Free Republic

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court turned back an appeal Friday from anti-abortion protesters facing a multimillion dollar judgment for targeting clinic doctors with "wanted" posters. The court had been asked to give free-speech protection to the activists, but the Bush administration discouraged justices from taking the case. Physicians sued, claiming they feared for their lives after being listed on a round of Old-West style wanted posters and having their personal information put on the Internet. Three doctors who had been featured on posters were killed. The American Coalition of Life Activists and others were sued under a racketeering law and...

A day after announcing the Supreme Court's most significant decision on race in a generation, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said in rare interview Tuesday that if America provided adequate educational opportunities for young people, it could someday achieve the goal of ending affirmative action in college admissions.Looking 25 years into the future, O'Connor said: "I hope it looks as though we don't need artificial help to fill our classrooms with highly qualified students at the graduate level." "And if we do our job on educating young people, we can reach that goal," she said, leaving no doubt the secrecy-shrouded court...

Cincinnati - A federal appeals court sent strong signals yesterday that it will reject a gay-rights lawsuit aimed at expanding Ohio's anti-discrimination laws to protect homosexuals against workplace bias. Judge Boyce F. Martin of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, who spoke from the bench after lawyers completed their arguments, said the case did not appear to involve any federal constitutional issues. "We believe, I think collectively, that you first must establish a federal claim," Martin said. The three-judge panel gave no indication when it would rule. Typically, months can pass before a case is decided. Darlene Norton, a...

"How Appealing" is very pleased that Circuit Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has agreed to be the second participant in this Web log's newest feature, "20 Questions for the Appellate Judge."Judge O'Scannlain joined the Ninth Circuit in September 1986, when he was just shy of the age of 50. He attended college at St. John's and law school at Harvard. His chambers are based in Portland, Oregon, and the Ninth Circuit has its headquarters in San Francisco. Questions appear below in italics, and Judge O'Scannlain's responses follow in plain text. 1....

The Last Liberal Judge Stephen R. Reinhardt may be out of step with the times. And that's just fine with him.By Bill Blum On a weekend following the release of last year's pledge of allegiance ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, protesters picketed the home of circuit judge Stephen R. Reinhardt in Marina del Rey. Overhead, a small plane buzzed the adjacent beach, trailing a banner with the words One nation under God-a deliberate reference to the two-word phrase under God, added to the pledge in 1954, that the court had found unconstitutional. No matter that Reinhardt...

LAS CRUCES, N.M. (Reuters) - The mother of a 10-year-old girl who beat her four-year-old brother to death on the instructions of their stepfather was arrested for watching television during the incident, officials said on Saturday. Natasha Guerrero, the children's mother, was arrested on charges of negligently permitting child abuse resulting in the death her son, four- year-old Devon Booth, said Las Cruces Police spokesman Mark Nunley. Devon's 10-year-old sister kicked, punched and hit him allegedly on the instructions of their stepfather, Louie Guerrero, 38. The boy was being punished for bed wetting and drinking from the toilet, and was...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An FBI agent said in August 2001 that accused Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui might take control of an airplane and crash it into the World Trade Center if he was released from custody, according to a court document made public on Friday. The document relates communications between FBI headquarters and its office in Minneapolis involving Moussaoui, who was being held in Minnesota in August 2001 on immigration violations after arousing suspicion at a flight school. The agent said Moussaoui "might take control of an airplane and crash it into the World Trade Center," prosecutors said...

<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) --Former New York Police Officer Charles Schwarz, who repeatedly proclaimed his innocence in the precinct bathroom torture of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima, has agreed to a prison term for perjury, abruptly ending a five-year legal battle on the eve of his fourth trial.</p>

On Aug. 23, the Justice Department issued a news release announcing one of its newest measures to "improve the timeliness and quality of adjudication" of the Board of Immigration Appeals. The BIA is the appellate body of the immigration court system, which has original jurisdiction over appeals from the decisions of immigration judges. In most cases, a ruling from the BIA will determine whether an alien is deported or is to receive some type of relief that would permit him or her to remain in the United States, since any subsequent appeals to a federal district or circuit court...

Federal authorities will begin working more southeast Iowa felony cases, Des Moines County Attorney Pat Jackson said. Jackson said officials from the U.S. Attorney's office in Des Moines have assured him the four new agents being added to offices in the Quad Cities aren't interested in taking cases away from local prosecutors. Instead, he said, a new focus on prosecuting gun crimes and explosives–related offenses will ultimately help local authorities by reducing their workload. "Our felony cases are the most time–intensive cases, and those are the ones they are interested in," Jackson said. Jackson gave a report Tuesday to...

People who manufacture and sell guns that later are used to kill someone cannot be held liable, the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled. In a unanimous decision Thursday the three-judge panel threw out the claims of the families of three employees of an East Side Pizza Hut who were shot to death during a 1999 robbery. The appeals court rejected the families' contention that the defendants had a duty to have procedures designed to keep guns out of the hands of those who should not have them or foreseeably might commit a crime. An appeal to the state Supreme...

Last year, John Ashcroft proposed a new policy of destroying Brady Act gun purchase records after 24 hours, even though a federal appeals court had ruled that it is perfectly legal for the department to maintain those records for six months to audit the background check system. The attorney general cited the "privacy interests" of gun buyers as paramount. He ignored the Federal Bureau of Investigation's recommendation that the record retention period be increased to one year. And he ignored warnings, confirmed by a General Accounting Office report last week, that a 24-hour policy would prevent authorities from retrieving guns...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration outlined a $35 million initiative Friday to stamp out chronic homelessness, targeting people with addictions or disabilities, who have lived on the streets for over a year.The effort reallocates existing funding from three federal agencies - Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services and the Veterans Administration - into programs that provide permanent housing and social services for the homeless.HUD Secretary Mel Martinez said he would like to eliminate chronic homelessness within 10 years."This joint collaboration on homelessness has never been tried before. Yet it makes perfect sense," Martinez said in a...

The California Supreme Court on Thursday told trial judges to stop telling jurors to snitch on fellow jurors they suspect of misconduct during deliberations. In a 4-3 decision, the majority held that a jury instruction directing jurors to speak out about each other disrupts court proceedings. "We believe the instruction has the potential to intrude unnecessarily on the deliberative process and affect it adversely -- both with respect to the freedom of jurors to express their differing views during deliberations and the proper receptivity they should accord the views of their fellow jurors," Chief Justice Ronald George wrote for the...

Six years after her son's murder, Debbie O'Brien is finally going through the things he left behind, touching each object, carefully storing what she wants, and letting the rest go. His baby shoes she will keep - she's had them bronzed. Winter coats and sweaters have been donated to the homeless shelters. His old stereo and guitar went out with the trash. On Thursday, O'Brien and her husband, Jay, took care of one more thing. The mother and father from Kennebunk watched as the gun used to kill Devin O'Brien was cut into useless pieces by a state firearms...

President George W. Bush today announced the recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the Nation's highest civilian honor. It was established by President Truman in 1945 to recognize civilians for their service during World War II, and it was reinstated by President Kennedy in 1963 to honor distinguished service. President Bush will award the Medals of Freedom to the recipients at a ceremony in July. Hank Aaron is one of the most accomplished players in the history of baseball. Aaron holds the career records for home runs, 755 in his 23-year career, runs-batted-in...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday that an ordinance requiring Jehovah's Witnesses or other door-to-door advocates for religious or political causes to get a permit violates free-speech rights. The high court ruled for a local congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses and the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, a nonprofit publisher of church literature, in striking down the law regulating uninvited peddling and solicitation. The justices, by a 8-1 vote, ruled the ordinance in the tiny village of Stratton, Ohio, infringed on the rights of the Jehovah's Witnesses, a faith whose members go from house...

WASHINGTON (AP) - House Republicans are calling for a prescription drug benefit that is two-thirds more than what President Bush proposed but less than half of what Democrats want. The long-awaited proposal was being unveiled Monday. Its movement through the House sets in motion what is expected to be a lively debate for the fall elections.The bill, which would cost $350 billion over 10 years, would spend the bulk of the money - at least $300 billion - on a prescription drug proposal, House aides said. President Bush had proposed spending $190 billion. House Democrats last week unveiled a plan...

On February 14, Denver mayor Wellington Webb made Tom Strickland his valentine. At a press conference at Civic Center Park, Webb presented the former U.S. attorney turned Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate with a glittering endorsement. In praising his many efforts as Colorado's chief federal prosecutor, the mayor paid special attention to Strickland's role in implementing Project Exile, a program in which previously convicted felons caught with firearms are marked for harsh federal prosecution. "Tom was sworn in the day after the terrible tragedy at Columbine, and he vowed to target gun violence and make our neighborhoods safer," Webb...

Lately, the media have focused closely on the government's failure to capitalize on pre-September 11 information concerning al Qaeda activities in American flight schools. Especially significant, and a potential "smoking gun," is a Phoenix memo that sets forth one FBI agent's all too prescient suspicions, yet was largely ignored at the time. The government's failure to capitalize on this and other information has set off a debate in Washington -- one that has broken down along predictable partisan lines. Meanwhile, President Bush and his advisors have adopted a defensive posture reminiscent of the behavior of many corporations after a massive...