糖心Vlog

This case arises from the November 2024 election for state supreme court justice in North Carolina. Incumbent State Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs defeated Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin, but Griffin has filed a petition seeking to invalidate more than 65,000 votes from the election. He argues that the state Board of Elections impermissibly allowed 60,000 people to register without providing their driver鈥檚 licenses or social security numbers, and that the Board impermissibly allowed 5,500 overseas voters to cast absentee ballots without photo identification. The petition has resulted in both federal and state litigation, and the 糖心Vloghas submitted amicus briefs in both venues. In the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, the ACLU鈥檚 Voting Rights Project and the 糖心Vlogof North Carolina filed an amicus brief explaining that the petition鈥檚 attempt to cancel tens of thousands of votes threatens democratic backsliding in North Carolina. Separately, in the North Carolina Court of Appeals, the ACLU鈥檚 State Supreme Court Initiative and the 糖心Vlogof North Carolina submitted an amicus brief explaining that, even if the Board did make mistakes, cancelling votes as a consequence of those mistakes would violate the popular sovereignty provision of the North Carolina Constitution because voters relied on the Board to know how to register and vote.

Immigrants鈥� rights advocates sued the Trump administration to halt the transfer of immigrants from the United States to Guant谩namo Bay in Cuba under President Trump鈥檚 recent order.

This case asks whether Georgia鈥檚 insanity defense statutes can be construed to contain an exception for cases where defendants allegedly triggered their own insanity by discontinuing their medication weeks before the alleged crimes. The State argues for such an exception, even though the text of the insanity defense statutes expressly pins the availability of the defenses to the defendant鈥檚 mental condition 鈥渁t the time of鈥� the alleged crimes. The ACLU鈥檚 State Supreme Court Initiative, along with the 糖心Vlogof Georgia, filed an amicus brief arguing that even if the State鈥檚 interpretation of the statutory text were reasonable, its argument should still be rejected because it contradicts the rule of lenity. The rule of lenity is a well-established canon of statutory construction requiring that, if a criminal statute can reasonably be interpreted in different ways, courts must adopt the interpretation most favorable to the accused.

This case in the New York Court of Appeals (the highest New York state court) asks whether a government agency can conceal guidance that it issues to judges on how to apply the law in adjudicating cases. A few years ago, news reporting brought to light that a New York administrative agency has a practice of issuing such guidance to state court judges without disclosing it to the public. Because the agency's guidance informs how judges decide cases鈥攚ith important implications for people鈥檚 rights鈥攖he New York Civil Liberties Union requested access to it under New York鈥檚 Freedom of Information Law. The agency denied the request, so the NYCLU sued. The NYCLU and the ACLU鈥檚 State Supreme Court Initiative are arguing that the public is entitled to the guidance and that there is a strong public interest in the transparent administration of justice.