Supreme Court declines nominating-law challenge
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court is declining to hear the Utah Republican Party’s challenge to a state law overhauling how political parties nominate candidates.
The Monday decision halts the long court battle over the law allowing candidates to bypass GOP nominating conventions and instead gather signatures to participate in a primary.
Utah’s GOP argued the 2014 law violated their Frist Amendment right to choose candidates as they saw fit.
But the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, finding it balances the state’s interest in managing elections while allowing political parties and residents a way to express their political choices.
Opponents of the law could now turn to the Legislature. Republican Sen. Dan McCay considered sponsoring a proposal to change the law this year, but decided to wait until the court battle was done.
High court won’t review award to couple deputies shot
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is leaving in place a roughly $4 million judgment for an innocent couple shot while California deputies searched for a wanted man.
The high court on Monday declined to again take up the case involving Angel and Jennifer Mendez. Their case had previously been before the justices in 2017. At that time, the high court unanimously overturned the $4 million award and ordered a lower court to revisit the case. On second look, the appeals court again sided with the couple.
The pair were shot in 2010 when deputies searching for a parolee entered a backyard shack in Lancaster, north of Los Angeles, where the couple was living. Deputies fired shots after seeing Angel
Mendez pick up what looked like a gun. It was a BB gun.
