Free Republic

SAN FRANCISCO -- The chief federal appeals court judge in San Francisco bluntly ordered the Obama administration Thursday to stop resisting his finding that the wife of a lesbian court employee was entitled to government insurance coverage. The federal agency that oversees benefits for government employees "shall cease at once its interference with the jurisdiction of this tribunal," Judge Alex Kozinski said in response to the Office of Personnel Management's rejection of his earlier ruling in the case. He told the agency to let Karen Golinski, a staff attorney at the court's headquarters in San Francisco, enroll her wife, Amy...

The stage is being set for a major ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on the question of whether the United States judiciary actually can enforce the provisions of the U.S. Constitution. The basic question is being raised as an appeal is being assembled to a district judge's decision to dismiss at legal challenge to President Barack Obama's occupancy in the Oval Office based on claims he doesn't even qualify for the position under the requirements of the U.S. Constitution. WND previously reported when U.S. District Judge David Carter decided to dismiss the complaint that listed several...

A panel concludes its investigation of the 9th Circuit's chief judge after he says he has stopped e-mailing his 'gag list.' No action is taken against him.Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, has apologized for having maintained an e-mail "gag list" in which he distributed crude jokes and other humorous material, according to an opinion made public Tuesday. Kozinski was admonished earlier this year in a separate case for being "judicially imprudent" and "exhibiting poor judgment" by placing sexually explicit photos and videos on an Internet server that could be accessed by the public....

BOISE, Idaho - A federal appeals court delivered a stinging rebuke Friday to the Bush administration’s post-Sept. 11 detention policies, ruling that former Attorney General John Ashcroft can be held liable for people who were wrongfully detained as material witnesses after 9/11. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the government’s improper use of material witnesses after Sept. 11 was “repugnant to the Constitution and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history.” The court found that a man who was detained as a witness in a federal terrorism...

BOISE, Idaho – A federal appeals court delivered a stinging rebuke Friday to the Bush administration's post-Sept. 11 detention policies, ruling that former Attorney General John Ashcroft can be held liable for people who were wrongfully detained as material witnesses after 9/11. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the government's improper use of material witnesses after Sept. 11 was "repugnant to the Constitution and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history." The court found that a man who was detained as a witness in a federal terrorism...

Ashcroft liable for detentions, court finds By Tony Romm - 09/04/09 04:18 PM ET Former Attorney General John Ashcroft may be sued and held liable for wrongly detaining witnesses after the Sept. 11 attacks, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday. In its decision, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that Abdullah Al-Kidd, a U.S. citizen detained as a material witness for two weeks, may sue the former attorney general for breaching his constitutional rights. Al-Kidd claimed during the case that his brief imprisonment caused him to lose a scholarship and crippled his chances of finding employment, according...

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals just agreed to host another shootout over gun rights. The court decided Wednesday to review en banc a panel ruling that had significantly broadened Second Amendment protections by applying them to state and local governments. This holding, arrived at by Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain, is at odds with other rulings from around the country -- including one penned by 2nd Circuit Judge Sonia Sotomayor. The 9th Circuit panel had still upheld an Alameda County, Calif., ordinance that forbids a gun show at a public fairground. Thus neither side had asked for en banc review....

The most overturned appellate court has teed up another case for the Supreme Court to consider — and likely soon. The 9th Circuit overturned an injunction in a district court case, allowing the state of Washington to force a pharmacy to stock and dispense morning-after pills, which causes the abortion of an embryo in the early days of a pregnancy. The pharmacy owners had objected, claiming that the law violated their religious practice:

A federal judge overreached when he sided with religious-freedom arguments to block Washington state’s rules mandating the sale of “morning-after” birth control, appeals judges said Wednesday. The unanimous ruling, from a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, sends the politically thorny case back to U.S. District Court for further review. The case revolves around the drug Plan B, a contraceptive that can greatly reduce the chances of pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex. Some pharmacists and drugstore owners, however, say they can’t sell the pills in good conscience because they consider Plan B’s...

A panel of federal judges admonished Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, on Thursday for being "judicially imprudent" and "exhibiting poor judgment" by placing sexually explicit photos and videos on an Internet server that could be accessed by the public. Kozinski's conduct had "created a public controversy that can reasonably be seen as having resulted in embarrassment to the institution of the federal judiciary," according to the panel's opinion, written by Anthony J. Scirica, chief judge of the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals. The judges ruled, however, that Kozinski's actions did not constitute...

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday struck down the Bush administration's change to a rule designed to protect the northern spotted owl from logging in national forests. U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ruled from Oakland, Calif., that the U.S. Forest Service failed to take a hard look at the environmental impacts of changing the rule to make it easier to cut down forest habitat of species such as the spotted owl and salmon on 193 million acres of national forests.

A male prisoner can be strip-searched by a female guard even if male officers are available, a federal appeals court has ruled. In a 2-1 decision, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco dismissed an Arizona inmate's claims that jail officials had violated his rights by having a female guard trainee search inside his shorts and pat down his genitals. The inmate, Charles Byrd, was in Maricopa County's minimum-security Durango Jail awaiting trial in October 2004 when officials ordered searches of everyone in his unit after a series of fights. Byrd was ordered to strip down to...

To be honest, I haven't read it yet. But the summary in the Volokh Conspiracy blog states: "Ninth Circuit Panel Applies and Upholds the Federal Statute Preempting Various Lawsuits Against Gun Manufacturers, in Ileto v. Glock, Inc. (just handed down today)...{T]he opinion was by Judge Graber joined by Judge Reinhardt, with a partial concurrence and partial dissent by Judge Berzon."

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California has ruled that the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms is "deeply rooted in this nation's history and tradition" and long has been regarded as the "true palladium of liberty," so it therefore must be applied against state and local government weapon restrictions as well as federal gun limits. The ruling came in a decade-old dispute over a private operation's request to hold a gun show at a county fairground, even though the county prohibited gun possession at its facilities. The new ruling from the usually liberal 9th Circuit...

WASHINGTON — The last time a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress banned civilian sales of military-style assault weapons, it took American voters just seven weeks to rebel. They handed Republicans control of the House and the Senate for the first time in 40 years. One of the casualties in the backlash was Rep. Jack Brooks, D-Beaumont, who sponsored the ban and then promptly lost his seat in Congress in 1994 after 42 years of service. The lesson wasn’t lost on President Obama when Mexican President Felipe Calderon suggested reviving the defunct weapons’ ban to help combat drug cartel violence...

Believe it or not, the Ninth Circuit Court ruled today that the second amendment restricts the right powers of state and local governments to interfere with the individual right to gun ownership. The decison even observes that the right to bear arms is “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.” Notes Cato Institute's Ilya Shapiro, "I rarely get a chance to say this, but the Ninth Circuit gets it exactly right." On a related matter, I just got around to Brian Doherty's Gun Control on Trial: Inside the Supreme Court Battle Over the Second Amendment. It's a terrific accounting...

America, Liberty has won the day today! Our Civil Rights, as stated in the Bill of Rights in the Constitution have been upheld. Today, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Second Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms, and incorporated that decision onto the states through the 14th Amendment. In a victory for constitutionalists and Gun Rights advocates, Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain’s Opinion in the case Nordyke vs. King states in part the following:

Alice Marie Beard: The Ninth Circuit has apparently held, in the Nordyke case, that the Second Amendment is incorporated against the states via the Fourteenth Amendment; opinion to come shortly. I will certainly blog more when I can read the opinion. Please note the possibility of error in all such breaking news stories, posted before the opinion is read; I will certainly correct any such error as soon as possible if it turns out the initial account is indeed mistaken.

BELLEVUE, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Second Amendment Foundation today applauded the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco for ruling that the Second Amendment is incorporated against the states and local governments. The majority opinion was written by Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain, with a concurring opinion from Judge Ronald M. Gould, who wrote, “The right to bear arms is a bulwark against external invasion…That we have a lawfully armed populace adds a measure of security for all of us and makes it less likely that a band of terrorists could make headway in an attack on any community before more...

Last June, the Supreme Court ruled in District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms, at least in the home for self-defense.  Here’s our own Bob Levy, who masterminded the Heller litigation, talking about that decision: While the Court’s ruling was a watershed in constitutional interpretation, it technically applied only to D.C., striking down the District’s draconian gun ban but not having a direct effect in the rest of the country.Well, today the Ninth Circuit (the federal appellate court covering most Western states) ruled that the Second Amendment restricts the power of state...

(04-20) 19:10 PDT San Francisco -- A federal appeals court ruled Monday that private citizens can challenge state and local gun laws by invoking the constitutional right to bear arms - the first such ruling in the nation - but upheld a ban on firearms at gun shows at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton. The ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco followed last year's landmark Supreme Court decision that the Constitution's Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess guns for self-defense. The high court struck down a handgun prohibition in Washington, D.C.,...

Most gun rights activists and legal observers view this decision as a victory for the right to keep and bear arms. And this is correct...as far as it goes. Here is an overview of the decision, as provided by David Hardy: Court incorporates the 2A on a selective incorporation, due process, theory, holding that the right is a fundamental one, deeply rooted in Anglo-American history, and traditionally seen as a natural right rather than a politically-created one. Court declines privileges or immunities incorporation, as ruled out by Supreme Court case law.

·11250 Waples Mill Road ·   Fairfax, Virginia 22030    ·800-392-8683 Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Holds that the Second Amendment Applies to the States Tuesday, April 21, 2009 Fairfax, Va. – Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit marked a milestone in Second Amendment history by ruling that the Second Amendment limits state and local government infringements on our right to keep and bear arms through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. NRA has been involved in, and supportive of, this case for the past ten years and has filed several amicus briefs...

The Supreme Court gave a skeptical hearing today to lawyers who were urging a rule against strip searching students at school. Instead, most of the justices voiced concern that students could hide dangerous drugs.....in their clothes. SNIP Last year, a U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the strip search of Savana Redding was unreasonable and unconstitutional since the pills were ibuprofen. And the court held that the school officials who ordered the search were liable for damages. But in their comments and questions, most of the justices signaled they are inclined to overturn that decision. Chief Justice John...

....Birthed in Gold Rush calamity and come of age on the lawless frontier, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has been resolving disputes for 150 years in a region once prone to settling differences with pistols at high noon. If one looks closely at the bench in the main courtroom, there is a nick left by a bullet fired during the 1917 Hindu German Conspiracy Trial. Conservatives have been gaining sway over a court that for many years was widely perceived as one of the country's last bastions of judicial liberalism. Now, President Obama is about to start putting...

Mexican girl living in Surf City allowed to stay Appeals panel ruled that a custody battle over an 11-year-old Mexican national will take place in the United States. BY CINDY CARCAMO THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER HUNTINGTON BEACH A custody battle over an 11-year-old Mexican girl who lives in Surf City should take place on U.S. soil even though she, her mother and father are in the country illegally, a federal appeals court has ruled. A panel of judges at the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that the girl should be allowed to stay in the U.S. during...

<p>A federal appeals court on Friday ordered a judge to reconsider her refusal to block portions of a clean-truck program at the nation's busiest port complex.</p> <p>In an opinion that dismayed environmentalists and labor leaders, the three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals based in San Francisco ruled that U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder should grant all or part of the American Trucking Assn.'s request for an injunction halting the implementation of new rules that apply to truck drivers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.</p>

(03-17) 16:51 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- UC Hastings College of the Law can deny recognition and funding to a Christian student group because it excludes gays, lesbians and non-Christians, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. The San Francisco law school is entitled to require official student organizations to "accept all comers as members, even if those individuals disagree with the mission of the group," the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled. It said the school's policy is "viewpoint-neutral" and does not violate the rights of theChristian Legal Society. The brief ruling cited the court's decision last year allowing a...

Petaluma, Calif. – The Small Business Administration (SBA) has lost its fourth lawsuit to the American Small Business League (ASBL) in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The ruling will increase transparency and set a new legal standard. The SBA will now be forced to release the names of any and all firms that received federal small business contracts. In September of 2008, the SBA appealed a United States District Court ruling, which directed the agency to release the specific names of all recipients of federal small business contracts during fiscal years (FY) 2005 and 2006.

A federal appeals court says the Vatican can be sued for abuse committed by its priests. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that victims of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests can sue the Vatican even though it is considered a sovereign nation. The appeals court said there are exceptions to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, and abuse can be one of them. The Oregon case has been working its way through the federal appeals court since a judge in Portland ruled in 2006 that the Holy See can be held responsible for the actions of individual...

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed a ruling Wednesday that held a Montana church in violation of the law for speaking about the state's marriage amendment. Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) filed a lawsuit in 2004 after the Montana commissioner of political practices investigated Canyon Ferry Road Baptist Church, following a complaint by a homosexual activist group. The group claimed the church was required to register as a political committee in order to speak about the marriage amendment.

Two administrative judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California have ruled the U.S. government must pay health benefits to the same-sex partners of two federal lawyers -- one of whom is on the 9th Circuit's staff. In one of the rulings, Judge Stephen Reinhardt stated that the government's refusal to grant those benefits amounted to unlawful discrimination on the basis of sex and sexual orientation. Neither a "distaste for or disapproval of same-sex marriage" justifies denial of federal benefits, Reinhardt stated. Chief Judge Alex Kozinski issued the ruling in the other case. According to Brad Dacus...

A long-running challenge to Alameda County's ban on gun shows at the annual county fair in Pleasanton was back before a federal appeals court in San Francisco today. Gun show promoters Russell and Sallie Nordyke, of Willows in Glenn County, claim the ban violates their constitutional First Amendment right of free speech and their Second Amendment right to bear arms. Their lawyer, Donald Kilmer, told the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, "We are asking to be allowed to hold the traditionally law-abiding gun shows held in the country fair for 10 years." A three-judge panel took the case under...

Energy: Remember those 68 million acres House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the oil companies had to use or lose? According to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, they can't drill there either.When President Bush lifted the executive order banning oil and gas exploration in federally protected offshore areas, Speaker Pelosi called the action a giveaway of "more public resources to the very same oil companies that are sitting on 68 million acres of federal lands they've already leased." We thought it was nonsense to accuse the oil companies of sitting on profitable oil resources waiting for sky-high...

A federal appeals court on Thursday blocked Royal Dutch Shell from drilling oil wells off Alaska’s North Slope after finding that the Interior Department had failed to conduct an environmental study before issuing the company’s drilling permit. In a long-awaited ruling, the court said that the Minerals Management Service, the federal agency in charge of offshore leasing, had violated the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act by failing to take a “hard look” at the impact that offshore drilling would have on bowhead whales in the Beaufort Sea as well as indigenous communities on the North Slope. The decision canceled Shell’s...

A federal appeals court Friday threw out the 22-year sentence imposed on Algerian Ahmed Ressam for plotting to bomb Los Angeles International Airport on the eve of the millennium. The three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to U.S. District Court in Seattle to recalculate a sentence for his conviction on nine felony counts. It was the second time the appellate court has scrapped Ressam's sentence. The San Francisco-based panel noted that the U.S. Supreme Court reversal of its first decision to vacate the term failed to take into consideration recent federal sentencing guidelines...

An appeals court ruling has trashed the right of Oregon residents to vote on issues in their state by affirming the state's refusal to count referendum signatures even when they were verified in person by the voter. "In America, every citizen's vote should count. The court has tossed aside one of the most important rights we have as Americans," Austin R. Nimocks, a senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, said. "Oregon voters deserve to be heard on this referendum. More than enough Oregonians signed the petitions for it. The people didn't thwart this effort; government bureaucracy did. That...

Lynn Moses, a Driggs, Idaho man, will enter the federal prison in Sheridan, Oregon today at 2 p.m. in an unfolding story of government tyranny. Mr. Moses lost his wife to an unexpected heart attack 1 ½ years ago, and suspects that the stress created by this abuse of federal power is responsible. And yesterday he was forced to leave his 17-year-old daughter Whitney at home in tears, who will now have to experience her senior in high school without the companionship of either of her parents, both of them taken from her by the repressive power of the central...

SAN FRANCISCO -- California's effort to limit vehicle emissions of gases that contribute to global warming hit a snag Friday when a federal appeals court ruled that the state and environmental groups acted too early when they sued the Bush administration in January for blocking the law. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco dismissed a lawsuit filed by California, 15 other states and five environmental groups over the Environmental Protection Agency's refusal to let the state enforce its limits on greenhouse gas fumes from new cars and trucks. The court said the Jan. 2 suit was...

A federal appeals court upheld a $15 million jury verdict for three Los Angeles police officers who alleged they were falsely arrested and prosecuted as part of the Rampart corruption scandal. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said there was evidence to support the jury's verdict that the city and the Los Angeles Police Department violated the officers' constitutional rights by arresting and charging the men without an adequate investigation. The jury had awarded $5 million each to LAPD Officer Paul Harper, Sgt. Edward Ortiz and former Sgt. Brian Liddy. With interest and attorney fees, the city is now liable...

Top federal judges ruled this week that their own court has gone too far in holding up logging projects, saying western judges from now on must show more deference to the agencies planning the cutting. The ruling involving an Idaho timber sale is a blow to environmental groups that have increasingly relied on federal courts to block projects they see as unsound. The decision is especially striking because it comes from the federal appeals court that encompasses most national forest land in the West and is known for its liberal bent and for often siding with environmental interests. The...

With no sign of a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on a lawsuit over Shell’s U.S. Beaufort Sea exploration plans, the company has decided to call it quits on its planned Beaufort Sea drilling program during the 2008 open water season. The company had hoped to do some top-hole drilling at its Sivulliq prospect on the west side of Camden Bay, as well as conducting some geotechnical boring in the seafloor. “Shell believes this is the responsible decision given the continuing uncertainty and need for our workers and contractors to pursue other opportunities,” Shell...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court will settle a fight that pits Southern California dolphins against the U.S. military. In a closely watched case involving national security and the natural environment, the court agreed to review restrictions on the Navy's use of sonar off the California coast. The Bush administration contends that the sonar rules, meant to protect marine mammals, hinder military preparedness. "The chief of naval operations determined ... that those restrictions unacceptably risk naval training, the timely deployment of (naval) strike groups and national security," Acting Solicitor General Gregory Garre said in a legal filing. The California Coastal Commission...

SAN FRANCISCO -- An employer has no right to read an employee's text messages without the worker's knowledge and consent, and federal law bars service providers from turning over the contents of the messages to the employer who pays for the service, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today. The court's unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel stemmed from a lawsuit by Ontario Police Sgt. Jeff Quon and three others against the city's service provider and the city and Police Department for violating his constitutional right to be free of unreasonable searches. Although the city had informed employees...

A federal appeals court has overturned for the third time the death sentence for a man convicted of bludgeoning a young woman to death with an iron bar during a 1981 burglary in San Joaquin County. A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals voted 2-1 that lapses by Fernando Belmontes' defense lawyer kept the jury in the dark about information that could have led to a less severe sentence. That information included details about Belmontes' violent home life as a child and how that might have contributed to his criminal behavior. The murder occurred in Victor,...

A federal appeals court judge today recused himself from a closely-watched obscenity trial in Los Angeles, three days after acknowledging that he had posted sexually explicit material on a publicly accessible personal website. "In light of the public controversy surrounding my involvement in this case, I have concluded that there is a manifest necessity to declare a mistrial," said Alex Kozinski, chief judge for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. "I will recuse myself from further participation in the case and will ask the chief judge of the district court to reassign it to another judge." The obscenity trial in...

An apology from the 9th Circuit judge for his computer collection of porn isn't necessary. He just needs to say, 'So what?' ...Judge Alex Kozinski's statements about the stash of sexually explicit images he collected and that the public (until this week) could view on his website have been varied, although not necessarily inconsistent: He thought the site was for private storage and offered no public access (although he shared some of the material on the site with friends). People have been sending him this stuff for years (implying that it just accumulates, like junk mail). He might accidentally have...

LOS ANGELES - The criminal prosecution of a hard-core pornographer turned into a personal trial for the presiding judge, who called for an investigation Thursday into his own conduct over lewd photos and videos stored on his family's publicly accessible Web site. Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, asked an ethics panel of the court to initiate proceedings after the disclosure about his trove of sexually explicit material. "I will cooperate fully in any investigation," Kozinski said in a statement. snip The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday that Kozinski had posted sexual material on...

In a saga with all the elements of a Hollywood thriller, an appeals court judge who is one of America's leading legal intellectuals stands accused of maintaining a public stash of online fetish pornography just as he has begun overseeing a criminal trial involving the distribution of sexually explicit scatological videos. Judge Alex Kozinski of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and Chief Judge Mary Schroeder during oral arguments in San Francisco in 2003. Kozinski is accused of maintaining a public stash of online fetish pornography. Opening arguments were getting under way in the obscenity case in federal court...

(AP) Judge Alex Kozinski, of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, gestures as Chief Judge Mary... SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Alex Kozinski is more accustomed to appearing on lists to fill U.S. Supreme Court vacancies than headlines involving pornographic scandals. But on Wednesday, the chief judge of the country's largest federal appeals court was forced to suspend an obscenity trial he was presiding over after sexually explicit images posted to his personal Web site became public. The Los Angeles Times reported on its Web site that Kozinski had posted sexual material on his personal Web site and then blocked...