A new proposed policy is being sent to the Indiana General Assembly House and Senate ethics committees for further review before it lands in both chambers for a full vote. Even so, questions linger over whether the recommendations will change behavior and protect potential victims.
The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a federal court ruling for the city of Lawrenceburg in its firing of a criminally charged police officer, who claimed his termination implicated his First Amendment rights because it came after he complained about the mayor and purported wrongdoing by city officials.
President Donald Trump has provided the special counsel with written answers to questions about his knowledge of Russian interference in the 2016 election, his lawyers said Tuesday, avoiding, at least for now, a potentially risky sit-down with prosecutors. It’s the first time he has directly cooperated with the long investigation.
Two Republican state lawmakers have released draft legislation that would address Indiana’s lack of a hate crimes law by giving judges the ability to consider bias as an aggravating factor when considering prison sentences.
Appearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary Tuesday, Damon Leichty said he was a proud Hoosier who learned much from the federal judge he clerked for and has been nominated to replace – Northern Indiana District Court Senior Judge Robert Miller, Jr. Leichty is the last federal judicial nominee to a vacancy in an Indiana court to appear before the judiciary committee.
CNN is suing the Trump administration, demanding that correspondent Jim Acosta’s press credentials to cover the White House be returned. The administration revoked Acosta’s credentials last week, and the lawsuit claims the revocation violates the constitutional rights to freedom of the press and due process.
Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker will consult with Justice Department ethics officials about “matters that may warrant recusal” amid pressure from Democrats to step aside from overseeing the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
For proponents of medical marijuana, optimism was sparked when Indiana legalized CBD oil earlier this year. With that door opened, legislators in both parties are hopeful that success will boost their chances of getting a hearing on medical marijuana bills they will file in the 2019 legislative session.
The White House is bracing for the probe of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign to fire up again. Trump’s advisers are privately expressing worries that the special counsel, who’s been out of the news for the past month, has been stealthily compiling information and could soon issue new indictments or a damning final report.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions was pushed out after enduring more than a year of blistering and personal attacks from President Donald Trump, who inserted in his place a Republican Party loyalist with authority to oversee the remainder of the special counsel’s Russia investigation. The move Wednesday has potentially ominous implications for special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.
Southern Indiana voters rejected one trial court judge and narrowly re-elected another who was challenged by a former colleague who changed parties to run against her. Jefferson Circuit Court Judge Darrell Maurice Auxier, a Democrat, was the lone sitting Indiana trial court judge to lose his bid for re-election, while Clark Circuit Judge Vicki Carmichael retained her bench seat in one of Indiana’s closest countywide trial court races Tuesday.
Voters in Indiana and across the country head to the polls today to determine which party will control Congress and hold dozens of state and local elected offices — although thousands more voters than usual have already cast a ballot.
The Trump administration wants the Supreme Court to postpone a trial over the decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. The request submitted to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Monday says a federal judge in New York should not move forward with a Nov. 5 trial exploring whether Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross improperly decided the census should ask about citizenship for the first time since 1950.
Special prosecutor Daniel Sigler said he believes the four women who accused Attorney General Curtis Hill of groping them, but he said he chose not to file criminal charges against Hill because believing the women would not be enough in a court of law.
West Virginia’s Supreme Court has effectively halted the legislature’s remaining efforts to impeach the state’s justices as a violation of the separation of powers doctrine.
A judge has set a February sentencing date for Paul Manafort, who appeared in court Friday for a post-trial hearing in a wheelchair and green jail jumpsuit. The hearing in federal court in Alexandria was largely procedural but provided the first glimpse of the former Trump campaign chairman since he began cooperating with prosecutors in special counsel Robert Mueller’s office.
The U.S. accused a Russian woman on Friday of helping oversee the finances of a sweeping, secretive effort to sway American public opinion through social media in the first federal case alleging foreign interference in the 2018 midterm elections. The criminal complaint against Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova alleges Russians are using some of the same techniques to influence U.S. politics as they relied on ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
Legislators halted any progress of legalizing medical marijuana in Indiana on Thursday after a study committee failed to agree on how to move the issue forward.
Ask any constitutional scholar whether the process of confirming Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court played out as was constitutionally intended, and the answer will likely be “no.” Federal judges and practicing lawyers agree: regardless of your politics, the animosity that exploded in the Senate over the last month was not what the Framers had in mind.
James Patrick “J.P.” Hanlon was confirmed to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana by the U.S. Senate Thursday evening in a voice vote. The partner at Faegre Baker Daniels was nominated by President Donald Trump and will fill the vacancy created when Judge William Lawrence took senior status in July.