Gabriel Tynes

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Alabama Reporter at Courthouse News Service

Alabama courts @CourthouseNews with an eye on the Deep South.

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Articles

Federal panel rebukes Alabama lawmakers for deliberately discriminating against Black voters

1 week ago | courthousenews.com | Gabriel Tynes

In ongoing litigation against the state’s 2021 congressional redistricting effort, federal courts are considering placing the state back under preclearance guidelines lifted in 2020. (CN) — A panel of Republican-appointed federal judges in Alabama admonished the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature in a lengthy judicial order Thursday, finding the state deliberately discriminated against Black voters in its congressional redistricting process between 2021 and 2023.
Gulf of TBD: The crusade to change a 500-year-old name

1 week ago | tucsonsentinel.com | Gabriel Tynes

Courthouse News Service What’s in a name? Sometimes, a whole lot of bureaucratic and diplomatic headaches. Look no further than President Donald Trump's first-day executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico, which has caused a wave of aftershocks both domestically and abroad.
Gulf of TBD: The crusade to change a 500-year-old name

1 week ago | courthousenews.com | Gabriel Tynes

As federal agencies work to comply with President Donald Trump's executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico, other entities including state governments, businesses and nonprofits are grappling with the implications. (CN) — What’s in a name? Sometimes, a whole lot of bureaucratic and diplomatic headaches. Look no further than President Donald Trump's first-day executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico, which has caused a wave of aftershocks both domestically and abroad.
Texas attempts to revive voter assistance restrictions

2 weeks ago | courthousenews.com | Gabriel Tynes

(CN) — Parties on opposite sides of Texas’ strict new election access law appeared before a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday, attempting to resolve claims the measure violates Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act. After presiding over a six-week bench trial in October 2024, U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez determined that it does, declaring that Texas’ restrictions on voting assistance unlawfully narrow voters’ federally protected rights.
Black Mississippi voters score win in battle against redistricting plan

2 weeks ago | courthousenews.com | Gabriel Tynes

A Reagan-appointed judge sided with Black voters in DeSoto County who claim their strength was diluted in a recent redistricting plan. (CN) — A federal judge in Mississippi largely upheld a Voting Rights Act challenge to DeSoto County’s 2022 redistricting plan Tuesday, finding plaintiffs in the case easily demonstrated key elements of the Gingles test. Rooted in the 1986 Supreme Court case Thornburg v.
Family of infant killed by Mississippi police look to Fifth Circuit to restore civil claims

2 weeks ago | courthousenews.com | Gabriel Tynes

(CN) — There is no question that 3-month-old La’Mello Parker was the innocent victim of a violent homicide. But who is to blame for his untimely death? His surviving family — suing Mississippi and its law enforcement agencies — say it's the officers who shot and killed him alongside his father at the conclusion of a 140-mile vehicle chase in 2021. The state says it's the child’s father — Eric Smith — who reportedly shot at officers first, putting Parker in the position to be hit with return fire.
11th Circuit deems Alabama sex offender restrictions too harsh

3 weeks ago | courthousenews.com | Gabriel Tynes

The appellate panel said prohibiting parents who have been convicted of sex offenses from cohabitating with their minor children violates the Fourteenth Amendment. (CN) — Alabama cannot completely prohibit convicted sex offenders from cohabitating with minors, according to a 11th Circuit Court of Appeals panel on Wednesday.
Eighth Circuit probes Arkansas limits on voter assistance

4 weeks ago | courthousenews.com | Gabriel Tynes

(CN) — The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals heard a Voting Rights Act case on Thursday concerning the legality of an Arkansas voter assistance provision prohibiting anyone other than an election official from assisting more than six voters per election. The state claims the provision was passed in 2009 as part of a “commonsense” package of bills designed to make voting easier and cheating more difficult.
Federal panel considers Arkansas critical race theory law

4 weeks ago | courthousenews.com | Gabriel Tynes

(CN) — Arkansas Senior Assistant Solicitor General Asher Steinberg on Thursday urged the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals to release the state from an injunction prohibiting the enforcement of a 2023 state law aiming to protect public school students from indoctrination in social subjects such as critical race theory. The student and teacher plaintiffs won the injunction last year as part of a lawsuit arguing the statute violates their First Amendment rights.
Former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro sued by American survivors of 2003 kidnapping

1 month ago | courthousenews.com | Gabriel Tynes

A group of American defense contractors conducting surveillance for the U.S. military in 2003 say they were kidnapped and held hostage for five years by terror organizations linked to Maduro, who recently claimed victory in a contested 2024 election.