State government lawyers are appealing a federal judge’s recent decision striking down North Carolina’s law criminalizing felon voting. Felons who cast ballots in this state’s elections could have faced new felony charges before the judge’s ruling.
The North Carolina Supreme Court will consider at least one of two pending cases related to Gov. Roy Cooper’s 2020 shutdown of bars during the COVID-19 pandemic. The court issued an order Thursday granting the governor’s September 2023 request to take up the case Howell v. Cooper. The order arrived nine days after the governor asked the high court to take up a second case brought by the North Carolina Bar and Tavern Association. Justices have not yet acted on the second case.
The issue spotlights reforms made in the North Carolina General Assembly to help reformed ex-offenders find work and become productive citizens again.
Former employees of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America are suing their former employer over being terminated from their jobs after failing to comply with the company’s COVID-era vaccine mandate.
The John Locke Foundation, NC Chamber, and NC Farm Bureau all hope the North Carolina Supreme Court will choose to reform the way state courts address the legal issue of “administrative deference.” The groups filed separate friend-of-the-court briefs Wednesday in a case challenging the dismissal of Winston-Salem State University professor Alvin Mitchell.
North Carolina’s Republican legislative leaders are asking the state Supreme Court to take up two disputes with Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. Both focus on changes to appointments for state boards and commissions. The state’s high court would have to bypass the Court of Appeals to take the cases, both titled Cooper v. Berger.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals wrestled Wednesday with two Map Act cases from Wake County that could have significant impacts for both property owners and state taxpayers. Plaintiffs in the cases argued during an hourlong hearing that the state Department of Transportation seeks a Map Act “discount.” The department responded that the plaintiffs would force taxpayers to pay sums “many multiples higher” than awards offered in hundreds of other Map Act cases.
A former North Carolina State University grad student and employee is challenging the university’s sovereign immunity arguments in a legal dispute involving the Poe Hall shutdown. The state Appeals Court issued a May 16 order granting the university a temporary stay in its dispute with Darren Masier.
A federal lawsuit challenging Asheville’s decision to ban local activists from using city parks is near a settlement. A notice filed Tuesday in US District Court prompted a judge in the case to cancel a hearing that had been scheduled later this week.
The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals will allow the family of Joseph Lopez to continue pursuing its federal lawsuit against the Greensboro Police officer who shot and killed Lopex in 2021. Officer Matthew Hamilton had argued that federal qualified immunity and North Carolina’s public official immunity protected him from the Lopez estate’s suit.
A Charlotte private school involved in a legal dispute with parents of two expelled students responded Tuesday to Republican officials who back the parents’ case. Lawyers for Charlotte Latin School filed two documents with the state Supreme Court.
