North Carolina
State high court says bars’ lawsuits over COVID-19 can continue
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The North Carolina Supreme Court issued favorable rulings Friday for bars and their operators in litigation seeking monetary compensation from the state for COVID-19 restrictions first issued by then-Gov. Roy Cooper that shuttered their doors and, in their view, treated them unfairly compared to restaurants.
The majority decisions by the justices mean a pair of lawsuits — one filed by several North Carolina bars and their operators and the second by the North Carolina Bar and Tavern Association and other private bars — remain alive, and future court orders directing the state pay them financial damages are possible.
As a way to ease the spread of coronavirus, Cooper — a Democrat who left office last December and is now running for U.S. Senate — issued a series of executive orders that closed bars starting in March 2020. By that summer, bars still had to remain closed, but restaurants and breweries could serve alcohol during certain hours. Later in 2020, bars could serve alcoholic drinks in outdoor seating, with time limits later added, but the plaintiffs said it was unprofitable to operate. All temporary restrictions on bars were lifted in May 2021.
Lawyers defending Cooper have said the orders issued in the ninth-largest state were based on the most current scientific studies and public health data available at a time when thousands were ill or dying and vaccines weren’t widely available.
On Friday, the court’s five Republican justices in one lawsuit agreed it could continue to trial, rejecting arguments from state attorneys that the litigation must be halted based on a legal doctrine that exempts state government from most lawsuits. That decision largely upheld a Court of Appeals decision from two years ago that had affirmed a trial judge’s order to allow the action filed by Tiffany Howell, seven other people and nine businesses to be heard.
“We acknowledge that the COVID-19 pandemic was a chaotic period of time,” Chief Justice Paul Newby wrote in the prevailing opinion. “It is important to remember, however, that the Governor was not the only person facing uncertainty. Small business owners across the state dutifully shuttered their doors and scaled back operations without knowing exactly when they could open or operate fully again.”
A broader group of plaintiffs — the North Carolina Bar and Tavern Association and scores of private bars — that sued separately but made similar claims received a favorable ruling last year from a Court of Appeals panel that reversed a trial judge’s decision to dismiss the lawsuit.
Friday, the same five justices ruled that the Court of Appeals shouldn’t have allowed the association to sue based on claims its members’ constitutional rights for equal treatment were violated. But the plaintiffs can return to a trial judge now and present evidence on the claim that their right under the state constitution to earn a living was violated, Associate Justice Phil Berger Jr. wrote in the majority opinion.
The association and the private bars “sufficiently alleged unconstitutional interference, and thus have a right to seek discovery to prove those allegations are true,” Berger wrote.
The Supreme Court’s two Democratic justices opposed decisions made by the majority in both cases and said the lawsuits should be dismissed. Associate Justice Allison Riggs wrote that the Bar and Tavern Association failed to signal it had evidence of a more reasonable plan to contain the virus’ impact than what Cooper chose.
Writing the dissent in the Howell case, Associate Justice Anita Earls said the majority “grants itself a roving license to second-guess policy choices, reweigh trade-offs, and displace decisions appropriately made by the political branches.”
The state Attorney General’s Office, which represented Cooper in both cases, said Friday it was reviewing the decisions. Through a spokesperson, Cooper’s Senate campaign declined to comment.
The Bar and Tavern Association called the decision in its case a “major victory.”
“From the beginning, we never asked for special treatment, only equal treatment,” association President Zack Medford said. Chuck Kitchen, a lawyer representing plaintiffs in the Howell case, also praised the ruling in their litigation.
Cooper was the subject of several lawsuits challenging his COVID-19 actions early in the pandemic, and he was largely successful in court. In August 2024, the state Supreme Court sided with a small racetrack that was closed briefly for defying state gathering limits and said the oval and its operators could sue the top health regulator in Cooper’s administration.
Wisconsin
Judge rejects motions to dismiss charges against Trump aides
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin judge Friday declined to dismiss felony charges against two attorneys and a former aide to President Donald Trump who advised Trump in 2020 as part of a plan to submit paperwork falsely claiming that the Republican had won the battleground state that year.
Dane County Circuit Judge John Hyland rejected the motions to dismiss the 11 felony charges filed against the three defendants. The charges are for using forgery in an attempt to defraud each of the 10 Republican electors who cast their ballots for Trump that year.
Jim Troupis, who was Trump’s attorney in Wisconsin, Kenneth Chesebro, an attorney who advised the campaign, and Mike Roman, Trump’s director of Election Day operations in 2020, all were initially charged in June 2024. The case has stalled as the judge considered their attempts to have the charges dismissed.
Each of the 11 of the felony charges they face carries the same maximum penalty of six years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
“Troupis does not show that the First Amendment protects the right to commit forgery, does not show that the government violated his right to due process by entrapping him into that forgery, and does not show prosecutors must exercise discretion to charge an accused of his preferred offense,” the judge said in rejecting the motions to dismiss.
Attorneys for each of the defendants did not immediately reply to emails seeking comment.
The charges were brought by Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat. Kaul is considering running for governor in 2026. He declined to comment.
Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 and again last year but lost it in 2020 and tried unsuccessfully to overturn his defeat.
The state charges against the Trump attorneys and aide are the only ones in Wisconsin. None of the electors have been charged. The 10 Wisconsin electors, Chesebro and Troupis all settled a lawsuit that was brought against them in 2023.
Federal prosecutors who investigated Trump’s conduct related to the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, said the fake electors scheme originated in Wisconsin.
Electors are people appointed to represent voters in presidential elections. The winner of the popular vote in each state determines which party’s electors are sent to the Electoral College, which meets in December after the election to certify the outcome. Two states, Maine and Nebraska, allow their electoral votes to be split between candidates.
The Wisconsin complaint details how Troupis, Chesebro and Roman created a document that falsely said Trump had won Wisconsin’s 10 Electoral College votes and then attempted to deliver the document to then-Vice President Mike Pence.
They argued that the charges should be dismissed because no crime was committed in having Republican electors meet and cast their ballot to preserve their legal options in case the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Trump’s favor in a lawsuit challenging the Wisconsin vote.
They also argued that federal law should take precedence in this case, and that such charges can’t legally be brought in state court.
They further argued that the facts showed no crime was committed and also because prosecutions for election crimes can only be brought by the county district attorney, not the state’s attorney general.
The judge rejected all of their arguments.
Prosecutors in Michigan, Nevada, Georgia and Arizona have also filed criminal charges related to the fake electors scheme.
The fake elector efforts were central to a 2023 federal racketeering indictment filed against Trump alleging he tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election. But special counsel Jack Smith abandoned that case, saying that Trump’s return to the White House precluded attempts to federally prosecute him.
Hawaii
Judge considers legality of restrictions on access to abortion medication
HONOLULU (AP) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration continues to overly restrict access to mifepristone, a medication for abortions and miscarriage management, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union argued Friday in a lawsuit by a Hawaii doctor and healthcare associations challenging the legality of the restrictions.
They are asking a judge to find that the FDA violated the law by restricting a safe medication without scientific justification, but stop short of flat-out seeking an immediate elimination of the restrictions, which currently include special certification for prescribers and pharmacies and requiring patients to review a counseling form.
Plaintiffs are taking the “more modest approach” to give the agency an opportunity to correct its errors, Julia Kaye, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, said in court.
U.S. District Judge Jill Otake in Honolulu didn’t say when she would issue a ruling.
Friday’s hearing comes as the pill used in most U.S. abortions continues to be ensnared in politics that have plagued it for nearly a decade, with many wondering if it will be further restricted under President Donald Trump’s Republican administration.
The case dates to 2017 and has spanned both Republican and Democratic administrations.
“All along, the FDA has dug its heels in and attempted to justify these extreme restrictions without ever providing a credible justification,” Kaye told The Associated Press ahead of the hearing. “And in the face of a mountain of scientific evidence confirming the safety.”
Kaye noted that during former President Joe Biden’s administration, the FDA concluded that requiring the pill to be picked up in person didn’t provide a safety benefit and that the requirement should be lifted.
The original lead plaintiff was a doctor in a small town on the island of Kauai where he had some colleagues who opposed abortion. At the time, a key restriction required patients to pick up the medication in person at a hospital, clinic or medical office, which meant the doctor would have had to involve many of his colleagues in order to stock and dispense the medication, Kaye said.
The key barrier was eventually removed and the pill can be sent through the mail. The original doctor left Hawaii and the lawsuit continues to focus on the remaining restrictions that the ACLU says in a court filing “disproportionately impact patients who already face difficulties accessing healthcare,” such as those who are low-income or live in rural areas.
Attorneys with the U.S. Department of Justice say in court documents that the FDA has already reduced the burden by removing the in-person dispensing requirement. The FDA’s statements about the safety of mifepristone are contingent upon the restrictions being in place, Noah Katzen, an attorney representing the Justice Department, said in court Friday. He also disputed that the plaintiffs, including another Kauai doctor who has stepped in as lead plaintiff, have legal standing to challenge the restrictions.
Hawaii law allows abortion until a fetus would be viable outside the womb. After that, it’s legal if a patient’s life or health is in danger. The state legalized abortion in 1970, when it became the first in the nation to allow the procedure at a woman’s request.
“For better and worse, the FDA’s policy on medication abortion impacts patients in every state in the nation, including states where abortion is legally protected,” Kaye told the AP.
State high court says bars’ lawsuits over COVID-19 can continue
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The North Carolina Supreme Court issued favorable rulings Friday for bars and their operators in litigation seeking monetary compensation from the state for COVID-19 restrictions first issued by then-Gov. Roy Cooper that shuttered their doors and, in their view, treated them unfairly compared to restaurants.
The majority decisions by the justices mean a pair of lawsuits — one filed by several North Carolina bars and their operators and the second by the North Carolina Bar and Tavern Association and other private bars — remain alive, and future court orders directing the state pay them financial damages are possible.
As a way to ease the spread of coronavirus, Cooper — a Democrat who left office last December and is now running for U.S. Senate — issued a series of executive orders that closed bars starting in March 2020. By that summer, bars still had to remain closed, but restaurants and breweries could serve alcohol during certain hours. Later in 2020, bars could serve alcoholic drinks in outdoor seating, with time limits later added, but the plaintiffs said it was unprofitable to operate. All temporary restrictions on bars were lifted in May 2021.
Lawyers defending Cooper have said the orders issued in the ninth-largest state were based on the most current scientific studies and public health data available at a time when thousands were ill or dying and vaccines weren’t widely available.
On Friday, the court’s five Republican justices in one lawsuit agreed it could continue to trial, rejecting arguments from state attorneys that the litigation must be halted based on a legal doctrine that exempts state government from most lawsuits. That decision largely upheld a Court of Appeals decision from two years ago that had affirmed a trial judge’s order to allow the action filed by Tiffany Howell, seven other people and nine businesses to be heard.
“We acknowledge that the COVID-19 pandemic was a chaotic period of time,” Chief Justice Paul Newby wrote in the prevailing opinion. “It is important to remember, however, that the Governor was not the only person facing uncertainty. Small business owners across the state dutifully shuttered their doors and scaled back operations without knowing exactly when they could open or operate fully again.”
A broader group of plaintiffs — the North Carolina Bar and Tavern Association and scores of private bars — that sued separately but made similar claims received a favorable ruling last year from a Court of Appeals panel that reversed a trial judge’s decision to dismiss the lawsuit.
Friday, the same five justices ruled that the Court of Appeals shouldn’t have allowed the association to sue based on claims its members’ constitutional rights for equal treatment were violated. But the plaintiffs can return to a trial judge now and present evidence on the claim that their right under the state constitution to earn a living was violated, Associate Justice Phil Berger Jr. wrote in the majority opinion.
The association and the private bars “sufficiently alleged unconstitutional interference, and thus have a right to seek discovery to prove those allegations are true,” Berger wrote.
The Supreme Court’s two Democratic justices opposed decisions made by the majority in both cases and said the lawsuits should be dismissed. Associate Justice Allison Riggs wrote that the Bar and Tavern Association failed to signal it had evidence of a more reasonable plan to contain the virus’ impact than what Cooper chose.
Writing the dissent in the Howell case, Associate Justice Anita Earls said the majority “grants itself a roving license to second-guess policy choices, reweigh trade-offs, and displace decisions appropriately made by the political branches.”
The state Attorney General’s Office, which represented Cooper in both cases, said Friday it was reviewing the decisions. Through a spokesperson, Cooper’s Senate campaign declined to comment.
The Bar and Tavern Association called the decision in its case a “major victory.”
“From the beginning, we never asked for special treatment, only equal treatment,” association President Zack Medford said. Chuck Kitchen, a lawyer representing plaintiffs in the Howell case, also praised the ruling in their litigation.
Cooper was the subject of several lawsuits challenging his COVID-19 actions early in the pandemic, and he was largely successful in court. In August 2024, the state Supreme Court sided with a small racetrack that was closed briefly for defying state gathering limits and said the oval and its operators could sue the top health regulator in Cooper’s administration.
Wisconsin
Judge rejects motions to dismiss charges against Trump aides
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin judge Friday declined to dismiss felony charges against two attorneys and a former aide to President Donald Trump who advised Trump in 2020 as part of a plan to submit paperwork falsely claiming that the Republican had won the battleground state that year.
Dane County Circuit Judge John Hyland rejected the motions to dismiss the 11 felony charges filed against the three defendants. The charges are for using forgery in an attempt to defraud each of the 10 Republican electors who cast their ballots for Trump that year.
Jim Troupis, who was Trump’s attorney in Wisconsin, Kenneth Chesebro, an attorney who advised the campaign, and Mike Roman, Trump’s director of Election Day operations in 2020, all were initially charged in June 2024. The case has stalled as the judge considered their attempts to have the charges dismissed.
Each of the 11 of the felony charges they face carries the same maximum penalty of six years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
“Troupis does not show that the First Amendment protects the right to commit forgery, does not show that the government violated his right to due process by entrapping him into that forgery, and does not show prosecutors must exercise discretion to charge an accused of his preferred offense,” the judge said in rejecting the motions to dismiss.
Attorneys for each of the defendants did not immediately reply to emails seeking comment.
The charges were brought by Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat. Kaul is considering running for governor in 2026. He declined to comment.
Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 and again last year but lost it in 2020 and tried unsuccessfully to overturn his defeat.
The state charges against the Trump attorneys and aide are the only ones in Wisconsin. None of the electors have been charged. The 10 Wisconsin electors, Chesebro and Troupis all settled a lawsuit that was brought against them in 2023.
Federal prosecutors who investigated Trump’s conduct related to the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, said the fake electors scheme originated in Wisconsin.
Electors are people appointed to represent voters in presidential elections. The winner of the popular vote in each state determines which party’s electors are sent to the Electoral College, which meets in December after the election to certify the outcome. Two states, Maine and Nebraska, allow their electoral votes to be split between candidates.
The Wisconsin complaint details how Troupis, Chesebro and Roman created a document that falsely said Trump had won Wisconsin’s 10 Electoral College votes and then attempted to deliver the document to then-Vice President Mike Pence.
They argued that the charges should be dismissed because no crime was committed in having Republican electors meet and cast their ballot to preserve their legal options in case the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Trump’s favor in a lawsuit challenging the Wisconsin vote.
They also argued that federal law should take precedence in this case, and that such charges can’t legally be brought in state court.
They further argued that the facts showed no crime was committed and also because prosecutions for election crimes can only be brought by the county district attorney, not the state’s attorney general.
The judge rejected all of their arguments.
Prosecutors in Michigan, Nevada, Georgia and Arizona have also filed criminal charges related to the fake electors scheme.
The fake elector efforts were central to a 2023 federal racketeering indictment filed against Trump alleging he tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election. But special counsel Jack Smith abandoned that case, saying that Trump’s return to the White House precluded attempts to federally prosecute him.
Hawaii
Judge considers legality of restrictions on access to abortion medication
HONOLULU (AP) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration continues to overly restrict access to mifepristone, a medication for abortions and miscarriage management, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union argued Friday in a lawsuit by a Hawaii doctor and healthcare associations challenging the legality of the restrictions.
They are asking a judge to find that the FDA violated the law by restricting a safe medication without scientific justification, but stop short of flat-out seeking an immediate elimination of the restrictions, which currently include special certification for prescribers and pharmacies and requiring patients to review a counseling form.
Plaintiffs are taking the “more modest approach” to give the agency an opportunity to correct its errors, Julia Kaye, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, said in court.
U.S. District Judge Jill Otake in Honolulu didn’t say when she would issue a ruling.
Friday’s hearing comes as the pill used in most U.S. abortions continues to be ensnared in politics that have plagued it for nearly a decade, with many wondering if it will be further restricted under President Donald Trump’s Republican administration.
The case dates to 2017 and has spanned both Republican and Democratic administrations.
“All along, the FDA has dug its heels in and attempted to justify these extreme restrictions without ever providing a credible justification,” Kaye told The Associated Press ahead of the hearing. “And in the face of a mountain of scientific evidence confirming the safety.”
Kaye noted that during former President Joe Biden’s administration, the FDA concluded that requiring the pill to be picked up in person didn’t provide a safety benefit and that the requirement should be lifted.
The original lead plaintiff was a doctor in a small town on the island of Kauai where he had some colleagues who opposed abortion. At the time, a key restriction required patients to pick up the medication in person at a hospital, clinic or medical office, which meant the doctor would have had to involve many of his colleagues in order to stock and dispense the medication, Kaye said.
The key barrier was eventually removed and the pill can be sent through the mail. The original doctor left Hawaii and the lawsuit continues to focus on the remaining restrictions that the ACLU says in a court filing “disproportionately impact patients who already face difficulties accessing healthcare,” such as those who are low-income or live in rural areas.
Attorneys with the U.S. Department of Justice say in court documents that the FDA has already reduced the burden by removing the in-person dispensing requirement. The FDA’s statements about the safety of mifepristone are contingent upon the restrictions being in place, Noah Katzen, an attorney representing the Justice Department, said in court Friday. He also disputed that the plaintiffs, including another Kauai doctor who has stepped in as lead plaintiff, have legal standing to challenge the restrictions.
Hawaii law allows abortion until a fetus would be viable outside the womb. After that, it’s legal if a patient’s life or health is in danger. The state legalized abortion in 1970, when it became the first in the nation to allow the procedure at a woman’s request.
“For better and worse, the FDA’s policy on medication abortion impacts patients in every state in the nation, including states where abortion is legally protected,” Kaye told the AP.
