US Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from Dylann Roof, who challenged his death sentence and conviction in the 2015 racist slayings of nine members of a Black South Carolina congregation. Roof had asked the court to decide how to handle disputes over mental illness-related evidence between capital defendants and their attorneys. The justices did not comment Tuesday in turning away the appeal. Roof fired his attorneys and represented himself during the sentencing phase of his capital trial, part of his effort to block evidence potentially portraying him as mentally ill. Roof shot participants at a Bible study session at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

In their book, Justice Deferred - Race and the Supreme Court (2021, Belknap Press), historian Orville Vernon Burton and civil rights lawyer Armand Derfner shine a powerful light on the Court’s race record—a legacy at times uplifting, but more often distressing and sometimes disgraceful. Justice Deferred is the first book that comprehensively charts the Court’s race jurisprudence.The Supreme Court is usually seen as protector of our liberties: it ended segregation, was a guarantor of fair trials, and safeguarded free speech and the vote. But this narrative derives mostly from a short period, from the 1930s to the early 1970s. Before then, the Court spent a century largely ignoring or suppressing basic rights, while the fifty years since 1970 have witnessed a mostly accelerating retreat from racial justice.

In their book, Justice Deferred - Race and the Supreme Court (2021, Belknap Press), historian Orville Vernon Burton and civil rights lawyer Armand Derfner shine a powerful light on the Court’s race record—a legacy at times uplifting, but more often distressing and sometimes disgraceful. Justice Deferred is the first book that comprehensively charts the Court’s race jurisprudence.The Supreme Court is usually seen as protector of our liberties: it ended segregation, was a guarantor of fair trials, and safeguarded free speech and the vote. But this narrative derives mostly from a short period, from the 1930s to the early 1970s. Before then, the Court spent a century largely ignoring or suppressing basic rights, while the fifty years since 1970 have witnessed a mostly accelerating retreat from racial justice.

Abortion bans are temporarily blocked in Louisiana and Utah, while a federal court in South Carolina says a law sharply restricting the procedure can take effect there immediately. The decisions emerged as the battle over whether women may end pregnancies shifted from the nation's highest court to courthouses around the country. The U.S. Supreme Court's decision Friday to end constitutional protection for abortion opened the gates for a wave of litigation.

he South Carolina Senate has agreed to come back in special session later this year to take up abortion bills to respond to the possibility the U.S. Supreme Court allows states to ban the procedure. Republicans rejected a request by Democrats to also include in a special session a bill that would make South Carolina the 49th state to approve a hate crimes law. That bill will die if not approved before the end of the General Assembly's regular session Thursday. The special session resolution now goes to the House.

Rape, incest and the health of the fetus or mother were once accepted reasons to obtain an abortion in even the most conservative Republican-led states. But now roughly 20 states have abortion bans in the works without some of those exceptions. The shift comes as the Supreme Court is expected to overturn the nationwide right to abortion this summer.

Former Vice President Mike Pence says a leaked draft opinion suggesting the U.S. Supreme Court could be poised to overturn the landmark case that legalized abortion nationwide could have favorable impacts for anti-abortion candidates in midterm elections across the country. Pence spoke Thursday night at a fundraiser for a crisis pregnancy center in South Carolina. He says he feels Americans are "looking for women and men who are willing to stand up unapologetically for the cause of life this year and in the years to come." The early-voting state and its white Evangelical Christian voters would be a critical base of support if Pence seeks the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. This is his second visit to the state in less than a week.

President Biden, Vice President Harris and Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson are set to deliver remarks on the Senate's historic, bipartisan confirmation of Jackson to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court. Jackson will be the first Black woman to serve on the nation's highest court. Watch live, here, at 12:15...

The South Carolina federal judge recently under consideration for a slot on the U.S. Supreme Court has received a top legal award from a trial lawyer group in her home state. The South Carolina Association for Justice announced Monday that Michelle Childs has been named recipient of the Outstanding Contribution to Justice Award. Childs has been a federal judge on South Carolina's District Court for more than a decade. She was on a shortlist of candidates being considered by President Joe Biden for an upcoming vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court. Biden ultimately tapped Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham says he won't vote for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson. He expressed concerns about her record despite supporting her confirmation as an appeals court judge last year. The South Carolina senator's announcement Thursday was expected after he criticized Jackson during her four days of hearings last week. But it gives Democrats one less Republican vote as they seek bipartisan backing for President Joe Biden's pick to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer. Graham, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska were the only three Republicans to vote to confirm Jackson on the appeals court in 2021.