judicial diversity
October 22, 2020 -
As millions of voters cast ballots this month, federal courts in the South shot down attempts to make voting easier during the pandemic, and some relied on a novel argument giving them more power to overrule state courts. The rulings have led to calls to expand the Supreme Court and lower courts if Democrats take the White House and Senate.
August 26, 2020 -
Southern states are holding judicial elections this year that will shape the outcome of critical cases involving voting rights and criminal justice. The elections could also bring unprecedented diversity to courts in some states.
June 3, 2020 -
Stacked with appointments from Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Florida Supreme Court is quickly overturning previous decisions that barred the death penalty for some defendants with intellectual disabilities and those who were sentenced by non-unanimous juries.
November 21, 2019 -
The plaintiffs in a racial gerrymandering lawsuit want a North Carolina court to block judicial elections in districts that were drawn last year by the state legislature. In the racially diverse city of Charlotte, three of the eight districts are more than 70 percent white.
November 6, 2019 -
In Texas, which has long debated changes to its system of partisan judicial elections, Republican leaders began pushing an appointment system just a few months after last year's Democratic sweep in Houston's judicial elections. One proposed bill would put an end to elected judges in urban counties.
October 24, 2019 -
When they took office, President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis both appointed high court justices that shifted a supreme court to the right. Both executives have relied on the conservative Federalist Society to suggest nominees, and both have faced criticism for appointing mostly white judges.
August 27, 2019 -
The latest gerrymandering lawsuit in North Carolina claims that when legislators changed judicial elections districts in Charlotte last year, they packed black voters into a few districts and violated a constitutional mandate for a "unified" state court system.
