Free Republic

Judge Peter Cahill, who is presiding over the case involving the death of George Floyd, said on Monday that remarks made by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) over the weekend could lead to the “whole trial being overturned” on appeal.“And it is so pervasive that it is I just don’t know how this jury it can really be said to be that they are free from the taint of this,” the lawyer representing Derek Chauvin said. “And now that we have U.S. representatives, threatening acts of violence in relation to the specific case, it’s mind boggling to me, judge.”

Is there anyone who incites more violence and division than Maxine Waters? ---snip--- Well, high-profile conservative attorney Robert Barnes says what Maxine has just done, while a trial is still ongoing, in the city where the verdict will come down, has just given Derek Chauvin a very strong appeal. Here’s what Barnes said: “Judge made a mistake keeping trial in Minneapolis. Mad Max just gave Chauvin a strong appeal. "

Well, he’s back, folks. Bowe Bergdahl wants to appeal his desertion conviction because—you guessed it—Donald Trump is no longer president. Bergdahl claims the former president’s rhetoric prevented him from having a fair trial. The case stems back when Bergdahl abandoned his post in Afghanistan 12 years ago, which led to his capture by the Taliban. They held him for five years. Katie covered this fiasco of a story, noting that six US servicemen were killed trying to look for him. He was released in 2014 in a prisoner exchange, where we got this deserter for the price of releasing five...

The corporate press is awash in articles speculating about the future of the Republican Party after Donald Trump. Will it purge pro-Trump elements and return to some semblance of its pre-2016 form, or double down on Trumpism and Trump, defending him even in the face of a major electoral loss and a Senate impeachment trial?Most such articles entirely misunderstand what’s going on with the GOP and how to think about Trump’s takeover of the party. One of the worst was just published in The Atlantic, written by Chris Hayes of MSNBC under the absurd headline, “The Republican Party Is Radicalizing...

In a not entirely surprising decision, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to expedite election appeals filed by President Donald Trump (including Lin Wood's suit) to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victories in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.This does not mean the cases are dismissed but the justices won’t consider them until later this winter; and, as @steve_vladeck pointed out, they should all be moot by that point, though the justices can always find a way to rule.Without comment, #SCOTUS denies the pending motions to expedite in eight pending election-related disputes. This means it will consider the requests that it take up the cases...

The legal team led by former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell will appeal the dismissal of the election lawsuit tossed by a federal judge on Monday. Powell told The Epoch Times in an email that they “will proceed as fast as possible to the Supreme Court.” U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Batten dismissed Powell’s lawsuit on Dec. 7, opining that the plaintiffs have no standing to sue, should have brought the lawsuit to a state court, and had filed the case too late. “There’s no question that Georgia has a statute that explicitly directs that elections contests be filed in Georgia...

ATLANTA — Judge Timothy Batten in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia has dismissed the lawsuit. A similar suit in Michigan was also dismissed this morning. Powell will appeal to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, which dismissed a similar suit brought by attorney Lin Wood this weekend.

Justice Samuel Alito agreed on Thursday to review an appeal against the ruling of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that tossed a suit alleging the state’s mail-in voting was unconstitutional.

President Donald Trump’s campaign on Monday secured a legal win after the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals granted an expedited review of their appeal from a Pennsylvania court, according to Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis.According to the order, Trump’s “motion for emergency expedited review is granted at the direction of the court.” Their brief now needs to be filed by 4 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 23, and more have to be filed by 4 p.m. on Tuesday. “The court will advise if oral argument desired,” it said. Pennsylvania’s 67 counties are scheduled to certify their election results by the...

Third Circuit Court of Appeals grants expedited review for Team Trump’s appeal from Pennsylvania.

On the strong advice of my attorneys and after giving the decision considerable thought, I have reluctantly decided to dismiss the appeal of what I believe to be a wrongful conviction in a trial tainted by judicial bias, egregious and blatant juror bias and misconduct and prosecutorial misconduct. Therefore, I directed my attorneys to withdraw my appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. I Could Never Get a Fair Hearing Before this Court of Appeals, Given its Political Agenda First, I have come to the firm conclusion based on their previous actions in my case...

Roger Stone's lawyers told a court on Thursday that they intend to appeal the right-wing political operative's 40-month prison sentence and a judge's decision to deny him a new trial.

Erin Gregoire crossed the finish line of the Houston Marathon, looked at her watch, and smiled. In her debut at the distance, she ran 2:42:55—well under the qualifying time of 2:45:00 she needed for the Olympic Marathon Trials. In what has become a complex case, however, Gregoire was denied entry into the Trials, because the differential between her gun time (2:54:54) and chip time (her 2:42:55) was too large. And the day of the Houston Marathon (January 19) was the final day of qualifying, so it was her last shot at getting into the race. “Obviously it was an incredible...

The only conviction against a man accused of killing Kate Steinle in 2015 was overturned in the 1st District Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Friday. Jose Inez Garcia-Zarate was accused of shooting Steinle while she was walking with her father and friend on the San Francisco waterfront. Garcia-Zarate, a Mexican national, was in the U.S. illegally at the time of the shooting. He had previously been deported five times, and it was not known when he reentered the country. Steinle was 32 at the time of her death. Garcia-Zarate maintained that the shooting was accidental and that he...

The Justice Department filed an appeal Wednesday of its devastating defeat against Cliven Bundy in the Nevada standoff, disputing the federal judge’s decision last year to throw out the case based on prosecutorial wrongdoing. The 88-page motion, filed with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, challenged Chief U.S. District Court Judge Gloria Navarro’s blistering finding of “flagrant” misconduct, which prompted her to declare a mistrial in December 2017 and dismiss the charges a month later. U.S. Attorney for Nevada Nicholas A. Trutanich, who took over last month, insisted that the government had “timely disclosed significant discovery,” refuting the judge’s...

Top judges will today hear a challenge by former English Defence League leader Tommy Robinson against his 13-month jail term for contempt of court. Mr Robinson, real name Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, was locked up in May after he filmed people involved in a criminal trial and broadcast the footage on social media. The footage, lasting around an hour, was watched 250,000 times within hours of being posted on Facebook. .....

The Supreme Court has for the second time rejected an appeal by imprisoned former Gov. Rod Blagojevich of his convictions on corruption charges. The justices did not comment Monday in letting stand the convictions and 14-year prison term that Blagojevich is serving. He's scheduled to be released in 2024. Blagojevich's lawyers had wanted the high court to take up his case to make clear what constitutes illegal political fundraising. They argued that politicians are vulnerable to prosecution because the line between what's allowed and what's illegal is blurry.His convictions included trying to extort a children's hospital for contributions and seeking...

BEIRUT (AP) — Syria's dominant Kurdish party on Wednesday called on the U.N. Security Council to act quickly to ensure the safety of Kurdish-controlled territories in the country's north, including an enclave that Turkey has threatened to attack. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said he will launch a military offensive in the coming days against territories controlled by the dominant Syrian Kurdish militia in northwestern and eastern Syria, and in particular the enclave of Afrin, where an estimated 1 million people live.

Lawyers for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl fulfilled a promise Thursday to appeal to the top military court to toss out their client’s case over disparaging comments made by President Trump on the campaign trail. In a 314-page motion filed Thursday with the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, defense lawyers said the “unprecedented circumstances” of Trump repeatedly calling Bergdahl a traitor who should be executed constitute apparent unlawful command influence (UCI). “To describe President Trump’s comments about Sgt. Bergdahl as merely ‘troubling,’ ‘made without consideration of their possible impact on the trial of the accused,’ ‘disturbing and disappointing,’...

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned a lower-court decision that would have struck down a 10-day waiting period for certain firearm purchases. The lower-court decision would have allowed existing gun owners and people with concealed-weapons permits to immediately take possession of a lawfully purchased firearm. [Snip] 9th Circuit Judge Mary Schroeder ... said someone who already owns a hunting rifle may want to buy a larger-capacity weapon that will do more damage when fired into a crowd. "A 10-day cooling-off period would serve to discourage such conduct and would impose no serious burden on the core...