Free Republic

Madison -- Groups called on voters Monday to reject a proposed amendment to the Wisconsin constitution that would allow state Supreme Court justices to select their chief justice, rather than have the position go to the most senior member of the court. If approved April 7, the change is expected to dislodge Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson from the court's top job. Abrahamson would remain on the high court but no longer have administrative control of it. Mike Wilder of Wisconsin Voices said at a Capitol news conference that the current system -- where voters elected Abrahamson to a 10-year term...

One of the most overlooked aspects of the year just ended is the vindication of Chief Justice John Roberts -- a vindication that showed up as the national catastrophe known as ObamaCare got rolling. Roberts may have also doomed Hillary Clinton's chance to live in the White House again. The chief justice, an appointee of President George W. Bush and reputedly a constitutionalist in his jurisprudence, set his diabolical trap (diabolical to Democrats) on June 28, 2012, when he joined with the four liberal justices on the Supreme Court to uphold the constitutionality of ObamaCare. Conservatives and Republicans across the...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will nominate Tani Cantil-Sakauye, a Republican appellate court justice with a reputation as a moderate, to be chief justice of the California Supreme Court, The Bee learned Tuesday. Cantil-Sakauye, 50, of Sacramento is a former prosecutor and Sacramento Superior Court judge. She would replace Chief Justice Ronald George, who has announced he will retire Jan. 2. Cantil-Sakauye has been on the 3rd District Court of Appeal since 2005. If approved by a three-member commission and by voters in November, she would start a 12-year term in January. She would be the state's first Filipina American chief justice.

From issuing historic rulings on gay marriage, affirmative action and abortion rights to ushering in a new era of legal and political clout for California's highest court, Chief Justice Ronald George has cast a long shadow of influence across the state since the mid-1990s. On Wednesday, California's 27th chief justice decided it was time to step aside, unexpectedly announcing he will not seek a new 12-year term in November and will put an official end to the "George Court" on Jan. 2. The 70-year-old George said he will retreat from his notoriously frenetic life to read, run and travel —...

Chief Justice John Roberts is not stepping down from the Supreme Court, despite a celebrity gossip report, a source very close to Roberts told Fox News. RadarOnline.com reported Thursday that Roberts, 55, would be resigning for personal reasons. But the source said the report is "completely untrue." There is "no medical issue, no issue at all," the source said, adding that there is not even a 1 percent chance that Roberts is considering resignation.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The chief justice of the California Supreme Court is criticizing the state's reliance on the referendum process, saying it has "rendered our state government dysfunctional." .. the widespread use of referendums to change state laws and constitutions hampers legislators, burdens the judicial branch and gives special interests too much power. George says the system places California's lawmakers in a "fiscal straitjacket" that prevents them from effectively solving the state's financial crisis. The speech .. entitled "The Perils of Direct Democracy: The California Experience."

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...

A clip from the appearance by Chief Justice John Roberts at the University of Idaho on March 13. Roberts is being questioned about a case involving Barack Obama’s citizenship. http://media.spokesman.com/audio_clips/2009/03/robertstaitz.mp3 Audio Clip

On December 5, 2008, we said: "Questions have been raised as to whether Chief Justice John Roberts could administer the oath of office to a man who he believes may not be entitled. Chief Justice John G. Roberts will have to KNOW that Barack Hussein Obama II is eligible to 'enter on the execution of his office,' before he administers the Inaugural Oath of Office.'" The Chief Justice of the United States did not make a mistake when he flubbed the oath of office. He did not want to issue the oath to Obama because of his doubts. By failing...

The presidential oath of office should be re-administered to Barack Obama because of his flub during Tuesday’s swearing-in ceremony, legal experts say. Because of a mistake by Chief Justice John Roberts, Obama transposed one of the words in the oath. He should have said he will “faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States,” but instead repeated Roberts’ cue and said he will “execute the Office of President of the United States faithfully.” Josh White of the Washington Post noted: “The presidential oath of office is required of a new president before he can execute his power, and...

John Roberts writes dissent that debuts new genre: Supreme Court noir The Supreme Court of the United States. Just after 10 o'clock. John Roberts was working his usual shift. Chief justice of the United States. Three years on the job. His reputation? Incisive questioner. Good writer. Fast. Funny. Roberts knows his way around an opinion. Even a dissent. Like the one he issued Tuesday. The case? Pennsylvania's top court threw out a drug bust because the police officer who saw an apparent exchange between two suspects did not have enough evidence to make the arrest. Roberts wanted his court to...

From the Book of Common Prayer, 1928.A Prayer for Recovery. O GOD of heavenly powers, who, by the might of thy command, drivest away from men’s bodies all sickness and all infirmity; Be present in thy goodness with this thy servant JOHN, that his weakness may be banished and his strength recalled; that his health being thereupon restored, he may bless thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. A Prayer for Healing. O ALMIGHTY God, who art the giver of all health, and the aid of them that turn to thee for succour; We entreat thy strength and...

In a pointed dissent from decisions overturning death sentences for two Texas inmates, Roberts accused Stevens of engaging in revisionist history......... Roberts concluded his 16-page dissent on a sarcastic note, at odds with his amiable image. "Still, perhaps there is no reason to be unduly glum," Roberts said, taking direct aim at Stevens. "After all, today the author of a dissent issued in 1988 writes two majority opinions concluding that the views established in that dissent actually represented 'clearly established' federal law at that time. So there is hope yet for the views expressed in this dissent." "Encouraged by the...

The framers of the United States Constitution believed that people of African descent “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect,” and that “the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit…. [to be] bought and sold and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever profit could be made by it.” With reference to the words “all men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence: “It is too clear for dispute that the enslaved African race was not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people...

THE Supreme Court, having decided only four cases since the term began in October, has not exactly been living in the fast lane. But the pace is about to pick up. The coming months will be a testing time for the young Roberts court, including decisions due by early summer on abortion, school integration and environmental policy, with an unusually large emphasis on cases of significance to the business community.Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has spoken often of the virtues of a court that speaks modestly and unanimously. Those goals may well prove elusive. The court’s conservative bloc reached...

The chief justice of the California Supreme Court said the state's death penalty has become "dysfunctional" and blamed lawmakers for looking the other way as 650 condemned inmates idle on death row. Ronald George said in an interview with The Associated Press that the Legislature's inability to adequately fund capital punishment has led to a de facto moratorium on executions in California. "I think that there are many, many things in the eyes of legislators that have greater priority," said George, who marks his 10th anniversary as chief justice on Monday. "That's the problem. People want to have the death...

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts delivered a warm homage Wednesday to Ronald Reagan, describing the former president he worked for in the 1980s as an influence on his life as well as history. "He was a great communicator because he communicated great ideas," Roberts told a standing-room only audience at the Reagan Presidential Library. In a 30-minute speech laced with personal anecdotes from his days as a White House lawyer, Roberts credited Reagan for his vision, his optimism, his determination and his human touch. He quoted from a letter he wrote to Reagan two decades ago, as he was...

Twenty-seventh President of the United States and its tenth Chief Justice, William Howard Taft was the only man in the history of the country to become the head of both the Executive and Judicial Departments of the Federal Government. Elected to the Presidency to succeed Theodore Roosevelt in 1908 by a tremendous majority, both popular and electoral, he met overwhelming defeat four years later in the political catastrophe which wrecked temporarily the Republican Party, ruptured his long friendship with Roosevelt, who had brought about his first nomination for the Presidency, and resulted in the election of Woodrow Wilson. The worst...

<p>WASHINGTON -- The institutional vanity and intellectual slovenliness of America's campus-based intelligentsia have made academia more peripheral to civic life than at any time since the 19th century. On Monday, its place at the periphery was underscored as the Supreme Court unanimously gave short shrift to some law professors who insisted that their First Amendment rights to free speech and association were violated by the law requiring that military recruiters be allowed to speak to the professors' students if the professors' schools receive federal money.</p>