The Louisiana Supreme Court has upheld a life prison term for a man convicted of severely beating another man at a convenience store five years ago after telling the victim he was in the “wrong neighborhood.”

Donald Ray Dickerson, of Baton Rouge, was found guilty in 2015 of second-degree battery in the attack on David Ray III, of St. Francisville. Ray was hospitalized with a broken eye socket, broken nose and other injuries.

Dickerson was sentenced to life behind bars, deemed a habitual offender. The Advocate reports he has prior convictions for armed robbery, simple robbery and purse snatching.

Dickerson claims his conduct did not amount to second-degree battery and his sentence is unconstitutionally excessive. An appeals court disagreed, and the Louisiana Supreme Court on Friday let that ruling stand.

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh met Tuesday with Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, a centrist who's seen as a potential swing vote on his confirmation, while Democrats push him to release more documents from his years in the George W. Bush White House.

Collins supports abortion rights and has vowed to oppose any nominee who has "demonstrated hostility" to Roe v. Wade. But she has spoken highly of President Donald Trump's nominee, saying he's qualified for the job.

The meeting Tuesday comes as Kavanaugh, an appellate court judge, is making the rounds on Capitol Hill ahead of confirmation hearings in September. One key meeting will be with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who says he'll ask Kavanaugh to fully support releasing documents from the Bush White House that Republicans have declined to review.

Schumer said he will ask Kavanaugh, as he has Republicans, "What are they hiding?" He expects the judge to be able to fully explain his record. "I hope he comes prepared to answer direct questions," he said.

Democrats complain that Republicans, who have a slim 51-49 majority in the Senate, are withholding documents in their rush to confirm Trump's pick for the court ahead of the midterm elections.

Kavanagh, 53, is a conservative who, in replacing retired Justice Anthony Kennedy, could tip the court rightward for a generation.

Several Democratic women senators joined with advocates for women's health care Tuesday to talk about the stakes of adding Kavanaugh to the court, particularly when it comes to access to abortion services.

The California Supreme Court on Thursday made it easier for some immigrant children who are abused or abandoned by a parent to seek a U.S. visa to avoid deportation in a ruling that advocates said would help thousands of children.

State judges cannot require that children drag an absentee parent living abroad into court in their visa application process, the justices said in a unanimous decision. Immigration rights advocates had warned that such a requirement would make it nearly impossible for the children to fight deportation. That's because courts in California cannot establish authority over a foreign citizen and the parent may want nothing to do with a child claiming abuse, and would refuse to participate in a court proceeding in the U.S., immigration groups said.

The ruling overturned a lower court decision. The California Supreme Court said it was sufficient to adequately notify the absent parent of the court proceedings, but that parent did not have to be a party to the case.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in court documents that the case had implications for a "substantial portion" of the thousands of children who have fled to the U.S. from Central America and Mexico and settled in California. Kristen Jackson, an attorney for the plaintiff in the case, estimated the ruling would affect thousands of children.

A North Carolina Supreme Court candidate has made good on his threat to sue Republican legislators to challenge a law finalized over the weekend preventing him from having his party designation next to his name on the November ballot.

Chris Anglin filed a lawsuit Monday against Republican legislative leaders and elections officials in state court. He wants the law declared unconstitutional and his GOP designation retained.

The law prevents judicial candidates from having party labels next to their names if they changed affiliations less than 90 days before filing. Anglin switched from a Democratic affiliation three weeks before filing.

Anglin says the law gives unfair benefit to opponent Justice Barbara Jackson, who will have a Republican label. The race's other candidate — Anita Earls — will have a Democratic label.

The 1-year-old boy in a green button-up shirt drank milk from a bottle, played with a small purple ball that lit up when it hit the ground and occasionally asked for "agua."

Then it was the child's turn for his court appearance before a Phoenix immigration judge, who could hardly contain his unease with the situation during the portion of the hearing where he asks immigrant defendants whether they understand the proceedings.

"I'm embarrassed to ask it, because I don't know who you would explain it to, unless you think that a 1-year-old could learn immigration law," Judge John W. Richardson told the lawyer representing the 1-year-old boy.

The boy is one of hundreds of children who need to be reunited with their parents after being separated at the border, many of them split from mothers and fathers as a result of the Trump administration's "zero-tolerance policy." The separations have become an embarrassment to the administration as stories of crying children separated from mothers and kept apart for weeks on end dominated the news in recent weeks.

Critics have also seized on the nation's immigration court system that requires children — some still in diapers — to have appearances before judges and go through deportation proceedings while separated from their parents. Such children don't have a right to a court-appointed attorney, and 90 percent of kids without a lawyer are returned to their home countries, according to Kids in Need of Defense, a group that provides legal representation.

In Phoenix on Friday, the Honduran boy named Johan waited over an hour to see the judge. His attorney told Richardson that the boy's father had brought him to the U.S. but that they had been separated, although it's unclear when. He said the father, who was now in Honduras, was removed from the country under false pretenses that he would be able to leave with his son.

For a while, the child wore dress shoes, but later he was in just socks as he waited to see the judge. He was silent and calm for most of the hearing, though he cried hysterically afterward for the few seconds that a worker handed him to another person while she gathered his diaper bag. He is in the custody of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department in Arizona.

The Justice Department says Stormy Daniels' lawyer, Michael Avenatti, made "misrepresentations" in a bankruptcy case involving his former law firm that owes more than $440,000 in unpaid federal taxes.

Avenatti's former firm, Eagan Avenatti LLP, had agreed in January to pay about $2.4 million in back taxes and penalties as part of a resolution of a bankruptcy case involving the firm.

Court documents show some of the money was paid, but attorneys for the government said in May that the firm still owed a portion of the unpaid tax money.

On Tuesday, the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles filed a motion asking a federal judge to compel the payment of $440,291 in unpaid taxes and more than $11,700 in interest. Lawyers from the U.S. attorney's office represent the government in bankruptcy court when there's a debt to a government agency, like back taxes or unpaid student loans.

Avenatti, who has garnered national attention as the attorney for Daniels, the porn actress who is suing President Donald Trump following an alleged 2006 affair, said Wednesday that the court filing was "part of a smear campaign" and stressed that he doesn't personally owe any of the money.