Free Republic

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A federal appeals court on Thursday nullified a California criminal law adopted after the Rodney King beating that made it unlawful for citizens to knowingly lodge false accusations against police officers. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the law was an unconstitutional infringement of speech because false statements in support of officers were not also criminalized. The decision, hailed by civil liberties groups and opposed by state prosecutors and law enforcement groups, overturns the California Supreme Court, which in 2002 ruled that free speech concerns took a back seat when it came to speech...

The Truth Continues... THE WILLIAM J. HETHERINGTON CASE Why is this man still in jail? A case of false accusation by a wife against her husband during a bitter custody dispute. 20 plus years in prision and counting. Free Will Now!!! Story and Interview Links: ---->> http://krightsradio.com/whyinjailhome.php

On MSNBC a little while ago, they had a story about the "politics of the CIA leak". The reporter was interviewing Pat Buchanan and Democratic strategist Peter Fenn. What follows is the best transcript I could piece together quickly. I've quoted Fenn word for word. PAT BUCHANAN: It's very, very serious...There is a credibility problem for the press secretary...There is no legal problem for Rove...Reporters in Washington have a gleam in their eye and smiles on their faces, and there's a reason for it...Pat Fitzgerald hasn't been digging for two years and judges haven't been sending reporters to jail because...

“Misery can only be removed from the world by painless extermination of the miserable.” —a Nazi writer quoted by Robert J. Lifton in The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide The case of Terri Schiavo has been framed by the media as the battle between the “right to die” and pro-life groups, with the latter often referred to as “right-wing Christians.” Little attention has been paid to the more than twenty major disability rights organizations firmly supporting Schiavo’s right to nutrition and hydration. Terri Schindler-Schiavo, a severely disabled woman, is being starved and dehydrated to death in...

"A suicidal mom, despondent over her divorce and struggling with her teenage daughter, beat the 14-year-old to death with a hammer and shovel...Friends said Lynn Giovanni had written a book, 'Judicial System Loopholes,' last year that slammed the court's treatment of domestic violence. Giovanni used the nom de plume 'Faith Hope.'"

"IN SEDUCTION, the rapist often bothers to buy a bottle of wine," proclaimed radical feminist Andrea Dworkin in 1976. If you're a woman born 20 years ago, you probably don't even recognize Dworkin's name. Yet, there's a good chance you've had some seriously frustrating dates with her unwitting progeny: the guy who waits until date three or four—not to grab you, throw you up against the wall and suck face—but to politely inquire, "May I kiss you?" Equal pay for equal work? It's a beautiful thing. Equal opportunity? Thrilled to have it. We women owe an enormous debt to Susan...

Apparently, a new child molester is roaming the Rockaway peninsula in Queens, New York -- me! On January 11, a girl of 10 or 11 years of age walking on the other side of the street kept nervously looking over her shoulder at me. When I sought to comfort her with a kindly smile, she became even more alarmed. At the PTA meeting that night at my son's school, a parent insisted to me, "If a child feels intimidated, then an incident occurred." That means that I am guilty of committing an "incident." Salem witch trials, here we go again!...

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. - Sen. John Edwards, visiting the state that narrowly put President Bush in the White House in 2000 after a disputed recount and voting irregularities, issued a warning Saturday to Floridians about Republicans. "We know they're going to be up to their old tricks, right, trying to keep people from voting," Edwards told supporters gathered at a community block party. "We're going to make sure that people get to vote. We're going to make sure those votes count, and here in Florida, democracy is going to decide who the next president of the United States is going...

Despite its many painful and unseemly aspects, the Kobe Bryant rape case and the media storm surrounding it have drawn attention to a severely neglected problem: false rape accusations. In her recent Daily Journal column, high profile feminist professor Wendy Murphy dismisses the problem of false accusations as an "ugly myth," and calls for "boiling rage" activism to address what she perceives as the anti-woman bias of the criminal justice system. Like many victims' advocates, Murphy cannot seem to fathom the possibility that Bryant could be innocent. However, research shows that false allegations of rape are frighteningly common. According to...

DENVER - Transcripts released from a closed two-day hearing in the Kobe Bryant sexual assault case provide rare detail of the fierce battles over evidence, including a candid assessment by the prosecution about its chances should the judge rule on a number of issues. District Judge Terry Ruckriegle redacted 68 lines out of some 200 pages of June 21-22 testimony dealing in part with Colorado's rape-shield law. The majority of the transcripts were released Monday. "If in fact you were to rule that all of the rape-shield evidence were going to come in in this case, I'm thinking the prosecution...

Without warning, his life was turned upside down. Father Alexander Anderson, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Eureka, learned on a spring day in 2002 that he was the subject of an allegation of sexual abuse against a minor. He had been called to the St. Louis archdiocesan offices where he was told that officials had been informed of the allegation and would turn over the matter to the St. Louis circuit attorney for a full investigation. Next came a media frenzy about the accusation. The allegation dated to the 1980s when Father Anderson was chaplain of the now-closed St....

ROANOKE, Va. — The two-lane bridge that Ron Mayfield Jr. came to the morning of his death stands almost 200 feet above the waters where his father took him fishing as a boy. Years later, he spent hours there with his own son, casting for catfish and perch. He made two final calls on his cell phone that morning, gasping out a farewell to his wife and dialing 911 without saying a word. Then he lay the phone beside the road and straddled the knee-high metal bridge railing. At an hour when the school day was just getting started six...

The Colorado woman who has accused Kobe Bryant of sexual assault overdosed on pills and was rushed to a hospital two months before the alleged incident with Bryant, one of her close friends told the Orange County Register. Based on the 19-year-old woman's accusation, Bryant was officially charged with a single count of felony sexual assault Friday. If convicted, he faces four years to life in prison or 20 years to life on probation, and a fine of up to $750,000. Bryant is scheduled to return to Eagle, Colo., for a preliminary hearing on Aug. 6. Bryant, 24, said Friday...

ARCHBISHOP PELL: A CASE STUDY IN FALSE ACCUSATIONS Australian Situation Reveals Problems with ProceduresSYDNEY, Australia, (Zenit.org) - Vatican fears about the inadequacy of the U.S. bishops' norms on dealing with clerical sex-abuse allegations are not without foundation -- judging by the experience of Sydney's Archbishop George Pell.The archbishop has been cleared by the independent inquiry set up to investigate an accusation of sexual abuse against him. Still unanswered, however, are questions about how the media cover this and similar cases, and how Church procedures deal with the abuse accusations.Archbishop Pell's trial-by-the-media is not new. From the moment he arrived here...

Candidate Sues Opponent Over Background Disclosure Wednesday October 16, 2002 8:21am Oklahoma City (AP) - A candidate for Oklahoma insurance commissioner is suing the state's Democratic Party for distributing a false job application and forged college diploma that bear the candidate's name. Republican Doug Barry is also suing incumbent Commissioner Carroll Fisher for obtaining Barry's personnel file from Farmers Insurance Group. Fisher's office regulates the insurance company and Barry says Fisher abused his power. Fisher says he didn't use any authority to get the file and that he only made what he called a friendly inquiry. A hearing's set for...