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Aided by fellow Republicans in the Senate, President Donald Trump is rapidly filling vacancies on U.S. appeals courts, moving some that had liberal majorities closer to conservative control in an ideological shift that could benefit his administration. These 13 courts wield considerable power, usually providing the last word on rulings appealed from lower courts on disputes involving federal law. Their rulings can be challenged before the U.S. Supreme Court, but most such appeals are turned away because the top court typically hears fewer than 100 cases annually. Eleven of the courts handle cases from specific multi-state regions, one handles cases...

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Cities can't prosecute people for sleeping on the streets if they have nowhere else to go because it amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, which is unconstitutional, a federal appeals court said Tuesday.

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that assault rifles and other so-called “weapons of war” are not protected under the Second Amendment. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit decision upheld Maryland’s ban on assault rifles, which was passed in 2013 in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Connecticut. It cited a 2008 Supreme Court case, Heller v. District of Columbia, which said that weapons “most useful in military service” are not covered by the Constitution. “We are convinced that the banned assault weapons and large-capacity magazines are among those arms that are ‘like’ M-16...

In a new legal development on the controversy over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emails, an appeals court on Tuesday reversed a lower court ruling and said two U.S. government agencies should have done more to recover the emails. The ruling from Judge Stephen Williams, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, revives one of a number of legal challenges involving Clinton's handling of government emails when she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.

AUSTIN, Texas – A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that Texas' strict voter ID law violates the Voting Rights Act and ordered changes before the November election. ADVERTISEMENT The ruling from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals instructs a lower court to make changes that fix the "discriminatory effect" of the 2011 law, but to do so in a way that disrupts this year's election season as little as possible. President Barack Obama's administration took the unusual step of deploying the weight of the U.S. Justice Department into the case when it challenged the law, which requires Texas residents...

Texas’s voter ID law violates federal laws prohibiting electoral discrimination, an appeals court ruled Wednesday. The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the 2011 state law, widely viewed as the one of the nation’s strictest such requirements, ruling that it violates section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. "The record shows that drafters and proponents of SB 14 were aware of the likely disproportionate effect of the law on minorities, and that they nonetheless passed the bill without adopting a number of proposed ameliorative measures that might have lessened this impact," Judge Catharina Haynes wrote in the ruling.

DEVELOPING: An appeals court has overturned some of the corruption convictions of imprisoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. he 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago released its ruling Tuesday.

MADISON, Wis. – It’s been a busy few weeks around the Wisconsin Supreme Court, if not actually inside the state’s top court. On Tuesday, Supreme Court Justice Shirley Abrahamson asked a federal appeals court to, at least temporarily, give her back the job of chief justice, a position she lost in an April vote of her fellow justices. The next day, hoping to expedite her appeals case, Abrahamson asked U.S. District Court Judge James Peterson to hit the pause button on her underlying federal claim – that her civil rights were violated when Wisconsin voters changed the state constitution, which...

Despite growing controversy over the use of anonymous pharmacies for lethal injections, the U.S. Supreme Court has thus far declined to block any executions based on 11th-hour appeals challenging the drug connections. That includes the case of Michael Taylor, a convicted rapist and murderer who was put to death at 12:10 a.m. Wednesday in Missouri after a furious legal battle that stretched well into the night. It's worth nothing, however, that three high court justices wanted to block Taylor's execution and cited the words of an appeals judge who said so little was known about the source of the deadly...

President Obama and his successors in the Oval Office are not obligated to make public the names of individuals visiting the White House, according to a decision of the federal Circuit Court for the District of Columbia made public Friday. The case was brought by Judicial Watch, the government watchdog nonprofit that has been fighting a long legal battle seeking to force release of the White House visitor logs as public records under the Freedom of Information Act. But in a decision that is drawing intense criticism from across the ideological spectrum, the circuit court said the president has a...

FORT HOOD, Texas—If Nidal Hasan plans to welcome a death sentence as a pathway to martyrdom, the rules of military justice won't let him go down without a fight—whether he likes it or not. The Army psychiatrist was sentenced Wednesday to die for the 2009 Fort Hood shooting rampage that killed 13 people and wounded more than 30. But before an execution date is set, Hasan faces years, if not decades, of appeals. And this time, he won't be allowed to represent himself. "If he really wants the death penalty, the appeals process won't let it happen for a very...

Mark Gaston Pearce, chairman of the National Labor Relations Board, issued the following statement in reaction to today’s DC Appeals Court decision that President Obama use of recess appointments to install three people on the NLRB last year was unconstitutional. The action renders the board without a quorum to act and potentially invalidates a year’s worth of actions and rulings by it. Pearce indicated that the NLRB will attempt to continue on regardless:

What does it mean for the Senate to be in recess? Today, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals was challenged to figure that out. This stems from President Obama bypassing the Senate in appointing three nominees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The Wall Street Journal sets it up: [I]n January Mr. Obama named three new members of the National Labor Relations Board along with Richard Cordray as the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau when the Senate wasn't in recess. While Congress was conducting pro forma sessions, Mr. Obama pulled this end run around the Senate's advice...

The State Attorney, after dozens of Peace Now appeals against Jewish homes, now says the left-wing group improperly files court appeals, the Makor Rishon newspaper reported. Peace Now has been in the forefront in recent years in petitioning the High Court against the right of Jews to build and live in Judea and Samaria, and in many, if not most, cases the organization has won an approving ear from the High Court. Whether by coincidence or not, the new State Attorney position comes only several months after a dramatic change in the make-up of the High Court. Gush Etzion attorney...

When Barack Obama was elected president, critics and supporters alike thought the Democrat would move swiftly to appoint strong liberal judges to balance out Republicans' longstanding push for a conservative judiciary. At the nation's 13 powerful U.S. appeals courts, that has not happened. Obama's 30 appointees have generally been moderates who mainly served on lower courts and were often selected in consultation with Republican senators. The pattern contrasts with Obama's Republican predecessors, dating back to Ronald Reagan, who quickly put forth prominent young conservatives, many of whom came from academia and had past political experience. Notably, President Obama has not...

A Florida appeals court on Wednesday granted George Zimmerman's request for a new judge. Zimmerman, the former neighborhood watch volunteer charged in the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, had said the judge presiding over his case has made disparaging remarks about him. The Fifth District Court of Appeal wrote in a decision that Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester Jr. should "enter an order of disqualification which requests the chief circuit judge to appoint a successor judge."

Madison - The state Supreme Court refused Monday to immediately take up a pair of cases that struck down the state's new voter ID law, a decision that will likely mean citizens won't have to show ID when they cast ballots in recall elections this spring. The court's terse orders send the cases back to two different courts of appeals. The appeals courts had said the Supreme Court should take the cases right away because of their significance. Now, the appeals courts will have to render their own decisions on the cases. The cases could then go to the Supreme...

Appeals court rules in legal fight over dead dogThe Associated Press Tuesday, February 21, 2012 RALEIGH – The N.C. Court of Appeals has waded into a legal tussle over the wrongful death of a Jack Russell terrier. Nancy and Herb Shera of Wilmington sued North Carolina State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine in 2009, seeking more than $28,000 in damages after their dog, Laci, died following a botched tube feeding. In a 20-page ruling issued Tuesday, the appeals court unanimously upheld an earlier ruling by the N.C. Industrial Commission, which decides compensation claims involving state agencies. The state commissioner had...

The Obama administration has decided not to ask a federal appeals court review of a ruling striking down the centerpiece of President Barack Obama's sweeping health care overhaul. The administration's decision makes it more likely that the U.S. Supreme Court would hear a case on the health care overhaul in the court's term starting next month, and render its verdict on the law in the midst of the 2012 presidential election campaign. A divided three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta concluded Congress overstepped its authority when lawmakers passed the individual mandate provision that requires people...

So far the U.S. government has bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the tune of at least $130 billion, and perhaps as much as $1 trillion. And yet, the Obama administration continues to stonewall the release of documents that could shed light on why Fannie and Freddie failed, thereby sending the economy into a tailspin from which we have yet to recover. (Those records are housed at the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) now that Fannie and Freddie are owned and operated by the federal government.)