitary federal law enforcement,” the judge wrote, addressing the 9th Circuit decision.

“The President is certainly entitled ‘a great level of deference,’” Immergut continued. “But ‘a great level of deference’ is not equivalent to ignoring the facts on the ground. … The President’s determination was simply untethered to the facts.”

But exactly where the appellate court may draw the line on presidential fact-finding is tricky, experts said.

“How much deference is owed to the president? That’s something we’re all talking about,” said John C. Dehn, a professor at Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

Whether courts can review the president’s judgment at all is a matter that splits even some of the president’s most conservative judicial picks from his current justice department attorneys.

So far, Trump has relied on an esoteric subsection of the U.S. Code for the authority to send soldiers on immigration raids and to control crowds of protesters.

Dehn and others have characterized that reading of the code as semantic and divorced from its legal context.

“They’re looking at the words in a vacuum and arguing the broadest possible meaning they could can think of,” Dehn said. “The administration is not engaged in good faith statutory interpretation — they’re engaged in linguistic manipulation of these statues.”

Immegur agreed, quoting Supreme Court precedent saying “[i]nterpretation of a word or phrase depends upon reading the whole statutory text.”

For some conservative legal scholars, Trump appointees’ willingness to push back on repeated deployments could signal a limit — or a dangerous new escalation in the administration’s attacks on jurists who defy them.

“It’s obvious the administration is trying to do this on a bigger scale,” Somin said. “Ideally we would not rely on litigation alone to deal with it.”

Former girlfriend of convicted sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking.

The United States Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned former girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein, to have her sex trafficking conviction overturned.

The top court turned down Maxwell’s bid on Monday, keeping in place a decision by a lower court to allow her conviction to stand. The decision appears to leave a pardon or clemency from US President Donald Trump as the former socialite’s only potential avenue for release.

The 63-year-old Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for recruiting teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein. Her lawyers have argued that Maxwell is covered by a 2007 plea deal Epstein made with federal prosecutors and that her conviction should therefore be nullified.

“We’re, of course, deeply disappointed that the Supreme Court declined to hear Ghislaine Maxwell’s case,” David Oscar Markus, a lawyer for Maxwell, said.

“But this fight isn’t over. Serious legal and factual issues remain, and we will continue to pursue every avenue available to ensure that justice is done.”

As is customary, the Supreme Court declined to explain its decision to reject the appeal.

Speculation and conspiracy theories have long swirled around Epstein and Maxwell and the elite circles they operated in. But renewed interest has largely focused on Trump’s past friendship with Epstein, who died by suicide in a New York City jail cell in 2019.

Calls for more transparency have come both from Trump’s base and from Democrats, who have increasingly seized on the issue as a political cudgel.

In July, Deputy US Attorney General Todd Blanche, a former personal lawyer to Trump, met with Maxwell as Trump sought to quell that criticism.

During the meeting, Maxwell told Blanche that she was not aware of any so-called “client list”, referring to a long-sought list of individuals who may have engaged in sexual abuses alongside Epstein, according to a transcript. She added she had never seen Trump behave inappropriately.

A week after the interview, Maxwell was moved from a low-security prison facility in Florida to a less-restrictive prison camp in Texas.

Prior to the interview, the Justice Department said in July that after reviewing more than 300 gigabytes of data that there was “no incriminating client list” nor was there any evidence that Epstein may have blackmailed prominent people.

Oct. 6 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by Ghislaine Maxwell Monday of her conviction for aiding the late Jeffrey Epstein in trafficking underage girls.

Maxwell’s defense attorney argued in March to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York that her client should have been legally immune in a previous agreement made with convicted sex trafficker Epstein by Florida prosecutors in 2007.

The appeals court didn’t agree with her attorneys, and the Supreme Court refused to take up the case.

“We’re, of course, deeply disappointed that the Supreme Court declined to hear Ghislaine Maxwell’s case,” Maxwell’s defense attorney David Oscar Markus said in a statement. “But this fight isn’t over. Serious legal and factual issues remain, and we will continue to pursue every avenue available to ensure that justice is done.”

Maxwell, 63, has served five years of her 20-year sentence for sex trafficking.

Maxwell and her attorney met with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche for two days in July. There were growing calls from Democrats and Republicans for President Donald Trump to release files on the Epstein case and worry that he may pardon her, though he hasn’t said that he would.

In August, she was moved to a minimum-security prison in Texas, though no reason was ever given for the transfer.

In early September, some of the victims of Epstein and Maxwell spoke out in Washington, D.C., about their ordeals and how the government should release the files — including the “birthday book” — to show who Epstein’s clients were. Trump called it a “Democratic hoax.”

Epstein died by suicide while in custody in 2019.

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Oct. 6 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to address a number of cases concerning executive power — specifically on elections, tariffs and President Donald Trump‘s ability to fire the employees of independent agencies — as begins a new term Monday in Washington, D.C.

The decisions the high court makes in the coming months are expected to say just how aggressively Trump can wield his presidential power without interference from lower-court judges. With a conservative 6-3 majority, three of whom were handpicked by the president, the Supreme Court’s next rulings could majorly affect the president’s current policy efforts.

Among this term’s cases:

— The Supreme Court will consider whether Trump has the ability to fire the employees of certain independent government agencies. This case stems from Trump’s firing of Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter in September.

This will essentially revisit the 1935 Supreme Court decision in Humphrey’s Executor vs. United States, which upheld the FTC’s protections from removal under President Franklin Roosevelt as constitutional.

— The high court will also decide whether Trump exceeded his authority by imposing sweeping tariffs without congressional approval.

James Sample, a Hofstra Law professor and ABC News contributor, described the case as “staggeringly important.”

“If you think of a tariff as a tax, this is one of the biggest tax hikes in American history, and it didn’t go through Congress at all.

— Birthright citizenship is also on the docket this term. Two days into his second term, Trump signed an executive order ending birthright citizenship for anyone who doesn’t have at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen. Lower courts have so far blocked this order.

— In Louisiana vs. Callais, the high court will decide whether the state legislature’s efforts to redistrict violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

— The Supreme Court will also hear a legal challenge to Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for LGBTQIA+ youths. A Christian therapist has argued that the ban is a restriction on her First Amendment rights, while opponents say the law is simply a restriction on treatment.

According to NPR News, the Supreme Court has set a record by granting 20 of Trump’s requests to block lower court orders that went against him. The court ruled against him three times in the same eight-month span.

SEOUL, Oct. 6 (UPI) — A Seoul court accepted the petition of Lee Jin-sook, the former head of the now-defunct Korean Communications Commission, to be released from detention on Saturday.

Lee was arrested on Thursday on charges of violating election law and breaching public neutrality. The allegations centered around her making partisan remarks on conservative YouTube channels and social media, which prosecutors said were aimed at obstructing the election of President Lee Jae Myung.

Police said that they executed the warrant after the head of the former broadcasting watchdog failed to respond to six summonses for questioning. Lee, however, claimed that the police had agreed on a scheduled appearance date and issued the summonses to build a justification for her arrest.

Her arrest occurred a day after the KCC was abolished as part of a politically contentious government reorganization, which automatically ended her term at the commission. Lee had been appointed to a three-year term in July 2024 by former President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was impeached over his botched martial law attempt and removed from office in April.

Lee’s lawyers filed a petition requesting a judicial review of the lawfulness of her arrest, which the Seoul Southern District Court heard on Saturday. The court granted her request for release, with Chief Judge Kim Dong-hyun saying the arrest was “not justified at this stage.”

In the court’s decision, Judge Kim said that the investigation had already been conducted to a substantial extent and that the facts in the case were not in dispute, noting that Lee had promised to attend future hearings.

The court did not deny that the arrest may have had legal grounds, Kim added, and acknowledged that further investigation was necessary.

Lee was released from detention at Yeongdeungpo Police Station in Seoul shortly after the ruling and placed the responsibility for her arrest on President Lee Jae Myung.

“The scene you are seeing implies that if you disobey the president, you too could end up in detention,” she said to reporters, as opposition People Power Party lawmakers and conservative supporters gathered outside the station.

“The judiciary has freed us from the handcuffs imposed by the police and prosecutors,” she added. “It gives me hope that democracy still exists in some corner of South Korea.”

Oct. 5 (UPI) — The Justice Department has appealed a ruling by a lower court judge blocking the mobilization of 200 National Guard troops to Portland.

A judge on Saturday ordered the Trump administration to stop its mobilization of the soldiers to protect the ICE building and officers in the city. There have been nightly protests since the troops were ordered to patrol.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will rule on the case.

Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsome called the Trump administration’s move to send National Guard troops to Portland an abuse of law and power.

“The Trump administration is unapologetically attacking the rule of law itself and putting into action their dangerous words – ignoring court orders and treating judges, even those appointed by the President himself, as political opponents.

Hundreds of protestors marched at the Portland Immigration and Customs Enforcement office Saturday, the latest in a series of demonstrations in the city since the Trump administration announced it would deploy the troops.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., criticized President Donald Trump in a social media post referring to the court’s order to block the deployment that said Trump’s “determination is simply untethered from the facts.”

A White House spokesperson said that Trump “exercised his authority to protect federal assets and personnel in Portland following violent riots and attacks on law enforcement.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom said Sunday that he intends to seek a court order in an attempt to stop President Trump’s deployment of California National Guard troops to Oregon.

Calling the president’s action a “breathtaking abuse of power,” Newsom said in a statement that 300 California National Guard personnel were being deployed to Portland, Ore., a city the president has called “war-ravaged.”

“They are on their way there now,” Newsom said of the National Guard. “This is a breathtaking abuse of the law and power.”

Trump’s move came a day after a federal judge in Oregon temporarily blocked the federalization of Oregon’s National Guard.

The president, who mobilized the California National Guard amid immigration protests earlier this year, has pursued the use of the military to fight crime in cities including Chicago and Washington, D.C., sparking outrage among Democratic officials in those cities. Local leaders, including those in Portland, have said the actions are unnecessary and without legal justification.

“The Trump Administration is unapologetically attacking the rule of law itself and putting into action their dangerous words — ignoring court orders and treating judges, even those appointed by the President himself, as political opponents,” Newsom said.

In June, Newsom and Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta filed a federal lawsuit over Trump’s mobilization of the state’s National Guard during immigration protests in Los Angeles. California officials are expected to file the court order over Sunday’s deployment using that existing lawsuit.

Newsom has ratcheted up his rhetoric about Trump in recent days: On Friday, the governor lashed out at universities that may sign the president’s higher education compact, which demands rightward campus policy shifts in exchange for priority federal funding.

“I need to put pressure on this moment and pressure test where we are in U.S. history, not just California history,” Newsom said. “…This is it. We are losing this country.”

WASHINGTON — Supreme Court justices like to talk about the Constitution’s separation of powers and how it limits the exercise of official authority.

But Chief Justice John G. Roberts and his conservative colleagues have given no sign so far they will check President Trump’s one-man governance by executive order.

To the contrary, the conservative justices have repeatedly ruled for Trump on fast-track appeals and overturned federal judges who said the president had exceeded his authority.

The court’s new term opens on Monday, and the justices will begin hearing arguments.

But those regularly scheduled cases have been overshadowed by Trump’s relentless drive to remake the government, to punish his political enemies, including universities, law firms, TV networks and prominent Democrats, and to send troops to patrol U.S. cities.

The overriding question has become: Are there any legal limits on the president’s power? The Supreme Court itself has raised the doubts.

A year ago, as Trump ran to reclaim the White House, the justices blocked a felony criminal indictment against him related to his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, mob attack on the Capitol as Congress met to certify Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election, for which Trump was impeached.

Led by Roberts, the court ruled for Trump and declared for the first time that presidents were immune from being prosecuted for their official actions in the White House.

Not surprisingly, Trump saw this as a “BIG WIN” and proof there is no legal check on his power.

This year, Trump’s lawyers have confidently gone to Supreme Court with emergency appeals when lower-court judges have stood in their way. With few exceptions, they have won, often over dissents from the court’s three liberal Democrats.

Many court scholars say they are disappointed but not surprised by the court’s response so far to Trump’s aggressive use of executive power.

The Supreme Court “has been a rubber stamp approving Trump’s actions,” said UC Berkeley law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “I hope very much that the court will be a check on Trump. There isn’t any other. But so far, it has not played that role.”

Roberts “had been seen as a Republican but not a Trump Republican. But he doesn’t seem interested or willing to put any limits on him,” said UCLA law professor Adam Winkler. “Maybe they think they’re saving their credibility for when it really counts.”

Acting on his own, Trump moved quickly to reshape the federal government. He ordered cuts in spending and staffing at federal agencies and fired inspectors general and officials of independent agencies who had fixed terms set by Congress. He stepped up arrests and deportations of immigrants who are here illegally.

But the court’s decisions on those fronts are in keeping with the long-standing views of the conservatives on the bench.

Long before Trump ran for office, Roberts had argued that the Constitution gives the president broad executive authority to control federal agencies, including the power to fire officials who disagree with him.

The court’s conservatives also think the president has the authority to enforce — or not enforce — immigration laws.

That’s also why many legal experts think the year ahead will provide a better test of the Supreme Court and Trump’s challenge to the constitutional order.

“Overall, my reaction is that it’s too soon to tell,” said William Baude, a University of Chicago law professor and a former clerk for Roberts. “In the next year, we will likely see decisions about tariffs, birthright citizenship, alien enemies and perhaps more, and we’ll know a lot more.”

In early September, Trump administration lawyers rushed the tariffs case to the Supreme Court because they believed it was better to lose sooner rather than later.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the government could face up to a $1-trillion problem if the court delayed a decision until next summer and then ruled the tariffs were illegal.

“Unwinding them could cause significant disruption,” he told the court.

The Constitution says tariffs, taxes and raising revenue are matters for Congress to decide. Through most of American history, tariffs funded much of the federal government. That began to change after 1913 when the 16th Amendment was adopted to authorize “taxes on incomes.”

Trump has said he would like to return to an earlier era when import taxes funded the government.

“I always say ‘tariffs’ is the most beautiful word to me in the dictionary,” he said at a rally after his inauguration in January. “Because tariffs are going to make us rich as hell. It’s going to bring our country’s businesses back that left us.”

While he could have gone to the Republican-controlled Congress to get approval, he imposed several rounds of large and worldwide tariffs acting on his own.

Several small businesses sued and described the tariffs as “the largest peacetime tax increase in American history.”

As for legal justification, the president’s lawyers pointed to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977. It authorizes the president to “deal with any unusual or extraordinary threat … to the national security, foreign policy or economy of the United States.”

The law did not mention tariffs, taxes or duties but said the president could “regulate” the “importation” of products.

Trump administration lawyers argue that the “power to ‘regulate importation’ plainly encompasses the power to impose tariffs.” They also say the court should defer to the president because tariffs involve foreign affairs and national security.

They said the president invoked the tariffs not to raise revenue but to “rectify America’s country-killing trade deficits and to stem the flood of fentanyl and other lethal drugs across our borders.”

In response to lawsuits from small businesses and several states, judges who handle international trade cases ruled the tariffs were illegal. However, they agreed to keep them in place to allow for appeals.

Their opinion relied in part on recent Supreme Court’s decisions which struck down potentially far-reaching regulations from Democratic presidents on climate change, student loan debt and COVID-19 vaccine requirements. In each of the decisions, Roberts said Congress had not clearly authorized the disputed regulations.

Citing that principle, the federal circuit court said it “seems unlikely that Congress intended to … grant the president unlimited authority to impose tariffs.”

Trump said that decision, if allowed to stand, “could literally destroy the United States of America.” The court agreed to hear arguments in the tariffs case on Nov. 5.

A victory for Trump would be “viewed as a dramatic expansion of presidential power,” said Washington attorney Stephanie Connor, who works on tariff cases. Trump and future presidents could sidestep Congress to impose tariffs simply by citing an emergency, she said.

But the decision itself may have a limited impact because the administration has announced new tariffs last week that were based on other national security laws.

Last month, Trump administration lawyers asked the Supreme Court to rule during the upcoming term on the birthright citizenship promised by the 14th Amendment of 1868.

They did not seek a fast-track ruling, however. Instead, they said the court should grant review and hear arguments on the regular schedule early next year. If so, a decision would be handed down by late June.

The amendment says: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States.”

And in the past, both Congress and the Supreme Court have agreed that rule applies broadly to all children who are born here, except if their parents are foreign ambassadors or diplomats who are not subject to U.S. laws.

But Trump Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer said that interpretation is mistaken. He said the post-Civil War amendment was “adopted to grant citizenship to freed slaves and their children, not to the children of illegal aliens, birth tourists and temporary visitors.”

Judges in three regions of the country have rejected Trump’s limits on the citizenship rule and blocked it from taking effect nationwide while the litigation continues.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court opens its new term on Monday and is scheduled to hear arguments in 33 cases this fall.

The justices will hear challenges to transgender rights, voting rights and Trump tariffs and will reconsider a 90-year-old precedent that protects officials of independent agencies from being fired by the president.

Here are the major cases set for argument:

Conversion therapy and free speech: Does a licensed mental health counselor have a 1st Amendment right to talk to patients under age 18 about changing their sexual orientation or gender identity, even if doing so is prohibited by state law?

California in 2012 was first state to ban “conversion therapy,” believing it was harmful to minors and leads to depression and suicide. Other states followed, relying on their authority to regulate the practice of medicine and to prohibit substandard care.

The Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal group, sued on behalf of a Colorado counselor and argued that the state is “censoring” her speech. (Chiles vs. Salazar, to be argued on Tuesday.)

Supreme Court Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., left, Clarence Thomas and Brett M. Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. attend inauguration ceremonies for Donald Trump in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20 in Washington.

(Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

Voting rights and Black majority districts: Does a state violate the Constitution if it redraws its congressional districts to create one with a Black majority?

In the past, the court has said racial gerrymandering is unconstitutional. But citing the Voting Rights Act, it also has ruled states must sometimes create an electoral district where a Black or Latino candidate has a good chance to win.

Otherwise, these minorities may be shut out from political representation in Congress, state legislatures or county boards.

But Justice Clarence Thomas has argued for outlawing all use of race in drawing district lines, and the court may adopt his view in a pending dispute over a second Black majority district in Louisiana. (Louisiana vs. Callais, to be argued Oct. 15.)

Trump and tariffs: Does President Trump have legal authority acting on his own to impose large import taxes on products coming from otherwise friendly countries?

Trump is relying on a 1977 law that empowers the president to act when faced with an “unusual and extraordinary threat” from abroad. The measure does not mention tariffs or taxes.

In a pair of cases, lower courts ruled the tariffs were illegal but kept them in place for now. Trump administration lawyers argue the justices should defer to the president because tariffs involve foreign affairs and national security. (Learning Resources vs. Trump, to be argued Nov. 5.)

The high court will look at whether transgender athletes can compete in certain sports. Above, a 100-meter hurdles event during a track meet in Riverside in April.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Transgender athletes and school sports: Can a state prevent a transgender student whose “biological sex at birth” was male from competing on a girls sports team?

West Virginia and Idaho adopted such laws but they were struck down by judges who said they violated the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection of laws and the federal Title IX law that bars sex discrimination in schools and colleges.

Trump voiced support for “keeping men out of women’s sports” — a characterization deemed false by transgender women and their advocates, among others. If the Supreme Court agrees, this rule is likely to be enforced nationwide under Title IX. (West Virginia vs. B.P.J. is due to be heard in December.)

Trump and independent agencies: May the president fire officials of independent agencies who were appointed with fixed terms set by Congress?

Since 1887, Congress has created semi-independent boards, commissions and agencies with regulatory duties. While their officials are appointed by the president, their fixed terms keep them in office when a new president takes over.

The Supreme Court upheld their independence from direct presidential control in the 1935 case of Humphreys Executor vs. U.S., but Trump has fired several such officials.

The current court has sided with Trump in two such cases and will hear arguments on whether to overturn the 90-year-old precedent. (Trump vs. Slaughter is due to be argued in December.)

Oct. 3 (UPI) — The Trump administration can resume its deportation of Venezuelans after the Supreme Court again overturned a lower court’s block on ending the temporary protected status.

The Department of Homeland Security in August ended the TPS protection for about 300,000 “migrants” from Venezuela, which U.S. District Court for Northern California Judge Edward Chen blocked on Sept. 5.

Chen’s ruling is the second in which he blocked the Trump administration’s effort to end protected status for Venezuelans, which the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld in August, The Hill reported.

The Supreme Court overturned Chen’s first ruling when the Trump administration sought an emergency hearing in May, according to The New York Times.

Chen, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, afterward said the Supreme Court ruling lacked detail and again blocked the Trump administration from ending the TPS protection.

The Supreme Court agreed to review the matter again and repeated its earlier ruling.

“Although the posture of the case has changed, the parties’ legal arguments and relative harms generally have not,” the unsigned Supreme Court order says.

“The same result that we reached in May is appropriate here.”

Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor said they would have denied the emergency relief request by the Trump administration.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson called the court’s ruling “another grave misuse of our emergency docket” in her dissenting opinion.

“We once again use our equitable power to allow this administration to disrupt as many lives as possible as quickly as possible,” Jackson said.

She accused the Supreme Court’s majority of GOP-appointed justices of “privileging the bald assertion of unconstrained executive power over countless families’ pleas for the stability our government has promised them.”

Shortly before leaving office, former President Joe Biden on Jan. 17 extended the temporary protected status for Venezuelans for another two years.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ended the protected status within days of the Senate confirming her nomination on Jan. 25.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has ruled for a second time that the Trump administration may cancel the “temporary protected status” given to about 600,000 Venezuelans under the Biden administration.

The move, advocates for the Venezuelans said, means thousands of lawfully present individuals could lose their jobs, be detained in immigration facilities and deported to a country that the U.S. government considers unsafe to visit.

The high court granted an emergency appeal from Trump’s lawyers and set aside decisions of U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

“Although the posture of the case has changed, the parties’ legal arguments and relative harms generally have not. The same result that we reached in May is appropriate here,” the court said in an unsigned order Friday.

Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor said they would have denied the appeal.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented. “I view today’s decision as yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket,” she wrote. “Because, respectfully, I cannot abide our repeated, gratuitous, and harmful interference with cases pending in the lower courts while lives hang in the balance, I dissent.”

Last month, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had overstepped her legal authority by canceling the legal protection.

Her decision “threw the future of these Venezuelan citizens into disarray and exposed them to substantial risk of wrongful removal, separation from their families and loss of employment,” the panel wrote.

But Trump’s lawyers said the law bars judges from reviewing these decisions by U.S. immigration officials.

Homeland Security applauded the Supreme Court’s action. “Temporary Protected Status was always supposed to be just that: Temporary,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “Yet, previous administrations abused, exploited, and mangled TPS into a de facto amnesty program.”

Congress authorized this protected status for people who are already in the United States but cannot return home because their native countries are not safe.

The Biden administration offered the protections to Venezuelans because of the political and economic collapse brought about by the authoritarian regime of Nicolás Maduro.

Alejandro Mayorkas, the Homeland Security secretary under Biden, granted the protected status to groups of Venezuelans in 2021 and 2023, totaling about 607,000 people.

Mayorkas extended it again in January, three days before Trump was sworn in. That same month, Noem decided to reverse the extension, which was set to expire for both groups of Venezuelans in October 2026.

Shortly afterward, Noem announced the termination of protections for the 2023 group by April.

In March, Chen issued an order temporarily pausing Noem’s repeal, which the Supreme Court set aside in May with only Jackson in dissent.

The San Francisco judge then held a hearing on the issue and concluded Noem’s repeal violated the Administrative Procedure Act because it was arbitrary and and not justified.

He said his earlier order imposing a temporary pause did not prevent him from ruling on the legality of the repeal, and the 9th Circuit agreed.

The approximately 350,000 Venezuelans who had TPS through the 2023 designation saw their legal status restored. Many reapplied for work authorization, said Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law, and a counsel for the plaintiffs.

In the meantime, Noem announced the cancellation of the 2021 designation, effective Nov. 7.

Trump’s solicitor general, D. John Sauer, went back to the Supreme Court in September and urged the justices to set aside the second order from Chen.

“This case is familiar to the Court and involves the increasingly familiar and untenable phenomenon of lower courts disregarding this Court’s orders on the emergency docket,” he said.

The Supreme Court’s decision once again reverses the legal status of the 2023 group and cements the end of legal protections for the 2021 group next month.

In a further complication, the Supreme Court’s previous decision said that anyone who had already received documents verifying their TPS status or employment authorization through next year is entitled to keep it.

That, Arulanantham said, “creates another totally bizarre situation, where there are some people who will have TPS through October 2026 as they’re supposed to because the Supreme Court says if you already got a document it can’t be canceled. Which to me just underscores how arbitrary and irrational the whole situation is.”

Advocates for the Venezuelans said the Trump administration has failed to show that their presence in the U.S. is an emergency requiring immediate court relief.

In a brief filed Monday, attorneys for the National TPS Alliance argued the Supreme Court should deny the Trump administration’s request because Homeland Security officials acted outside the scope of their authority by revoking the TPS protections early.

“Stripping the lawful immigration status of 600,000 people on 60 days’ notice is unprecedented,” Jessica Bansal, an attorney representing the Los Angeles-based National Day Laborer Organizing Network, wrote in a statement. “Doing it after promising an additional 18 months protection is illegal.”

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide if licensed guns owners have a right to carry their weapons at public places, including parks, beaches and stores.

At issue are laws in California, Hawaii and three other states that generally prohibit carrying guns on private or public property.

Three years ago, Supreme Court ruled that law-abiding gun owners had a 2nd Amendment right to obtain a permit to carry a concealed weapon when they leave home.

But the justices left open the question of whether states and cities could prohibit the carrying of guns in “sensitive locations,” and if so, where.

In response, California enacted a strict law that forbids gun owners from carrying their firearm in most public or private places that are open to the public unless the owner posted a sign permitting such weapons.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down that provision last year as going too far, but it upheld most of a Hawaii law that restricted the carrying of guns at public places and most private businesses that are open to the public.

Gun-rights advocates appealed to the Supreme Court and urged the justices to rule that such restrictions on carrying concealed weapons violate the 2nd Amendment.

The court agreed to hear the case early next year.

Trump administration lawyers urged the justices to strike down the Hawaii law.

It “functions as a near-complete ban on public carry. A person carrying a handgun for self-defense commits a crime by entering a mall, a gas station, a convenience store, a supermarket, a restaurant, a coffee shop, or even a parking lot,” said Solicitor General D. John Sauer.

Gun-control advocates said Hawaii had enacted a “common sense law that prohibits carrying firearms on others’ private property open to the public.”

“The 9th Circuit was absolutely right to say it’s constitutional to prohibit guns on private property unless the owner says they want guns there,” said Janet Carter, managing director of Second Amendment Litigation, at Everytown Law. “This law respects people’s right to be safe on their own property, and we urge the Supreme Court to uphold it.”