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President Trump on Wednesday announced an updated list of potential nominees to the Supreme Court that included three Republican U.S. senators and his former solicitor general. Trump announced 20 additional potential nominees that would be added to a list of candidates for the Supreme Court, including Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Noel Francisco, who departed as solicitor general in June. The move represents a bid to shore up his support among conservatives two months from the 2020 presidential election. In remarks at the White House, Trump warned that religious liberty, freedom of speech...

<p>Donald Trump’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees sends multiple messages — all smart, and some pretty subtle.</p> <p>The main point, of course, was to reassure Republicans that he really would name a new justice in the mold of Antonin Scalia — someone who’d resist the temptation to read his or her own policy preferences into the Constitution and the law.</p>

Last year, a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that patients have a constitutional right to purchase potentially lifesaving developmental medicines prior to FDA approval, a huge (and hugely controversial) win for patient autonomy. The D.C. Circuit later granted en banc rehearing, and that opinion(pdf) was released this morning. The court now asserts that the Due Process Clause has nothing much to say about the right of the terminally ill to defend themselves against the onslaught of disease; it is the FDA's prerogative to deem a medicine too dangerous to ingest, even if...

THE Supreme Court, having decided only four cases since the term began in October, has not exactly been living in the fast lane. But the pace is about to pick up. The coming months will be a testing time for the young Roberts court, including decisions due by early summer on abortion, school integration and environmental policy, with an unusually large emphasis on cases of significance to the business community.Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has spoken often of the virtues of a court that speaks modestly and unanimously. Those goals may well prove elusive. The court’s conservative bloc reached...

The conservative ideological majority on the U.S. Supreme Court that determined the 2000 election in favor of President Bush should have grown stronger when Bush chose Justice Samuel Alito to replace the moderate Sandra Day O’Connor. Yet in carrying out its first priority, the war on terror, the White House has encountered unwelcome resistance from the court. Objections to Bush’s sweeping view of executive power have come not only from liberals and centrists, like Justice Anthony Kennedy but, more remarkably, from Justice Antonin Scalia, who may end up playing a pivotal role in future war-on-terror cases. Scalia has long been...

Once more into the Fourth Amendment breach, dear friends! In the pending case of Florida v. Rabb , the Supreme Court has a splendid opportunity to affirm the maxim that a man's house is his home -- and that he has a right to grow a passel of pot in his attic. Well, not exactly. By taking the case -- or better yet, by not taking it -- the high court could strike a blow for strict enforcement of a constitutional freedom as old as Magna Carta. These are the facts: In April 2002, an anonymous informant advised the Broward...

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled in its 5-4 decision in the case of Hudson v. Michigan that when police conduct an illegal, no-knock raid, any evidence they seize in the raid can still be used against the suspect at trial, even though the raid was conducted illegally. I’ve spent the last year researching these types of volatile, highly-confrontational, paramilitary raids for a forthcoming report for the Cato Institute. The decision in Hudson is almost certain to lead to more illegal no-knock raids, more mistaken raids on innocent people, and more unnecessary deaths, both of civilians and of police officers....

Sometime this spring, the Supreme Court will hand down its decision in the case of Hudson v. Michigan. At issue is whether or not police who used an illegal "no-knock" raid to enter a defendant's home can use the drugs they seized inside against the defendant at trial. To understand the importance of this case, some background is in order. As the name indicates, a "no-knock" raid occurs when police forcibly enter a private residence without first knocking and announcing that they're the police. The tactic is appropriate in a few limited situations, such as when hostages or fugitives are...

The other day, the Supreme Court did something surprising. It said that if a man stands at the threshold of his own house and tells the police they may not enter without a warrant, then -- get a load of this, willya? -- they may not enter without a warrant. That may not sound very remarkable. After all, most of us are familiar with the axiom that a man's home is his castle, and the Constitution does have that passage assuring the right of all Americans "to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and...

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, M.D. (R-TN) today praised the pending passage of the “Support Our Scouts Act of 2005,” which is included in the Department of Defense Authorization bill and the Defense Appropriations bill. Sen. Frist authored the legislation, which was co-sponsored by over 50 other senators, "to ensure that the Boy Scouts of America receives equal access to public facilities, programs, and forums and that the Defense Department will continue its support of Scouts and their Jamborees." “The passage of this legislation is a victory for the Boy Scouts of America and the many other organizations that...

                           41 ALITO, Circuit Judge, concurring in the judgment. I do not join Judge Barry's opinion, which was never necessary and is now obsolete. That opinion fails to discuss the one authority that dictates the result in this appeal, namely, the Supreme Court's decision in Stenberg v. Carhart, 2000 WL 825889 (U.S. June 28, 2000). Our responsibility as a lower court is to follow and apply controlling Supreme Court precedent. I write briefly to explain why Carhart requires us to affirm the decision of the District Court in this case. This is an appeal by the New Jersey State Legislature...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court under new Chief Justice John Roberts cleared the way on Monday for a pregnant Missouri prisoner to obtain an abortion, despite objections from state officials. In a brief order without comment or recorded dissent, the high court rejected Missouri's request to put on hold a federal judge's order requiring that prison authorities transport the inmate to a St. Louis clinic for an abortion.How Roberts would rule on abortion was a major issue in his confirmation hearings in the Senate. This was the first abortion-related case the court has acted upon since he...

I don't know who makes me sicker – President Bush or the "conservatives" who continue to back him and his sell-out choice for the U.S. Supreme Court. The conservatives eagerly jumped in to throw their support to the unknown John Roberts as soon as the choice to replace Sandra Day O'Connor was announced. On what basis? The guy was a blank slate – like David Souter and Anthony Kennedy before him. Then, last week, the Los Angeles Times broke the story that Roberts had volunteered his services – pro bono – to help prepare a landmark homosexual activist case to...

As someone who's been following the antics of the Federalist Society for almost a decade, I was greatly amused by the flap over whether Supreme Court nominee John Roberts is a card-carrying member. He isn't, it turns out. But he did speak at a number of Federalist Society functions. He's a fellow traveler, in other words. That's enough for the left-wing McCarthyites who are trying to portray him as member of some sort of right-wing conspiracy and as an enemy of liberty. In fact, no one in America is quite as obsessed with the nature of liberty as the members...

Ashcroft v. Raich, the Supreme Court's medical marijuana case, isn't really about medical marijuana. It's about power -- the power of Congress to exert control, and the power of the Constitution to rein Congress in. The named plaintiff in this case is Angel McClary Raich, a California mother of two afflicted with an awful array of diseases, including tumors in her brain and uterus, asthma, severe weight loss, and endometriosis. To ease her symptoms, doctors put her on dozens of standard medications. When none of them helped, they prescribed marijuana. That did help -- so much so that Raich, who...

N.M. Church May Use Special Tea for Now Fri Dec 10, 8:09 PM ET By MARY PEREA, Associated Press WriterALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - The U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) sided Friday with a New Mexico church that wants to use hallucinogenic tea as part of its Christmas services, despite government objections that the tea is illegal and potentially dangerous. The high court lifted a temporary stay issued last week against using the hoasca tea while it decides whether the Brazil-based O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal is permitted to make it a permanent part of its services. The...

TESTING THE FAITHPriest busted for Communion wineWants variance of city law so he can say Mass outside abortion clinic A Catholic priest has run afoul of the law in Colorado Springs, Colo., after being caught with an open container of sacramental wine while performing Mass outside an abortion clinic. The Rev. Bill Carmody was warned by a police officer after the cop asked him what he was holding. "The police officer asked me what's in the flask," he told the Colorado Springs Gazette. "I really didn't know what to do." Carmody has asked the Colorado Springs City Council for a...

The same Arlen Specter who awaits his expected coronation as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee has a long record of betraying both his party and America's gun owners. To hear Specter talk, his fellow Republicans count on him. They do. Senate Republicans count on Arlen Specter to vote their way only until his vote is absolutely critical to the issue at hand. When he is most needed on the political battlefield, Arlen is either AWOL or preening in the enemy's tent about casting a difficult vote of conscience, to the applause of CBS, NBC, and the Washington Post. Proof?...

I have created a public register of "bump lists" here on Free Republic. I define a bump list as a name listed in the "To" field used to index articles. Free Republic Bump List Register

Clark camp backs off abortion statementBy GIL BLISS Sunday News Correspondent MILFORD — Pancakes and politics helped warm the frigid air yesterday morning as retired four-star Gen. Wesley Clark spoke to an adoring packed house at the Veterans of Foreign Wars post. Outside the breakfast, Clark responded to criticism in an editorial last week in The Union Leader about the abortion rights issue that came following a midweek meeting with editorial staff. In that meeting, Clark said he would not appoint a pro-life federal judge and that the government should not impinge on a woman’s decision to have an abortion,...