The District Attorney’s Office is considering the next steps in the wake of a judge’s ruling last month that the dismissal of a juror in the lead-up to a 2001 capital trial of two men in the murder of an elderly Newton Grove woman was “improperly motivated by a gender discriminatory intent” by the state.

”This office is consulting with the Office of the Attorney General to determine what appellate action, if any, should be taken as to the trial court’s order,” District Attorney Ernie lee told The Independent this week.

A joint evidentiary hearing was held over two days

More than 23 years after a Black man was sentenced to death for the killings of three White youths in Texas, his new attorneys have revealed evidence that his past counsel and members of an all-White jury expressed a racist animus against him. File Photo courtesy of Florida Department of Corrections

This post was originally published on the RLUIPA Defense blog by Evan Seeman, Esq. and Madeleine Laffitte, Esq. of Robinson Cole and is reposted with permission.

On December 30, 2022, a district court dismissed a Catholic high school’s RLUIPA challenge, granting summary judgment on all claims in favor of the City of Madison, Wisconsin and various other city officials (the City). As ruled by the court, the City did not discriminate against Edgewood High School of the Sacred Heart, Inc. on the basis of religion when it was denied Edgewood’s latest conditional use permit application for outdoor lighting at the

Attorneys for the family of Tyre Nichols, the 29-year-old Black man fatally beaten by the Memphis police following a traffic stop, expressed disappointment and frustration with the Memphis Police Department over the news that a sixth officer involved in the stop has been relieved of his duty, but has not been fired or charged.

Officer Preston Hemphill, who is white, was relieved of his duties “when the other officers were relieved,” a Memphis police spokesperson told Memphis ABC affiliate WATN. That was

This post was originally published in Municipal Minute by Julie Tappendorf, Esq. of Ancel Glink and is reposted with permission

In Xochi, LLC v. City of Galena, the Illinois Appellate Court found the City immune from liability under the Tort Immunity Act for claims relating to a zoning approval relating to a cannabis dispensary and upheld the dismissal of the case against the City.

Xochi owned a building in the City of Galena which it agreed to lease to Veriflife, who intended to operate a cannabis dispensary. Verilife asked the City to complete a zoning form to certify that local

This post was authored by Amy Lavine, Esq.

A Massachusetts case decided in August considered the Town of Nantucket’s zoning definitions for “hot tub/spa” and “swimming pool.” Specifically, the zoning code defined a “hot tub/spa” as a structure with less than 150 square feet of surface area and more than two feet of depth, while a “swimming pool” was defined as a structure either with more than 150 square feet of surface area or containing more than 1,000 gallons of water. The definition created a dilemma because of the structure “could at the same time have less than 150 square

Climate Torts Against Big Agriculture

Shanthi Chackalackal

Over the past two decades, the way society has discussed what was once referred to as “global warming” has changed dramatically, becoming “climate change,” “the climate crisis,” and most recently, “the climate emergency.” This new sense of urgency reflects more than just rhetorical flourish; underlying it are the increasingly direct warnings of the scientific community that if governments do not act swiftly to curb carbon emissions, the devastating effects of the climate crisis will become irreversible. In a recent press release, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Chair Hoesung Lee emphasized the necessity