Liberty University School of Law alumnus Josh Turner (’15) represented the state of Idaho before the United States Supreme Court in Idaho v. United States on April 24, becoming the first from his alma mater to stand before the highest court in the country.
Turner aimed to defend the state’s existing restrictions on abortion. The case centers around Idaho’s “trigger law” that bans abortion in all cases except for rape, incest, and protecting the life of the mother. The law went into effect as a direct response to the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the legality of abortion to the discretion of state governments. In response to Idaho’s ban, the Biden administration sued the State, citing the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) of 1986, which requires medical centers to provide care to patients facing an emergency medical condition.
After graduating from Liberty Law in 2015, Turner spent a year clerking for a judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in Arkansas before completing a second federal clerkship with a judge in the Eastern District of Arkansas. He next worked for a law firm for four years before joining the Idaho Office of Attorney General in March 2023.
As a conservative Christian, Turner said his faith and values play crucial roles in how he conducts his work daily.
“It’s not hard to defend life,” he said. “It’s not hard to defend marriage. It’s not hard to defend God’s design for His creation. Those are all no-brainers to me, and it’s totally inconsistent with the Christian faith to allow these incursions on biblical values like family and the Creator/creature relationship. We don’t get to define our existence. God has made us how He has, and it’s not up to us to tinker with His creation.”
