Free Republic

Prosecutor to appeal firing after speaking at tea party ralliesBILL COTTERELL / Tallahassee Democrat May 31, 2010 02:58:00 PM LIVE OAK — Even the state attorney who fired her calls KrisAnne Hall a first-rate prosecutor, but espousing her "originalist" views of the U.S. Constitution at tea party rallies has sparked a federal court showdown. The issue: free speech vs. state employment. "She can go and speak anywhere she wants to, and do anything within the law, but she can't do it while carrying my badge, not when people identify her with this office," said State Attorney Robert "Skip" Jarvis. Hall,...

ID theft retrial in Palin hacking hinges on appealBy Bill Poovey Fri May 7, 5:57 pm ET CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. – Prosecutors say a Tennessee man convicted of two federal charges in the hacking of Sarah Palin's e-mail account would be retried on an identity theft charge that left a jury deadlocked only if a defense request for a retrial is granted. David Kernell, 22, was found guilty April 30 in federal court in Knoxville of obstruction of justice and unauthorized access to a computer, but acquitted of a wire fraud charge for hacking Palin's account as she campaigned on the...

Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel turned to attorney Mickey Sherman more than a decade ago to defend him against a murder that had haunted his wealthy family for a quarter-century. Now Skakel, the nephew of Ethel Kennedy, is turning against Sherman, saying the media-savvy attorney blew the trial. Skakel was convicted in 2002 of fatally beating neighbor Martha Moxley with a golf club in wealthy Greenwich in 1975 when they were 15-year-olds. His lawyer says Skakel will file an appeal in coming weeks, challenging Sherman's effectiveness. Skakel's supporters say Sherman was distracted by the limelight and financial troubles, even though...

On January 22, Vice President Joe Biden told the president of Iraq that the United States would appeal the dismissal of the case against the Blackwater guards. The VP also apologized personally for their misconduct. The case had political overtones from the beginning, and now it's getting worse.

Washington state will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in an attempt to overturn a surprising federal court ruling that tossed out the state's 120-year-old prohibition against voting by incarcerated felons, Attorney General Rob McKenna said today. The ruling, handed down Tuesday by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S> Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle, found that Washington's criminal-justice system was so "infected" with racial discrimination that a ban on felon voting violated civil-rights protections. The state hoped to have the case heard during the U.S. Supreme Court's fall session, McKenna told reporters at a hastily-arranged news conference at...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A lawyer for former media baron Conrad Black urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to overturn his fraud conviction, and several justices asked whether the federal law at issue was too vague. The Canadian-born Black, a member of Britain's House of Lords, has been in prison since March 2008, when he began serving a 6 1/2-year sentence for fraud and obstruction of justice. Attorney Miguel Estrada, representing Black and two ex-colleagues who were found guilty of defrauding shareholders of one-time newspaper publishing giant Hollinger International Inc, argued before the Supreme Court that all convictions in the...

Meeting the demand for family planning in poor nations is a cheap and effective way to cut CO2 emissions, a new website initiative claims. The UK-based Optimum Population Trust says fast-rising population levels lead to growing emissions. The website is urging wealthy people to offset their own CO2 emissions by funding contraception programmes

We have our priorities seriously skewed when we can spend a half million dollars to warehouse a convicted murderer for 23 years, yet we have to tell senior citizens who may well have never broken a law in their lives they are being sentenced to a hasty “death by healthcare denial.”

A case alleging Congress failed in its constitutional duties by refusing to investigate the eligibility of Barack Obama to be president has been sent on appeal to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. --- Attorney Mario Apuzzo filed the action in January on behalf of Kerchner, Lowell T. Patterson, Darrell James Lenormand and Donald H. Nelson Jr. Named as defendants were Barack Hussein Obama II, the U.S., Congress, the Senate, House of Representatives and former Vice President Dick Cheney along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. -------------------

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court said Tuesday it will take up former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling's appeal of his convictions for his role in the collapse of the energy giant, accepting another high-profile challenge to a favorite tool of prosecutors in white-collar and public corruption cases. Skilling's appeal stems from his convictions in 2006 on 19 counts of conspiracy, securities fraud, insider trading and lying to auditors involving the 2001 collapse of Enron. The justices already are entertaining similar claims from former newspaper magnate Conrad Black and a former Alaska lawmaker ensnared in a public corruption scandal. At issue in...

The decision tips the scale toward defendants’ rights; represents victory for privately owned gun shop in the Bronx NEW YORK, Aug. 14, 2009 — The United States Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of a Bronx gun shop owner who claimed her constitutional rights were violated in a search and seizure of her store following a post-9/11 security crackdown by the New York City Police Department. Angela Spinelli, the owner of Olinville Arms, Inc., appealed the case to the Second Circuit after a federal district court granted the City of New York and the NYPD officers’ motion for...

It has come to my attention that there have been allegations that conservatives hate the idea of legal aid and indignant defense. Allegations that the republican party wants to prevent the poor who can't afford a lawyer from getting one when they are accused of a crime or suffer civil injustice or whatever. Thoughts of a poor single black mother wrongfully accused in a court with rich plaintiffs with 7 digit salary attorneys all alone against a complicated legal system also come to mind. Relax. It isn't true. In fact it has been found in some cases to be the...

A US Supreme Court justice granted Monday a request to put on hold the sale of bankrupt automaker Chrysler to a group led by Italian carmaker Fiat. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in a one-sentence order, said the orders of the bankruptcy judge allowing the sale "are stayed pending further order of the undersigned or of the court." AP Ginsburg acted as a 4 p.m. deadline from a U.S. appeals court in New York was due to expire. The appeals court order would have allowed Chrysler to proceed with its sale to Fiat, a union-aligned trust and the U.S....

On Wednesday, June 3, the National Rifle Association filed a petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of NRA v. Chicago. The NRA strongly disagrees with yesterday's decision issued by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, holding that the Second Amendment does not apply to state and local governments

Robert Ord says he stays away from the District of Columbia because he fears he will be arrested on a gun charge. The private security officer unsuccessfully sought a declaration in federal court that he is immune from prosecution on D.C. gun laws. His suit was tossed for a lack of standing. Ord is challenging the dismissal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where the Second Amendment Foundation and the ACLU National Capital Area are participating as amicus curiae in support of Ord, saying his case against the city should move forward. At issue on appeal...

While a recent study concluded that men prefer dating beautiful bimbos, new research has confirmed what many males and advertisers long believed: driving a flashy car really does make a person more attractive to women. Psychologists at the University of Wales presented women with separate images of the same man sitting in a silver Bentley Continental, then a red Ford Fiesta. The study involved 120 participants, reports The Scotsman. After seeing the male, the volunteers viewed him as 'more attractive' in the prestige car. However, when men were shown images of a woman of comparable attractiveness sitting in the same...

HARARE, Zimbabwe – President Robert Mugabe and a longtime opposition leader-turned-finance minister made an unusual joint appeal Thursday for $5 billion (euro3.66 billion) in international aid to revive Zimbabwe's shattered economy. The two men presented an economic recovery program that scraps the stringent price controls which have fueled a black market and spiraling inflation. It also sets up "safety nets and social protection for vulnerable groups exposed to market forces," Finance Minister Tendai Biti said, without offering details. The longtime opponents disagreed, however, over the causes of the country's economic meltdown. Biti said Zimbabwe had to do its part by...

LONDON: The golden rule of advertising - thin models lure more people towards the product - is actually a misconception, claims a new research. The study revealed that skinny models are a ‘turn off’ to consumers in TV commercials and other advertising. According to scientists, images of super-thin models carry no edge in encouraging young women to buy and for the majority of adult women ads showing skinny girls actually discouraged sales whereas plus size models encouraged them to buy, the study found. To reach the conclusion, the study psychologist Phillippa Diedrichs, of the University of Queensland, Australia, created a...

WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline)-The former deputy Pennsylvania attorney general who challenged Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama's qualifications to be president has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Lafayette Hill, Pa.-based attorney Philip Berg, a self-described "moderate to liberal" Democrat who supported Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, alleged that the Illinois senator is not a U.S. citizen and therefore ineligible for the presidency. He had his lawsuit rejected Friday by U.S. District Judge Richard Barclay Surrick of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

EL PASO, Texas — Two former Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a drug smuggler and trying to cover it up have been denied a request for a new hearing. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans denied the request by Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean on Wednesday. The same court upheld the men's convictions in July. No reason was given for the Wednesday's denial. Ramos and Compean are each serving sentences of more than 10 years for shooting Osvaldo Aldrete Davila in the buttocks while he was fleeing from an abandoned marijuana load in 2005....