New York
Appeals court pauses Tufts student’s transfer to Vermont in immigration detention case
A federal appeals court has paused a judge’s order to bring a Turkish Tufts University student from a Louisiana immigration detention center back to New England this week so it can consider an emergency motion filed by the government.
The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New York, ruled Monday that a three-judge panel would hear arguments on May 6 in the case of Rumeysa Ozturk. She’s been detained for five weeks as of Tuesday.
A district court judge in Vermont had earlier ordered that the 30-year-old doctoral student be brought to the state by Thursday for hearings to determine whether she was illegally detained. Ozturk’s lawyers say her detention violates her constitutional rights, including free speech and due process.
The U.S. Justice Department, which is appealing that ruling, said that an immigration court in Louisiana has jurisdiction over her case.
Congress limited federal-court jurisdiction over immigration matters, government lawyers wrote. Yet the Vermont judge’s order “defies those limits at every turn in a way that irreparably harms the government.”
Ozturk’s lawyers opposed the emergency motion. “In practice, that temporary pause could last many months,” they said in a news release.
Immigration officials surrounded Ozturk as she walked along a street in a Boston suburb March 25 and drove her to New Hampshire and Vermont before putting her on a plane to a detention center in Basile, Louisiana.
Ozturk was one of four students who wrote an op-ed in the campus newspaper, The Tufts Daily, last year criticizing the university’s response to student activists demanding that Tufts “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,” disclose its investments and divest from companies with ties to Israel.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in March, without providing evidence, that investigations found that Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group.
Nevada
Judge pauses law requiring parental notification for minors to receive an abortion
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A long-dormant Nevada law requiring parents or guardians to be notified before a minor can have an abortion will not take effect this week following a federal judge’s ruling.
The 1985 law has never before been enforced in Nevada because of court rulings that found it was unconstitutional based on Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that made abortion access a constitutional right for a half century.
The ban on the Nevada’s law was set to expire Wednesday under a recent federal court order citing the 2022 reversal of Roe, but abortion rights activists appealed. That led U.S. District Judge Anne Traum to issue an order Friday saying the law won’t take effect yet to give Planned Parenthood time to ask the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to keep the law unenforceable while it challenges it.
If Planned Parenthood doesn’t file its request with the appellate court within seven days of Traum’s order, she said the law can be enforced in Nevada. The Associated Press sent emails Monday seeking comment from attorneys for Planned Parenthood.
Planned Parenthood has argued that the 40-year-old law, despite the reversal of Roe, remains “unconstitutionally vague” and that it violates minors’ rights to due process and equal protection.
Abortions in Nevada are legal until 24 weeks, with exceptions to save a mother’s life or to protect her health. In November, a ballot question to enshrine Nevada’s abortion rights in the state constitution received its first nod of approval from voters, who must also approve the measure in 2026 in order to amend the constitution.
Parental involvement in a minor’s decision to have an abortion is required in 36 states, according to KFF, a nonprofit that researches health care issues. Some states require only parental notification, as is the case with Nevada’s law, while other states also require consent.
Nevada’s law also allows a minor to get a court order authorizing an abortion without first notifying parents or guardians.
New York
Judge tosses lawsuit brought by ex-college basketball players over use of NIL
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge dismissed an antitrust lawsuit Monday that had been brought against the NCAA by several former college basketball players, including Kansas standout Mario Chalmers, after ruling its claims fell outside the four-year statute of limitations.
The lawsuit, which included 16 total players who played before June 16, 2016, claimed that the NCAA had enriched itself by utilizing their names, images and likenesses to promote its men’s basketball tournament. That date in 2016 is the earliest date for players to be included in the House v. NCAA antitrust settlement awaiting final approval from a federal judge.
U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer pointed toward a four-year statute of limitations for federal antitrust violations, despite the lawsuit contending that the law continues to be breached by the NCAA’s use of the players’ NIL in March Madness promotions.
Chalmers famously hit a tying 3-pointer with 2.1 seconds left for Kansas in the 2008 title game against Memphis, a highlight that remains a staple of NCAA Tournament packages. The Jayhawks went on to win the championship in overtime.
“The NCAA’s use today of a NIL acquired decades ago as the fruit of an antitrust violation does not constitute a new overt act restarting the limitations clock,” Engelmayer wrote in the 34-page decision. “Instead, as the NCAA argues, the contemporary use of a NIL reflects performance of an aged agreement: a contract between the student-athlete and the NCAA under which it acquired footage and images of the plaintiff.”
Engelmayer also noted that the plaintiffs were part of the class in O’Bannon v. NCAA, the 2015 case that helped to usher in the age of NIL payments so the lawsuit was not demonstrably different from other settled cases involving the athletes.
Connecticut
Impaired driver who struck and killed a trooper receives 18 years
NEW BRITAIN, Conn. (AP) — A man who was high on drugs when he struck and killed a Connecticut state trooper on a highway last year was sentenced Tuesday to 18 years in prison, punishment not considered long enough by the trooper’s widow.
Alex Oyola-Sanchez, 45, of Hartford, apologized and asked for forgiveness from the family of Trooper First Class Aaron Pelletier during a hearing at New Britain Superior Court.
Pelletier’s widow, Dominique Pelletier, had called for a 30-year prison sentence. Their two sons were 3 and 5 years old when their father was killed.
The 18-year prison term was agreed to by the defense and prosecution when Oyola-Sanchez pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in February.
Pelletier, a nine-year veteran of the state police, was working overtime on a traffic enforcement detail on May 30, 2024, when he pulled over a driver for not wearing a seat belt on Interstate 84 in Southington. As he was talking to the driver, a pickup truck entered the right shoulder and struck Pelletier, his cruiser and the stopped vehicle before driving off.
Oyola-Sanchez was arrested several towns away on I-84 and charged with manslaughter, operating under the influence of alcohol or drugs and several other crimes. According to police, he later told investigators that he snorted fentanyl and cocaine earlier that day.
Oyola-Sanchez had previous convictions in his native Puerto Rico for third-degree murder and three counts of attempted homicide, according to a state bail commissioner.
Washington
Supreme Court likely to rule narrowly for family whose house was wrongly raided by FBI
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court seemed likely Tuesday to rule narrowly in favor of a family trying to hold federal law enforcement accountable in court after an FBI raid wrongly targeted their Atlanta home.
The justices seemed open to giving them another chance to sue over the raid, but wary of handing down a more sweeping ruling on federal liability in law enforcement cases.
The case was filed after FBI agents broke down Trina Martin’s door before dawn in 2017. They pointed guns at Martin and her then-boyfriend and terrified her 7-year-old son before realizing they were in the wrong place.
The FBI team quickly apologized and left, with the leader later saying that his personal GPS device had led him to the wrong place.
The government says judges shouldn’t be second-guessing decisions made in the absence of a specific policy and Martin can’t sue over an honest mistake. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, tossing out the lawsuit in 2022.
Both liberal and conservative justices appeared skeptical of the government’s position, with Justice Neil Gorsuch asking incredulously, “No policy says, ‘Don’t break down the door of the wrong house? Don’t traumatize its occupants?’”
Still, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was among those who suggested there could be some situations where law enforcement decisions should be shielded from liability, though “perhaps not here.”
The justices seemed to be leaning toward tossing out part of the 11th Circuit’s decision and sending it back for more litigation. A decision is expected around the end of June.
Public interest groups from across the political spectrum have urged the court to overturn the ruling, saying it differs from other courts around the country and its reasoning would severely narrow the legal path for people to try and hold federal law enforcement accountable in court.
Washington
Disability-rights arguments grow heated at Supreme Court
WASHINGTON (AP) — A disability-rights case at the Supreme Court grew unusually heated on Monday, including accusations of lying and references to one side’s position being a potential “five-alarm fire.”
The appeal comes from a teenage girl with a rare form of epilepsy whose family says some courts have made it too hard to sue public schools that fail to make sure students get what they need to learn.
Her family appealed to the Supreme Court after lower courts blocked their discrimination case despite findings that her Minnesota school hadn’t done enough to accommodate her.
Their attorney, Roman Martinez, said the district’s position had shifted to a potential “five-alarm fire” for the disability-rights community.
Instead of defending the lower-court decisions that set a different legal standard to sue schools, the district argued that all claims over accommodations for people with disabilities should be held to the higher same standard.
The school district’s lawyer, Lisa Blatt, pushed back on the idea that their arguments had changed. “They are adding words to our mouth. We never said you should have a double regime,” she said.
At the insistence of Justice Neil Gorsuch, she withdrew the allegation that the other side had lied but held firm to the contention that disability-rights claims should be held to a higher legal standard.
The justices appeared skeptical of that argument, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett calling it a “sea change” and questioning whether any lower courts had adopted a similar view.
A decision in the case is expected by the end of June.
Appeals court pauses Tufts student’s transfer to Vermont in immigration detention case
A federal appeals court has paused a judge’s order to bring a Turkish Tufts University student from a Louisiana immigration detention center back to New England this week so it can consider an emergency motion filed by the government.
The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New York, ruled Monday that a three-judge panel would hear arguments on May 6 in the case of Rumeysa Ozturk. She’s been detained for five weeks as of Tuesday.
A district court judge in Vermont had earlier ordered that the 30-year-old doctoral student be brought to the state by Thursday for hearings to determine whether she was illegally detained. Ozturk’s lawyers say her detention violates her constitutional rights, including free speech and due process.
The U.S. Justice Department, which is appealing that ruling, said that an immigration court in Louisiana has jurisdiction over her case.
Congress limited federal-court jurisdiction over immigration matters, government lawyers wrote. Yet the Vermont judge’s order “defies those limits at every turn in a way that irreparably harms the government.”
Ozturk’s lawyers opposed the emergency motion. “In practice, that temporary pause could last many months,” they said in a news release.
Immigration officials surrounded Ozturk as she walked along a street in a Boston suburb March 25 and drove her to New Hampshire and Vermont before putting her on a plane to a detention center in Basile, Louisiana.
Ozturk was one of four students who wrote an op-ed in the campus newspaper, The Tufts Daily, last year criticizing the university’s response to student activists demanding that Tufts “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,” disclose its investments and divest from companies with ties to Israel.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in March, without providing evidence, that investigations found that Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group.
Nevada
Judge pauses law requiring parental notification for minors to receive an abortion
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A long-dormant Nevada law requiring parents or guardians to be notified before a minor can have an abortion will not take effect this week following a federal judge’s ruling.
The 1985 law has never before been enforced in Nevada because of court rulings that found it was unconstitutional based on Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that made abortion access a constitutional right for a half century.
The ban on the Nevada’s law was set to expire Wednesday under a recent federal court order citing the 2022 reversal of Roe, but abortion rights activists appealed. That led U.S. District Judge Anne Traum to issue an order Friday saying the law won’t take effect yet to give Planned Parenthood time to ask the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to keep the law unenforceable while it challenges it.
If Planned Parenthood doesn’t file its request with the appellate court within seven days of Traum’s order, she said the law can be enforced in Nevada. The Associated Press sent emails Monday seeking comment from attorneys for Planned Parenthood.
Planned Parenthood has argued that the 40-year-old law, despite the reversal of Roe, remains “unconstitutionally vague” and that it violates minors’ rights to due process and equal protection.
Abortions in Nevada are legal until 24 weeks, with exceptions to save a mother’s life or to protect her health. In November, a ballot question to enshrine Nevada’s abortion rights in the state constitution received its first nod of approval from voters, who must also approve the measure in 2026 in order to amend the constitution.
Parental involvement in a minor’s decision to have an abortion is required in 36 states, according to KFF, a nonprofit that researches health care issues. Some states require only parental notification, as is the case with Nevada’s law, while other states also require consent.
Nevada’s law also allows a minor to get a court order authorizing an abortion without first notifying parents or guardians.
New York
Judge tosses lawsuit brought by ex-college basketball players over use of NIL
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge dismissed an antitrust lawsuit Monday that had been brought against the NCAA by several former college basketball players, including Kansas standout Mario Chalmers, after ruling its claims fell outside the four-year statute of limitations.
The lawsuit, which included 16 total players who played before June 16, 2016, claimed that the NCAA had enriched itself by utilizing their names, images and likenesses to promote its men’s basketball tournament. That date in 2016 is the earliest date for players to be included in the House v. NCAA antitrust settlement awaiting final approval from a federal judge.
U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer pointed toward a four-year statute of limitations for federal antitrust violations, despite the lawsuit contending that the law continues to be breached by the NCAA’s use of the players’ NIL in March Madness promotions.
Chalmers famously hit a tying 3-pointer with 2.1 seconds left for Kansas in the 2008 title game against Memphis, a highlight that remains a staple of NCAA Tournament packages. The Jayhawks went on to win the championship in overtime.
“The NCAA’s use today of a NIL acquired decades ago as the fruit of an antitrust violation does not constitute a new overt act restarting the limitations clock,” Engelmayer wrote in the 34-page decision. “Instead, as the NCAA argues, the contemporary use of a NIL reflects performance of an aged agreement: a contract between the student-athlete and the NCAA under which it acquired footage and images of the plaintiff.”
Engelmayer also noted that the plaintiffs were part of the class in O’Bannon v. NCAA, the 2015 case that helped to usher in the age of NIL payments so the lawsuit was not demonstrably different from other settled cases involving the athletes.
Connecticut
Impaired driver who struck and killed a trooper receives 18 years
NEW BRITAIN, Conn. (AP) — A man who was high on drugs when he struck and killed a Connecticut state trooper on a highway last year was sentenced Tuesday to 18 years in prison, punishment not considered long enough by the trooper’s widow.
Alex Oyola-Sanchez, 45, of Hartford, apologized and asked for forgiveness from the family of Trooper First Class Aaron Pelletier during a hearing at New Britain Superior Court.
Pelletier’s widow, Dominique Pelletier, had called for a 30-year prison sentence. Their two sons were 3 and 5 years old when their father was killed.
The 18-year prison term was agreed to by the defense and prosecution when Oyola-Sanchez pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in February.
Pelletier, a nine-year veteran of the state police, was working overtime on a traffic enforcement detail on May 30, 2024, when he pulled over a driver for not wearing a seat belt on Interstate 84 in Southington. As he was talking to the driver, a pickup truck entered the right shoulder and struck Pelletier, his cruiser and the stopped vehicle before driving off.
Oyola-Sanchez was arrested several towns away on I-84 and charged with manslaughter, operating under the influence of alcohol or drugs and several other crimes. According to police, he later told investigators that he snorted fentanyl and cocaine earlier that day.
Oyola-Sanchez had previous convictions in his native Puerto Rico for third-degree murder and three counts of attempted homicide, according to a state bail commissioner.
Washington
Supreme Court likely to rule narrowly for family whose house was wrongly raided by FBI
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court seemed likely Tuesday to rule narrowly in favor of a family trying to hold federal law enforcement accountable in court after an FBI raid wrongly targeted their Atlanta home.
The justices seemed open to giving them another chance to sue over the raid, but wary of handing down a more sweeping ruling on federal liability in law enforcement cases.
The case was filed after FBI agents broke down Trina Martin’s door before dawn in 2017. They pointed guns at Martin and her then-boyfriend and terrified her 7-year-old son before realizing they were in the wrong place.
The FBI team quickly apologized and left, with the leader later saying that his personal GPS device had led him to the wrong place.
The government says judges shouldn’t be second-guessing decisions made in the absence of a specific policy and Martin can’t sue over an honest mistake. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, tossing out the lawsuit in 2022.
Both liberal and conservative justices appeared skeptical of the government’s position, with Justice Neil Gorsuch asking incredulously, “No policy says, ‘Don’t break down the door of the wrong house? Don’t traumatize its occupants?’”
Still, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was among those who suggested there could be some situations where law enforcement decisions should be shielded from liability, though “perhaps not here.”
The justices seemed to be leaning toward tossing out part of the 11th Circuit’s decision and sending it back for more litigation. A decision is expected around the end of June.
Public interest groups from across the political spectrum have urged the court to overturn the ruling, saying it differs from other courts around the country and its reasoning would severely narrow the legal path for people to try and hold federal law enforcement accountable in court.
Washington
Disability-rights arguments grow heated at Supreme Court
WASHINGTON (AP) — A disability-rights case at the Supreme Court grew unusually heated on Monday, including accusations of lying and references to one side’s position being a potential “five-alarm fire.”
The appeal comes from a teenage girl with a rare form of epilepsy whose family says some courts have made it too hard to sue public schools that fail to make sure students get what they need to learn.
Her family appealed to the Supreme Court after lower courts blocked their discrimination case despite findings that her Minnesota school hadn’t done enough to accommodate her.
Their attorney, Roman Martinez, said the district’s position had shifted to a potential “five-alarm fire” for the disability-rights community.
Instead of defending the lower-court decisions that set a different legal standard to sue schools, the district argued that all claims over accommodations for people with disabilities should be held to the higher same standard.
The school district’s lawyer, Lisa Blatt, pushed back on the idea that their arguments had changed. “They are adding words to our mouth. We never said you should have a double regime,” she said.
At the insistence of Justice Neil Gorsuch, she withdrew the allegation that the other side had lied but held firm to the contention that disability-rights claims should be held to a higher legal standard.
The justices appeared skeptical of that argument, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett calling it a “sea change” and questioning whether any lower courts had adopted a similar view.
A decision in the case is expected by the end of June.
