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During his first year in office, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger railed against state lawmakers, calling them "girlie men" and "obstructionists." As he enters his final year, Schwarzenegger is targeting a different branch of government: judges who "are going absolutely crazy." The Republican governor openly complains about the judiciary these days for blocking budget decisions and forcing California to find billions of dollars elsewhere. Recent judgments have contributed to the state's $20.7 billion projected deficit. Courts have ruled that California's attempts to divert transit and redevelopment money are illegal. They have found in some cases that the state cannot furlough workers. They...

Chairmen of two California legislative committees, responding to a recent Bee investigation, said this week that they would probe prison health care staffing as managed by receiver J. Clark Kelso, who operates under a federal court order. The Bee reported that the prisons last year spent more than $152 million on temporary clinical employees, such as doctors and nurses. Another $170 million went to overtime for clinicians and guards who accompany inmates to appointments. Some nurses work such long hours that they fall asleep on the job, workers and executives said. Assemblyman Hector De La Torre, D-South Gate, who chairs...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal appeals court bluntly accused the Schwarzenegger administration and state Attorney General Jerry Brown's office on Monday of lying about its defense of cuts in Medi-Cal fees. Lawyers in Brown's office committed a "clear violation" of State Bar rules that prohibit attorneys from misleading judges, raising doubts about the credibility of any future statements they make on behalf of state health officials, said the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The court said health officials, through their lawyers, had lied about why the state waited more than a year to make its current...

OKLAHOMA CITY –State Reps Mike Reynolds and Mike Ritze announced today they plan on filing legislation to help facilitate removal of judges who give child rapists and murderers “slap on the hand” sentences. Representative Ritze, R-Broken Arrow said “After Oklahoma made national headlines with the sentence of child rapist David Earls by District Judge Tom Bartheld, you would have thought other Oklahoma judges would have begun to understand that the public will not put up with their bleeding hearts.” “It seems Judge Kellough must live in a different world”, added Reynolds, R-Oklahoma City . “When a jury recommends Life in...

Eminent Domain: Four years after the Supreme Court told a Connecticut homeowner that no one's house is safe from developers, Brooklyn homeowners may lose their homes to a pro basketball team. On June 3, 2005, by a 5-4 margin, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively repealed the 5th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, deciding that your constitutional right to be secure in your home didn't matter if your state or community decided your property could produce more revenue as a shopping mall or condominium development. Pfizer coveted Susette Kelo's working-class neighborhood for an office park and condominium complex. The city fathers...

SAN FRANCISCO -- The chief federal appeals court judge in San Francisco bluntly ordered the Obama administration Thursday to stop resisting his finding that the wife of a lesbian court employee was entitled to government insurance coverage. The federal agency that oversees benefits for government employees "shall cease at once its interference with the jurisdiction of this tribunal," Judge Alex Kozinski said in response to the Office of Personnel Management's rejection of his earlier ruling in the case. He told the agency to let Karen Golinski, a staff attorney at the court's headquarters in San Francisco, enroll her wife, Amy...

-- Vote could come as early as MondayHe has been called "extreme" by some. But to others, he's beyond extreme... he's a "Radical's Radical."  Whatever he is, he could become President Obama's next choice for the federal judiciary. This radical is Judge David Hamilton, and he's been nominated for a position on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Hamilton has made many political enemies on the right, seeing that his politics are to the far left of the political spectrum.  Oh yes, judges aren't supposed to be political, but this one has engaged in quite a bit of leftist activism....

The private homes New London, Conn., took through eminent domain from Suzette Kelo and others, are torn down now, but Pfizer has just announced that it closing up shop at the research facility that led to the condemnation. Leading drugmakers Pfizer and Wyeth have merged, and as a result, are trimming some jobs. That includes axing the 1,400 jobs at their sparkling new research & development facility in New London, and moving some across the river to Groton. To lure those jobs to New London a decade ago, the local government promised to demolish the older residential neighborhood adjacent to...

<p>A New Jersey appeals court has concluded that Americans have no Second Amendment right to buy a handgun.</p> <p>In a case decided last week, the superior court upheld a state law saying that nobody may possess "any handgun" without obtaining law enforcement approval and permission in advance.</p>

After railing against labor unions, waste and fraud in the past, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday found a new target to blame for California's budget woes: judges who "are going absolutely crazy." As pieces of the July state budget solution begin to unravel, the Republican governor said judges – especially on the federal level – are preventing California from solving its problems. He complained in particular about judicial actions that have struck down some state worker furloughs, required reductions in the prison population, imposed restrictions on water delivery in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and this week blocked cuts to in-home...

Former Vice President Al Gore and current White House climate change czar Carol Browner are warning companies and lawmakers that the courts will step in to regulate greenhouse gases if Congress fails to act. "All of the discussion has been about the president and the Congress," Gore told journalists at a U.N. press conference Tuesday. "We have a third branch of government: the courts."

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will file a court-mandated plan today to ease prison overcrowding that appears to defy demands by a panel of three federal judges, the latest salvo in a long-running feud between state and federal officials over California's corrections system. The federal judges last month ordered the state to reduce its prison population by 40,000 inmates over the next two years in response to lawsuits alleging that overcrowding has led to unconstitutional and inadequate levels of medical and mental health care. Schwarzenegger's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation intends to file an inmate reduction plan with the court today, but...

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday will submit to a panel of three federal judges a plan that would reduce the inmate population at California’s overcrowded prisons by substantially less than what the court has ordered, a move that a top prison administrator acknowledged will place state officials at risk of being held in contempt. Although the final plan will not be submitted until late Friday, administration officials have briefed other parties involved in the court proceedings on its major elements. They said exact projections of how much the prison population will be reduced have not yet been calculated,...

INDIANAPOLIS -- The Indiana Court of Appeals has ruled that Indiana's voter identification law is unconstitutional. 6News is looking through the 29-page ruling now and will provide details from it as soon as possible. The decision comes after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the state's voter ID law in 2008, a week before the presidential primary, in a splintered 6-3 ruling. Backers of the law, which requires a voter to present a photo identification to cast a ballot, said it curbs voter fraud. Those against the law contend that it keeps poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots. The...

Insulted in Restroom, Texas Judge Jails Court Attendee, 69, for Contempt Posted 1 hour, 15 minutes ago By Martha Neil Angry about a Texas judge's ruling in a custody matter involving his granddaughter, Don Bandelman followed the jurist into a public restroom at the Caldwell County courthouse. Then the 69-year-old called District Judge Jack Robison a fool, reports the American-Statesman. Bandelman says the judge told him to leave, and he did. But then Robison had his bailiffs arrest Bandelman on the courthouse outside the sidewalk and, without any hearing, sentenced him to a 30-day jail term for contempt, the article...

San Francisco -- A federal court panel ordered California on Tuesday to reduce the population of its bulging prisons by 40,000 over the next two years to meet constitutional standards for inmate health care, and said it could be done without releasing dangerous prisoners to the streets. "The convergence of tough-on-crime policies and an unwillingness to expend the necessary funds to support the population growth has brought California's prisons to the breaking point," the three-judge panel said. Unless the courts intervene, the panel said, inmates will continue to suffer and die needlessly because prisons lack the space and the staff...

Federal law now criminalizes activities that the average person would never dream would land him in prison. ---------------------------cut--------------------------- Every year, thousands of upstanding, responsible Americans run afoul of some incomprehensible federal law or regulation and end up serving time in federal prison. What is especially disturbing is that it could happen to anyone at all -- and it has. We should applaud Reps. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), then, for holding a bipartisan hearing today to examine how federal law can make a criminal out of anyone, for even the most mundane conduct. --------------------------------------cut------------------ This is an inevitable...

Sacramento, CA (AP) -- A federal appeals court says a judge can proceed with hearings to determine whether Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger can be held in contempt for refusing to pay for improved inmate health care. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday rejected an appeal from the administration that attempted to block U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson's hearing.

SACRAMENTO -- A special panel of federal judges tentatively ruled Monday that California will have to release tens of thousands of inmates to relieve overcrowding over the next several years. The judges said no other solution will improve conditions so poor that inmates die regularly of suicides or lack of proper care. The panel said it wants the state to present a plan to trim its prison population in two to three years. "There are simply too many prisoners for the existing capacity," they wrote in a 10-page order. "Evidence offered at trial was overwhelmingly to the effect that overcrowding...

Sacramento, CA (AP) -- California's attorney general is asking a federal appeals court to block what he describes as an extravagant spending proposal for prison medical facilities. The Legislature has refused to act on the request for $8 billion made by the court-appointed receiver overseeing reform of California's prison health care system. The receiver is seeking an immediate $250 million as a down payment. . . . - Clark Kelso

A panel of three federal judges is holding a trial to determine whether to free 52,000 of California's 172,000 prison inmates to alleviate overcrowding. You might be asking yourself: Who elected these guys to run California? One of the three, U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson, already determined in 2005 that California's prison health care system is so bad that it's unconstitutional. He put the system in receivership, and appointed law Professor Clark Kelso to oversee prison health care. Now Kelso is demanding $8 billion to renovate the system - even though the state spends about $14,000 on health care per...

San Francisco, CA (AP) -- Three federal judges are considering whether they can force California to release 52,000 inmates to relieve crowded prisons without creating a public safety nightmare. The special panel seems persuaded by seven days of testimony that overcrowding in California prisons has led to unconstitutionally poor conditions for sick and mentally ill inmates. Now the judges must decide what to do about it. . . .

The Schwarzenegger administration is appealing a federal judge's order in a growing battle between state sovereignty and inmates' constitutional rights. The administration is asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to block Monday's order by U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson. Henderson gave the state until next Wednesday to pay $250 million to design seven new prison medical facilities. The state on Friday also planned to ask Henderson to postpone a mid-November hearing he scheduled to consider finding Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state Controller John Chiang in contempt of court if they don't turn over the money.

SAN FRANCISCO -- The lawyer representing California in a lawsuit over prison health care said today that state officials aren't ready to comply with a federal judge's order to turn over $250 million for new hospitals for inmates, despite the possibility of a contempt-of-court order against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson ordered Schwarzenegger and state Controller John Chiang on Oct. 8 to tell him how soon they would provide the money, the first installment in an $8 billion construction plan that a court-appointed manager drew up to raise the prison health system to constitutional standards. Henderson said...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- With California struggling to pay its bills and facing another deficit, the receiver in charge of the state's inmate medical care will argue Monday for the right to take $8 billion from the state treasury. The federal court hearing in San Francisco is one of two legal challenges weighing heavily on the California corrections department. In the other, a panel of three federal judges must decide whether to cap the state's inmate population to solve overcrowding. Addressing both will be expensive. In addition to the billions for medical beds, the state has approved a $7.4 billion construction...

Sacramento, CA (AP) -- The state attorney general's office is fighting an attempt to hold Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in contempt of court for not releasing $8 billion for new inmate medical facilities. The court-appointed receiver who runs the prison medical system has asked a federal judge in San Francisco to force Schwarzenegger and Controller John Chiang to turn over the money. But Attorney General Jerry Brown said in a filing Monday that the federal court does not have the authority to require state prison construction.

WEAPONS OF CHOICE 30 months in jail for broken gun Judge hands down penalty for misfire from 20-year-old rifle A federal judge has ordered a 30-month prison sentence for a man whose rifle misfired, letting loose three shots at a firing range, prompting 2nd Amendment supporters to warn their constituents how easily they, too, can become a "gun felon." "It didn't matter the rifle in question had not been intentionally modified for select fire, or that it did not have an M16 bolt carrier or sear, that it did not show any signs of machining or drilling, or that that...

Last week the California Supreme Court struck a body blow to the principle of government of the people, by the people and for the people. The state's high court struck down a ban on same-sex marriage passed by a whopping 61.4 percent of voters in 2000. By a slim 4-3 majority, the court nullified the vote of the citizens of California and substituted its own judgment for that of the people. The court ruled that the ban violated the equal protection clause of the constitution because it discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation. Never mind that, since time immemorial,...

A federal judge is forbidding the city from calling Mayor Bloomberg as a witness in its landmark suit against a gun salesman from Georgia. At a hearing yesterday, the judge, Jack Weinstein of U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, explained his decision to keep the mayor off the witness stand by saying, "I'm not going to turn the case into a media circus for either side," according to a partial transcript. A jury will be picked next week to hear the city's claim that a store owned by the gun dealer, Jay Wallace, sold a disproportionate number of the guns that...

It’s not really about gay marriage. It’s about the balance of power. It’s about popular sovereignty. It’s about those very fundamental things that the Founding Fathers understood so well, but which have been omitted from the public consciousness and the school curricula for more than a generation. It’s about who, in our Republic, makes the rules. Yesterday, in California, by a 5-4 vote, a panel of judges redefined marriage. The fundamental relationship of society, a bedrock manifestation of culture and public sensibilities, was changed. And the people had no voice. In fact, the ruling specifically voided a 2000 vote of...

SIMI VALLEY - Shawn Sage long dreamed of joining the military, and watching "Full Metal Jacket" last year really sold him on becoming a Marine. But last fall, a Los Angeles Superior Court commissioner dashed the foster teen's hopes of early enlistment for Marine sniper duty, plus a potential $10,000 signing bonus. In denying the Royal High School student delayed entry into the Marine Corps, Children's Court Commissioner Marilyn Mackel reportedly told Sage and a recruiter that she didn't approve of the Iraq war, didn't trust recruiters and didn't support the military. "The judge said she didn't support the Iraq...

While unauthorized entry into the United States is illegal, being in the country after having entered illegally is not necessarily a crime, according to a new ruling by the Kansas Court of Appeals. In a Barton County case, a three-judge panel issued an opinion Friday that a judge could not deny probation and order jail time for convicted drug dealer Nicholas L. Martinez based solely on the grounds that Martinez is an unauthorized immigrant. "While Congress has criminalized the illegal entry into this country, it has not made the continued presence of an illegal alien in the United States a...

LOS ANGELES—A Torrance man cannot be reimbursed for thousands of dollars he was forced to pay to support a child he did not father, an appeals court ruled. State laws do not allow Taron James to demand repayment of the money he supplied before a DNA test confirmed that the child of a former girlfriend was someone else's, the state 2nd District Court of Appeal said in a ruling published Tuesday. James, 38, said he will appeal to the state Supreme Court. James said he has been in "financial hell" since the case began. "The fight is to keep this...

Recent attacks on "activist judges" by legislative bodies could be putting the concept of an independent judiciary at risk, retired Associate Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said Friday. "These are appalling times," O'Connor told a crowd of 700 during a moderated discussion about her career at the University of Tulsa. "There is so much rancor and dislike going on." O'Connor asked the crowd if it heard of the attacks on so-called "godless, secular humanist, activist judges," and cited cases in several states where people attempted to introduce ballot measures that would toss judges in jail for making the wrong...

From April 1775 to Yorktown in 1781, Americans fought and died to end that rule of kings – only to have their meek and timid heirs submit to a rule of judges. A tiny minority of judges in America now dictates to the Great Silent Majority. Of all these outrages and idiocies, one thing may be said: No legislature, no executive at the state or federal level would have survived imposing such measures upon us. For 50 years, this nation permitted the Warren Court, and its successors and imitators in the state courts, to create a body of judge-made law...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 /U.S. Newswire/ -- In a landmark ruling with nationwide implications, Lake County, Indiana Superior Court Judge Robert A. Pete on Monday declared unconstitutional a 2005 federal law backed by the gun lobby that sought to limit the legal liability of gun dealers and manufacturers in the case of City of Gary v. Smith & Wesson et al. The ruling held that the so-called "Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act" (which became effective exactly one year ago today) violates the U.S. Constitution's guarantees of Due Process and Separation of Powers. It allows Gary, Indiana's lawsuit against sixteen...

Oct. 9, 2006 issue - Seattle—as the comprehensive and sustained attack on Americans' freedom of political speech intensifies, this city has become a battleground. Campaign-finance "reformers," who advocate ever-increasing government regulation of the quantity, timing and content of political speech, always argue that they want to regulate "only" money, which, they say, leaves speech unaffected. But here they argue that political speech is money, and hence must be regulated. By demanding that the speech of two talk-radio hosts be monetized and strictly limited, reformers reveal the next stage in their stealthy repeal of the First Amendment.

A federal judge in San Francisco ruled this month that a lawsuit filed against Target Corp. by the National Federation of the Blind challenging the accessibility of the retailer’s Web site can move forward. NFB officials contended that the ruling sets a precedent, establishing that retailers must make their Web sites accessible to the blind under the federal Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). “This ruling is a great victory for blind people throughout the country,” said NFB President Marc Maurer. When asked if the NFB would file lawsuits against other retailers in an effort to improve Web site accessibility, NFB...

LISBON - A judge’s directive giving custody of a child to a father instead of his smoking ex-wife is consistent with court rulings that smoking may be used in making such decisions, an appeals court said. The 7th Ohio District Court of Appeals, in a ruling last week, upheld the decision by the Columbiana County Common Pleas Court in favor of Joel Pierce of nearby Leetonia over his ex-wife, Tammy Pierce of Sanford, Fla. “The Ohio Supreme Court has catalogued the risks of secondhand smoke to children and courts have used the fact that a parent smokes as a factor...

In New Jersey, one's home is not one's castle after all. The real castle, it turns out, is the car. The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled 4-3 yesterday that police do not need a reason to ask permission to search someone's home. The same court four years ago issued rules saying police must have a good reason before asking motorists if they can search their cars. Yesterday the court said the rules for cars -- which prohibit police from asking motorists if they can conduct a search unless they have "a reasonable and articulable suspicion" of criminal activity -- are...

In a rather bizarre ruling that has marine industry officials worried, Judge Robert G. James of the United States District Court, Western Division of Louisiana, has said that it is criminal trespass for the American boating public to boat, fish, or hunt on the Mississippi River and other navigable waters in the US. In the case of Normal Parm v. Sheriff Mark Shumate, James ruled that federal law grants exclusive and private control over the waters of the river, outside the main shipping channel, to riparian landowners. The shallows of the navigable waters are no longer open to the public....

Who is Anna Diggs Taylor and what does she have against national security? The answer to the first question is: a U.S. district judge in Detroit. The answer to the second is as mysterious as the decision she handed down Thursday. In her 44-page ruling, Judge Taylor ordered the National Security Agency to stop monitoring international calls to and from this country, aka "domestic spying" in New York Times style. The judge found the practice not just illegal but unconstitutional. And also un-American in just about every crass, rhetorical way she could. The crux of her opinion reads like an...

Washington, DC -- Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, the U.S. District Judge who presided over the highly controversial government wiretapping case, and decided against the President, may have had a conflict of interest that should have precluded her from judging the case. According to research by Judicial Watch, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor serves as the Secretary and Trustee of a foundation that donated funds to the ACLU of Michigan, a Plaintiff in the case.

Judge Anna Diggs Taylor Serves as Secretary and Trustee of Foundation that donated funds to ACLU of Michigan, a Plaintiff in the Case Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption and judicial abuse, announced today that Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, who last week ruled the government’s warrantless wiretapping program unconstitutional, serves as a Secretary and Trustee for a foundation that donated funds to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan, a plaintiff in the case ACLU et al. v. National Security Agency. Judicial Watch discovered the potential conflict of interest after reviewing Judge Diggs...

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Junior Stowers raised his hands and exclaimed, "Thank you, Jesus!" in court last month when he was acquitted by a jury of abusing his son. But his joy was short-lived when Circuit Judge Patrick Border held him in contempt of court for the "outburst" and threw him in jail. Stowers, 47, sat in the courtroom and a cellblock for about six hours until the judge granted him a hearing on the contempt charge and released him. The judge at a July 7 hearing dropped the contempt charge, a petty misdemeanor that carries up to 30 days in jail. Stowers couldn't...

TOPEKA, Kan. - Kansas Libertarians were stopped from holding a fundraiser at a nudist camp in southwest Shawnee County, when sheriff's deputies blocked people from entering. Shawnee County deputies said they were merely enforcing a court order when they stopped people from accessing Lake Edun on Friday. Last year, Shawnee County District Judge Terry Bullock issued a court order banning "commercial or recreational activities" on the property unless the owners get a permit for such events - something the county refuses to provide. But Rob Hodgkinson, chairman of the Libertarian Party of Kansas, said a political party fundraiser isn't a...

Should last week’s joint disqualify a pot smoker from driving today?A police officer pulls you over at a checkpoint and asks, "Have you been drinking?" Assuming he wants to know whether you have consumed alcohol in the last few hours, such that it might be affecting your ability to drive, you say no. "Not at all?" he asks. Well, you admit, you did have a beer the night before, whereupon he arrests you for driving under the influence. If that scenario makes sense to you, you should have no problem with Michigan's new policy regarding driving and drug use. As...

Proponents of Measure 37, a voter-approved ballot measure that allows property owners to seek waivers from land-use zoning laws or get compensated, are seeking to recall a judge who ruled that the law was unconstitutional. Silverton businessman Tom Steffen, 37, the owner of a graphic-design company, filed the petition Wednesday with the support of the Constitution Party of Oregon. Steffen said the move should come as no surprise to Marion County Circuit Judge Mary Mertens James, who said the law unfairly gives some people rights that others aren't entitled to, violating the equal-protection clause of the Oregon Constitution. "If a...

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer says not all rulings from America's highest court are correct, admitting judges don't have "some great special insight," and he defends the practice of studying courts in foreign countries to help decide cases in the United States. Breyer made the remarks during a panel discussion this week in Chicago at the annual conference of the American Bar Association.