Free Republic

On Tuesday a 2-1 Democrat majority of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit invalidated a good West Virginia law protecting girls’ sports against invasion by male-bodied transgender students. The Richmond-based tribunal held that West Virginia’s Save Women’s Sports Act violates the federal Title IX law, which was enacted to protect girls’ sports, and also that West Virginia’s protection of girls’ sports may further violate the Constitution. The Biden-appointed judge who wrote this absurd decision repeatedly used the propaganda term “sex assigned at birth,” as if sex were arbitrary and merely “assigned” to a newborn. On the contrary,...

A federal appeals court on Tuesday overturned the West Virginia law banning transgender girls from playing on girls' sports teams, finding that it violates Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools. The ruling comes amid a wave of anti-trans legislation cropping up across the country, as well as efforts to fight back against it. The ban in West Virginia was originally signed into law by Gov. Jim Justice in 2021, and introduced as the "Save Women's Sports Act." It required that any official or unofficial school-sanctioned event involving athletics determine each athlete's participation in...

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes on Friday sharply criticized the Department of Justice for instructing its personnel not to comply with subpoenas from the House Judiciary Committee while pursuing charges against former Trump officials who defied congressional subpoenas. Reyes, an appointee of President Joe Biden, oversaw a hearing in a legal dispute between the DOJ and Judiciary Committee over subpoenas the panel issued to Mark Daly and Jack Morgan, two attorneys with the DOJ, to testify in their ongoing impeachment inquiry, Politico reported. The Judiciary Committee sued in March to compel testimony from the two attorneys in the DOJ Tax...

A federal judge on Friday ripped DOJ prosecutors for ignoring Hunter Biden-related subpoenas while pointing out that Trump’s top advisor is in prison for defying a subpoena issued by House members. In September former Trump advisor Dr. Peter Navarro, 74, was convicted of criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena in Liz Cheney’s January 6 investigation. Navarro did not comply with the subpoena because he said Trump told him to assert executive privilege. Hunter Biden blatantly defied a congressional subpoena and nothing happened to him. He is a free man while Navarro sits in prison. US...

A federal judge denied a motion Thursday from Nassau County to avoid a state lawsuit against its policy to prevent men from participating in women’s sporting events at county-run facilities. Republican Executive Bruce Blakeman of Nassau County on Feb. 22 signed an executive order that would deny the use of county parks and property for women’s sporting events unless they limit participation to one biological sex, based on participants’ birth certificates. After being threatened with a lawsuit by Democratic Attorney General Letitia James of New York over the policy, Blakeman sought an order from the U.S. District Court for the...

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) gave us another amusing demonstration of his ability to humiliate Joe Biden’s unqualified judicial nominees during Wednesday's confirmation hearing. United States District Judge Nancy Maldonado of the Northern District of Illinois, who has been nominated by Joe Biden for a spot on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, had previously signed a brief supporting a ban on "assault weapons" in Illinois state courts in the 2010s, yet, when he asked her to define "assault weapons,” she couldn’t. “You said, ‘assault weapons may be banned because they’re extraordinarily dangerous and are not appropriate...

Oh, where to begin in the latest episode of “America’s Judicial Rollercoaster” featuring the audacious blockade by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals against Texas's gallant effort to enforce its own borders? Yes, you heard that right. In a move that could only be concocted in the wildest dreams of a liberal screenplay writer, the appellate court decided to thumb its nose at the U.S. Supreme Court. Why? Simply to prevent Texas from using Senate Bill 4 to do the unfathomable: arrest and deport illegal immigrants. Gasp! The horror of a state taking steps to protect its citizens and...

Just wanted ones to see wovoted on another liberal Biden nominate to serve as a United States circuit judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit judge moving toward being appointed. Berner is a resident of Montgomery County, residing in Takoma Park, Maryland, where she and her former wife raised their three sons. She is married to civil rights attorney Debra Katz. If confirmed, Berner would be the first openly LGBTQ judge to serve on that court.

Feb 21 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Wednesday blocked California's attorney general from enforcing a new law that allows residents, the state and local governments to sue members of the firearms industry that manufacture or sell "abnormally dangerous" guns. U.S. District Judge Andrew Schopler in San Diego sided with, opens new tab a firearms industry trade association in finding that part of a gun control measure signed into law by Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom in 2022 was likely unconstitutional. It is the first ruling in a case challenging the constitutionality of California's Firearm Industry Responsibility Act. The law was...

A criminal justice professor who has worked at various California colleges pleaded guilty Thursday after being charged with setting a series of blazes near the massive Dixie Fire in 2021. Gary Stephen Maynard, 49, pleaded guilty to three counts of arson to federal property in Sacramento federal court before U.S. District Judge Daniel J. Calabretta. Maynard, who is being held without bail in the Yuba County Jail, was arrested in August 2021 after a three-week investigation that included the use of a tracking device hidden on his vehicle by authorities who followed his movements throughout Northern California for hundreds of...

The 7-month prison sentence of Douglass Mackey has been stayed per a federal judge. He was convicted in March for circulating a satirical meme that encouraged Hillary Clinton voters to cast their votes via text in the lead up to the 2016 election. The Motion Order reads: "granting motion for release pending appeal, at docket entry 16 Mackey's surrender date is stated. The District Court is ordered to determine the appropriate terms of release, without prejudice to the government's making a future request for detention, on behalf of Appellant Douglass Mackey, It is further ordered that this appeal is expedited....

Muslim and Jewish groups have filed a legal brief expressing concern about a Michigan law that might be used to force a Christian healthcare provider to hire people outside of their faith. Christian Healthcare Centers, Inc., a network of Christian medical professionals based in Grand Rapids that sued Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and other officials last year, is appealing a lower court decision against them.The Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty and the Islam and Religious Freedom Action Team of the Religious Freedom Institute filed a brief last week that, while not in favor of either party in the lawsuit,...

President Joe Biden-appointed U.S. District Judge David Herrera Urias issued a decision Wednesday allowing New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s (D) ban on concealed carry in parks and playgrounds to remain in effect. On September 13, 2023, Breitbart News reported that Urias granted a temporary injunction against Grisham’s September 8, 2023, ban, which prohibited concealed and open carry in larger New Mexico cities like Albuquerque. The ban applied to licensed concealed carriers, too.

On Thursday, a federal court ruled that parents in Maryland do not have a right to opt their children out of classes which teach pro-LGBT curriculum. According to the Washington Free Beacon, the group of parents had filed a lawsuit against Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS), demanding that the district revive a policy that allowed them to pull their children out of classes that discussed books and other materials featuring LGBT characters. The policy was first enacted in January but then repealed in March. “The Court concludes the plaintiffs’ asserted due process right to direct their children’s upbringing by opting...

A federal court has ruled that a group of interfaith parents have no proof that a school district violated their right to free expression by removing an option to opt their students out of lessons teaching LGBT ideology that conflicts with their religious values. Parents from Muslim, Christian and Jewish backgrounds sued to restore their right to shield their children from content deemed offensive and pushing sexual indoctrination after the Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) enacted a no-opt-out policy. Books that the parents object to for pre-K through fifth grades as part of an LGBT curriculum include Pride Puppy and...

A district judge appointed by Joe Biden has ruled that parents in Montgomery County, Maryland, have no right to opt their children out of the school’s woke LGBTQ curriculum. United States District Judge Deborah L. Boardman ruled against the Muslim-led group of parents who did not want their children exposed to far-left propaganda about sex and gender. The parents sought an injunction before the first day of school on August 28 after the district changed its policies in March to no longer allow parents to opt their children out of being assigned books that advocate pride parades, gender transitioning, and...

On July 31, U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong denied the motion to dismiss the lawsuit in a 20-page letter, saying that customers "could believe — erroneously — that the products originated in Texas." "Though it is true that the imagery of the solo white star and lassoing caricature are not exclusive to the state of Texas, taking the imagery and text of the label as a whole, this argument does not discount the possibility that a reasonable consumer would believe that the products are based in or originate from Texas." The class action lawsuit, filed on September 12, 2022,...

Move over, Kato Kaelin. Meet America's newest goofus in the legal system, Kato Crews. According to the Washington Examiner: Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) backed another one of President Joe Biden's judicial picks into a legal corner after the nominee admitted to not knowing a criminal law doctrine known as a Brady motion. Colorado Magistrate Judge Kato Crews was before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, where lawmakers from both sides ask questions to inquire about the qualifications of the president's nominees. The 1963 Brady motion is one of the most basic laws of fairness in the judicial system -- mandating...

Judge Kato Crews, nominee for US District Court for the District of Colorado, appeared on Capitol Hill Wednesday as part of his confirmation hearings and became the latest nominee who was unable to answer a basic legal question by Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA). Crews, who currently serves as a federal magistrate in Colorado, was unable to describe what the landmark US Supreme Court case Brady v. Maryland was about. Brady, decided in 1963, “held that withholding exculpatory evidence violates due process ‘where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment.'” Seems like a pretty important case (and principle)...

NAPLES, FLORIDA — Law enforcement has launched a manhunt for Roy McGrath, the ex-chief of staff to former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, after he failed to appear in federal court Monday for the start of his criminal trial on fraud and theft charges. Sheriff’s deputies checked his home Monday morning in Naples, Florida, but McGrath wasn’t there, a spokeswoman said. A judge issued a warrant for his arrest, and the U.S. Marshals Service is calling him a fugitive. The area around McGrath’s Raffia Preserve home in Naples is quiet, a gated community off a main road that features new-build strip...