Twitter’s decision to ban VOA Chief National Correspondent and JURIST Journalist in Residence Steve Herman is an affront to freedom of the press, Twitter’s professed championing of free speech, and the public good. As a team of law student journalists reporting from 22 countries around the world, we know all too well that self-serving and [...]

Prominent journalists, including those from The Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, Voice of America and other outlets, had their Twitter accounts suspended Thursday. The ban also affected non-media related accounts, such as the official account for Mastodon, a rival social media platform that has been described as an alternative to Twitter. This wave of [...]

A Union Parish, Louisiana, grand jury Thursday indicted five Louisiana State Police (LSP) officers relating to the 2019 death of Black driver Ronald Greene in police custody. Greene died on a roadside in northeast Louisiana, and authorities initially ruled that his death was the result of a car crash. However, suppressed body camera footage soon [...]

The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) Friday released its annual year-end report on the death penalty in the US, highlighting continually declining rates of execution despite what the DPIC called “incendiary political advertising that drove the public’s perception of rising crime to record highs.” For the eighth year in a row, authorities issued fewer than [...]

A Michigan court Thursday sentenced three men involved in a 2020 plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer to prison. Pete Musico, Joseph Morrison and Paul Bellar were all sentenced in the Jackson County Circuit Court to separate prison terms after a jury found them guilty of felony charges in October. Musico received a 12-year [...]

The US House of Representatives Thursday passed the Puerto Rico Status Act, which would allow Puerto Ricans to vote on whether they wish to become the 51st US state, an independent country or remain sovereign but associated with the US. The bill’s passage was bipartisan, garnering the support of 217 Democrats and 16 Republicans. 191 [...]

The Michigan Supreme Court Tuesday issued an order that denied plaintiff’s leave for appeal in William Bailey v. Antrim County. The court said it was “not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this Court.” Instead, the court held that “the Court of Appeals properly rejected plaintiff’s argument that he has a right [...]

Oregon Governor Kate Brown Tuesday commuted the death sentences of 17 individuals to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. In the commutation of sentence, Governor Brown argued “that the death penalty is dysfunctional and immoral in all circumstances.” The 17 individuals were previously sentenced to death in the state of Oregon. In Article V, Section [...]

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) Tuesday introduced bipartisan legislation to ban popular social media site TikTok. The ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act aims to implement a nation-wide halt of operations for TikTok and its parent company ByteDance, Ltd. Representatives Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) sponsored companion legislation in the House of Representatives. Senator Rubio claims the act [...]

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Tuesday brought civil charges against Samuel Bankman-Fried, CEO and co-founder of the crypto trading platform FTX Trading Ltd. US prosecutors also unsealed criminal charges against Bankman-Fried on Tuesday following his arrest in the Bahamas. The SEC alleges that Bankman-Fried defrauded equity investors and customers of FTX by diverting assets [...]