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A Wharton judge has ruled that the marriage between a Wharton fire captain killed in the line of duty and his transgender wife was not legal, an attorney in the case said today. "It is our understanding, having read a draft order circulated by Judge Clapp, that he has ruled that any marriage between Thomas Araguz and Nikki Araguz is void as a matter of law," Mann said in a prepared statement sent by email a few minutes after 5 p.m., when the judge's office was closed In his statement, Mann said he anticipated that Nikki Araguz's legal team would...

Here, for reasons that I shall provide in a memorandum to be filed in due course, I am certain that “a reasonable person with knowledge of all the facts would [not] conclude that [my] impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” United States v. Nelson, 718 F.2d 315, 321 (9th Cir. 1983); see also Sao Paulo State of the Federated Republic of Brazil v. Am. Tobacco Co., 535 U.S. 229, 233 (2002) (per curiam). I will be able to rule impartially on this appeal, and I will do so. The motion is therefore DENIED.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- A federal judge has granted a request to prevent the state of Oklahoma from certifying election results for a constitutional amendment that would bar state courts from considering international or Islamic law when deciding cases. U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange said Monday she granted the preliminary injunction against State Question 755 until she rules on the merits of a challenge to the law. The law was approved by 70 percent of Oklahoma voters in a Nov. 2 referendum.

A federal appellate judge expressed deep skepticism Monday about the Justice Department's lawsuit over Arizona's new immigration law, leaving uncertain the Obama administration's chances of stopping the law from taking effect. Judge John T. Noonan Jr. grilled administration lawyers at a hearing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. He took aim at the core of the Justice Department's argument: that the Arizona statute is "preempted" by federal law and is especially troublesome because it requires mandatory immigration status checks in certain circumstances. "I've read your brief, I've read the District Court opinion, I've heard your interchange...

WASHINGTON — A district court judge Tuesday rejected the Obama administration's claims that allowing gays and lesbians to begin openly

Federal judge issues nationwide injunction stopping enforcement

Breaking...

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has expressed a willingness to ban protesters from burning the Koran as the modern day equivalent of shouting fire in a crowded theater.The Supreme Court has ruled burning the American flag in protest is protected speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution.Breyer spoke to George Stephanopoulos on ABC's Good Morning America today:But Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer told me on "GMA" that he's not prepared to conclude that -- in the internet age -- the First Amendment condones Koran burning.“Holmes said it doesn’t mean you can shout 'fire' in a crowded theater,” Breyer...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – A federal judge in Southern California has declared the U.S. military's ban on openly gay service members unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips on Thursday granted a request for an injunction halting the government's "don't ask, don't tell" policy for gays in the military. Phillips says the policy doesn't help military readiness and instead has a "direct and deleterious effect" on the armed services. The lawsuit was the biggest legal test of the law in recent years and came amid promises by President Barack Obama that he will work to repeal the policy.

A California court has refused to order Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown to appeal a ruling that overturned the state’s gay marriage ban, according to an Associated Press report. The 3rd District Court of Appeal in Sacramento on Wednesday denied a conservative legal group’s request to force the officials to defend Proposition 8 in court. The court did not give a reason why it turned down the request by the Pacific Justice Institute.

The Obama administration has shelved the planned prosecution of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged coordinator of the Oct. 2000 suicide attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, according to a court filing. The decision at least temporarily scuttles what was supposed to be the signature trial of a major al-Qaeda figure under a reformed system of military commissions. And it comes practically on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the attack, which killed 17 sailors and wounded dozens when a boat packed with explosives ripped a hole in the side of the warship in the port of Aden.

AUSTIN, Texas, Aug. 25 (UPI) -- Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, will be tried on money laundering charges in Austin, a Texas judge ruled Wednesday. The ruling came as part of pretrial hearings during which DeLay argued he should be tried in Houston, near his home, because the case involves election matters, the Austin American-Statesman reported. His attorney, Dick DeGuerin also argued DeLay could not get a fair trial in Travis County. "I know there's negative feeling about Tom DeLay -- and it's strong," Senior District Judge Pat Priest said, adding DeLay could get a fair trial nonetheless....

Washington (CNN) -- Members of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission shouted at each other Friday over the Justice Department's decision to drop most of the charges in a 2008 incident in which black militants confronted voters at a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, polling place, leading to charges of voter intimidation. Conservative commission members accused the Justice Department of "stonewalling" the commission's investigation into the dismissal, and called a Justice Department's response to requests for information "breathtaking and insulting." A liberal commission member, in turn, dismissed those complaints as the "last gasps of a conservative majority of this commission." At the end of...

NORMAN — A federal judge’s ruling Wednesday in California — and a federal judge’s decision last month in Massachusetts — have made conservative Oklahoma in the middle of the country an unlikely battleground for gay marriage. Longtime Broken Arrow couple Sharon Baldwin and Mary Bishop, who are the named plaintiffs challenging Oklahoma’s Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, said California’s case does not carry any legal precedent in their own case. However, Baldwin said it shows “the tide is turning” and more judges could follow the lead of what has happened in California and Massachusetts. On the other side of the...

The Swiss government asked the U.S. Justice Department to release sealed transcripts in the Roman Polanski case just days before a Los Angeles judge was told that the Swiss did not request that information, according to a letter from Swiss officials that points to apparent miscommunication in the case. The officials said that the denial of access to the information was the key factor in the refusal to extradite the film maker to the U.S., according to the letter to the U.S. Embassy in Bern, Switzerland. A district attorney's spokeswoman said their office was never notified of the Swiss request...

For those who claim that vote fraud isn't a problem, Al Franken's election to the Senate demonstrates not only that vote fraud exists but also that it can alter elections and indeed the laws of the country. Murderers, rapists, and robbers may not be the people we want providing the crucial votes that determine what America's laws should be.

Senator Biden was the first questioner. Instead of the softball questions he’d promised to ask, he threw a beanball straight at my head, quoting from a speech I’d given four years earlier at the Pacific Legal Foundation and challenging me to defend what I’d said. ”I find attractive the arguments of scholars such as Stephen Macedo, who defend an activist Supreme Court that would strike down laws restricting property rights.” That caught me off guard, and I had no recollection of making so atypical a statement, which shook me up even more. “Now, it would seem to me what you...

Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is telling senators she'll do her best to consider cases impartially and with judicial humility, as she begins Judiciary Committee hearings facing Republicans charges that she'd let her political views color her decisions as a justice. "I will do my best to consider every case impartially, modestly, with commitment to principle, and in accordance with law," Kagan plans to tell senators as she heads into a marathon week of high-pressure vetting before the Judiciary panel, pressing to portray herself as a mainstream addition to the court.

Victoria Kolakowski, who's running for Alameda Count Superior Court judge in a November runoff election, declares on her campaign Web site that she hopes to make history."If I am elected, I would be the first openly LGBT superior court judge elected in Alameda County, the first openly LGBT person elected countywide, and the first transgender trial court judge in the United States," it states. The question is how much it should matter. Kolakowski, 48, transitioned from male to female in 1989 during her last year in law school and had sex reassignment surgery in 1991. She has 21 years of...

Ukiah, Calif. (AP) -- A Northern California man who fatally shot a family friend accused of molesting him for years was sentenced Tuesday to nine years in prison in the vigilante shooting. Aaron Vargas, 32, was sentenced after pleading no contest to voluntary manslaughter in the death of 63-year-old Darrell McNeill.Vargas said McNeill began sexually abusing him when he was 11 . . . several other people ... came forward to say McNeill had molested them.Hundreds of supporters ... asked authorities for leniency for the shooter.. . . Judge Ronald Brown said he imposed the harsher sentence because he believed...

It is no secret that progressives have created a self-cloning machine by hijacking our educational system. Their indoctrination efforts are well documented. But we rarely think of research institutions as propaganda factories. A Request for Proposal (RFP) — see document above — recently obtained by Big Journalism gives us a rare look at how progressives and labor unions attempt to manipulate the national media narrative. And their process? you may ask. Use the credibility and resources of the American higher education system to create researchprop – biased collegial research papers that serve as propaganda to support political policies. Entitled Cry...

The doctor was the victim of "bad luck," medical board saysThe state Board of Medicine has ruled a South Florida surgeon, who took out a healthy kidney instead of a gallbladder during an operation, wasn't inept or careless. The board said Bernard Zaragoza is a good doctor, but he had bad luck. We'd say it was the patient who had the worst luck. The unidentified man died of heart failure three weeks after the surgery. In 2007, Zaragoza operated on an 83-year-old patient who was having some internal issues in Miramar. The patient's kidney was located where his gallbladder should...

<p>With a judge's earlier ruling that Chicago Police Officer John Ardelean had been arrested and detained without probable cause, Cook County prosecutors today dropped all charges against him in a crash that killed two people.</p> <p>The 36-year-old officer was charged with drunken driving and reckless homicide after his SUV broadsided a car on Thanksgiving 2007.</p>

Ohio's highest court has ruled that a person may be convicted of speeding purely if it looked to a police officer that the motorist was going too fast. The Ohio Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that an officer's visual estimation of speed is enough to support a conviction if the officer is trained, certified by a training academy, and experienced in watching for speeders. The court's 5-1 decision says independent verification of a driver's speed is not necessary. The court upheld a lower court's ruling against a driver who challenged a speeding conviction that had been based on testimony from police...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that federal officials can indefinitely hold inmates considered “sexually dangerous” after their prison terms are complete. The high court reversed a lower court decision that said Congress overstepped its authority in allowing indefinite detentions of considered “sexually dangerous.” “The statute is a ’necessary and proper’ means of exercising the federal authority that permits Congress to create federal criminal laws, to punish their violation, to imprison violators, to provide appropriately for those imprisoned and to maintain the security of those who are not imprisoned by who may be affected by the federal imprisonment of...

Richard Goldstone, author of the notorious Goldstone report, did not become a South African judge in the post-Apartheid Mandela Era, as The New York Times and other media have erroneously reported. He accepted a judgeship during the worst days of Apartheid and helped legitimate one of the most racist regimes in the world by granting the imprimatur of the rule of law to some of the most undemocratic and discriminatory decrees. Goldstone was–quite literally–a hanging judge. He imposed and affirmed death sentences for more than two dozen blacks under circumstances where whites would almost certainly have escaped the noose. And...

FARMINGTON, N.M. (AP) - A foster father who previously faced 85 counts of criminal sexual penetration against a minor has been arrested on six counts of the same crime after a different alleged victim videotaped 1 of the incidents. Forty-5-year-old Todd Mortensen confessed to the six counts, which reportedly occurred between March 22 and March 30 in his home, where the 12-year-old alleged victim lived as a foster child. Mortensen was arrested...and booked into the San Juan County Adult Detention Center on six charges of second-degree criminal sexual contact of a minor younger than the age 13. SNIP Mortensen is...

CHICAGO (AP) - A federal judge in Chicago has refused to issue a subpoena for President Barack Obama to testify at former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's political corruption trial.

“Convinced that they own the public sidewalk” In blow to Planned Parenthood, judge acquits San Mateo pro-life activist of contempt Following an April 16 hearing, San Mateo Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Lee found longtime pro-life advocate Ross Foti not guilty of 21 counts of contempt, handing a defeat to Planned Parenthood Golden Gate, which for years has been trying to banish sidewalk counselors from in front of its San Mateo facility, Life Legal Defense Foundation reports.

After the joy of a wedding and the adoption of a baby came arguments that couldn't be resolved, leading Angelique Naylor to file for divorce. That left her fighting both the woman she married in Massachusetts and the state of Texas, which says a union granted in a state where same-sex marriage is legal can't be dissolved with a divorce in a state where it's not. A judge in Austin granted the divorce, but Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is appealing the decision. He also is appealing a divorce granted to a gay couple in Dallas, saying protecting the "traditional...

An Oregon jury found the Boy Scouts of America and the local scout chapter negligent today in a landmark case that accused the iconic organization of covering up alleged sexual abuse of several of its boy scouts for years. The Boy Scouts of America face charges of sexual abuse by scout leaders.The nine-member jury ordered the organization to pay $1.4 million in damages, and will now move into a punitive phase that could result in the Boy Scouts of America paying a penalty that could reach $25 million. That decision is not expected for weeks. ~ Skip ~ In the...

Justice Stevens turned out to be one of those Republican appointees to the Court who “grew” during his tenure. That was nowhere more evident than in cases challenging the legality of racial preferences. Consider that in the landmark Bakke case (1978), Stevens wrote an opinion joined by three other justices finding that a medical school admissions quota violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Here is how he began that opinion: Section 601 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 252, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d, provides: "No person in the United States shall, on the...

A judge in Travis County declined Wednesday to consider Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott's request to intervene in the county's first same-sex divorce case, letting stand the judge's February decision to grant a divorce to two women who had been married in another state. Abbott's deputies had argued in court filings that Angelique Naylor, 39, and Sabina Daly, 42, may not be legally granted a divorce because Texas law defines marriage as between a man and a woman. Naylor and Daly were married in 2004 in Massachusetts, where gay marriage is legal. They returned to their home in Austin after...

President Obama's judicial nominees are getting more dangerous with each White House announcement. If you don't believe us, consider one judge's opinion that the "sexual sadism" of a multiple rapist-murderer was "clearly a mitigating factor" that argued against executing the murderer and perhaps even against convicting him in the first place. Or that a type of Megan's Law sex-offender registry should be overturned because it "stigmatizes nondangerous registrants." Even a child-porn convict should serve a sentence less than half as long as official guidelines suggest if his mental and emotional condition is fragile. U.S. District Judge Robert N. Chatigny of...

Matthew Vadum NewsRealIf you thought you sent representatives and senators to Washington, D.C., to exercise the constitutionally mandated power of the purse — you’re wrong. Silly you. You wasted all that time in civics class learning a whole bunch of outdated claptrap about separation of powers and the lawmaking process for nothing. The spending power belongs to federal judges now, regardless of what that quaint little document called the U.S. Constitution says. That’s what ACORN’s favorite federal judge, Nina Gershon of the Eastern District of New York ruled Wednesday. In December Gershon, a Bill Clinton appointee, helped ACORN out by...

FAIRMONT, W.Va. (Associated Press) -- Prosecutors in West Virginia have dropped a misdemeanor charge that accused an FBI security guard of spying on girls as they tried on prom gowns at a Fairmont mall. A Marion County magistrate convicted Charles Brian Hommema of invasion of privacy in December.

ANN ARBOR — A Michigan man sent to prison for 15 years is getting a new trial after the judge failed to do a routine procedure — ask the jury to take an oath. Timothy Becktel was sentenced in 2008 for assault with intent to murder. But his appellate lawyer successfully argued that the verdict should be thrown out because the jury didn't swear to return an honest decision based on law and evidence.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Employees at the U.S. liberal grass-roots group ACORN who were caught on video giving tax advice to a couple posing as a pimp and a prostitute have been cleared of criminal wrongdoing, New York prosecutors said on Monday. The organization has been reeling since a YouTube video was disseminated last September showing ACORN workers giving advice on how to flout the law to two conservative activists who posed as a pimp and a prostitute. The U.S. Congress then voted by wide margins to prohibit the federal government from funding ACORN, and the U.S. Census Bureau ended...

War On Terror: The Justice Department employs nine lawyers previously involved in the defense of terrorist detainees. This is a colossal conflict of interest. Just whose side are they on? From the dropping of a voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party to the decision to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Muhammed in a civilian court within blocks of where the World Trade Center once stood, the actions and attitudes of the Justice Department and Attorney General Eric Holder toward the thugs and terrorists who threaten us has grown curiouser and curiouser. We may now have a clue as...

Forget about same sex marriage, the State of Texas is trying to block same sex divorce. Attorney General Greg Abbott is stepping in to urge a judge in Travis County to reject the divorce petition of a San Antonio woman who married her female partner in Massachusetts, where same sex marriage is legal, and now want to divorce in Texas. "A divorce is an ending or a termination of a valid legal marriage," Abbott said. "In this case, there was no valid legal marriage recognized by the state of Texas." The issue of same sex divorce is on the cutting...

...Abbott is trying to halt the divorce of two women in Austin on grounds their Massachusetts marriage is not recognized in Texas. A Travis County state district judge on Feb. 10 granted a divorce in court to Sabina Daly, 41, of San Antonio, and Angelique Naylor, 39, of Austin. Abbott's aides went to court the following day to block the divorce before the written decree was entered. “A divorce is an ending or a termination of a valid legal marriage,” Abbott said Tuesday. “In this instance there was no valid legal marriage recognized by the state of Texas. Texas can't...

By Peter J. Smith SAN FRANCISCO, February 9, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In what he describes as “an open secret,” a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle says that the federal judge presiding over the case against California's Proposition 8 identifies as a homosexual. The revelation now raises questions over whether Chief Justice Vaughn Walker of the U.S. District Court for California's Northern District should recuse himself in the federal trial against Prop. 8, California’s ban on homosexual “marriage.” Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross write: “Many gay politicians in San Francisco and lawyers who have had dealings with Walker say...

The lede from an article out Sunday in the SF Chronicle reads as follows: The biggest open secret in the landmark trial over same-sex marriage being heard in San Francisco is that the federal judge who will decide the case, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, is himself gay. Interesting. So, what to make of this fact? According to the article, folks aren’t making much of it. Andy Pugno, general counsel for the group that sponsored the Prop. 8 campaign, rebuffed claims that his group might bring it up if Walker ultimately rules against them. “We are not going to...

Practically everyone in town knows Amy Dugas is a serial batterer. But the Maine criminal justice system keeps finding ways to keep her from facing the music. In 2004 Amy assaulted her husband Mark in their home in Waldoboro. When the police officer came to arrest her, she kicked him in the groin. The judge released her on bail, ordering her to refrain from using weapons. Four months later she stabbed Mark with a foot-long kitchen knife, fatally severing his pulmonary artery. At the trial, she got away with the trusty I-feared-for-my-life alibi. Two years later Dugas spent 125 days...

I searched but did not see this ever posted, so here it is. The Bangor Daily News reported back on July of 2009, about the ruling by the Maine Human Rights Commission that the Orono School Department discriminated against a transgender child by denying her access to the girls bathroom. While the school department’s lawyer warned that schools around the state may not be ready to manage the practical fallout from the decision, civil liberties advocates hailed the ruling as an advancement of human rights. “This ruling is a huge step forward for a vulnerable population that is entitled to...

...Miller and Jenkins were joined in a Vermont civil union in 2000. Isabella was born to Miller through artificial insemination in 2002. The couple broke up in 2003, and Miller moved to Virginia, renounced homosexuality and became an evangelical Christian. Cohen awarded custody of the girl to Jenkins on Nov. 20 after finding Miller in contempt of court for denying Jenkins access to the girl. The judge said the only way to ensure equal access to the child was to switch custody. He also said the benefits to the child of having access to both parents would be worth the...

Albuquerque, N.M., Dec 18, 2009 / 04:12 am (CNA).- Attorneys for a small photography company charged with violating anti-discrimination laws for declining to photograph a same-sex “commitment ceremony” are planning to appeal a New Mexico judge’s decision to uphold the New Mexico Civil Rights Commission’s ruling against them.The Albuquerque company, Elane Photography, is co-owned by Elaine Huguenin and her husband Jon. They are being represented by attorneys from the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF).In 2006 a woman named Vanessa Willock asked them to photograph a “commitment ceremony” that she and another woman wanted to hold in Taos, N.M. State law does...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal appeals court in San Francisco has reversed a judge's order that backers of Proposition 8, the state initiative that banned same-sex marriage, give their campaign strategy documents to opponents trying to overturn the measure. In a unanimous ruling today, the Ninth U.S. Circuit of Appeals tossed out the order that Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker issued in October against backers of Prop. 8, which state voters approved in November 2008. Walker had said lawyers for two same-sex couples and a gay-rights group were entitled to see internal memos and e-mails between Yes on 8...

A federal judge blocked U.S. officials from enforcing a funding ban on Acorn, the beleaguered community organizer. Congress cut off funding for Acorn -- the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now -- in September after Web sites and TV news outlets played secretly recorded videos in which employees of an affiliated organization offered advice on how to set up brothels and avoid paying taxes. Acorn sued the federal government in November, arguing Congress had violated the Constitution by singling out the group. It says it has fired employees suspected of wrongdoing. U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon in New York...

A former Duke University employee and adoptive gay father charged with molesting his five-year-old son--and offering the boy as a sex object to pedophiles online--is expected to make a plea bargain, according to a Dec. 1 article in local newspaper the Durham Herald Sun. Frank Lombard faces charges stemming from alleged instances in which he molested his young adopted son and chatted about the deeds online even as he carried them out. It’s thought that the U.S, Attorney’s Office is positioning the case for a plea arrangement because the Office is set to file an "information," which allows the prosecution...