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My mving to Washington and becoming a Supreme Court justice five years ago was shocking, “like somebody throwing cold water on me,” says Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The transition from being a little known appeals court judge in her hometown of New York to being an easily recognized Washington personality was extremely difficult, Sotomayor said. “People stop treating you like a person,” she said. “It’s hard for someone like me who really likes people and wants to have living room conversations that are not posted on Twitter.” Her comments came in a wide-ranging and, for a Supreme Court justice, unusually candid...

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 12 (UPI) -- California will not appeal a U.S. judge's decision to lift a stay on his injunction blocking the state's voter-enacted ban on same-sex marriage, officials said. U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn R. Walker said Thursday he would lift the stay and allow same-sex marriages to proceed, but not until Aug. 18. Such marriages would be permitted after that unless an appeals court, possibility the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, issues a stay beyond the date. Walker warned the amendment's sponsors may not have standing, or status, to make the appeal because...

During a segment on Friday’s “American Morning,” CNN correspondent Carol Costello used two liberal talking heads to cast doubt on the “judicial activist” label used by conservatives. Costello used three sound bites from Jonathan Turley of George Washington University Law School, who branded the use of the term as “perfectly juvenile,” and one from NPR’s Nina Totenberg to cast aspersions on conservatives who are concerned about judges legislating from the bench. Costello’s report, which began 20 minutes into the 6 am Eastern hour of the CNN program, began by labeling the “judicial activist” term itself an “act” by politicians: “We...

In a nutshell: Sonia Sotomayor is an activist judge whose decisions have nearly always been overturned by the very Court to which she aspires, as well as a judge who has expressed racist views. Let us begin with her racist views. Have you ever seen the statue representing justice? Ever notice that "Lady Justice" is wearing a blindfold? Lady Justice wears the blindfold so that she will NOT be biased by what her eyes see. She will not notice the race, the gender, the religion, or any other such factor. Instead, she will balance each case before her with the...

A federal judge who used to authorize wiretaps in terrorist and espionage cases criticized President Bush's decision to order warrantless surveillance after the Sept. 11 attacks. Royce Lamberth, a district court judge in Washington, said Saturday it was proper for executive branch agencies to conduct such surveillance. "But what we have found in the history of our country is that you can't trust the executive," he said at the American Library Association's convention. "We have to understand you can fight the war (on terrorism) and lose everything if you have no civil liberties left when you get through fighting the...

A judge under fire for dressing down deer hunters has more problems: Prosecutors filed a complaint, saying she knocked 10 years off a sex offender's sentence without telling them. [ ... ] Separately, a Web site has been created urging Lewis' defeat in the Nov. 7 election. It directs visitors to a videotape and audiotape of her berating two men about deer hunting.

Give Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer his due. With the publication of his new book "Active Liberty," he enthusiastically embraces a mea culpa approach to allegations that Supreme Court justices invent, recreate, and expand constitutional principles as they please. Viewed as a response to Justice Antonin Scalia's "A Matter of Interpretation," Breyer’s book, openly advocates for the notion that U.S. constitutional law is whatever a majority of Supreme Court justices wishes...

Jun 29, 2005Judge Overturns Rape Conviction Because Jurors Found Alleged Confession Note in Pants The Associated Press ORANGEBURG, S.C. (AP) - A judge has thrown out a man's rape conviction because the jury that convicted him found something it wasn't supposed to see - a purported confession stuck in the pocket of a pair of pants being examined in the jury room. One juror revealed the discovery after the March conviction of Stanley Bradley. Since the document had not been entered into evidence during trial, its discovery during deliberations tainted the jury, Circuit Judge Diane Goodstein wrote in her...

Federal judges: JUDICIAL "OUTLAWS"Is "illegal immigration" and aiding and abetting "illegal aliens" a crime or not? by an American Patriot March 30, 2005       On March 8, 2005, Jerry Seper reported in The Washington Times that the Supreme and 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco "backs immigrants in job lawsuit" after the district court magistrate refused to allow the defendant from questioning the 'immigration status' of the plaintiffs under their Title VII claim for "unlawful" discrimination.       Appellate Judge Stephen Reinhardt, whose Ramona Ripston is president of the Los Angeles chapter of the ACLU. wrote his "opinion"...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- A federal judge has prohibited the government from moving 13 Yemenis from the U.S. detention center for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to other countries without giving them a chance to contest the transfer in court. U.S. District Court Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr., in granting an injunction requiring 30 days' notice before the detainees are transferred, said their concerns about losing more rights under lock and key in another country are legitimate. Kennedy's decision on Tuesday affects just the 13 Yemenis held at Guantanamo, but lawyers for dozens of other detainees there have asked other...

HARRISBURG -- A day before he was scheduled to die, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Wednesday blocked the execution of a man convicted of killing 13 people in a shooting rampage in 1982. The justices sent the case back to the trial court for a hearing on whether 62-year-old George E. Banks is mentally competent. Banks was convicted of killing five of his children, four current or former girlfriends and four others in Wilkes-Barre. The former prison guard said he wanted to protect his children from the abuse he suffered as a biracial child. He was scheduled to die by...

2nd Circuit’s Calabresi Also Compares Bush’s Rise to That of Hitler WASHINGTON — A prominent federal judge has told a conference of liberal lawyers that President Bush’s rise to power was similar to the accession of dictators such as Mussolini and Hitler. “In a way that occurred before but is rare in the United States…somebody came to power as a result of the illegitimate acts of a legitimate institution that had the right to put somebody in power.That is what the Supreme Court did in Bush versus Gore. It put somebody in power,” said Guido Calabresi, a judge on the...

The rulings of the Supreme Court in last spring’s landmark affirmative-action and gayrights cases were less surprising than the reasoning used by some of the Court’s justices. In resolving constitutional questions, the Court routinely relies on arguments appealing to the constitutional text and government structure, to precedent and prudence. In Grutter v. Bollinger, however, which upheld the use of racial preferences in law school admissions, and in Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down Texas’s prohibition on same-sex sodomy, the Court drew an additional arrow from its quiver. Several justices chose to assess the constitutionality of purely domestic civil-rights and civil...