Free Republic

Today's Phelps-Roper v. Strickland upholds a ban on "'picketing' or 'other protest activities,' within 300 feet of the funeral or burial service, from one hour before until one hour after the funeral or burial service." ("Other protest activities" is defined as "any action that is disruptive or undertaken to disrupt or disturb a funeral or burial service or a funeral procession.") The court concludes that the ban is content-neutral, serves the important government interest in "protect[ing] the citizens of Ohio from disruption during the events associated with a funeral or burial service," including disruption in the sense of "unwanted communication...

Sources say the White House has tentatively signed off on a package of five judicial nominees proposed by Pennsylvania Sens. Arlen Specter and Robert Casey that would fill all of the vacancies on the Eastern District of Pennsylvania bench and one of two openings on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. If the deal goes through, the White House will first withdraw the nomination of Eastern District Judge Gene E.K. Pratter to the 3rd Circuit, replacing her with Eastern District Judge Paul S. Diamond. Pratter's nomination had been met with significant opposition and was ultimately doomed when Casey refused...

Burglars should no longer be sentenced to jail, official advisers have said. Unpaid work or a curfew would normally be a better way of punishing break-ins and thefts, said a panel that issues guidelines to judges. The report - part of a consultation document on criminal sentencing - is likely to heighten concerns that Britain's courts are not punishing offenders harshly enough to deter others. It also says victims of crime could be allowed a say in the way criminals are punished - but only if they call for leniency rather than harsh sentencing. For the first time, magistrates and...

The city of New Haven, Connecticut, went to great lengths to devise a firefighter test that would not have "disparate impact" on minority applicants, but when the results of the 2003 test-taking came in, applying the city's "Rule of Three" which required selection from among the highest scorers, "no blacks and at most two Hispanics would have been eligible for promotion to captain and no blacks or Hispanics would have been eligible to make lieutenant". So the city civil service board vacated the results, frankly acknowledging that it was in search of better minority hiring numbers. White applicants sued and...

The murder conviction of a Laredo teenager allegedly hired by the Gulf cartel to execute a rival gang member has been overturned by the Fourth Court of Appeals in San Antonio. Rosalio Reta, 18, was sentenced to 40 years in state prison last year after he pleaded guilty to the 2006 murder of Noe Flores. Flores was gunned down at a party on East Frost Street after his assassins mistakenly took him for his half brother Michael Lopez. Prosecutors said Reta and two other teens were hired to kill Lopez by high-ranking cartel member Miguel Treviño Morales, or "El Cuarenta."...

Environment: Global warming alarmists haven't made much progress in getting lawmakers to join their cause. So naturally they're going to try to use the courts to ram through their agenda.Drawing upon a lawyer's talent for dreaming up novel — and in this case outrageous — legal theories, a University of Oregon law professor is pushing the idea that the atmosphere is public property held in trust by the government, which has the duty to protect it from harm. The biggest problem with this idea is that it's beginning to gain some attention. After hearing Oregon law professor Mary Wood speak...

BELLEVUE, Wash. — Georgia gun dealer Jay Wallace's decision Monday to default on a lawsuit by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and carry his case to an appeals court, was the right move because of genuine concerns he could not get a fair trial before federal judge Jack B. Weinstein, the Second Amendment Foundation said today. SAF has been the largest single contributor to Wallace's defense against the rogue lawsuit filed by Bloomberg, following the anti-gun mayor's infamous vigilante sting operation in 2006. SAF founder Alan Gottlieb concurred with Wallace's attorney, John Renzulli, that "There was no chance for a...

Illegal Immigrant Cases Clogging Federal Courts By Jeff Golimowski CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer June 19, 2007 (CNSNews.com) - If you drive by the federal courthouse in Las Cruces, N.M., on a Sunday night, you'll probably see something odd: the lights are burning. Workers in the Court Clerk's Office for the District of New Mexico are working late on Sundays, getting ready for Monday mornings. "[My staff] is stretched pretty thin," admitted Clerk of the Court Matt Dykman. "You'll have 50 or 60 new complaints coming in, and that starts at 8:30 [on a Monday], so there's no way to get...

The newly released e-mails on the U.S. Attorney firings are here. TPM Muckraker is enlisting its readers to pore through them. But you know that the people who read that blog won’t pick out the parts that aid the Administration’s case. That’s where you come in. I am enlisting the Great Patterico Army — all few dozen of you — to look through these and tell us what the media is going to leave out. It’s not about defending the Administration. It’s about keeping the other side (Democrats and Big Media, but I repeat myself) honest. Or some reasonable facsimile...

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Monday let stand a mandatory 55-year prison sentence, condemned as excessive by the federal judge who imposed it, for a man convicted of carrying a handgun during three marijuana deals. Record producer Weldon Angelos received the minimum sentence under the law -- a harsher sentence than a child rapist or a terrorist who detonates a bomb aboard an aircraft would receive, according to his attorneys. The justices, without comment, left the prison term undisturbed. Angelos was convicted of 16 counts of violating federal firearms, drug and money laundering laws in 2003. The charges stemmed...

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Monday wrestled with voluntary integration plans in public schools, asking whether Seattle's "Open Choice" program is an acceptable move toward student diversity or another name for illegal racial quotas. At the start of two hours of argument, the justices referred repeatedly to a 2003 Supreme Court ruling that permitted the limited consideration of race to attain a diverse student body on the college level. Does Seattle's program go too far in assigning some students to schools they didn't request? the justices wanted to know in questioning lawyers for the school district, the Bush administration...

You've heard a lot about the ACLU lawsuit since its filing yesterday. But you haven't heard much about its less famous plaintiffs, plaintiffs with whom I'm all too familiar and about whom I've written a great deal. The details on these individuals makes the National Security Agency's monitoring of phone calls not just warranted, but a necessity. I'm referring to ACLU lawyers Noel Saleh, Mohammed Abdrabboh, and Nabih Ayad, the ACLU Plaintiffs named in the yesterday's Complaint, attorney William Swor, a member National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and Nazih Hassan--all named in the lawsuit. They are exactly the kind...

KENTON, Ohio (AP) -- It was intended to be a prank: steal a decoy deer, place it on a country road and watch as motorists swerved to avoid it. It ended with two teenagers suffering serious injuries when their car hit the decoy and rolled into a ditch. When a judge ruled this week that two boys -- both high school football players -- can complete the football season before they serve 60-day sentences at a juvenile detention center, it caused a division in this northwest Ohio city. On one side are those who say allowing Dailyn Campbell, a 16-year-old...

CINCINNATI - Even though the administration's warrantless surveillance program is heading toward an appellate court loaded with Bush appointees, the court's mixed record makes it difficult to predict how it will view the surveillance, lawyers said. ADVERTISEMENT "It is not a foregone conclusion that a conservative-dominated court is going to say, ' President Bush did this and we're going to uphold what he wants,'" said Robert A. Sedler, a law professor at Wayne State University. "There are many issues in this case. Conservative judges often have a very strongly libertarian streak."

If a sentient being from a different universe were to observe and assess the cultural debate in the United States, it would likely conclude that proponents for the various sides are locked in a life and death struggle for supremacy, and the being would not be far wrong. In a recent speech, one of President' Bush's Judicial Nominations, Justice Janice Rogers Brown of the California Supreme Court asserted that the cultural divide in the United States is as marked as anytime since the Civil War. The ACLU is reported to have severely criticized her for her "intemperate" remarks. This raises...

An embarrassed employer who fired a worker during the man's service on a jury got a lecture from a federal judge Thursday and agreed to pay the man $200 per day until the trial ends. Sam LeComte stressed, however, that he did not fire the employee because of his jury service and will not rehire him. LeComte, owner of Multi Building Inc., of Lewisville, told U.S. District Judge David Hittner that the contract employee was fired because of work deficiencies. The explanation satisfied Hittner, who had issued an order on Tuesday threatening LeComte with arrest if he did not appear...

For over a decade I’ve tried to convince people in the pro-life movement that leaving the Republican Party wasn’t a good move. The past few days has changed my mind, and I started to write this article when the news broke that Terri died. Florida has shown us that the best that the GOP has to offer is a losing strategy. For decades abortion has remained “legal” due to the same problems which were present in Florida: an arrogant judiciary and an unwilling executive branch. The call for Jeb to refuse to enforce the illicit orders of Judge Greer went...

Losing the Fight over the Judiciary Through Self-Inflicted Wounds By Ruben Obregon Reliance on the appointment of the “right” nominee in the battle over the judiciary is a losing strategy. Quite often the “right” people, once appointed for life, become part of the problem. Abortion is still “legal” thanks in part to Republican appointees. Waiting another few decades on a dice roll of appointments is likely to result in another 50 years of judicial tyranny. A large part of the problem has to do with the abdication of power by the legislative and executive branches of government. The Schiavo travesty...

Joint Resolution 00012005 Regular Session 03/27/2005 09:43:19 AM EST Selection of justices and appellate court judges. Renames the judicial nominating commission as the commission on judicial nominations and qualifications. Provides that one commission member will be selected by attorneys licensed in Indiana, one commission member will be appointed by the speaker of the house of representatives, and one commission member will be appointed by the president pro tem. Requires at least one commission member appointed by the governor to be an attorney. Prohibits a person who is a registered lobbyist from serving on the commission. Provides for the governor to...

Critics of Senate Judiciary Chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter woke Tuesday morning to discover that the senior Senator from Pennsylvania has been a busy a one-man employment agency for liberal lawyers and Democrats. Tuesday morning brought word that Carolyn Short, a trial lawyer from Philadelphia, was leaving her practice to become a general counsel for the Specter and his Judiciary Committee. Short, who has been on the job for a couple of days, has told friends that she views her job with Specter as "temporary," and will commute from her family's home outside of Philadelphia. Her husband is former U.S. Constitutional...

Carolyn Short, one of the chief litigators in Reed Smith's Philadelphia office for more than a decade, has left the firm to become general counsel for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, which is now chaired by Arlen Specter, R-Pa. Short resigned last Tuesday from Reed Smith, her professional home for the past 16 years, and was sworn in Thursday. Short said she only views it as a temporary position, being that she and her husband, former U.S. Constitutional Center executive director and Democratic congressional candidate Joseph Torsella, live with their four children in Flourtown. She said her chief motivation for...

Sean Hannity just announced Arlen Specter was going to be on his program today. He did not say in which hour. Remember though, three hours a day is all they ask! You're a great American.

Leahy Dismisses Conservative Boycott Of Vermont Burlington, Vermont - June 2, 2002A radio talk show host is launching an attack against Senator Patrick Leahy reminiscent of the battle over civil unions. When Vermont adopted the landmark legislation giving homosexual couples the rights of marriage, an explosion of angry letters and emails flooded in from around the country. Some threatened to boycott Vermont entirely. Now comes another frenzy -- aimed at Leahy for blocking conservative judges from appointment to federal courts.Leahy wins applause almost everywhere he goes here at home. After all, he's brought back a lot of federal money during...