Primaries offer 1st major test of voter ID
In elections that begin next week, voters in 10 states will be required to present photo identification before casting ballots — the first major test of voter ID laws after years of legal challenges arguing that the measures are designed to suppress voting.
Only 100 voter IDs distributed so far
About 100 Mississippi Voter ID cards — equal to about three-one thousandths of the state’s population — have been distributed statewide since the start of a campaign to ensure voters are ready for mandatory photo IDs at the polls this year.
Voter ID window opens across Mississippi
Fifteen counties in Mississippi have issued Voter ID cards since the window opened last week for registered voters who need to get one.
Lowndes County isn’t one of those 15, circuit clerk Haley Salazar said Friday, but she expects that to change as the June 3 congressional primaries draw nearer.
Supreme Court denies Killen second look
The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a rehearing request from Edgar Ray Killen, convicted in 2005 for the 1964 slayings of three civil rights workers in Mississippi.
Miss. death penalty case before high court
The U.S. Supreme Court consideration of an appeal from a woman on Mississippi’s death row has been delayed.
High court case: abortion clinic protest-free zone
Eleanor McCullen clutches a baby’s hat knit in pink and blue as she patrols a yellow semicircle painted on the sidewalk outside a Planned Parenthood health clinic on a frigid December morning with snow in the forecast.
The painted line marks 35 feet from the clinic’s entrance and that’s where the 77-year-old McCullen and all other abortion protesters and supporters must stay under a Massachusetts law that is being challenged at the U.S. Supreme Court as an unconstitutional infringement on free speech. Arguments are set for Wednesday.
Technology? Some justices want to keep distance
At the Supreme Court, technology can be regarded as a necessary evil, and sometimes not even necessary.
When the justices have something to say to each other in writing, they never do it by email. Their courthouse didn’t even have a photocopying machine until 1969, a few years after “Xerox” had become a verb.
Justice delays health law’s birth control mandate
The Supreme Court has thrown a hitch into President Barack Obama’s new health care law by blocking a requirement that some religion-affiliated organizations provide health insurance that includes birth control.
Gay marriage’s latest frontier: State courts
Advocates on both sides of the gay marriage debate predicted that the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June that overturned part of a federal ban on gay marriage would create a pathway for states to act.
They were right.
Voter ID equipment installed in Lowndes Co.
Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann visited the Lowndes County Courthouse Monday to supervise the installation of voter ID equipment at Circuit Clerk Haley Salazar’s office.
Miss. trying to educate people about voter ID law
Mississippi’s top elections official is launching a publicity blitz to bring attention to the state’s voter identification law that’s scheduled to be used for the first time in June.
Kidd asks U.S. Supreme Court to hear petition
John Ray Kidd, a Pontotoc County man convicted of sexual assault in an attack on a woman who had accepted a ride home from him, is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to listen to his post-conviction arguments for a new trial.
Supreme Court will take up new health law dispute
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to referee another dispute over President Barack Obama’s health care law: whether businesses may use religious objections to
Mississippi to start making voter ID cards in early 2014
Mississippi’s top elections official says the state should start issuing free voter identification cards in early 2014, months before the first election in which people will be required to show photo IDs at the polls.
Supreme Court lets Texas abortion law stay for now
AUSTIN, Texas — A third of Texas’ abortion clinics will stay closed after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene in an ongoing legal dispute
Miss. Court upholds carjacking conviction
JACKSON — The Mississippi Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of a Memphis man for carjacking an elderly couple in 2011 at a Tunica casino.
High court could soon take up new abortion case
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday declined for now to jump back into the long-running legal fight over abortion, but a flood of new
Court rejects ‘Miss. Burning’ case appeal
JACKSON — The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected the appeal of Edgar Ray Killen, convicted in 2005 for the 1964 slayings of three civil rights
Killen appeal before U.S. Supreme Court
JACKSON — The U.S. Supreme Court will consider Friday whether to hear an appeal from a former Ku Klux Klansman convicted in the 1964 slayings
Fed judge: Texas abortion limits unconstitutional
AUSTIN, Texas — A federal judge determined Monday that new Texas abortion restrictions place an unconstitutional burden on women seeking to end a pregnancy, a