Free Republic

... The United States is the only country to take the position that some police misconduct must automatically result in the suppression of physical evidence. The rule applies whether the misconduct is slight or serious, and without regard to the gravity of the crime or the power of the evidence. “Foreign countries have flatly rejected our approach,” said Craig M. Bradley, an expert in comparative criminal law at Indiana University. “In every other country, it’s up to the trial judge to decide whether police misconduct has risen to the level of requiring the exclusion of evidence.” But there are signs...

Here is the piece I was telling you about. It is a little tough to read because the webmaster, for reasons I still do not understand even though he explained it, occasionally omits spacing between paragraphs. http://www.thebulletin.us/site/index.cfm?newsid=19857067&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=576361&rfi=8 I will also include the link in the first reply.

There is a great issue in America, a burning one, which speaks to the very soul of our government. It concerns the role of the judiciary and the possibility that it is usurping too much power. An excellent case could be made that it is. Link: http://www.thebulletin.us/site/index.cfm?newsid=19854121&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=576361&rfi=8

It’s one of the most compelling storylines of the current composition of the U.S. Supreme Court – the notion that a 5-4 conservative majority could end up blocking the left-leaning agenda of a unified Democratic power structure in Washington. It may also be the next battleground in America’s emerging presidential slugfest, as supporters of Barack Obama are already sounding the alarm that their candidate’s so-called progressive agenda could be stymied by “judges appointed during the right’s ascendancy.” Columnist E.J. Dionne, Jr. lent voice to this so-called populist rage last month, bemoaning the “danger” inherent in the Court’s recent “spate of...

Studying the Supremes Emily Miller, July 14, 2008 The media is quick to paint Chief Justice John Roberts’ Supreme Court into an ideological corner, tagging it conservative or liberal, minimalist or imperialist, unified or deeply fractured. But these overarching broad analyses reported by the press are often inaccurate, says Dahlia Lithwick, scrutinizing the Supreme Court’s 2007-8 term in a panel discussion hosted by the Heritage Foundation. Anyone who attempts to make broad conclusions about the Court’s political leaning, or predicts which way the justices will vote, does so in the way of an “optical illusion.” Lithwick explains that it involves...

Opponents of a massive new energy tax and federal bureaucracy breathed a small sigh of relief last month when the Lieberman-Warner climate tax bill went down in flames on the Senate floor, with even 10 Democrats breaking from the party line and saying, in writing, that they would have opposed the bill on final passage. Unfortunately, power-mad bureaucrats at the Environmental Protection Agency are undaunted. Empowered by an activist Supreme Court in the 5-4 Massachusetts v. EPA decision, the EPA is expected today to release a staggering document blueprinting a dizzying array of greenhouse gas regulatory programs under dozens of...

Whatever side of the Second Amendment controversy you may be on, the clear winner in District of Columbia v. Heller (striking down a Washington, D.C., ban on hand guns) was intentionalism, the thesis that a text means what its author or authors intend. The text in dispute is 27 words long, and it is cited in the opening pages of each of the three opinions: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” None of the words in this sentence is...

The Supreme Court openly violated its separated powers under the Constitution by defying Congress' Article I, Section 9 authority to suspend habeas corpus "when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it." Congressional Democrats cheer the decision because it provides them with political cover for what they could not accomplish legislatively - their preference to execute a battle as you might an indictment and prosecute a war as you might a trial. This once co-equal branch has morphed into a tyrannical tree and President Bush has foolishly said that he'll "abide by their decision." Question: How...

Howard Kaloogian is a lawyer and a former member of the California State Assembly. GITMO AND GUNS are getting all the press. But energy mavens are talking about another recent far-reaching — but little noted — U.S. Supreme Court decision on the California energy crisis: It took them seven years but they finally figured it out. The revisionist part of the story is well known: Big bad oil traders like Enron gamed the market and drove up energy costs fifteen-fold. The blackouts, insolvent utilities and economic chaos are remembered as the worst energy crisis in American history. But the Supreme...

The Supreme Court of the United States has developed a bit of an identity crisis of late. As a judicial body, they can’t seem to decide if they are part of the legislative branch of government or part of the judicial branch. On the legislative side, they have handed down decisions that have done nothing less than to create new laws, citing foreign laws or public consensus as the justification for their decision. On the judicial side, they adhere to the original interpretation of the Constitution and decide cases based solely on the constitutionality of a law or case. To...

When our rulers on the Supreme Court invalidated the State of Louisiana's death penalty for child rapists — in the case appropriately titled Kennedy v. Louisiana, decided June 25 — Justice Kennedy and the Court's liberal bloc insisted that the Eighth Amendment does not mean what it meant when it was adopted. Rather, the question of what is "cruel and unusual" punishment is answered by "the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society." Such gobbledygook is the mark of Left-liberal hauteur. In an arrested-development society, getting older is not necessarily maturing, and chronological maturation is...

There has been a lot of talk about the need for change in this country. That is Senator Obama's mantra, of course. And all of the commentators say, "It is a change election." Well, I can understand why the call for change is so powerful considering the pitiful condition that our country is in. We simply have the most prosperous, freest and strongest country in the history of the world. So we can understand why liberal politicians and their supporters see the need for great change. On a more serious note, we have long recognized the role change plays in...

Scalia's selective historyBy Jack RakoveAppeals to the evidence of history figured prominently in last week's Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia vs. Heller, striking down a sweeping ban on handguns and affirming that the 2nd Amendment protects a fundamentally individual right "to keep and bear arms." Yet read the two main opinions by Justices Antonin Scalia (for the conservative majority) and John Paul Stevens (in dissent), and you will see that different ways of defining and reading what counts as historical evidence expose a fault line between them.One would have to be terribly naive to think that how these...

If the Supreme Court Rules Two Plus Two Equals Five, Is the President Required to Enforce It? In recent years, it has become clear that the idea of an accurate, truthful, constitutional ruling from America’s judicial system is an oxymoron, an incongruous, absurd phrase that contradicts itself and is therefore false. Two court rulings in the last two months have reinforced this conclusion – the California Supreme Court’s ruling that two men and two women can “marry” and the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that Osama Bin-Laden, the brutal Saudi Arabian terrorist leader behind 9/11 and countless murders of innocent men,...

ANOTHER GROSS FACTUAL ERROR AT THE SUPREME COURT. Following up on similar huge errors from Justice Stevens in Heller. Plus, another Stevens Heller error here. What gives?

WASHINGTON — When the Supreme Court ruled last week that the death penalty for raping a child was unconstitutional, the majority noted that a child rapist could face the ultimate penalty in only six states — not in any of the 30 other states that have the death penalty, and not under the jurisdiction of the federal government either. This inventory of jurisdictions was a central part of the court’s analysis, the foundation for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s conclusion in his majority opinion that capital punishment for child rape was contrary to the “evolving standards of decency” by which the...

The Supreme Court, in a decision that attempts to honor the sanctity of life and to reserve the death penalty for situations where a murder has occurred, has just given one who rapes a child and the child both a free pass on life. The rapist gets to spend the rest of their life in prison supported by tax payers, escaping the hangman's noose, while the child gets to spend the rest of their life supported by themselves and trying to avoid tying the noose to end their suffering . The Court got it wrong completely for the following reasons...

WHY did the Founders bother toiling in the summer heat of Philadelphia in 1787 writing a Constitution when they could have relied on the consciences of Supreme Court justices like Anthony Kennedy instead? Kennedy is the court's most important swing vote and its worst justice. Whatever else you think of them, a Justice Antonin Scalia or Ruth Bader Ginsburg has a consistent judicial philosophy - while Kennedy expects the nation to bend to his moral whimsy. With apologies to Louis XIV, Kennedy might as well declare la constitution, c'est moi!

WASHINGTON -- If the long conservative era that began with Ronald Reagan's election is over, will the judges appointed during the right's ascendancy be able to block, frustrate and undermine the efforts of a new progressive majority? Consider this analysis from two influential journalists describing Supreme Court justices as "the last hope of the conservative interests in the United States." Imagine, they write, that a new liberal approach to the country's problems "had been overwhelmingly approved both in Congress and at the polling booths," so "conservative interests resorted to the courts, starting literally thousands of actions to stay the government's...

Systematically Gutting the Constitution While Reshaping America in their ImageAbout this time every year, 300 million-plus Americans drag themselves out of bed, get ready for their day and learn what rights they have been allowed under the latest U.S. Supreme Court decision. The unelected Supremes, in their hair-splitting wisdom, have ruled this term: * That elected representatives of the people may make no law to execute child rapists; * That enemy combatants--captured on the field of battle as they attempted to kill U.S. service personnel--have many of the same rights as law-abiding U.S. citizens; * That the Second Amendment is...

For 30 years D.C. was ruled by liberals who thought they were better and smarter than the Founding Fathers. Justice Scalia told them otherwise, and D.C. residents are heading to the gun shops for some shiny new pistols. D.C. Officials are panicking.

THE LAW OF INTENDED CONSEQUENCESThe Constitution Of The United States. Article III, Section 3. Section 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court. The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted. The Congress shall have...

The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision upholding the right of the people to keep and bear arms, even in the District of Columbia, has made liberals across the country squeal even louder than they did when the Soviet Union collapsed. The case originated with a “Special Police Officer” named Dick Heller, who carries a handgun as part of his duties, when he requested a permit to store his firearm in his Washington D.C. residence for self-protection. The city denied Heller the permit. He sued, and the District Court ruled against him. But his appeal was granted by the D.C. Court of...

The recent Supreme Court decision overturning the gun ban in Washington DC was very narrowly decided. Four justices dissented, in effect saying that the gun ban in DC (and some other cities) was constitutional. Many Liberals agreed. The Virginian Pilot commented: What you think of the Supreme Court's decision this week on the Second Amendment largely depends on where you live. In D.C., or Chicago - both of which have draconian gun-ownership laws - the opinion penned by Justice Antonin Scalia will seem to some like an assault on local rule, not to mention the grammar of the Constitution. It’s...

A Win by McCain Could Push a Split Court to Right

Everyone who has a TV, a computer, a newspaper, or a radio, knows that the Supreme Court handed down its decision in the Heller case on Thursday, ruling that the Second Amendment provides a personal right to "keep and bear arms." Therefore it struck down the District of Columbia law that has banned citizens from owning new handguns after 1976. But the case is much more important than that. Cases concern more than just the parties involved. The Heller decision will affect the rights of millions of Americans to protect themselves, their families, and their homes. But the “why” of...

Thanks to the flappable Justice Anthony Kennedy the Second Amendment remains in the constitution but it is outrageous that four members of the court wanted to throw it out. (see Scalias Opinion) Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a precisely clear opinion upholding the right of the people to keep and bear arms on an individual basis. But the ink wasn’t dry before leftists of all stripes "found" language in the opinion that will allow other judges to confirm all manner of restrictions on gun owners’ rights. Unfortunately Scalia probably had to include some of these loop holes in the opinion to...

Friday, June 27, 2008 Yesterday was a historic day for the gun rights movement. For starters, Gun Owners of America is pleased that the U.S. Supreme Court, in the DC v. Heller opinion, struck down the handgun ban and trigger lock requirement in the nation's capital. As a result, GOA experts have spent the last two days using radio, TV and print media to explain the Court's decision and its impact upon the future of the gun debate in America. GOA's amicus brief urged the Court not to use the Heller case as a springboard to resolve the constitutionality of...

Justice John Paul Stevens, rapidly failing physically and mentally, needs to do the honorable thing and step down from the Supreme Court. Simply put, he has become an embarrassment to himself and a danger to the country. And, to quote, Cromwell, “It is not fit that he should sit there any longer. He should now give way to better men” (women, children, or sharp-eyed canines, as the case may be). Lest anyone wonder whether such a decisive call for so definitive an action is justifiable, consider the following excerpt from Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority opinion in Heller v. D.C. It...

It was a narrow decision. Nonetheless, the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday properly struck down part of a local handgun ban in the District of Columbia, ruling that Americans have a right to keep a gun at home for self-defense. Washington's 32-year-old gun law, perhaps the strictest in the nation, barred most residents of the city from owning handguns and required that all legal firearms be kept unloaded and either disassembled or under trigger lock. Six residents challenged the law, saying they wanted firearms available in their homes for self-defense. "After 30 years of ignoring that right, the District will...

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. - Second Amendment to the U. S. ConstitutionThe aftermath of the Supreme Court’s historic affirmation of an individual’s right to bear arms illustrates the philosophical divide between the Left and Right, Conservative and Liberal. Liberals believe that rights emanate from the government while conservatives hold that the individual has inherent rights. When the Founding Fathers established America’s representative democracy the world was just beginning to emerge from the feudal and monarchic traditions that...

"So Wrong, So Often, For So Long..." I'm slackjawed. The Supremes have actually found a right that exists in the Constitution! For decades they have been adept on finding "rights" where none existed in this document, and denied real rights when they existed in black and white. As Boston T. Party would say, "Hold off on the party balloons." This decision by the court was not a compete vindication of the 2nd Amendment, but a cleverly crafted piece not in line with the other famous 1939 2nd Amendment case, U.S. vs. Miller. The upshot of that decision was that any...

Liberals, who hate guns almost as much as they hate cars, got a well-deserved lesson in Second Amendment rights when the Supreme Court spit in their face by ruling that the Constitution really does guarantee the right of Americans to own guns. The ruling, which struck down the District of Columbia’s laws almost totally restricting handgun ownership, affirmed the traditional view that the Second Amendment means exactly what it says when it guarantees "the right of the people to keep and bear arms." The avid gun-grabbers have long insisted that the accompanying clause, “A well regulated militia being necessary to...

June 26, 2008, 6:00 a.m. Evolving Nonsense By the Editors In his opinion Wednesday for a five-justice majority in Kennedy v. Louisiana, Justice Anthony Kennedy ruled that the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishments� forbids imposition of the death penalty for the rape of a child. Or, rather, he ruled that the Court’s modern rewriting of the Eighth Amendment as a license for the Court to impose its “independent judgment� of “the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society� yields that result. If any further evidence were needed that the Supreme Court’s...

As I swab down one of my hundreds of privately owned, individually possessed firearms again this fine morning, I snicker and shake my head in disbelief that there are four "justices" on the "supreme" court that do not believe Americans have individual rights. Sure, I am somewhat pleased that we now have a SCOTUS confirmation of the self-evident truth and God given individual right to keep and bear arms, but the 5-4 ruling is another painful example, like Guantanamo and the decree against the death penalty for child rapist decisions that indicate a divisive culture war raging on, and four...

The Supreme Court's barring of the death penalty for child rapists in Kennedy v. Louisiana underscores the hazards in the court's abandonment of moral absolutes in favor of "evolving standards of decency" and the court's unbridled arrogance in substituting its subjective judgment for the legislatively enacted will of the people. In Kennedy, the court reversed the decision of the Louisiana Supreme Court to uphold the capital punishment of a convicted child rapist, holding that the Eighth Amendment's cruel and unusual punishment clause prohibits executing such offenders "where the crime did not result, and was not intended to result, in the...

There's one group of District residents absolutely unfazed by today's U.S. Supreme Court ruling shooting down the District's strict handgun ban: the dudes who have been blowing away their fellow citizens with abandon since the law was put on the books 32 years ago. Operating under the notion that it's better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission, our shooters long ago decided not to wait for the high court's thoughts on the matter. They simply arrogated to themselves the right to keep and bear arms and, with that right, license to shoot and kill, with impunity, whatever and whenever...

In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 (conservative to liberal) decision that the right for American citizens to keep and bear arms is in fact Constitutionally granted. Conservative and Liberal Justices have argued over the Constitutional interpretation of the 2nd Amendment for years. Conservatives have argued that the 2nd Amendment states that the right to keep and bear arms is a Constitutionally guaranteed right. Whereas Liberals have stated that it was meant to be used by militia only. Justice Scalia wrote the Majority Opinion for the court stating that it was evident that the "historic narrative"...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court declared for the first time on Thursday that the Constitution protects an individual’s right to have a gun, not just the right of the states to maintain militias. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority in the landmark 5-to-4 decision, said the Constitution does not allow “the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home.” In so declaring, the majority found that a gun-control law in the nation’s capital went too far by making it nearly impossible to own a handgun.... The National Rifle Association and other supporters of rights to...

The tyranny of the liberals was almost complete. ONE MORE VOTE and they would be confiscating our guns. After that, they could have done whatever they wanted and an unarmed population of sheep could have done nothing about it. We know what our Founding Fathers did about that kind of tyranny.

I have not read much beyond that the SC struck this down but my first question is - can I now drive through DC with a hand-gun?

In a way, it doesn't matter what the Supreme Court decides. Right will still be right, wrong will still be wrong, and freedom will still be freedom. Sometime this morning – it may already have happened by the time you read this – the Supreme Court of the United States will announce whether the Second Amendment is an individual right or a state right. At issue is whether the Bill of Rights empowers the state to organize an army to keep you subdued or whether it guarantees you the right to arm yourself against the oppression of the state. And...

Video clip from Al Furqan's latest tape, "The Islamic State is Meant to Stay". The video shows the attack on Combat Outpost Inman and images from The Long War Journal of the aftermath of the attack. Al Qaeda in Iraq, through its puppet organization the Islamic State of Iraq, released its latest propaganda video on June 23. The video contains a montage of attacks throughout Iraq, and features two Kuwaiti al Qaeda operatives who conducted strikes in Mosul. One of the operatives was released from the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Islamic State of Iraq used footage...

The recent Supreme Court decision of Boumediene v. Bush concerning the habeas corpus rights of enemy combatants held at Guantanamo Naval Base illustrates the need for a president who will nominate jurists that follow the Constitution and not their own political ideology. For the first time, the Court has now extended U.S. constitutional rights to foreign nationals residing outside the country. What's all the more galling is that the recipients of this right were engaged in killing U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Read entire article here 

The U.S. Supreme Court will soon rule on whether Washington, D.C.'s decades-old handgun ban is constitutional. It's been nearly 70 years since the high court has heard a firearms case that tests the scope of the Second Amendment. The outcome of this one, D.C. v. Heller, will have extraordinary implications —- not just for the District, but for the ability of cities to respond effectively to gun violence. If more evidence is needed that the stakes could not be higher, a steady drumbeat of headlines is supplying it. In the first few days of March alone, just before the justices...

I'm thinking of a word. Ah, yes. A#%hole. That's the one. Massachussetts (go figure) State Representative James Fagan took to the floor of the state house to oppose Jessica's Law, a bill sweeping through state legislatures across the nation that creates mandatory sentences for criminals who rape a child. Mr. Fagan, a defense attorney and hardcore liberal, opposes the bill on the grounds that...well, I guess he just hates children and loves child rapists, I dunno. It defies good sense, logic and simple moral decency. In the video below, Fagan explains what he would do to a child rape victim...

Inspired by the recent US Supreme Court ruling to grant all detainees Habeas Corpus rights, three major American networks are about to launch new legal drama series that feature lawyers litigating in defense of armed Muslim bystanders picked up on the battlefield and wrongly accused of being enemy combatants. Quick spin-offs of such successful shows as Law & Order and Boston Legal are in the works at ABC and NBC, while CBS promises an original sitcom about a lawyer who not only defends accused terrorists, but is himself a terrorist. In the words of Boston Legal's creator David E. Kelley,...

Hearings for terror suspects before US military tribunals in Guantanamo are going ahead despite a Supreme Court ruling that affirmed detainees have a right to challenge their detention in a civilian court. Legal experts had described the high court's decision as the death knell of the special tribunals created by President George W. Bush and his Republican allies in Congress to try "war on terror" suspects. But Justice Department chief Michael Mukasey said the controversial tribunals at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba would continue their work and last week, two preliminary hearings were held as scheduled. The...

Here is video of a conversation on The Charlie Rose Show with outstanding Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. They talk about his life, career and book "Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges." (see video)

It's another case of liberals who cannot get want they want via the legislative process trying to get judges to write it for them from the bench. To show you how out-there the enviro-lefties are on this, Chertoff used waivers authorized by Congress. You don't have to like them, but neither did the members of Congress who voted "no" on the legislation. BUT THEY LOST. You don't get to rewrite the damn law through the judiciary. People elected by Americans in the democratic process passed that legislation as the law of the land. You don't like it? Vote for some...