Algorithms that generate risk assessment scores are proprietary software, and neither courts nor lawyers know just how such scores are generated.
Supreme Court
SCOTUS Strikes Down North Carolina Social Media Restriction for Registered Sex Offenders
In Packingham v. North Carolina, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a North Carolina statute prohibiting certain social media use by registered sex offenders.
SCOTUS to address privacy vs. technology debate
Cell phones, laptops, credit cards, emails, tablets. Today’s technology is ubiquitous, and increasingly uses monitoring software to provide better service by storing information about consumer movement in computer databases. Information that can tell a precise, coherent narrative about a person’s location at a particular time is invaluable information to law enforcement, but is it constitutional […]
Supreme Court Sends Mixed Signals on EPA Enforcement
Supreme Court justices are notoriously opaque when it comes to detailing why they take up some cases but reject seemingly similar appeals. This trait was pushed front and center this week as the Supreme Court decided to hear debate on EPA enforcement of the Clean Water Act despite rejecting a similar case brought by General Electric Co. just three weeks earlier, reports the New York Times. Both cases claimed that the EPA routinely violates due process under the Fifth Amendment, but environmental lawyers predict the Supreme Court decided to hear Sackett v. EPA because it included the question of wetlands regulation, to which the Court has previously shown “overt hostility.”
Supreme Court Rejects Wal-Mart Class Action Lawsuit
In a controversial decision in mid-June, the Supreme Court rejected class action status for 1.6 million women who sought to sue mega-store Wal-Mart for employment discrimination in what would have been history’s largest class action lawsuit. More than a year earlier, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals approved the lawsuits, arguing that the #1 company on Fortune’s list of 500 largest companies must address claims that women are paid less than men for the same jobs and are less likely to receive promotions. But by a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court said it was a stretch to decide the fate of 1.6 million discrimination lawsuits at once, a major set back for Wal-Mart discrimination plaintiffs.