Free Republic

PHILADELPHIA — A Philadelphia judge has ordered philly.com to reveal the name of an anonymous commenter, in a defamation suit brought by electricians’ union leader John Dougherty. An attorney in the case says it could have a broad impact on incendiary online comments and those users, sometimes called “trolls,” who post them anonymously. The anonymous defendant in the suit, disguised by the nonsense name “fbpdplt,” called Dougherty a name in the comments section of an article on the website, one of the properties in the media group that also owns the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News.

Now that’s bad judgment. A Queens father-to-be is lucky to be alive after a judge allegedly ignored his pleas to be excused from a jury pool when he complained about searing pains in his chest, court documents reveal. Nyima Dorjee, 39, of Woodside was sitting in a jury pool on a gun possession trial last week when he told a prosecutor that he was having chest pains and difficulty breathing, according to a report filed by the officer. But when the court officer informed Justice Joel Blumenfeld of the emergency, the judge insisted to him and his supervisor that the...

Despite growing controversy over the use of anonymous pharmacies for lethal injections, the U.S. Supreme Court has thus far declined to block any executions based on 11th-hour appeals challenging the drug connections. That includes the case of Michael Taylor, a convicted rapist and murderer who was put to death at 12:10 a.m. Wednesday in Missouri after a furious legal battle that stretched well into the night. It's worth nothing, however, that three high court justices wanted to block Taylor's execution and cited the words of an appeals judge who said so little was known about the source of the deadly...

Near the end of 2013, a Florida official decided Robin Speronis was doing something too strange to tolerate: She was trying to live off the grid. Off the Grid News reports: Speronis has been fighting the city of Cape Coral since November when a code enforcement officer tried to evict her from her home for living without utilities. The city contends that Speronis violated the International Property Maintenance Code by relying on rain water instead of the city water system and solar panels instead of the electric grid. And now, a judge has ruled that living independently of the city’s...

"Jodi Arias' defense team is trying hard to keep two heavily-covered events out of the Maricopa County Superior Courtroom. Lawyers have filed two motions with the court as of Feb. 13, requesting Judge Sherry Stephens prevent the retrial jury from hearing about Jodi Arias' attempt to switch out her attorney and claims that Arias wanted to kill prosecutor Juan Martinez."

A federal judge has rejected a lawsuit that claims Obamacare subsidies can only be paid to individuals in states that set up their own healthcare exchanges, even though the Affordable Care Act was worded that way. According to The Washington Times, four Virginia residents filed the lawsuit because the Obamacare subsidy in their state makes them subject to the law's individual mandate, which requires most Americans to purchase health insurance this year or face a fine. The decision has been a setback for Republican lawmakers and limited government advocates seeking to roll back the scope of the law, and who...

NARAL has been flooding my Facebook feed with paid advertisements for a petition to thwart the nomination of Judge Michael Boggs to the federal bench. This is a little strange, since you may recall from high school civics class that federal judges are nominated by the President; you might also recall that the current President of the United States is such a diehard abortion supporter that he was unwilling to get on board with the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act. So what’s going on here? According to NARAL, when Boggs was a Georgia state legislator more than a decade ago, he...

"Judge Jean Boyd again decided to give no jail time for Ethan Couch, defense attorney Reagan Wynn and prosecutors told reporters after the hearing, which was closed to the public. Prosecutors had asked Boyd to sentence him to 20 years in state custody on charges related to two people who were severely injured."

Jodi Arias was convicted of murder, but still awaits a sentence. So far, Arizona taxpayers have covered $2.1 million in legal fees for the Jodi Arias legal team and other costs associated with her case.

It's pretty obvious that we as a society are now made up of two groups. There are those who, for better or worse, have moved their lives into the digital realm, and those who haven't. I would like to introduce you to someone in the latter category. His name is Edward Korman and he is a federal judge in New York state. He had a case before him involving a U.S. citizen – a Ph.D. student at McGill University in Montreal – who had his computer confiscated while returning to the States. The judge ruled, sweepingly, that, yes, the federal...

<p>NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) –A federal judge in Manhattan ordered a “compassionate release” Tuesday from prison for a dying former civil rights lawyer.</p> <p>The U.S. government requested the release earlier in the day for Lynne Stewart, who was convicted in a terrorism case from prison. Prosecutors say Stewart, 74, suffers from recurrent stage-four breast cancer. She was not scheduled to be released until August 2018.</p>

A Texas judge claims he wasn’t choking his girlfriend — he was saving her life. Dallas County Judge Carlos Raul Cortez was arrested Saturday morning after his 26-year-old girlfriend told police he strangled her, dragged her by the hair to his apartment balcony and choked her some more against the railing. “The allegations made by the complainant are false,” Cortez’s attorney Andrew Korn said in a statement to media outlets. “If necessary, it will be shown in the proper forum that Judge Cortez actually saved her life.” The girlfriend described a harrowing scene, according to police reports obtained by the...

A scathing discrimination complaint is pitting three appointees of Gov. Deval Patrick against his own administration, accusing it of paying a black male administrative judge more than three women who hold the same job, including former Democratic state Sen. Cheryl Jacques. The three Patrick-appointed administrative judges at the Department of Industrial Accidents say officials led by state labor boss Joanne Goldstein lavished a six-figure starting salary and prime downtown parking space on Judge Michael Williams, who, according to the complaint, has less experience. “Would you want to bite the hand that feeds you? None of us want to do that....

An Obama appointee to the federal bench ruled Friday that the right to same-sex marriage is “deeply rooted in the nation’s history and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,” and as such is a fundamental right. Judge Robert J. Shelby was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Central Division of Utah in 2012 by President Obama, then confirmed by a Senate voice vote on Sept. 21, 2012, with neither debate nor objection, according to CNS News. A federal district court is a court of original jurisdiction, but if its opinions are left unchallenged, they become the law...

Just hours earlier, U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby issued a 53-page ruling saying Utah's law passed by voters in 2004 violates gay and lesbian couples' rights to due process and equal protection under the 14th Amendment. Shelby said the state failed to show that allowing same-sex marriages would affect opposite-sex marriages in any way. "In the absence of such evidence, the State's unsupported fears and speculations are insufficient to justify the State's refusal to dignify the family relationships of its gay and lesbian citizens," Shelby wrote.

A county clerk's office in Utah is issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, just hours after a federal judge struck down Utah's ban on gay marriages. Salt Lake County Deputy Clerk Dahnelle Burton-Lee says the district attorney authorized her office to begin issuing the marriage licenses Friday. She couldn't immediately say how many licenses have been issued so far. U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby ruled that a law passed by voters in 2004 violates gay and lesbian couples' rights to due process and equal protection under the 14th Amendment. Shelby said the state failed to show that allowing same-sex...

A federal judge said Monday that he believes the government’s once-secret collection of domestic phone records is unconstitutional, setting up likely appeals and further challenges to the data mining revealed by classified leaker Edward Snowden. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of metadata — phone records of the time and numbers called without any disclosure of content — apparently violates privacy rights.

I’ve always been a pretty big fan of the Ten Commandments. My favorites is the one that says “Thou shalt not judge.”Oh, that one isn’t in there, you say?Sorry, it’s easy to forget nowadays, especially in this country where many Christians carry on as though the entire Bible could be summed up by the phrase, “it’s all good, bro.” In actual fact, there are a lot of urgent truths and important moral lessons in the Bible. Interestingly, almost all of them have fallen out of favor in modern American society. Here are just a few verses that aren’t particularly trendy...

SAN DIEGO -- After two decades of legal and political wrangling, a federal judge Thursday ordered the cross atop Mt. Soledad removed within 90 days as a violation of the separation of church and state. But U.S. District Judge Larry Burns stayed the removal order so that those defending the cross have time to appeal. Built in 1954, the 43-foot cross is one of the most visible landmarks in San Diego. Starting in the early 1990s, plaques honoring military veterans have been placed on walls surrounding the base of the cross.

The U.S. Senate today approved to a prominent federal court pro-abortion Cornelia Pillard, a law professor President Barack Obama selected for an appointment to the most important appeals court in the nation. Obama’s pick for the D.C. Circuit Court, who is one of the most pro-abortion ever nominated, previously was a filibuster victim, but that changed when Senate Democrats unilaterally changed the filibuster rules to prevent pro-life Republicans from blocking such judges. Pillard was confirmed 51-44 to the DC Circuit Court after Senate Republicans had previously defeated her nomination before Reid deployed the Nuclear Option was employed. All of the...