The Supreme Court heard oral argument on Tuesday in Hunter v. United States about what exceptions exist to federal defendants’ waivers of their right to appeal. The justices seemed poised to endorse more exceptions than just the two the government endorsed – ones for ineffective assistance of counsel in entering into a plea agreement and for sentences above the statutory maximum. A number of justices also expressed misgivings about relying on contract law to define exceptions to appellate waivers, the framework that both Hunter and the government principally invoked, and a majority seemed likely to hold, at a minimum, that a defendant could escape from an appellate waiver when enforcing it would result in a “miscarriage of justice,” a standard that a number of federal courts of appeals have applied. Hunter pleaded guilty to one fraud count stemming from his decade-long financial scheme causing losses of nearly a half million dollars. In exchange for his plea, the government dismissed nine fraud counts and secured his agreement to waive his right to direct appeal and collateral review, except for claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. Hunter did not seek to challenge on appeal his sentence of 51 months of imprisonment. Rather, he challenged a special condition of his supervised release that follows his prison sentence, requiring him to take medication that his healthcare provider prescribed for his depression and anxiety. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit dismissed his appeal under his appellate waiver. Applying contract law to appellate waivers Over multiple decades, the court has in a number of cases looked to contract law when interpreting plea agreements. “Although the analogy may not hold in all respects,” the court has said, “plea bargains are essentially contracts.” But as the court’s use of the word “analogy” would suggest, the court has been flexible in applying contract law when construing the terms of plea agreements. Nevertheless, the emphasis that the court has placed on contract law in this context, and the way in which federal courts of appeals have used contract law for construing appellate waivers in particular, made it understandable that both Hunter and the government framed their arguments about exceptions to appellate waivers in that manner. Hunter’s counsel, Lisa Blatt, began her argument with a focus on contract law and highlighting the narrowness of the exception to appellate waivers that Hunter sought. “Contract defenses are narrow by design and rarely satisfied,” she noted and continued that many of the claims that appellate waivers seek to bar would be precluded under Hunter’s approach. “Appeal waivers will continue to bar the vast majority of alleged sentencing errors, guidelines miscalculations, insufficient explanations, or misbalancing under [18 U.S.C.] 3553(a).” But she argued that “contract defenses may be satisfied in the rare case of clear legal error and punishment unauthorized by statute or that violates the Constitution.” None of the justices’ questions, however, allowed her to address in any detail how that standard applies in Hunter’s case. In a theme that a number of justices raised, Justice Elena Kagan stated, “You refer to contract defenses. Then you say or a miscarriage-of-justice exception. In the time you’ve been up there, you’ve said the question is whether [the error the defendant is raising is] outside the realm of plausibility. You’ve referred to constitutional violations.” The justice continued, “I mean, when is it that this would come into play in your view more specifically?” Blatt replied, in keeping with how both sides framed their briefs, “the easiest and the high-level rule statement is it’s subject to contract defenses.” But Justice Samuel Alito echoed a sentiment that seemed to capture what other justices expressed. “I think you’ve got a strong argument on something like a miscarriage of justice or something that’s shockingly improper, something that would capture the examples that you started out with, where the … sentence is based on race or religion or something like that.” But he continued that if the court were to rely on contract law doctrines like a public-policy defense, “then I get nervous because public policy is very broad.” At one point, Justice Neil Gorsuch, who raised questions about the validity of all appellate waivers, proposed a test that he attributed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. Under that standard, an appellate waiver would be unenforceable based on violating “a fundamental constitutional or statutory right that was firmly established at the time of sentencing.” Blatt responded, “I like that.” When the government, represented by Zoe Jacoby, began arguing, the justices sought to clarify whether the government was in fact arguing that a broad appellate waiver like Hunter’s would bar claims like the examples Blatt had cited, such as a sentence imposed because of a defendant’s race. Jacoby answered that the government’s “front-line position is that there should not be an exception for – for even egregious miscarriage of justice because the Petitioner has argued this case based in contract doctrine, and we don’t think there’s a basis in contract doctrine for that.” The government also clarified that it was arguing that the contract defenses failed categorically for appellate waivers, explaining why there would not be a case-by-case analysis for a sentence imposed by, for example, a racist judge. But it was clear that the justices broadly rejected that view. Justice Kagan perhaps captured the approach a majority of justices may be leaning towards. She asked Jacoby, “Why would it not be sufficient to say miscarriage of justice on the assumption that everybody who’s going to be applying that standard knows it’s a high bar, has seen it before, has thought about it before?” Justice Kagan also raised a possible source for the court to adopt such a miscarriage-of-justice exception – namely, the Supreme Court’s supervisory powers over lower federal courts. “[W]e don’t need to point to a statute to be able to create a rule that polices the judiciary,” she noted. Because of the court’s focus on the breadth and source of an exception for appellate waivers, the court did not address in any detail how it thought Hunter’s specific claim would be analyzed under that rule or whether the court would even address that question, instead of remanding his case for the 5th Circuit to perform that analysis in the first instance. The court also addressed only briefly a second question presented by Hunter, which was whether the district court’s statement at the end of sentencing that Hunter has “a right to appeal” made the appellate waiver unenforceable. It seemed plain that the justices would not address that issue in a way that avoided resolving what exceptions exist for federal inmates’ appellate waivers. The court is expected to decide this case, at the latest, by the end of June or early July. The post Justices poised to adopt exceptions to federal criminal defendants’ appellate waivers appeared first on SCOTUSblog.

It might sound odd, but it’s true that the novel Les Misérables inspired the live-action '70s series, THE INCREDIBLE HULK.

Rüfüs Du Sol, The XX and Baby Keem will also rock San Fran this August.

In honor of International Women’s Day, we asked five women at EFF about women in digital rights, freedom of expression, technology, and tech activism who have inspired us.   Anna Politkovskaya  Jillian York, Activist This International Women’s Day, I want to honor the memory of Anna Politkovskaya, the Russian investigative journalist who relentlessly exposed political and social abuses, endured harassment and violence for her work, and was ultimately killed for telling the truth. I had just started my career when I learned of her death, and it forced me to confront that freedom of expression isn’t an abstract principle but rather something people risk—and sometimes lose—their lives for.  Her story reminds me that journalism at its best is an act of moral courage, not just a profession. In the face of threats, poison, and relentless pressure to stay silent, she chose to continue writing about what she saw, insisting that ordinary people’s lives were worth the world’s attention. She refused to compromise with power, even when she knew it could cost her life. To me, defending freedom of expression means defending those like Anna who bear witness to injustice, prioritize truth, and hold power to account for those whose voices are silenced.   Cindy Cohn  Corynne McSherry, Legal Director There are so many women who have shaped tech history–most of whom are still unsung heroes—that it’s hard to single out just one. But it’s easier this year because it’s a chance to celebrate my boss, Cindy Cohn, before she leaves EFF for her next adventure.   Cindy has been fighting for our digital rights for 30 years. leading EFF’s legal work and eventually the whole organization. She helped courts understand that code is speech deserving of constitutional protections at a time when many judges weren’t entirely sure what code even was. She led the fight against NSA spying, and even though outdated and ill-fitting doctrines like the state secrets privilege prevented courts from ruling on the obvious unconstitutionality of the NSA’s mass surveillance program, the fight itself led to real reforms that have expanded over time.    I’ve worked closely with her for much of her EFF career, starting in 2005 when we sued Sony for installing spyware in millions of computers, and I’ve seen firsthand her work as a visionary lawyer, outstanding writer, and tireless champion for user privacy, free expression, and innovation. She’s also warm and funny, with the biggest heart in the world, and I’m proud to call her a friend as well as a mentor.   Jane Sarah Hamid, Activist When talking about women in tech, we usually mean founders, engineers, and executives. But just as important are the women who quietly built the practices that underpin today’s movement security culture.  For as long as social movements have organized in the shadow of state surveillance, women have been designing the protocols, mutual aid networks, and information flows that keep people alive. Those threats feel ever-escalating: fusion‑center monitoring of protests, federal agencies infiltrating and subpoenaing encrypted Signal and social media chats, prosecutors mining search histories.   In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the underground Jane abortion counseling service—formally the Abortion Counseling Service of Women’s Liberation—built what we would now recognize as a feminist infosec project for abortion access. Jane connected an estimated 11,000 people with safer abortions before Roe v. Wade, using a single public phone number—“Call Jane”—paired with code names, compartmentalized roles, and minimal records so no one person held the full story of who needed care, who was providing it, and where. When Chicago police raided the collective in 1972, members destroyed their index‑card files rather than let them become a ready‑made map of patients and helpers—an analog secure‑deletion choice that should feel familiar to anyone who has ever wiped a phone or locked down a shared drive.  The lesson we should take from Jane is a set of principles that still hold in our encrypted‑but‑insecure present: Collect less, separate what you do collect, and be ready to burn the file box. When a search query, a location ping, or a solidarity post can become evidence, treating information as both lifeline and liability is not paranoia—it is care work.   Ebele Okobi Babette Ngene, Director of Public Interest Technology In the winter of 2013, I had just landed my first job at the intersection of tech and human rights, working for a prominent nonprofit and I was encouraged to attend regular tech and policy events around town. One such event on internet governance was happening at George Washington Universit,  focusing on multistakeholder engagement on internet policy and governance issues, with companies, nonprofits, and government representatives in attendance. I was inexperienced with these topics, and I’ll admit I was a bit intimidated.  Then I saw her. She was the only woman on the opening panel, an African woman, an accomplished woman. Not only was she a respected lawyer at Yahoo at the time, but her impressive background, presence, and confident speaking style immediately inspired me. She made me feel like I, too, belonged in that room and could become a powerful voice.  Ebele Okobi would go on to become one of the most powerful and respected voices in the tech and human rights space, known for her advocacy for digital rights and responsible innovation across Africa and the broader global majority during her tenure at Facebook. Beyond her corporate advocacy, Ebele has consistently championed ethical technology and social justice. She embodies the leadership qualities I value most: empathy, speaking truth to power, integrity, and authenticity.  I remain in the tech and human rights space because I saw her, because seeing her made me feel seen. Representation truly does matter.   Ada Lovelace  Allison Morris, Chief Development Director I’m not a lawyer, activist, or technologist; I’m a fundraiser and a lover of stories. And what storyteller at EFF couldn’t help but love Ada Lovelace? The daughter of Lord Byron – the human embodiment of Romanticism – Ada was an innovator in math and science and, ultimately, the writer of the first computer program.   Lovelace saw the potential in Charles Babbage’s theoretical General Purpose Computer (which was never actually built) and created the foundations of modern computing long before the digital age. In creating the first computer code, Lovelace took Babbage’s concept of a machine that could perform mathematical calculations and realized that it could manipulate symbols as well as numbers.  Given the expectations of women in her time and the controversy of what work should be attributed to Lovelace as opposed to the man she often worked with, I can’t help but be inspired by her story.   Donate to Support EFF's Work Your donations empower EFF to do even more.

This lawsuit comes after a Supreme Court decision struck down some of the president's sweeping tariffs, which had impacted Nintendo and thousands of other companies.

An ad test on X promotes Musk's Starlink beneath original content.