Supreme Court rejects appeal over transgender bathrooms
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court will not take up a challenge to a Pennsylvania school district’s policy allowing transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond with their sexual identity.
The justices on Tuesday rejected an appeal from students who argued that allowing transgender students to use the same facilities violated their right to privacy.
The court’s order leaves in a place a federal appeals court ruling that held that the Boyertown School District, about 45 miles (72 kilometers) northeast of Philadelphia, could continue to allow transgender students the choice of what facilities to use.
The students are represented by the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom.
Supreme Court agrees to hear U.S.-Mexico border shooting case
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court will decide whether the family of a Mexican teenager who was shot to death by an American border agent can sue for damages in U.S. courts.
The justices said Tuesday that they will hear arguments next term in a case involving an agent who fired shots across the U.S.-Mexico border that killed 15-year-old Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca. The shooting occurred in 2010 on the border between El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez.
The U.S. Border Patrol agent says he fired his gun because he was being attacked by people throwing rocks on the Mexican side of the border.
The Supreme Court heard arguments in the case in 2017. It previously sent the case back to a lower court for additional proceedings.
Supreme Court upholds Indiana abortion law on fetal remains
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is upholding an Indiana law that requires abortion providers to dispose of aborted fetuses in the same way as human remains. But the justices are staying out of the debate over a broader, blocked provision that would prevent a woman in Indiana from having an abortion based on gender, race or disability.
The court split 7-2 in allowing Indiana to enforce the fetal remains measure that had been blocked by a federal appeals court. The justices said in an unsigned opinion that the case does not involve limits on abortion rights.
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented. Ginsburg said in a short opinion that she believes that the issue does implicate a woman’s right to an abortion “without undue interference from the state.”
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago had blocked both provisions of a law signed by Vice President Mike Pence in 2016 when he was Indiana’s governor.
The court’s action Tuesday keeps it out of an election-year review of the Indiana law amid a flurry of new state laws that go the very heart of abortion rights. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey this month signed a law that would ban virtually all abortions, even in cases of incest and rape, and subject doctors who perform them to criminal prosecution. The law has yet to take effect and is being challenged in court.
Other states have passed laws that would outlaw abortions once a fetal heartbeat has been detected, typically around six weeks of gestation.
The Indiana measure that would have prevented a woman from having an abortion for reasons related to race, gender or disability gets closer to the core abortion right. While the justices declined to hear the state’s appeal of that blocked provision Tuesday, they indicated that their decision “expresses no view on the merits.”
Justice Clarence Thomas, who supports overturning the Roe v. Wade decision that first declared abortion rights, wrote a 20-page opinion in which he said the provision promotes “a state’s compelling interest in preventing abortion from becoming a tool of modern-day eugenics.” No other justice joined the opinion.
Supreme Court rules against Alaska man in free speech case
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is ruling against an Alaska resident in a case that affects people arrested by law enforcement officers who want to sue and claim their arrest was retaliation for something they said or wrote.
The high court ruled Tuesday that because the officers had probable cause to arrest Russell Bartlett, his lawsuit fails.
Bartlett was arrested in 2014 at Arctic Man. It’s a snowmobile and ski race event that draws thousands to a remote campsite in Alaska. Bartlett was arrested for disorderly conduct after exchanging words with two troopers investigating underage drinking.
The charges against Bartlett were ultimately dismissed but Bartlett sued claiming his arrest was retaliation for comments he made to the officers. His lawsuit was first dismissed but then revived.
