Free Republic

As judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals weigh the legality of President Trump’s immigration executive order, a Republican push to split up the controversial court -- and shrink its clout -- is gaining steam on Capitol Hill. Republican Sens. Jeff Flake and John McCain of Arizona introduced legislation last month to carve six states out of the San Francisco-based court circuit and create a brand new 12th Circuit. They argue that the 9th is too big, too liberal and too slow resolving cases. If they succeed, only California, Oregon, Hawaii and two island districts would remain in the...

A ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit finds that carrying a gun—even lawfully—is justification for police to treat you as suspect until evidence proves otherwise. This turns the normal approach to policing on its head, limiting Fourth Amendment protections normally in place for those considered innocent until proven guilty. In fact, Ammoland reported that Judge James A. Wynn opined, “Individuals who carry firearms—lawfully or unlawfully—pose a categorical risk of danger to others and police officers, in particular.” Wynn added, “Individuals who choose to carry firearms [therefore] forego certain constitutional protections afforded to individuals who elect...

Federal district Judge James Robart of Seattle ordered a complete, nationwide temporary restraining order against President Trump's temporary ban on visitors from seven Middle Eastern countries.  If you read the ruling as I have, you can see this is clearly unconstitutional on its face, and constitutes a judicial coup against President Trump and the executive branch. 1) The standards for granting a temporary restraining order are quite high. The plaintiff must show that he is likely to succeed on the merits, and would suffer irreparable harm if the injunction were not granted.  Here the people from the excluded countries cannot...

A photo that appeared on Reddit last week of Travis County Judge Sarah Eckhardt wearing a pink “pussy hat” in the courtroom made the rounds on Twitter Monday. The knit cap, which recently made the cover of TIME, was conceived by two women in Los Angeles who envisioned “a sea of pink hats” at the Women’s March on Washington.

A federal judge who lost his job as a Justice Department attorney after loaning his car to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and then pushed for gay rights, police reform and health care for prisoners during his time on the bench is retiring. More than five decades ago, Thelton Henderson became the first African-American attorney in the U.S. Justice Department’s civil rights division — a position that brought him close to King and other civil rights leaders. Henderson later went into private practice and served as a dean at Stanford Law School before President Jimmy Carter appointed him to...

On the campaign trail in 2008, Barack Obama promised to fundamentally transform the United States of America. After nearly eight years as president, he has delivered on one front by reshaping the federal judiciary. That revolution has been comprehensive, dramatic, and under the radar. When Obama entered the Oval Office, liberal judges controlled just one of the 13 circuits of the U.S. Court of Appeals. Fifty-five successful presidential nominations later, liberal majorities now control nine of those appeals benches, or 70 percent.

A federal judge in Wisconsin has declared multiple Republican-authored election laws unconstitutional in a sweeping ruling. Two liberal groups filed a lawsuit in May challenging the laws, including a requirement that voters show photo identification. U.S. District Judge James Peterson issued a ruling Friday that upheld the voter ID law, but struck down a number of GOP-written statutes and policies that restricted voting. …

A federal judge ruled Thursday that a Michigan law banning straight-ticket voting would place a disproportionate burden on African Americans' right to vote, and granted a request for a preliminary injunction to block enforcement of the law. Mark Brewer, a lawyer in the case and former head of the Michigan Democratic Party, argued that the elimination of straight-party voting would likely have a larger impact on African-American voters, noting "extremely high" correlations between the size of the African-American voting population within a district, and the use of straight-party voting in that district. New straight-ticket voting law in Michigan prompts lawsuit...

A federal judge on Monday ruled that clerks in Mississippi may not recuse themselves from issuing marriage licenses to gay couples based on religious beliefs, despite a bill passed by the state legislature intended to carve out that exception for them.

What is to be done? Comrade Tushnet explains it all (Everett Historical/Shutterstock) “To be successful, insurrection must rely not upon conspiracy and not upon a party, but upon the advanced class.” — Lenin.You really have to read this post by Harvard Law professor Mark Tushnet, in which he advises his fellow legal liberals to take the gloves off and hit conservatives with bare-knuckle force. Excerpts: Several generations of law students and their teachers grew up with federal courts dominated by conservatives. Not surprisingly, they found themselves wandering in the wilderness, looking for any sign of hope. The result: Defensive-crouch...

Wisconsin’s right-to-work law, championed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker as he was mounting his run for president, was struck down Friday as violating the state constitution. Attorney General Brad Schimel, also a Republican, promised to appeal the decision and said he was confident it would not stand, noting that no similar law has been struck down in any other state. […] Three unions filed the lawsuit last year shortly after Walker signed the bill into law. […] The unions argued that Wisconsin’s law was an unconstitutional seizure of union property since unions now must extend benefits to workers who don’t...

President Barack Obama respond this afternoon to promises by Senate Republicans to not allow a vote o his nominee to replace recently-deceased pro-life Justice Antonin Scalia. Obama doesn't care about the fact that he filibustered Justice Samuel Alito's nomination in an attempt to prevent the Senate from voting to confirm him, he demanded that Republicans allow a vote on his nominee. After Scalia's death, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate will not take up a vote on a replacement for deceased pro-life Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia until after the presidential election. Such a promise prevents pro-abortion President...

A California woman charged last week for her role in the production of undercover videos at a Houston Planned Parenthood clinic will be offered probation, a Harris County prosecutor said in court. Sandra Susan Merritt, of San Jose, Calif., appeared in court Wednesday morning on charges of tampering with a governmental record, a second-degree felony which carried a possible sentence of up to 20 years in prison. A grand jury convened to investigate whether a Houston Planned Parenthood clinic had sold the organs of aborted fetuses last week cleared the clinic and instead indicted the undercover videographers behind the allegations....

AUSTIN, Texas –  A Houston grand jury investigating undercover footage of Planned Parenthood found no wrongdoing Monday by the abortion provider but instead indicted anti-abortion activists involved in making the videos that provoked outrage among Republican leaders nationwide. David Daleiden, founder of the Center for Medical Progress, was indicted on a felony charge of tampering with a governmental record and a misdemeanor count related to purchasing human organs. Another activist, Sandra Merritt, was also indicted on a charge of tampering with a governmental record.

Update: Hall ignored the deadline and proceeded to issue unconstitutional marriage licenses. As reported by The Denver Post: "This was not a hard decision. I'm proud to do this for my community," Hall said Tuesday afternoon, adding, "it's not about politics. This is about people who love each other." Hall's office has issued 88 marriage licenses to same-sex couples since Wednesday, when the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals struck Utah's ban on gay marriage.

A new round of contempt-of-court hearings began Thursday in Phoenix against the sheriff in the nation’s sixth-largest city over his defiance of a judge’s order to stop carrying out his signature immigration patrols. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose immigration crackdowns turned him into a national political figure, listened intently as his second-in-command testified about emails involving the agency’s violation of a key court order in the racial profiling case. The order demanding the office stop the patrols was ignored for 18 months. Arpaio could face fines as a result of the hearings and could later be called into criminal...

Politicians who may have thought they wouldn’t have to say much at all about gay marriage once the U.S. Supreme Court effectively legalized it now must answer a different question: Do you support Kim Davis? The Rowan County clerk, who has become a darling of many conservatives despite being a Democrat, cited “God’s authority” and religious liberty in choosing jail time over issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Some social conservatives have cast Davis as a hero, shifting the gay marriage debate from one about civil liberties—a matter that appeared to have been settled—to one about religious liberty. …

Based on numerous polls and countless surveys, we already knew Americans didn’t trust Congress or the Executive Branch—but now, it looks like they don’t trust the courts, either. A new Gallup poll released Friday shows only 53 percent of Americans say they have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in the United States’ judicial system, a record low since Gallup first began measuring government trust in 1997. Conversely, about half (47%) of all Americans think the courts can’t be trusted. …

Oh, no! You Christians are Just Being Paranoid!

Why do so many who castigate Kim Davis for flouting the law routinely cheer on President Obama for actions far more lawless and consequential? Why are those demonizing the Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk so indifferent to the Supreme Court's rank abuse of power that created the atmosphere of conflict from which her actions arose? Who died and made the Supreme Court god? Well, the Supreme Court made itself god in 1803, with the case of Marbury v. Madison, in which it asserted its power of judicial review — the right to declare acts of the legislative and executive branches unconstitutional....