Free Republic

A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday stunningly affirmed the rights of voters in four states – Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee – to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, throwing a boulder into the millpond of complacent assumptions by homosexual-rights advocates that same-sex marriage is a given across the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court recently has refused to take on any same-sex marriage cases, allowing the movement to expand into about 30 states. But Mat Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel, which has fought on behalf of traditional...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, one of the Obama administration's staunchest allies in Congress, announced his opposition Thursday to Michael Boggs’ nomination to the federal bench, dealing a strong if not fatal blow to the former Georgia state lawmaker’s confirmation hopes. “Somebody should have looked a little more deeply into his record,” Reid said of Boggs, nominated to the U.S. District Court in Georgia. He faced sharp questioning at a recent confirmation hearing into his past support for state proposals to post information online about doctors who perform abortions and to keep the Confederate battle emblem on the Georgia flag....

To hear the folks at the Council on American-Islamic Relations tell it, the organization has just won a landmark legal victory, one that constitutes a slap in the face to “anti-Muslim bigots” and “denies [them] one of their favorite, yet phony, talking points.” Actually, not by a long shot. At issue is the public release in 2008 of a list of unindicted co-conspirators in a criminal case involving the Holy Land Foundation, five of whose leaders were eventually convicted of providing material support to the terrorists of Hamas. Among those on the list: CAIR, along with such groups as the...

Federal jury awards inmate $295,000 over moldy cell mattress. . . Jury: Lousy bedding violated Wisconsin felon's constitutional rights - A Wisconsin man serving time for reckless homicide yesterday was awarded $295,000 by a federal jury that found the inmate's constitutional rights were violated when he was forced to spend two months sleeping on a moldy, waterlogged mattress. Reggie Townsend, 29, scored the six-figure windfall after a U.S. District Court panel decided that he was improperly treated while locked up in late-2004 at the New Lisbon Correctional Institution.

Although Washington state lawmakers in 2002 upped the number of district court judgeships in Spokane to 10, the state Supreme Court ruled unanimously that ultimately, it’s up to the county to follow through and actually establish the job. the Legislature, which rewrote state law to say that the number of district court judges in Spokane County “shall be” 10. But the county commissioners subsequently decided to “recognize” the additional judgeship but not to “formally establish…or fund…the position.” The county estimates that it would cost nearly $1.3 million for a new courtroom, equipment and staff salaries.

Anyone curious about the motives of the federal judge who has temporarily put the brakes on executions in California should know this: Jeremy Fogel comes with plenty of personal biases. He leans decidedly toward the San Francisco Giants. He would probably rule in favor of the jazz stylings of pianist Keith Jarrett. And he's partial to the steam-poached salmon with Dijon beurre blanc when dining at Maddalena's in Palo Alto. His true feelings about the death penalty, however, are not up for discussion. ``My feeling is that it's constitutional,'' Fogel said this week in an interview with the Mercury News....

According to a few Members of the US House of Representatives, I was incorrect in my assertion on Wednesday that the bill signed into law early Monday morning (Public Law 109-3) simply gave Terri Schiavo's parents access to the Federal Courts and did not require the reinsertion of her feeding tube. The "few Members" of the House of Reps include Speaker Dennis Hastert, Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Majority Whip Roy Blount, and Judiciary Committee chairman James Sensenbrenner as well as Florida Congressman Dave Weldon (who is an M.D.) submitted a "friend of the court" brief asserting the legislative intent of...

In rejecting Mr. and Mrs. Robert Schindler's appeal to save their braindamaged daughter, Terri Schiavo, from certain death by court-ordered dehydration and starvation, U.S. District Judge James Whittemore wrapped himself in his black robe and announced imperiously from his court in Tampa, Florida, that he had denied their petition, because it had no "substantial likelihood of success." We should rejoice that Honorable Judge Whittemore was not in the position, prior to his appointment by President Bill Clinton, to share with the world his frightening omniscience. Had the godlike federal jurist been around for a few eons, think of all the...

This letter can be considered a “Call to Arms” for Viet Nam Veterans, their families, friends, and supporters, all veterans of our armed forces and of course, our nation’s men and women currently in uniform. It will accompany the Draft Prosecution of John F. Kerry to the aforementioned; otherwise the cover letter will not be included to those addressees considered not to fall into the above category. Let me begin by stating that I found this Draft Prosecution on the Internet and made some minor changes and corrections to it. Apparently it fell by the wayside when President Bush was...

<p>WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The fight over voting districts in North Carolina made its way to Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. The state wants the federal courts to end the dispute.</p> <p>On Wednesday, members of the State Board of Elections and Democratic leaders from the state House and Senate went to the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. They asked a three-judge panel to look at redistricting maps created last month by Superior Court judge Knox Jenkins. They claim those maps are unconstitutional and do not adequately protect the rights of minority voters.</p>