Six South Side businesses will compete October 21 in the finals of the eighth annual South Side Pitch. As it did last year, the competition is highlighting existing businesses that are taking on the challenges of 2021 in new and unique ways. This year contestants will give their pitches to the judges at the University…

Wilmington, Del.—Wilmington contracts out its municipal impound system to private towing companies and funds the whole system by letting these companies wrongfully take and keep people’s cars. The city pays these companies nothing for their services, but there’s no such thing as a free lunch. The price of Wilmington’s “cost-free” impound services falls squarely on…

ARLINGTON, Va.—What does it take to hold federal police accountable for using excessive force? That question is once again being raised with cases being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. And it’s coming to the Justices in the form of a petition from Kevin Byrd, a Texas mechanic who was almost shot to death by…

ARLINGTON, Va.—More than 30 amicus (or “friend-of-the-court”) briefs have been filed in Carson v. Makin, calling for greater educational choice for parents and their children. Carson, which is being litigated by the Institute for Justice (IJ), is expected to set a landmark precedent when it comes to education reform. In the case, the U.S. Supreme Court will…

Arlington, Va.—Earlier this month, Joshua Gray, a private investigator from Massachusetts, filed a petition for certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court asking the Court to reverse a decision by the Maine Department of Public Safety denying him a license as a professional investigator in Maine. The Department based its denial on the fact that it…

NEW ORLEANS—Today, a federal district court granted an ankle monitoring company’s motion to dismiss a class action lawsuit challenging the company’s violation of New Orleans criminal defendants’ right to neutral adjudication in conjunction with former Judge Paul A. Bonin. The plaintiffs, Marshall Sookram and Hakeem Meade, will appeal the decision. Represented by the Institute for…

CAMDEN, N.J.—A new lawsuit launched by a fourth-generation family farm asks whether a single government agency can act as prosecutor, judge and jury when handing out potentially ruinous fines. Sun Valley Orchards, a produce farm in Swedesboro, N.J., is facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), mostly…

CLEARWATER, Fla.—Today, the owners of a Florida food truck vowed to continue their legal battle against Tarpon Springs after a Florida court decided that they could not sue the city over an ordinance that requires independently operated food trucks to use someone else’s name in order to operate downtown. Elijah and Ashley Durham opened SOL…

Last February, while driving down a Nevada highway on the way to visit his daughters, Stephen Lara was robbed in plain sight. But his assailants were not ordinary criminals—they were police officers from Nevada Highway Patrol. Using a controversial legal tactic called civil forfeiture, the officers fabricated a reason to stop Lara, detained him for…

HOUSTON—Harris County police and prosecutors systematically abuse the constitutional rights of drivers, seizing cash and other property without probable cause, and quickly filing lawsuits to keep the seized cash in their own budgets using civil forfeiture. Today, the Institute for Justice (IJ)—a national nonprofit law firm—is fighting back with a class-action lawsuit challenging Harris County’s…

CHICAGO—Late Friday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed SB 2007, the Home-to-Market Act, legislation which will allow home bakers and farmers in Illinois to sell their foods more easily. The bill sweeps away a patchwork of regulations that made it difficult for food entrepreneurs to sell directly to their customers and that severely limited how much they…

FORT PIERCE, Fla.—Late Friday afternoon, food truck entrepreneurs Benny Diaz and Brian Peffer achieved final victory in the lawsuit they filed in December 2018 alongside the Institute for Justice (IJ) that challenged Fort Pierce’s ban on food trucks operating within 500 feet of a restaurant. This consent final judgment entered by Judge Elizabeth Metzger will…

ROSEAU, Minn.—Yesterday afternoon, Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) dealt a sharp blow to property rights in Roseau by announcing it would not require an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for its Roseau Lake Rehabilitation project. The project has generated controversy for threatening to make productive, multigenerational farmland of over fifty families unusable, as well as…

NEW ORLEANS—Kermit Warren is a hard worker, a grandfather and the head deacon of his church in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. Over the years, he diligently set aside cash from his jobs, saving nearly $30,000. But now, his money is in the hands of the federal government, which is trying to take…

SEATTLE—Today, the Washington Supreme Court ruled that depriving someone of their shelter—in this case a truck—constitutes an excessive fine under the U.S. Constitution. The case, City of Seattle v. Long, No. 98824-2, comes after the U.S. Supreme Court held three years ago that state and local governments must abide the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment, which prohibits…

MILWAUKEE—A small, veteran-owned farm in the Town of Eagle won an early court victory in its legal challenge against fines and fees that were issued after the owners criticized local officials. In December 2020, Erica and Zach Mallory, owners of Mallory Meadows, teamed up with the Institute for Justice (IJ) to protect their home and…

Arlington, Va.—Nearly 60 million Americans now live in states where federal police can escape accountability even when they clearly violate someone’s constitutional rights. But two cases appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court by the Institute for Justice (IJ) seek to change that. On August 6, 2021, IJ filed two petitions with the U.S. Supreme Court…

TAMPA, Fla.—Today, a federal judge dealt a blow to Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco’s Orwellian “predictive policing” program. Judge Steven D. Merryday issued an order denying the Sheriff’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a group of residents targeted by the county’s controversial practice of identifying and harassing supposed “future criminals”—including kids under the…

LOS ANGELES—More than four months after the FBI seized the $57,000 in cash that Joseph Ruiz kept in his safe deposit box, the government has finally thrown in the towel and agreed to return his money. Yesterday’s filing comes after United States District Judge R. Gary Klausner issued an order on July 23 directing the…

In an extensive report released late last week, a special commission created by the Massachusetts Legislature urged lawmakers to overhaul civil forfeiture, which lets law enforcement seize and keep property without prosecutors ever charging anyone with a crime. Although civil forfeiture is often defended as a way to target drug kingpins, the reality is far…