Free Republic

Justice Stevens turned out to be one of those Republican appointees to the Court who “grew” during his tenure. That was nowhere more evident than in cases challenging the legality of racial preferences. Consider that in the landmark Bakke case (1978), Stevens wrote an opinion joined by three other justices finding that a medical school admissions quota violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Here is how he began that opinion: Section 601 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 252, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d, provides: "No person in the United States shall, on the...

A judge in Travis County declined Wednesday to consider Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott's request to intervene in the county's first same-sex divorce case, letting stand the judge's February decision to grant a divorce to two women who had been married in another state. Abbott's deputies had argued in court filings that Angelique Naylor, 39, and Sabina Daly, 42, may not be legally granted a divorce because Texas law defines marriage as between a man and a woman. Naylor and Daly were married in 2004 in Massachusetts, where gay marriage is legal. They returned to their home in Austin after...

President Obama's judicial nominees are getting more dangerous with each White House announcement. If you don't believe us, consider one judge's opinion that the "sexual sadism" of a multiple rapist-murderer was "clearly a mitigating factor" that argued against executing the murderer and perhaps even against convicting him in the first place. Or that a type of Megan's Law sex-offender registry should be overturned because it "stigmatizes nondangerous registrants." Even a child-porn convict should serve a sentence less than half as long as official guidelines suggest if his mental and emotional condition is fragile. U.S. District Judge Robert N. Chatigny of...

Matthew Vadum NewsRealIf you thought you sent representatives and senators to Washington, D.C., to exercise the constitutionally mandated power of the purse — you’re wrong. Silly you. You wasted all that time in civics class learning a whole bunch of outdated claptrap about separation of powers and the lawmaking process for nothing. The spending power belongs to federal judges now, regardless of what that quaint little document called the U.S. Constitution says. That’s what ACORN’s favorite federal judge, Nina Gershon of the Eastern District of New York ruled Wednesday. In December Gershon, a Bill Clinton appointee, helped ACORN out by...

FAIRMONT, W.Va. (Associated Press) -- Prosecutors in West Virginia have dropped a misdemeanor charge that accused an FBI security guard of spying on girls as they tried on prom gowns at a Fairmont mall. A Marion County magistrate convicted Charles Brian Hommema of invasion of privacy in December.

ANN ARBOR — A Michigan man sent to prison for 15 years is getting a new trial after the judge failed to do a routine procedure — ask the jury to take an oath. Timothy Becktel was sentenced in 2008 for assault with intent to murder. But his appellate lawyer successfully argued that the verdict should be thrown out because the jury didn't swear to return an honest decision based on law and evidence.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Employees at the U.S. liberal grass-roots group ACORN who were caught on video giving tax advice to a couple posing as a pimp and a prostitute have been cleared of criminal wrongdoing, New York prosecutors said on Monday. The organization has been reeling since a YouTube video was disseminated last September showing ACORN workers giving advice on how to flout the law to two conservative activists who posed as a pimp and a prostitute. The U.S. Congress then voted by wide margins to prohibit the federal government from funding ACORN, and the U.S. Census Bureau ended...

War On Terror: The Justice Department employs nine lawyers previously involved in the defense of terrorist detainees. This is a colossal conflict of interest. Just whose side are they on? From the dropping of a voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party to the decision to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Muhammed in a civilian court within blocks of where the World Trade Center once stood, the actions and attitudes of the Justice Department and Attorney General Eric Holder toward the thugs and terrorists who threaten us has grown curiouser and curiouser. We may now have a clue as...

Forget about same sex marriage, the State of Texas is trying to block same sex divorce. Attorney General Greg Abbott is stepping in to urge a judge in Travis County to reject the divorce petition of a San Antonio woman who married her female partner in Massachusetts, where same sex marriage is legal, and now want to divorce in Texas. "A divorce is an ending or a termination of a valid legal marriage," Abbott said. "In this case, there was no valid legal marriage recognized by the state of Texas." The issue of same sex divorce is on the cutting...

...Abbott is trying to halt the divorce of two women in Austin on grounds their Massachusetts marriage is not recognized in Texas. A Travis County state district judge on Feb. 10 granted a divorce in court to Sabina Daly, 41, of San Antonio, and Angelique Naylor, 39, of Austin. Abbott's aides went to court the following day to block the divorce before the written decree was entered. “A divorce is an ending or a termination of a valid legal marriage,” Abbott said Tuesday. “In this instance there was no valid legal marriage recognized by the state of Texas. Texas can't...

By Peter J. Smith SAN FRANCISCO, February 9, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In what he describes as “an open secret,” a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle says that the federal judge presiding over the case against California's Proposition 8 identifies as a homosexual. The revelation now raises questions over whether Chief Justice Vaughn Walker of the U.S. District Court for California's Northern District should recuse himself in the federal trial against Prop. 8, California’s ban on homosexual “marriage.” Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross write: “Many gay politicians in San Francisco and lawyers who have had dealings with Walker say...

The lede from an article out Sunday in the SF Chronicle reads as follows: The biggest open secret in the landmark trial over same-sex marriage being heard in San Francisco is that the federal judge who will decide the case, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, is himself gay. Interesting. So, what to make of this fact? According to the article, folks aren’t making much of it. Andy Pugno, general counsel for the group that sponsored the Prop. 8 campaign, rebuffed claims that his group might bring it up if Walker ultimately rules against them. “We are not going to...

Practically everyone in town knows Amy Dugas is a serial batterer. But the Maine criminal justice system keeps finding ways to keep her from facing the music. In 2004 Amy assaulted her husband Mark in their home in Waldoboro. When the police officer came to arrest her, she kicked him in the groin. The judge released her on bail, ordering her to refrain from using weapons. Four months later she stabbed Mark with a foot-long kitchen knife, fatally severing his pulmonary artery. At the trial, she got away with the trusty I-feared-for-my-life alibi. Two years later Dugas spent 125 days...

I searched but did not see this ever posted, so here it is. The Bangor Daily News reported back on July of 2009, about the ruling by the Maine Human Rights Commission that the Orono School Department discriminated against a transgender child by denying her access to the girls bathroom. While the school department’s lawyer warned that schools around the state may not be ready to manage the practical fallout from the decision, civil liberties advocates hailed the ruling as an advancement of human rights. “This ruling is a huge step forward for a vulnerable population that is entitled to...

...Miller and Jenkins were joined in a Vermont civil union in 2000. Isabella was born to Miller through artificial insemination in 2002. The couple broke up in 2003, and Miller moved to Virginia, renounced homosexuality and became an evangelical Christian. Cohen awarded custody of the girl to Jenkins on Nov. 20 after finding Miller in contempt of court for denying Jenkins access to the girl. The judge said the only way to ensure equal access to the child was to switch custody. He also said the benefits to the child of having access to both parents would be worth the...

Albuquerque, N.M., Dec 18, 2009 / 04:12 am (CNA).- Attorneys for a small photography company charged with violating anti-discrimination laws for declining to photograph a same-sex “commitment ceremony” are planning to appeal a New Mexico judge’s decision to uphold the New Mexico Civil Rights Commission’s ruling against them.The Albuquerque company, Elane Photography, is co-owned by Elaine Huguenin and her husband Jon. They are being represented by attorneys from the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF).In 2006 a woman named Vanessa Willock asked them to photograph a “commitment ceremony” that she and another woman wanted to hold in Taos, N.M. State law does...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal appeals court in San Francisco has reversed a judge's order that backers of Proposition 8, the state initiative that banned same-sex marriage, give their campaign strategy documents to opponents trying to overturn the measure. In a unanimous ruling today, the Ninth U.S. Circuit of Appeals tossed out the order that Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker issued in October against backers of Prop. 8, which state voters approved in November 2008. Walker had said lawyers for two same-sex couples and a gay-rights group were entitled to see internal memos and e-mails between Yes on 8...

A federal judge blocked U.S. officials from enforcing a funding ban on Acorn, the beleaguered community organizer. Congress cut off funding for Acorn -- the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now -- in September after Web sites and TV news outlets played secretly recorded videos in which employees of an affiliated organization offered advice on how to set up brothels and avoid paying taxes. Acorn sued the federal government in November, arguing Congress had violated the Constitution by singling out the group. It says it has fired employees suspected of wrongdoing. U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon in New York...

A former Duke University employee and adoptive gay father charged with molesting his five-year-old son--and offering the boy as a sex object to pedophiles online--is expected to make a plea bargain, according to a Dec. 1 article in local newspaper the Durham Herald Sun. Frank Lombard faces charges stemming from alleged instances in which he molested his young adopted son and chatted about the deeds online even as he carried them out. It’s thought that the U.S, Attorney’s Office is positioning the case for a plea arrangement because the Office is set to file an "information," which allows the prosecution...

Texas' gay marriage ban may have banned all marriages AUSTIN — Texans: Are you really married? Maybe not. Barbara Ann Radnofsky, a Houston lawyer and Democratic candidate for attorney general, says that a 22-word clause in a 2005 constitutional amendment designed to ban gay marriages erroneously endangers the legal status of all marriages in the state. The amendment, approved by the Legislature and overwhelmingly ratified by voters, declares that "marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman." But the troublemaking phrase, as Radnofsky sees it, is Subsection B, which declares: "This state...