Power

Gavel Drop: So Much Bad News for Daleiden. So Much.

Gavel Drop is a roundup of the good, bad, and absurd in the courts.

Welcome to Gavel Drop, our roundup of legal news, headlines, and head-shaking moments in the courts. Shutterstock

Welcome to Gavel Drop, our roundup of legal news, headlines, and head-shaking moments in the courts.

The New York Times profiled the lawyers representing the National Abortion Federation in its lawsuit against the recently indicted David Daleiden and his phony anti-choice front organization the Center for Medical Progress, and they sound badass.

Speaking of the indicted Daleiden, a federal judge in San Francisco told him no, he can’t share his Planned Parenthood attack videos with the Supreme Court ahead of oral arguments in the Texas clinic-shutdown case. (The Texas Observer explains what’s at stake in that case here.)

This lawyer sued state officials after a doctor concluded one of her twin daughters was a “shaken baby” and the state took both of her kids away. The lawsuit claims the science behind shaken baby syndrome is bunk.

So it looks like the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals might strike Utah’s polygamy ban.

This must-read piece on intellectual disabilities and parenthood in New York magazine asked the question: How smart must you be to raise a child?

A Texas woman claimed her employer forced her to have an abortion. Her allegations are horrible, as is the fact that anti-choice opponents have latched on to her case.

A Minnesota mom sued her insurance company for, according to her lawsuit, denying her transgender child coverage for transition-related medication and surgery.

Based on the numbers so far, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is likely never going to be president and he’s likely never going to stop introducing radical fetal “personhood” legislation either.

Anti-choice officials in Missouri really, really, really want to close this Planned Parenthood reproductive health-care center.

Joshua Woodward was sentenced to nine years in prison for slipping his pregnant girlfriend abortion-inducing drugs against her will.

Hospitals all over the country are quietly restricting abortion access as they get bought up by Catholic health-care corporations. Here’s the latest example.

Chipotle faces a sex discrimination lawsuit after a former employee claims a manager fired employees because they were women.

This week in frivolous lawsuits, the parents of a Maryland high schooler filed a federal lawsuit alleging that a two-week unit on Islam in the La Plata High School 11th grade World History class unconstitutionally promoted Islam over Christianity and Judaism.

Arizona Republicans are tired of that pesky Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overruling all their abortion restrictions, so they are shopping for a new court. Seriously.

Ending on a good note, the Roberts Court made it clear that juveniles cannot be sentenced to life without parole. Ever.