Policy Area

In an 8-1 opinion the Supreme Court held that a police officer may initiate a traffic stop after learning the registered owner of the vehicle has a revoked license unless the officer has information negating the inference the owner of the vehicle is the driver.

In Kansas v. Glover Deputy Mehrer ran the license plate of a vehicle he saw being driven lawfully, matched it to the vehicle he observed, and learned it was registered to Charles Glover...

James Kahler shot his wife, her grandmother, and his two daughters after his wife filed for divorce and moved out with their children. He argued that Kansas “unconstitutionally abolished the insanity defense” by allowing the conviction of a mentally ill person “who cannot tell the difference between right and wrong.” The Supreme Court disagreed.

In Kahler v. Kansas the Supreme Court held 6-3 that the Constitution’s Due Process Clause does not...

In Allen v. Cooper the Supreme Court held unanimously that a state cannot be sued for copyright infringement. In short, the Court found that Congress lacked the authority to strip states of their sovereign immunity in the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act (CRCA) of 1990.

After the pirate Blackbeard’s flagship Queen Anne’s Revenge was discovered in 1996 off the coast of Beaufort, North Carolina, the current owner of the ship, North...

In Comcast v. National Association of African-American Owned Media the Supreme Court held unanimously that a plaintiff who sues under 42 U.S.C. §1981 must plead and prove that race was the but-for cause of his or her injury. This case is particularly relevant to states and local governments as employers. The but-for causation is a standard favorable to employers.

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After nine months of extensive, unprecedented analysis of Michigan's county jail populations, a specially formed task force has delivered 18 recommendations to the Legislature designed to improve state policies and curb rising jail incarceration rates.

The bipartisan task force's work reflects concerns in Michigan about the impact of a growing jail population, which has occurred even amid big drops in the state's total crime rate (see line graph). 

In Jones v. Mississippi the Supreme Court will decide whether the Eighth Amendment requires the sentencing authority to make a finding that a juvenile is “permanently incorrigible” before imposing a sentence of life without parole.

In Miller v. Alabama (2012) the Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment bars life-without-parole sentences “for all but the rarest of...