Free Republic

INDIANAPOLIS -- An Indiana Supreme Court ruling this week is a timely, cautionary reminder for Hoosiers who plan to consume alcohol over the holiday weekend. It is possible to be charged with public intoxication, even while in a vehicle with a designated driver. Police had arrested an Indiana woman who was drunk in the passenger seat of a car. The Supreme Court ruled that a public intoxication charge can stand against people in a car on a public street...

Associated Press SALT LAKE CITY Voters removed a 3rd District judge who reduced the sentence of a sex offender and also caught the wrath of deer hunters and gun owners for an anti-hunting diatribe from the bench. In Salt Lake, Tooele and Summit counties, 54 percent of voters Tuesday said Judge Leslie Lewis should not be retained, a rare defeat for a sitting jurist. Lewis, a judge since 1991, was out of town and unavailable for comment, court spokeswoman Nancy Volmer said Wednesday. “I just don’t like the way this one was done,” said Greg Skordas, one of 40 lawyers...

Utah deer hunters have a new target in their sights: 3rd District Judge Leslie Lewis. Leslie Lewis Members of the hunting community have started a grass-roots campaign to oust Lewis after she ordered that a defendant's brother be arrested for expressing displeasure with her views on hunting during a hearing last February. Opponents have launched a Web site, www.firejudgelewis.com, that contains a link to the in-court video of the February episode, which has been posted on the Web site YouTube. The posting is one of the first instances of Internet campaigning being used in a judicial election in Utah. "She...

In New Jersey, one's home is not one's castle after all. The real castle, it turns out, is the car. The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled 4-3 yesterday that police do not need a reason to ask permission to search someone's home. The same court four years ago issued rules saying police must have a good reason before asking motorists if they can search their cars. Yesterday the court said the rules for cars -- which prohibit police from asking motorists if they can conduct a search unless they have "a reasonable and articulable suspicion" of criminal activity -- are...

In a rather bizarre ruling that has marine industry officials worried, Judge Robert G. James of the United States District Court, Western Division of Louisiana, has said that it is criminal trespass for the American boating public to boat, fish, or hunt on the Mississippi River and other navigable waters in the US. In the case of Normal Parm v. Sheriff Mark Shumate, James ruled that federal law grants exclusive and private control over the waters of the river, outside the main shipping channel, to riparian landowners. The shallows of the navigable waters are no longer open to the public....

HONOLULU — Junior Stowers raised his hands and exclaimed, "Thank you, Jesus!" in court last month when he was acquitted by a jury of abusing his son. But his joy was short-lived when Circuit Judge Patrick Border held him in contempt of court for the "outburst" and threw him in jail. Stowers, 47, sat in the courtroom and a cellblock for about six hours until the judge granted him a hearing on the contempt charge and released him. The judge at a July 7 hearing dropped the contempt charge, a petty misdemeanor that carries up to 30 days in jail....

Junior Stowers raised his hands and exclaimed, "Thank you, Jesus!" in court last month when he was acquitted by a jury of abusing his son. But his joy was short-lived when Circuit Judge Patrick Border held him in contempt of court for the "outburst" and threw him in jail. Stowers, 47, sat in the courtroom and a cellblock for about six hours until the judge granted him a hearing on the contempt charge and released him. The judge at a July 7 hearing dropped the contempt charge, a petty misdemeanor that carries up to 30 days in jail. Stowers couldn't...

Because the Hamdan case was not up on my favorite research site at Cornell Law School early this morning, I read the press coverage first and the decisions afterward. The press has only a superficial understanding of the case, and missed the most important aspect of the decision. The case is Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, No. No. 05–184, June 29, 2006. Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/05-184.ZS.html The Christian Science Monitor gets the facial decision correctly: The court ruled 5-to-3 Thursday that Mr. Bush acted outside his authority when he ordered Al Qaeda suspects to stand trial before these specially organized military commissions. The ruling...

A Creek County jury late Thursday convicted a former judge who was accused of exposing himself by using a sexual device while he presided over court cases. The panel deliberated more than five hours before returning a guilty verdict against Donald Thompson on all four counts of indecent exposure. The jury had requested a dinner break around 6:30 p.m. and sent a note to the judge at 8:49 p.m. that a decision had been reached. Jurors recommended one year in prison and a $10,000 fine on each count against the judge, 59, who served more than 20 years on the...

BRISTOW, Okla. (AP) -- Former Judge Donald D. Thompson, a veteran of 23 years on the bench, is on trial on charges he used a penis pump on himself in the courtroom while sitting in judgment of others. Over the past few days, the jurors have watched a defense attorney and a prosecutor pantomime masturbation. A doctor has lectured on the lengths the defendant was willing to go to enhance his sexual performance. The white-handled sexual device sits before the jury box for hours at a time. Occasionally an attorney picks it up and squeezes the handle, demonstrating the "sh-sh"...

BERKLEY, Mich. -- The parking fine was $10. But the comment Robert Militzer added to the check could land him in jail for 30 days. The computer programmer from Allen Park got the ticket May 29. When Militzer wrote the check to Berkley District Court, he scribbled on the memo line, "BULL (expletive) MONEY GRAB." That got Militzer an in-person court appearance -- on a contempt of court charge. He's scheduled to go before a judge Wednesday, accompanied by an American Civil Liberties Union attorney who will argue Militzer's remark is protected by the First Amendment.

ANN ARBOR, MI – A three–judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has refused to stay Federal District Judge Gordon Thompson’s order to remove the Mt. Soledad Cross pending an appeal. Thus, the City of San Diego must remove the Cross by August 1, 2006, or face fines of $5,000 per day thereafter. In its decision, however, the Ninth Circuit scheduled oral arguments on the matter for the week of October 16, 2006, weeks after the Cross is to be removed. The 43- foot Cross was erected in 1954 and currently is the centerpiece of a national memorial...

A Cuyahoga County judge threw out the charge against a man accused of raping a girl six years ago when the prosecutor in the case was 45 minutes late to trial. Prosecutors have filed an appeal and said, if necessary, they will refile the charge against Norman Allen Craig, 22, of North Ridgeville. The mother of the now 16-year-old Rocky River girl said her daughter feels victimized by the judge’s decision. Common Pleas Judge Eileen Gallagher dismissed the case when Assistant County Prosecutor Mark Schneider had not shown up by 1:45 p.m. Monday, after she told both sides to be...

DES MOINES, Iowa - A judge has ruled that a Bible-based prison program violates the First Amendment's freedom of religion clause by using state funds to promote Christianity to inmates. Prison Fellowship Ministries, which was sued in 2003 by an advocacy group, was ordered Friday to cease its program at the Newton Correctional Facility and repay the state $1.53 million. "This calls into question the funding for so many programs," said Barry Lynn, executive director of the Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which filed the suit. "Anyone who doesn't stop it is putting a giant 'sue...

Judge Rules Christian Prison Program Unconstitutional; Appeal Planned "The courts took God our of America's schools -- now they are on the path to take God out of America's prisons." -- Mark Earley, Prison Fellowship President By Jody Brown June 5, 2006 (AgapePress) - Evidently it matters not that a well-known and highly successful prison ministry believes one of its premier programs is constitutional and well within the guidelines of the First Amendment, or that statistics bear out the effectiveness of the program. A federal judge has ruled the program is unconstitutional -- and now the program that equips prisoners...

A federal judge has declared a state law requiring students to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Kenneth Ryskamp also declared students do not need a parent's permission to be excused from reciting the pledge, citing previous federal cases. ''It is a long-standing rule of constitutional law that a student may remain quietly seated during the pledge on grounds of personal or political belief,'' Ryskamp stated in his ruling based on a lawsuit filed by a Boynton Beach High School student who had refused to stand for the pledge. Cameron Frazier, then a 17-year-old junior,...

DANBURY — In a decision Superior Court trial referee Robert Callahan "agonized long and hard over," he ruled in favor of two accused drug dealers who claimed they were stopped outside the Sheraton in Danbury in 2004 only because they were black. In a written decision dated May 17 and received Friday by defense lawyers, Callahan said he came to his decision, which essentially guts the state's case against the men, "reluctantly" and after "soul-searching." Lawyer James Diamond of Danbury said his client Demetere Taft, 30, of Beaver Street, is "obviously very pleased that the judge has agreed with the...

Ruling on a 15-year-old ACLU case, a federal judge today ordered the city of San Diego to remove a mountain-top cross within 90 days or face a fine of $5,000 a day.U.S. District Judge Gordon Thompson said, "It is now time, and perhaps long overdue, for this court to enforce its initial permanent injunction forbidding the presence of the Mount Soledad cross on city property," the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

A federal judge has ruled that portions of Google's popular image search feature, which displays small thumbnail versions of images found on other Web sites, likely violate U.S. copyright law. U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz ruled Friday that Perfect 10, an adult-oriented Web site featuring "beautiful natural women" in the nude, has shown that Google image search probably infringes copyright law "by creating and displaying thumbnail copies of its photographs." The Los Angeles judge said he would award Perfect 10 a preliminary injunction against Google, and gave lawyers for both sides until March 8 to propose the injunction's wording....

NEW YORK (AP) - A federal appeals court has upheld New York City's policy on school holiday displays, which allows symbols of Jewish and Muslim holidays but prohibits Christian nativity scenes. Santa Claus, reindeer and Christmas trees are permitted. The 2-1 ruling by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a lower court judge, who said allowing secular symbols neither advanced nor inhibited religion. The appeals court said no objective observer would believe the city wanted to communicate to its million-plus students "any official endorsement of Judaism and Islam or any dismissal of Christianity." Instead, the court said,...