The Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously ruled that the ban found in the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution on excessive fines applies to states as well as the federal government. The ruling has widespread implications for the practice of civil asset forfeiture, in which police sometimes seize thousands of dollars of property from criminal suspects.

The Supreme Court on Friday extended a temporary hold on a Louisiana law that requires abortionists to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. Justice Samuel Alito said in a brief order that the court needs more time to review the arguments for and against the law, which the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld in September. That decision broke with the precedent set by the Supreme Court in 2016 in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, which declared a similar law in Texas unconstitutional.

WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump’s longtime adviser Roger Stone pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges of making false statements, tampering with a witness, and obstructing special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Mueller’s office and the U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., accuse Stone of lying to Congress about his communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange through intermediaries.

An Iowa judge on Tuesday struck down protections for unborn babies in the state who have detectable heartbeats. The ruling coincided with the 46th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision. Chief District Court Judge Michael Huppert deemed the heartbeat law unconstitutional, saying it violated “both the due process and equal protection provisions of the Iowa Constitution [by] not being narrowly tailored to serve the compelling state interest of promoting potential life.” Gov.

A New York moment:

A recorded message played when I called the immigration court in New York to see if hearings were happening this week: “Please be advised that due to a lapse in appropriations, court operations are limited to cases involving detained individuals. Non-detained cases will be rescheduled when the court reopens for regular operations.”

Mexican drug cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman paid a $100 million bribe to the former president of Mexico, a Colombian drug trafficker testified in court on Tuesday. Alex Cifuentes told the New York courtroom at Guzman’s trial for murder and drug conspiracy that the kingpin successfully bribed President Enrique Peña Nieto to call off a manhunt in 2012. The money allegedly changed hands after Peña Nieto was elected but before he took office. A spokesman for the former president, who left office in 2018, called the claim “false and defamatory.”

Rulings this week from federal judges in California and Pennsylvania have forced an order of Catholic nuns to continue a five-year legal battle to defend its religious exemption to the federal contraceptive and abortifacient mandate. The Little Sisters of the Poor fought for freedom of conscience all the way to the U.S.