Free Republic

The Cleveland Plain Dealer is reporting that the Ohio Supreme Court (OSC) has declined to hear the case of a 55-year-old Cleveland homeowner convicted in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court last year of killing an intruder. In 2010, Carl Kozlosky was convicted by a Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court jury and sentenced last year to 18 years to life in prison for the shooting death of Andre Coleman on Sept. 20, 2009. Last fall, the 8th Ohio District Court of Appeals ordered a new trial for Kozlosky, saying there was overwhelming evidence that he had acted in self-defense. "Under the...

Jean-Paul Guerlain will appear in a Paris courtroom on Thursday to answer for remarks he made in a television interview that provoked controversy in France and abroad. Guerlain, a descendant of the founder of the company that bears his name, was answering questions on the lunchtime news programme of France 2 in October 2010 about a new perfume. "For once, I starter working like a negro," he said. "I don't know if negroes have always worked like that, but anyway..." In French, "pour une fois, je me suis mis à travailler comme un nègre. Je ne sais pas si les...

BELLEVUE, WA --(Ammoland.com)- The Second Amendment Foundation immediately filed an appeal following dismissal of its challenge to Illinois statutes that prohibit the carrying of loaded firearms outside the home for personal protection in the case of Moore v. Madigan. The case is named for individual plaintiff Michael Moore, and defendant Lisa Madigan in her capacity as Illinois Attorney General. Joining Moore and SAF in the case are Illinois Carry, and three other private citizens, Charles Hooks, Peggy Fechter and Jon Maier. The complaint was dismissed by Federal District Judge Sue E. Meyerscough, an Obama administration appointee who formerly served on...

A depressed Army reservist who made a phone call for help says dozens of police responded by surrounding his home and arresting him, vandalizing and searching his place without a warrant, seizing his dog and killing his tropical fish. Matthew Corrigan, who lives alone with his dog, sued the District of Columbia in D.C. Federal Court. Confronted with a massive police presence after his plea for help, Corrigan says, he denied officers permission to enter his house, but they entered and trashed it anyway, saying, "I don't have time to play this constitutional bulls**t!" Corrigan says the debacle started on...

Supreme Court to hear Arizona immigration arguments April 25Reuters – Fri, Feb 3, 2012 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court said on Friday it will hear arguments on April 25 on the power of states to adopt tough immigration laws, concluding the term's scheduled oral arguments with a major case pitting Arizona against the Obama administration. The high court released on Friday its April calendar, listing immigration and other cases scheduled to be heard in its final argument sitting for the current term, which began in October and ends in late June. At issue is whether federal immigration laws...

Judge: Obama eligible to be Georgia candidate A state administrative law judge on Friday flatly rejected challenges seeking to keep President Barack Obama from being a candidate in next month's Georgia primary. In a 10-page order, Judge Michael Malihi dismissed one challenge that contended Obama has maintained a Hawaiian birth certificate that is a computer-generated forgery, has a fraudulent Social Security number and invalid U.S. identification papers. He also turned back another that claimed the president is not a natural born citizen. Last month, Malihi heard testimony and took evidence in a hearing boycotted by Obama's lawyer. With regard to...

The Ohio Supreme Court declined Wednesday to hear the case of a 55-year-old Cleveland homeowner convicted in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court last year of killing an intruder. When the 8th Ohio District Court of Appeals threw out the conviction of Carl Kozlosky and ordered a new trial, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason appealed the decision. The Ohio Supreme Court's decision Wednesday returns the case to Common Pleas Court. Kozlosky was sentenced last year to 18 years to life in prison for the shooting death of Andre Coleman on Sept. 20, 2009. Coleman broke into Kozlosky's house and began beating...

President Barack Obama used the 39th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision outlawing all limits on abortion to make the case for the measure as a crucial stop gap on the way to full equality. “No one can deny that pregnancy places a disproportionate burden on women,” Obama asserted. “In an ideal world, men and women would take turns bearing this type of burden. We’re not there yet. In the meantime, though, we have an obligation to do whatever we can to level the playing field. By granting women an absolute right to abort unwanted offspring, Roe...

Back in September on this broadcast I reported on a stupidly wrong ruling by a three-judge panel of California’s 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. You may recall the story. From my September radio blog broadcast, “The communist Left’s campaign to drive every hint of God from our nation’s classrooms continues. In case you missed the story from a couple of weeks ago, the latest twist in the case of the assault on one teacher’s freedom of speech has been a blow dealt by the notoriously leftist 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that ruled that school district authorities did not violate...

The Federal Criminal Appeals blog reports on a decision from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals regarding when the government can use drug possession as an excuse to deny weapons-possession rights. In short, it can't just assert that there is a good reason to bar drug users from guns: it has to try to prove it. But the Court also seems to think such proof won't be too hard. Let's take a walk through the decision to see what happened and why the Fourth Circuit decided as it did: Following a police search that uncovered marijuana and firearms in Benjamin...

Sacramento, CA --(Ammoland.com)-On January 17, 2012, the Supreme Court of the United States declined to accept and review People v. Delacy, 192 Cal. App. 4th 1481 (2011), review denied (June 8, 2011), cert. denied, No. 11-290, 2012 WL 117549 (U.S. Jan. 17, 2012). In his Petition for a Writ of Certiorari, lawyers with the Michel & Associates law firm representing Mr. Delacy asked the Supreme Court to decide whether language from its 2008 opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) concerning “presumptively lawful” restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms allowed courts to simply...

On January 19, a federal judge in Chicago allowed NRA-supported plaintiffs to move ahead with a challenge to that city’s laws that ban anyone from possessing or carrying a handgun except in his or her home, and that ban possession or carriage of a long gun anywhere outside his or her home or place of business. The case, Benson v. City of Chicago, challenges several of the anti-Second Amendment restrictions that were enacted days after the city’s handgun ban was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. Other issues contested in the case include the city’s ban on nearly all...

A Georgia judge has ordered President Barack Obama to appear in court in Atlanta Thursday for a hearing on a complaint that says Obama isn't a natural-born citizen and can't be president. Orly Taitz, the California attorney who brought the legal challenge to Obama's name on the March Georgia presidential primary ballot, says this is what she has been working for over the last three years. "This will be 100 times bigger than Watergate," she said Saturday morning, referring to the scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon in 1974. "There are high ranking judges and federal officials who are...

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected elections maps drawn by a federal court in Texas that had favored Democratic candidates there. The unanimous decision said that redistricting is primarily a job for elected state officials and that the lower court had not paid enough deference to maps drawn by the State Legislature, which is controlled by Republicans. The justices sent the case back to the lower court, extending the uncertainty surrounding this major voting-rights case.

Occupy protests at Supreme Court, 12 arrestedBy: Aubrey Whelan | 01/20/12 5:08 PM Examiner Staff Writer Supreme Court Police arrested a dozen Occupy protesters Friday afternoon after they destroyed a police barrier, pushed past a police line and sprinted up the steps of the high court – all in violation of federal law. **SNIP** The protest was organized by the advocacy group Move to Amend, which advocates for a Constitutional amendment that would strike down the Citizens United decision. After a short rally across the street, protesters moved to the Supreme Court building, where police had set up metal barricades....

A judge weighing one of three lawsuits challenging Wisconsin's new voter ID law said Thursday he needs more time to consider both sides' arguments before he will rule on the state's motion to dismiss the case. After listening to arguments from attorneys for the League of Women Voters, which is seeking to overturn the law, and for Gov. Scott Walker and the state elections board, Dane County Circuit Judge Richard Niess said he couldn't yet rule on the motion but would at a March 9 hearing. He also said he may rule on the merits of the case then. The...

The Missouri Supreme Court has thrown out the results of a blood test on an unwilling suspect in a routine drunken-driving stop, ruling the officer should have obtained a judge’s warrant for the test.

In today’s United States v. Rehlander (1st Cir. Jan. 13, 2012), the First Circuit revisited and narrowed its precedents related to 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(4) — the statute that bars gun possession by people who had at some point been “committed to a mental institution” — in light of the Second Amendment: Benjamin Small and Nathan Rehlander were each involuntarily admitted to psychiatric hospitals under Maine’s “emergency procedure,” Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 34-B, § 3863 (2011), and each was later convicted for possessing firearms after having been “committed to a mental institution.” 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(4) (2006). This court has...

Ex-presidential candidate John Edwards has a life-threatening heart condition that will require surgery next month, his doctor told a judge presiding over Edwards' upcoming court case over possible campaign violations. A cardiologist for the 58-year-old ex-North Carolina Senator wrote two letters about his condition to Judge Catherine Eagles who talked about them Friday during a hearing to consider whether the trial would go on later this month. She delayed it until at least March 26. Edwards walked into the courtroom in Greensboro without assistance and appeared healthy. The judge requested that he be there. The judge did not give any...

The question about owning guns while being a medical marijuana patient will not be addressed by the Highest Court in the Land. A gun-rights case that began in a small Oregon town may have finally reached the end of the line. Cynthia Willis, a resident of the tiny town of Gold Hill, Oregon had been a long-time concealed hand-gun permit owner. In the town of about 1200 residents, Willis, a retired school bus driver, was looking to renew her concealed handgun permit when the sheriff in Jackson County that oversees the permitting found out she was also an Oregon Medical...

Koranic law: Coming to a city near youA panel of federal judges has ruled that states cannot protect their courts from jurists who base their decisions on international or Koranic law. America needs better judges. On Tuesday, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal district court order blocking implementation of an amendment to the Oklahoma constitution that sought to ban judges from using international or Muslim law as a basis for deciding cases. The amendment was approved in November 2010 by a 70 percent popular vote but has never been enforced. Plaintiff Muneer Awad, executive director of the...

The liberty Legal Foundation has announced that the case pending in Georgia, challenging Obama’s eligibility, has been ACCEPTED. This is great news considering Obama and his team of attorneys had been actively trying to have this case DENIED!! The Georgia court in agreeing to hear the case could well be setting the stage for other states in which quite similar cases are pending. Arizona and Tennessee both have such cases waiting right now. This case, in Georgia, deals specifically with the Natural Born Citizen issue. In a previous article, we brought up the Minor vs Happersett case from 1875 in...

Manahawkin, New Jersey --(Ammoland.com)- The New Jersey Second Amendment Society (NJ2AS) has recorded its first substantial victory in Operation Establish Compliance with the reversal of Egg Harbor Township’s policy of requiring the signing of an unlimited release of information and liability waiver as a condition of processing firearms permit applications. Operation Establish Compliance is the ongoing effort to force Municipal Police Departments to issue firearms permits in accordance with the law. NJ2AS was only days away from filing a lawsuit challenging the additional form when Drew Parker, who serves on the Egg Harbor Township Zoning Board and is a member...

SAF, CALGUNS Foundation Sue California Over Firearms Statue Golden State imposes 10-day wait between gun purchases by Neil W. McCabe 01/02/2012 The Bellevue, Wash.-based Second Amendment Foundation joined the Calguns Foundation lawsuit against the California Department of Justice and Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris filed December 23 contesting the state’s 10-day waiting period between gun purchases. "We've joined in this lawsuit because it makes no sense for California to require a gun owner who already possesses a firearm from buying another one within a few days," said SAF Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb. "We recall what Dr. Martin Luther King...

While many in Seattle woke up with headaches Sunday morning in a new year filled with more challenge than “hope and change,” attorneys for the Second Amendment Foundation, National Rifle Association, two other groups and five citizens may be giving the city another headache in a case with national implications. The year ended with the State Supreme Court getting a devastating 22-page response to the city’s earlier petition for the high court’s review of an Oct. 31 unanimous appeals court ruling against the city in its attempt to ban firearms from city parks property. The brief, from Seattle attorney Steven...

‘Fast and Furious’ Linked to Immunity Deal Between U.S. and Sinaloa Cartel, Trafficking Defendant Alleges in Court PapersA Mexican drug trafficker awaiting trial in a Chicago federal court claims that the notorious Sinaloa cartel received weapons from "Operation Fast and Furious" under an alleged immunity agreement that the U.S. government made with cartel leaders, in exchange for information on rival gangs.The defendant in a trafficking case before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Vicente Jesus Zambada-Niebla, also claims the immunity deal allowed the criminal cartel to "continue to smuggle tons of illicit drugs" into the United...

ROYAL PALM BEACH, Fla. - A 19-year-old with a criminal history is dead after police say he was shot while trying to steal a motorcycle. The man who pulled the trigger won't be charged by sheriff's deputies. It all started at 4:00 a.m. Thursday morning when police say the owner of the motorcycle heard them, grabbed his rifle and opened fire. "I knew it was real close from how they sounded," said the man's neighbor, Chris Grear. "It was boom, boom, boom, boom." He says his next door neighbor fired more than a half-dozen bullets. Benjy Young, 19, was killed....

BELLEVUE, Wash., Dec. 27, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Second Amendment Foundation has joined the Calguns Foundation and three California citizens in a federal lawsuit against the California Department of Justice and Attorney General Kamala Harris, challenging the state's requirement that gun owners wait at least ten days before taking possession of an additional firearm. The case is known as Jeff Silvester et.al. v Kamala Harris, et.al. "We've joined in this lawsuit because it makes no sense for California to require a gun owner who already possesses a firearm from buying another one within a few days," said SAF Executive Vice...

The district attorney who filed a lawsuit challenging Wisconsin's law passed this year effectively ending collective bargaining rights for most public workers said Thursday he is considering asking the state Supreme Court to rehear the case. Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne told the Associated Press he was looking at making the request after learning that Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman had received free legal services from a firm that defended the law in that case decided in June. Gableman was part of a four-justice majority that upheld the law, which generated massive opposition protests and made Wisconsin the center...

When Tears Flow in Court, It’s Pass a Tissue and Just Wait for the Agony to EndBy WILLIAM GLABERSON Published: December 22, 2011 Courthouse regulars know the signs: the trembling fingers, the sniffle, the telltale blow of the nose. **SNIP** The latest excruciating example came this week, as a previously powerful state senator from Brooklyn, Carl Kruger, sobbed his way through an admission of receiving bribes sufficient to have financed a shiny Bentley and a Mill Basin mansion originally built for a mob boss. Mr. Kruger’s wad of tissues emphasized the humiliation of the moment. But his defense-table crying was...

Supreme Court sets aside three days for healthcare argumentsBy Sam Baker - 12/19/11 11:40 AM ET The Supreme Court will hear arguments on President Obama's healthcare law over a three-day span in late March. The schedule further confirms the universal expectation that the court will issue a ruling on the healthcare law next June, at the height of the 2012 campaign. The Supreme Court will begin on March 26 with one hour of arguments on whether it can reach a decision on the health law before 2014. There is a possibility that a separate federal law prevents the courts from...

Newt Gingrich has proposed many solutions to the ever growing power of our courts. Power that has surpassed the other two branches of government: Kelly: You have proposed a plan to subpoena judges to testify before Congress about controversial decisions that they make. In certain cases, you advocate impeaching judges or abolishing courts altogether. Two conservative former attorneys general have criticized your plan, saying it alters the checks and balances of the three branches of government. And they used words like “dangerous,” “outrageous,” and “totally irresponsible.” Are they wrong? Gingrich: Well, the first half is right. It alters the...

Health care schedule setLyle Denniston - Reporter Posted Thu, December 8th, 2011 5:25 pm The Supreme Court on Thursday spelled out a schedule for filing of written arguments in the three cases on the constitutionality of the new federal health care law. The period for filing opens 0n January 6 and runs through March 13. No date is set yet for the two days planned for oral arguments, but the briefing schedule suggests that those hearings will occur in the week of March 26. Lawyers, who proposed the briefing schedule, told the Court they will make suggestions later for dividing...

The Senate rejected cloture on the filibuster of the confirmation of Caitlin Halligan to be a judge on the D.C. Circuit this afternoon. The vote was virtually a party line vote with every Democrat voting to invoke cloture and every Republican except Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) voting against it. Hatch voted Present and Murkowski voted to invoke cloture. To invoke cloture would have required 60 votes Yea. The final tally was 54 Yeas, 45 Nays, and 1 Present. How your senator voted is below. Grouped By Vote Position YEAs ---54 Akaka (D-HI) Baucus (D-MT) Begich (D-AK) Bennet...

[Credit Where Due: CCRKBA Alerted Gun Owners to Halligan Vote- See update below.] "Senate Republicans on Tuesday filibustered the nomination of Caitlin Halligan to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, blocking a nominee tapped last year by President Obama to serve on one of the country’s most powerful courts," Felicia Sonmez of The Washington Post reports. An appeal was made yesterday in Gun Rights Examiner for gun owners to contact their senators and oppose confirmation based on the nominee's anti-gun track record. At the time the report was filed, Gun Owners of America had put...

Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein informed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Tuesday he would not defend the 'associations law' that would restrict foreign funding to political NGO's should it be challenged in court. Weinstein's stated intent to refuse to perform his duties was delivered to Netanyahu in writing. Weinstein claimed the proposed foreign funding law was "unconstitutional." The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel call responded to the news by calling on Netanyahu not to be concerned about the Weinstein's refusal to defend the so-called 'associations law.' The Forum said, if necessary, it would defend the government before the Supreme...

The City of Seattle is arguing that a state appeals court “misread” earlier case law regarding Washington State’s model preemption act, which sounds vaguely reminiscent of what the gun prohibition lobby contended after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2008 landmark Second Amendment ruling in District of Columbia v. Dick Anthony Heller. More than two years ago, this column (which bears re-visiting) discussed that “living in denial” approach to reality, and yesterday’s petition for review by Seattle shows the city needs some adult supervision. Mayor Mike McGinn and his administration didn’t get their way, so there obviously was a mistake on the...

The City of Seattle has petitioned the state Supreme Court in an effort to resurrect its city parks and community centers gun ban after losing the battle twice to the Bellevue-based Second Amendment Foundation and Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and the National Rifle Association, in King County Superior Court and at the State Court of Appeals. This column discussed that court ruling in October. SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb told this column Thursday that “If they want to go to that expense, we’ll be happy to beat them again. It’s entirely...

A couple have settled a High Court damages action against the owners and operators of a wind farm they say drove them from their farmhouse home with its "unbearable" noise... ...They blamed the "whoom whoom whoom" and the low frequency "hum" of giant turbine blades for their exile in a case that was closely watched by the wind farm industry. They said the "intolerable" noise disrupted their sleep, made them feel ill and was so severe that it warranted a reduction in council tax and rendered the £2.5 million farmhouse no longer marketable as a family home. Mr and Mrs...

Expectations that her previous work in getting Obamacare passed might compel U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan to abstain from participating in the Court’s hearing of a case challenging the law were disappointed this past week. “I have worked long and hard to see that this reform of our nation’s health care system is implemented, I am not going to sit aside as it is imperiled by the president’s enemies,” Kagan announced. “As one of the nine most powerful people in America, I would be wasting an opportunity to promote the transformation of the country toward a new paradigm of...

The original case, Haynie et al v. Harris, was dismissed in late October by the US District Court for the Northern District of California because the Court said they didn't have a realistic chance of being re-arrested. The Court did give the plaintiffs leave to file an amended complaint. While the Court was actually considering the motion to dismiss from the State of California, Brendan Richards, one of the plaintiffs, was arrested again for possession of an "assault weapon". Again the charges were dismissed after the state's expert determined that Mr. Richards' M1A was not an assault weapon under California...

The Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled that the Minnesota Department of Health is violating the Minnesota Genetic Privacy Law with its storage, use and dissemination of newborn screening test results and newborn DNA.

Rep. McGovern introduces Constitutional amendment By Staff reportsMetroWest Daily News Posted Nov 16, 2011 @ 03:39 PM U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern has introduced a Constitutional amendment in the House of Representatives to repeal the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission. The amendment would restore the Founding Fathers’ intent to grant rights to people, not corporations, according to McGovern’s office.The legislation, H.J. Res 88, is intended to “clarify the authority of Congress and the States to regulate corporations, limited liability companies or other corporate entities established by the laws of any state, the United States,...

Video Linky Here

RALEIGH, N.C. -- North Carolina's journey toward new political boundaries for the Legislature and Congress for the next decade is about to detour again into court. Civil rights, election reform and union groups are planning to file a lawsuit Friday challenging the recently approved boundaries in state court. The groups' moves come even after the U.S. Justice Department announced late Tuesday it wouldn't object, for now, to the maps based on a portion of the federal Voting Rights Act. North Carolina's redistricting maps are subject to prior approval by the Justice Department or federal courts because of past discrimination.

WASHINGTON — A group of eight gay servicemembers sued the federal government Thursday for military and veterans benefits for their same-sex spouses, arguing that ignoring their marriages amounts to discrimination. The move comes a little more than a month after the end of the military’s controversial “don’t ask, don’t tell” law, which for 18 years prohibited gay troops from publicly acknowledging their sexual orientation. Since the change, activists have said they’d turn their attention to overturning the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex unions for purposes of federal benefits. Officials from the Departments of...

Can killer whales sue SeaWorld for enslavement? A lawsuit filed Wednesday by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and other "next friends" of five SeaWorld killer whales takes that novel legal approach. The 20-page complaint asks the U.S. District Court in Southern California to declare that the five whales -- Tilikum, Katina, Corky, Kasatka, and Ulises -- are being held in slavery or involuntary servitude in violation of the 13th Amendment. A PETA statement said the lawsuit is the first of its kind in contending that constitutional protections against slavery are not limited to humans.

Five foreign men were arrested during a courthouse break-in early on Wednesday and police said they found photographs of public buildings, water systems and malls from various U.S. cities in their van. The men, at least three of whom were in their 20s, will be questioned by a joint terrorism task force including the FBI and immigration authorities, officials said. Bexar County spokeswoman Laura Jesse said three men were found inside the 120-year-old Bexar County Courthouse, a landmark in downtown San Antonio and two in a large recreational vehicle parked in front of the building. She said all five were...

The Supreme Court let stand on Monday a ruling that a traditional Internet download of sound recording does not constitute a public performance of the recorded musical work under federal copyright law. The justices refused to review a ruling by an appeals court in New York that the download itself of a musical work does not fall within the law's definition of a public performance of that work. The not-for-profit American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) appealed to the Supreme Court. It said the ruling has profound implications for the nation's music industry, costing its members tens of...

by John HillStand With ArizonaHow significant was Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn's ruling upholding key sections of Alabama's H.B. 56 immigration law? Well, just ask the New York Times, which flipped out over it in their lead editorial: A federal judge has upheld most of Alabama’s new immigration law, the nation’s harshest and most radical attempt to harness a state’s power to find and punish illegal immigrants. The consequences for Alabamans will be serious — not just for the undocumented, but for their blameless citizen children, for those who are mistaken for unauthorized immigrants and for farmers and other business owners...