Free Republic

A federal judge has created a preliminary injunction which prevents the city of Seattle from enforcing the law against graffiti and misdemeanor property destruction. The SPD released a statement today.Late yesterday afternoon, SPD received an order from a US District Court judge that enjoined, in full, enforcement of SMC 12A.080.020 – the City’s misdemeanor property destruction law. This means that until further order of the Court, SPD cannot take action on damage to property under this law. This is not a matter within SPD or City discretion; we are bound by the court order as it is written.We understand and...

The City of Everett is paying out $500,000 to a former bikini barista stand owner and its employees after a U.S. district court ruled that a 2017 city ordinance unfairly targeted women. The owner of a chain of coffee stands called Hillbilly Hotties sued the city, claiming its dress code infringed on their First Amendment rights–and a U.S. District Court judge agreed. A U.S. District Court judge found Everett’s dress code ordinance violated the Equal Protection clauses of the U.S. and Washington state constitutions. The Court found that the ordinance was, at least in part, shaped by a gender-based discriminatory...

The City of Seattle has reached a tentative settlement agreement with the group of business owners that sued the city over damages done during CHOP in 2020, according to court documents.The plaintiffs in the case — business and property owners within the 16-block portion of Capitol Hill’s CHAZ/CHOP — alleged that the city “actively endorsed, enabled, and encouraged the occupation,” according to a U.S. District Court judge’s orders. According to court documents, the group is seeking $2.9 million. The judge denied the group’s class action certification last May.In his first order, U.S. District Judge Thomas Zilly wrote there is evidence...

One of the two men charged with vandalizing electrical substations in Washington state over the holidays to cover a burglary was ordered released from federal custody Friday to seek substance abuse help. A federal judge issued the order for Matthew Greenwood, 32, after renewed efforts by his attorney to get Greenwood into a drug-treatment facility, The News-Tribune reported. Greenwood and Jeremy Crahan, 40, both of Puyallup, have been charged with conspiracy to damage energy facilities. According to the complaint, Greenwood told investigators after his arrest that the two knocked out power so they could burglarize a business and steal from...

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has declined to reconsider its decision to uphold the dismissal of a case over the practice known as “conversion therapy,” teeing up a circuit split that may ultimately land the case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Licensed marriage and family therapist Brian Tingley sued Washington state in 2021, claiming that a 2018 law that prohibited licensed mental health professionals from subjecting minors to conversion therapy violated his First Amendment rights. The Ninth Circuit issued its decision Monday not to rehear the appeal of a Washington state therapist’s challenge to a 2018...

‘Just desperate.’ Judge orders man accused in Pierce substation attacks held without bail BY JARED BROWN Police in Washington arrested two men in connection to a series of Christmas Day attacks on power stations in the Tacoma area. A U.S. District Court judge in Tacoma ordered one of the defendants charged with attacking four Pierce County substations on Christmas Day to be held in federal custody pending a grand jury indictment, despite a public defender’s insistence that the man facing a terrorism charge was motivated by poverty and should be in drug treatment. Federal pretrial services officials also recommended that...

Wearing a MAGA hat represents a person exercising his or her right to free speech, a U.S. appeals court has ruled. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a federal judge and ruled in favor of a Washington middle school teacher who claimed that a principal violated his free-speech rights by threatening discipline if he continued to wear a "Make America Great Again" hat to training sessions. "That some may not like the political message being conveyed is par for the course and cannot itself be a basis for finding disruption of a kind that...

In 2021, the Washington State legislature passed a ban on future sales or manufacturing of magazines, or other feeding devices which hold over 10 rounds. It does not include .22 rimfire tubular magazines. From the law:(36)”Large capacity magazine” means an ammunition feeding device with the capacity to accept more than 10 rounds of ammunition, or any conversion kit, part, or combination of parts, from which such a device can be assembled if those parts are in possession of or under the control of the same person, but shall not be construed to include any of the following:The Washington State magazine...

In Tingley v. Ferguson, (WD WA, Aug. 30, 2021), a Washington federal district court dismissed First Amendment challenges by a family therapist to a Washington state statute that prohibits licensed counselors in treating minors from engaging in "conversion therapy" aimed at changing sexual orientation or gender identity. The court held that performing conversion therapy is "conduct", not speech. According to the court, the law still allows therapists to discuss the option of conversion therapy by someone else-- including someone within the exception for practitioners operating under the auspices of religious organizations. The court also rejected plaintiff's religious free exercise argument,...

The revelations come at a sensitive time for the FBI and Director Christopher Wray, who has insisted widespread problems revealed about the bureau's conduct in the now-discredited Russia collusion case have been fixed even as new revelations of misconduct come to light. __________________________________________________________________________________ The FBI, already under fire for its handling of FISA warrants and confidential informants, is enduring more scrutiny as the Justice Department admits agents failed to disclose to a court that they had paid — to the tune of six figures — a white supremacist publisher for years to be an investigative source. The admission came in...

TACOMA, Wash. (AP) - A federal judge has ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement to test detainees for COVID-19 before they are transferred to the immigrant detention center in Tacoma. The ruling grants a temporary restraining order requested by lawyers representing vulnerable detainees in a class-action suit. . . . . .The number of COVID-19 cases at the facility has climbed to more than 240 since June. ICE has flown over 1,000 detainees to Washington state since April.

In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, (9th Cir., July 19, 2021), the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a sua sponte request for a rehearing en banc in the case of a high school football coach who insisted on prominently praying at the 50-yard line immediately after football games. A 3-judge panel upheld upheld a Washington state school board's dismissal of the coach. (See prior posting.) The denial of the rehearing however generated six concurring and dissenting opinions and statements spanning 92 pages, reflecting sharp differences. Judge Smith's opinion concurring in the denial of review says in part: Unlike...

When Seattle’s City Council voted unanimously to cut millions of dollars from its police budget amid the uproar over the murder of George Floyd, it ran into an unlikely roadblock: the federal government. U.S. District Judge James Robart ruled that the city couldn’t defund its own police department without his permission.The judge was acting under the mandate granted him by a 2012 consent decree put in place after John T. Williams, a native American woodcarver, was shot four times by a Seattle police officer in 2010. The killing was ruled unjustified. The consent decree — a sort of civil plea...

A U.S. federal judge on Thursday rejected Parler’s demand that Amazon.com Inc restore web hosting services for the social media platform, which Amazon had cut off following the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol. U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein in Seattle said Parler was unlikely to prove Amazon breached its contract or violated antitrust law by suspending service on Jan. 10, and that it was “not a close call.” She also forcefully rejected the suggestion that the public interest would be served by a preliminary injunction requiring Amazon Web Services to “host the kind of abusive, violent content at...

Ordinarily you can’t sue the government for failing to protect you from private criminal actors. But a federal judge has allowed a suit to go forward filed by business owners against the city of Seattle over injuries done by far‐​left activists who seized 16 blocks this June and proclaimed a weeks‐​long “autonomous zone” (CHOP or CHAZ). Law professor Ilya Somin writes that he initially approached the case with skepticism, but was surprised to find it stronger than expected. The reason: the plaintiffs argue that the city did not merely stand by passively, but assisted the occupiers by letting them use...

Friday, a federal district court judge allowed a lawsuit brought by 21 businesses against the city of Seattle to proceed, despite the city's attempt to have it dismissed. The lawsuit accuses the city of harming local business owners by allowing the existence of Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP), a self-declared autonomous zone that was established and occupied by racial justice protestors from June 8 to July 1. The occupied zone blocked all car traffic, reducing the businesses' access to customers, vendors and revenue, the lawsuit says. The lawsuit further alleges that city police largely neglected the zone, allowing protesters and...

Protesters in Seattle threw rocks, fireworks and explosives at police officers during violent confrontations on Saturday, police officials said. In updates on Twitter, the Seattle Police Department said the chaotic scene near its East Precinct station was a “riot,” with some demonstrators breaking windows and setting fire to property in the area. In June, Mayor Jenny Durkan had ordered police to abandon the East Precinct station, which had been the site of almost daily confrontations between officers and people protesting the killing of George Floyd. At least 16 people were arrested on Saturday for either assaulting an officer, obstruction or...

<p>SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — A U.S. judge in Spokane has firmly rejected a water park's challenge to Gov. Jay Inslee's emergency powers as the state responds to the coronavirus pandemic.</p> <p>Slidewaters LLC, a water park in Chelan, sued the governor and the Department of Labor Industries last month, saying that Inslee abused his power in declaring the emergency and that the state's restrictions were likely to prevent it from opening for the summer.</p>

Mayor Jenny Durkan has asked a federal judge to prevent a new City Council ordinance banning Seattle police from using most “crowd-control weapons” from taking effect later this month, saying it likely conflicts with the consent decree the city entered into with the Department of Justice (DOJ) nearly eight years ago. Documents filed Friday in U.S. District Court by the city say that the Department of Justice and the court-appointed monitor overseeing implementation of the consent decree have said the new law can’t take effect without the approval of U.S. District Judge James Robart. Durkan and police Chief Carmen Best...

President Donald Trump may not divert $89 million intended for a military construction project in Washington state to build his border wall, a U.S. judge in Seattle ruled Thursday. The U.S. Supreme Court and some other courts have said the administration can begin diverting billions of dollars in military spending to the wall. But U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein ruled Thursday that a case brought by Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson contains different arguments which are not covered by those decisions. Rothstein found that diverting the money is unlawful because it would take money that Congress appropriated for military construction...