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Fresh court rulings will make lending community "absolutely paranoid," says top lawyer. Stuart Saft, a partner at Dewey & LeBoef, argues over at Forbes (via SquareFeet)that judges are exacerbating the pain in commercial real estate. In the last few weeks there have been a series of court decisions that will have repercussions in the credit markets for years to come making an already cautious lending community absolutely paranoid, and restricting credit even if available. In Syracuse, N.Y., a state court refused to allow Citigroup to foreclose a mortgage on what was to be the second largest mall in the country...

The Senate voted to end debate and move to a final vote on President Obama’s first judicial nominee, former ACORN fundraiser Judge David F. Hamilton, who disallowed invoking Jesus' name in prayers in the Indiana Legislature. Ten Republicans voted to allow a floor vote on Hamilton's nomination, thus assuring his confirmation. Hamilton, nominated to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, won a 70-29 cloture vote. All 29 who voted against cloture were Republicans. while 10 Republicans joined with all 60 Senate Democrats to vote for cloture and allow the confirmation vote to proceed. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchiso (R.-Tex.) did not...

Court turns down student over religious speechThe Associated Press Updated: 11/16/2009 09:51:39 AM MST WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from a student who complained that high school officials violated her constitutional rights when they turned off her microphone during her religion-tinged graduation speech. The justices said Monday they will not revive a lawsuit filed by Brittany McComb of Henderson, Nev. challenging the actions of Clark County school officials. A federal appeals court ruled previously ruled against her. During McComb's speech at the Foothill High School graduation in 2006, officials turned off McComb's microphone when the school valedictorian strayed...

Much has been written (including some by myself and other Gun Rights Examiners--see links beneath the photo) about the impending McDonald v. City of Chicago case to be heard by the Supreme Court early next year. In this case, the Second Amendment Foundation and the Illinois State Rifle Association are challenging Chicago's handgun ban (the NRA also eventually became involved). Probably the biggest issue that will be decided here is whether or not the Second Amendment is to be incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment, and thus apply to state and local governments, as well as to the feds. If SCOTUS...

In Massachusetts, marriage really still does mean until death do you part -- even after divorce. The Supreme Judicial Court today rejected a push to stop most alimony payments when someone reaches retirement age. The decision, which came in the divorce case of a former federal magistrate and state judge, noted that alimony payments can be lowered or, in some cases, cut off to reflect a person's actual income after retirement.

Panella's Abortion Flip-Flop Makes Him Unworthy BY CHRIS FREIND State Supreme Court candidate Jack Panella obviously doesn't learn from history. When former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney entered the 2008 Republican presidential primary, he seemed to have everything going for him: top campaign staff, unlimited money, a solid national organization, and a (seemingly) attractive message. Yet his campaign was over before it began. Why? Because more than anything, he had a major credibility problem. You see, despite Mitt's talk of being a political outsider, he danced the Washington Two-Step as well as anyone. Somehow, Romney's core beliefs undertook a number of...

Some struggling homeowners are turning to the courts in a bid to force mortgage servicers to consider them for the Obama administration's foreclosure-rescue program, arguing they are eligible for help but haven't received it. The suits are the latest sign of difficulties some borrowers are having with the program, which has helped more than 500,000 people begin trial loan modifications since it was announced in February.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court will consider throwing out the convictions of former Enron Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Skilling for his role in one of the largest scandals in U.S. business history. The court said Tuesday it will hear Skilling's appeal of lower court rulings that upheld all 19 of his 2006 convictions of conspiracy, securities fraud, insider trading and lying to auditors involving the 2001 collapse of the one-time energy giant. Skilling, serving a 24-year prison term, is asking the court to consider whether the federal "honest services" fraud statute was applied correctly.

Junior Gotti Freaks Out In Court Against WitnessBy Jen Chung October 9, 2009 9:15 AM Well, it had to happen sometime: John Gotti Jr., currently on trial for the fourth time for racketeering, had a meltdown in court yesterday, yelling at a star prosecution witness and former mobster. The Post reports the Teflon Don's son shouted to John Alite during a break, "You’re a dog! You’re a dog! Did I kill little girls, you fag? You’re a punk. You’re a dog all your life — you always were. Do I strangle little girls in motels?" Apparently Alite was being led...

The state Appeals Court asked lawmakers yesterday to take on complex legal questions now surfacing about anonymous sperm donors and the children conceived through science. In a ruling issued yesterday, the court refused to become involved in a Suffolk Probate and Family Court case in which the mother of twin daughters, known only as Jane Doe, is demanding that the New England Cryogenic Center Inc. identify a sperm donor known only as D237... Jane Doe represented herself before the court and could not be reached for comment. ...according to McHugh’s ruling, D237 sold his sperm between 1992 and 1994 when...

Taking on a major new constitutional dispute over gun rights, the Supreme Court agreed on Wednesday to decide whether to apply the Second Amendment to state, county, and city government laws. In another major case among ten new grants, the Court said it will rule on the constitutionality of one of the government’s most-used legal weapons in the “war on terrorism” — a law that outlaws “material support” to terrorist groups. The Court had three cases from which to choose on the Second Amendment issue — two cases involving a Chicago gun ban, and one case on a New York...

The question of whether or not gun registration violates the Second Amendment may be settled by the courts in the future. But the recent use of prosecutorial discretion to prosecute a Utah man for an innocent and non-material mistake on gun dealer transfer forms demonstrates the danger of decentralized gun registration by way of ATF Form 4473, especially since the court of appeals in this case affirmed the trial court's dismissal of the charge only because "an alien registration number is not 'information required for a background check' as contemplated by Utah Code section 76-10-526(4)(b)." State v. Kidus Chane Yohannes,...

The U.S. Tax Court ruled Monday that Brooklyn, N.Y. tax lawyer William G. Halby, 78, had no legal basis to deduct prostitutes and pornography as medical expenses on his federal tax returns. Judge Joseph Robert Goeke upheld the Internal Revenue Service's determination that Halby owed $21,000 in back taxes plus $4,000 in accuracy-related penalties for his disallowed write-off of $120,000 of what the court delicately (and in quotations) called "service providers" as well as pornographic materials. According to the opinion, Halby did maintain careful records as is generally required for deductions. He "kept track of these visits in a journal,"...

THE HAGUE, 15/09/09 - The criminal court case in which MP Geert Wilders will be on trial for incitement to hatred against Muslims begins on 20 January. The MP is considering calling "radical Imams and other idiots" as witnesses in the proceedings. The politician has to appear in the Amsterdam district court on 20 January for incitement to hatred and discrimination against Muslims and insulting Muslims as a group. In this pro-forma session, the Public Prosecutor and Wilders can bring up their investigatory wishes. Wilders wants to make it the 'trial of the century'. "I want Islam to stand trial...

When contributors hand over money to a trade group that’s lobbying on a bill before Congress, the public has a right to know who’s putting up that cash, a federal appeals panel has ruled. In an opinion issued Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld a relatively recent law requiring public donor lists. The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) had challenged the disclosure provision in the 2007 ethics overhaul law (PL 110-81), arguing that the First Amendment’s guarantee of the right to petition Congress means that financial backers of lobbying...

For a historian, newly retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter seems exasperatingly shortsighted. He didn’t want cameras filming the court’s public business during his 19 years on the nation’s highest tribunal. Now, he doesn’t want scholars prying into his papers for 50 years. Who’ll be around by then who knew him?

Berlin, Germany (AHN) - A German court has ruled that a suspected terrorist can name his son Djehad, the German word for jihad or holy war. The upper regional court in Berlin upheld Tuesday the rulings of two lower courts allowing Egyptian-German Reda Seyam, 49, to name his four-year-old son Djehad on grounds that it is a common Arabic name for males. Germany's birth registration agency, which implements the country's strict naming law, contested the name in court arguing that the father intended it to be interpreted literally and could harmful to the child, who would be associated with terrorism....

Here is video of an Ohio Judge ordering a defendant who kept interrupting him to have his mouth covered with duct tape. . . . (Watch Video)

CANTON — Municipal Court Judge Stephen F. Belden had an unconventional tool for silencing an argumentative defendant last week — duct tape. (Click on the Audio Tab at left: Listen to Judge Belden's order to duct tape the defendant's mouth in court)- You will have to go to the link to hear this. The unique confrontation played out in Municipal Court on Thursday and quickly became a topic of courthouse gossip. It was also recorded on the courtroom’s audio and video systems. Belden was holding a preliminary hearing to see if there was sufficient evidence for Harry Brown’s case to...

Mike Vanderboegh at Sipsey Street Irregulars has put out a call for help. It's important, so I'm doing what I can to help amplify his voice. Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America needs to find an expert witness for "a pending legal case." Here's what Larry sent Mike: Do you know of a reference to the Camp Perry matches where they have gunsmiths to handle malfunctions? Or any other such venue where they are used to shooters having guns that malfunction by firing a burst and then jamming? Time is of the essence on this. Mike asks us to...

A 17-year-old girl who fled to Florida after converting from Islam to Christianity will almost certainly be forced to return home to Ohio, experts say -- despite her fears that she will become the victim of an honor killing for abandoning her parents' faith. Rifqa Bary, who hitchhiked to an Ohio bus station earlier this month and took a charter bus to Orlando, remains in protective custody with Florida's Department of Children and Families. A judge is expected to rule Friday on the jurisdiction of the case, but several legal experts contacted by FOXNews.com say the girl is bound to...

"For all you “conservatives” who kept insisting that there was NO difference between John McCain and Barack Hussein Obama, this is all your fault! You have no one but yourselves to blame when this Wise Latina (in other words, Aztlanist shill) legislates from the bench. To his credit, John McCain at least opposed Sotomayor’s nomination. " [I have a different take on this. Conservatives were absolutely justified in opposing the "pro-amnesty" rino John McCain. Those of us who did choose to vote for the ticket, voted for Palin, not McCain. If it were not for her, McCain would have been...

Reporting from Beirut -- Tehran's hard-line Revolutionary Court warned Sunday that those criticizing its ongoing proceedings against postelection protesters could face jail time themselves. The threat came after a chorus of reformists and even some political conservatives labeled as a sham the televised court hearing Saturday of about 100 defendants arrested in the unrest that followed the disputed June 12 presidential election in which incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner.

Federal law now criminalizes activities that the average person would never dream would land him in prison. ---------------------------cut--------------------------- Every year, thousands of upstanding, responsible Americans run afoul of some incomprehensible federal law or regulation and end up serving time in federal prison. What is especially disturbing is that it could happen to anyone at all -- and it has. We should applaud Reps. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), then, for holding a bipartisan hearing today to examine how federal law can make a criminal out of anyone, for even the most mundane conduct. --------------------------------------cut------------------ This is an inevitable...

At Rick Warren's Saddleback forum, Obama was asked which current Supreme Court Justices he would not have nominated. His answer: Justices Thomas and Scalia. [my favorites]. He also voted against John Roberts. What does that say about who he would nonminate? What does that tell us about Sotomayor?-videos

Two Questions for Supreme Court Appointees I would sincerely like to have all Supreme Court appointees answer these two questions. Question #1 : Please explain the meaning of the words, Powers herein granted, as read in Article 1, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United States. Ref: All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives. Question #2 : Please explain the meaning of the words, powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, as read in the tenth Amendment of...

It appears that liberal activist group People For the American Way's smear campaign against Connecticut firefighter Frank Ricci is bearing fruit. Dahlia Lithwick has already responded with an obedient hit piece in Slate magazine, which perfectly fits the bill. Why are liberals targeting Ricci? Because he had the audacity to challenge Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals summary ruling against him and other firefighters denied promotions because of affirmative action policies. Worse, he prevailed when the Supreme Court reversed the Sotomayor court. Worse yet, Ricci has agreed to testify at Judge Sotomayor's Senate confirmation hearing,...

Damon W. Root | July 9, 2009, 4:49pm Writing in the Virginia Law Review last fall, conservative federal appeals court Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III took aim at the Supreme Court's landmark gun rights opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller. According to Wilkinson, "Heller encourages Americans to do what conservative jurists warned for years they should not do: bypass the ballot and seek to press their political agenda in the courts." In fact, Wilkinson went so far as to compare Justice Antonin Scalia's majority opinion in Heller with the Supreme Court's famous abortion rights decision in Roe v. Wade,...

Judicial Sleight of Hand by: Brittany Fortier, July 06, 2009 Judge David Hamilton of the Southern District of Indiana, who has been nominated by the Obama administration to serve on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, proposes to bring an even more activist approach to the federal judiciary. For example, in A Woman’s Choice v. Newman, Hamilton issued an injunction against an Indiana law requiring abortion clinics to give women information about alternatives to abortion and requiring an 18-hour waiting period before obtaining an abortion, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., points out. He called Hamilton’s ruling “questionable,” while the Seventh Circuit...

The Caseyville Rifle and Pistol and Pistol Club has weathered the storm of efforts by St. Clair County to close it, and the costly effort is far from over. The Caseyville Rifle and Pistol Club has spent the past four years battling for its survival in a legal war of attrition with St. Clair County. So far the gun club -- the owner of the metro-east's only outdoor rifle range -- has won every round in court. The most recent victory occurred June 5, when a St. Clair County Circuit judge dismissed the county lawsuit aiming to shut down the...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Spinning a Supreme Court decision in its favor, the White House said Monday that the justices' reversal of a ruling that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge proves that she follows judicial precedent. The high court ruled that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race. Presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs said the ruling should put to rest claims by Sotomayor 's Senate critics that she's an activist judge

Court to tackle clarity of Miranda warnings againBy Michael J. Sniffen, Associated Press Writer Mon Jun 22, 5:36 pm ET WASHINGTON – "You have the right to remain silent." Most people only hear those words while watching cop shows on TV. They usually zone out for the rest of the now familiar Miranda warning to people under arrest. But in the real world, the Supreme Court is still listening to the words that follow. It agreed Monday to hear another case over just how explicit that phrasing must be. In its landmark 1966 Miranda v. Arizona ruling, the high court...

In Tennessee, a judge is legally required to be “patient, dignified and courteous” with people in court. He is also required, not unreasonably, “to respect and comply with the law”. But not all judges do. The Supreme Court of Tennessee recently disciplined Judge Durwood Moore for unlawful judicial conduct. Presiding in court one day, the judge happened to glance at Benjamin Marchant, a friend of someone who had court business. Marchant was not a witness, just a spectator. Yet after observing him, the judge ordered court officers to seize the man, get a urine sample from him and have it...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A state appeals court ruled Wednesday that the city cannot enforce an assault weapons ban and a law prohibiting guns bought by one person and given to another, measures passed by City Council in an effort to combat persistent gun violence. The 6-1 ruling marked the latest setback for Philadelphia officials, who have fought for years for the right to pass their own gun legislation. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has previously upheld the state's exclusive right to enact gun laws. The National Rifle Association challenged a series of measures that were passed by City Council in April...

Lord chief justice says there would be a 'very significant' danger of jury tampering in Heathrow robbery case The court of appeal today ruled that a criminal trial can be heard without a jury for the first time. Three judges in London, headed by the lord chief justice, Lord Judge, gave the go-ahead because of a "very significant" danger of jury tampering. Lord Judge said the case concerned "very serious criminal activity" arising from a robbery at a warehouse at Heathrow airport in 2004. Reporting restrictions ban the identification of four defendants. Their trial will take place "in due course"....

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Sunday said Senate Republicans are reserving their right to filibuster the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. McConnell acknowledged on CBS’s "Face that Nation" his own past stance against filibustering judges, but he said Democrats paved the way for a possible Sotomayor filibuster by filibustering appeals court nominee Miguel Estrada during the Bush administration. “I have consistently opposed filibustering judges – did it during the Clinton years – but I lost that fight,” McConnell said. “The Senate will filibuster judges. That precedent was established – ironically enough – on a...

During the presidential campaign, when some warned against Barack Obama's soft approach to the war on terror, I doubt they had any idea he would greatly exceed their worst expectations. But he has. A common refrain of the Bush administration and its defenders in the prosecution of the war was that prior to the 9/11 attacks, the American government had been treating Islamo-terrorism as a law enforcement problem. The 9/11 attacks forced us, kicking and screaming, into the realization that the Islamo-jihadists were indeed in a war with us and that we would have to wage war against them, as...

Poll: Should Guantanamo Bay detainees be tried in U.S. criminal courts?" A Daily PollWhat will President of Iran Ahmadinijad do if he gets a nuclear weapon? A Weekly Poll

As soon as the “activists” of the Warren Court made it clear that in liberal jurisprudence a judge’s personal beliefs and empathies can trump even explicit language of the Constitution, conservative Senators should have done a number of things, including initiating a tradition whereby they would ask every nominee for the Supreme Court to respond to Thomas Jefferson’s thoughts about the federal judiciary. But they didn’t, thereby failing the nation regarding two important obligations: ...To continually battle against and educate the public about a profound threat to government of “We the people.” ...To cause a whole lot of liberals who...

States can not only ban guns, they can ban self-defense. That's what a court just ruled. And we're told it is the "conservative" position: Today, Richard Posner and Frank Easterbrook, appointed to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago by President Ronald Reagan, took the same hands-off as Sotomayor. They joined a 3-0 ruling that upheld weapons ordinances in Chicago and suburban Oak Park, Illinois, and rejected challenges by gun rights advocates. Don't let the raising of the Reagan mantra persuade you. The reverence gun owners have for the man is based more on illusion than substance. He...

Supreme Court » He promises to be tough but fair on nominee.Washington » Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said after a private meeting with Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor on Tuesday that he likes her and is impressed with her skills, but he still plans to grill her during confirmation hearings. Hatch met with Sotomayor for nearly an hour in his office on Tuesday, the eighth speed date of the day for the 2nd Circuit Appeals Court judge whom President Barack Obama tapped last week for the Supreme Court. After the closed-door meeting, Hatch said he is keeping an open mind,...

It amazes me that for all the attention Judge Sonia Sotomayor has attracted for a racially charged statement in a 2001 speech, few are tying her attitude to President Barack Obama's. Just as he knew precisely what his 20-year pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was about and approved, he knew, prior to nominating her, what Sonia Sotomayor is about and approved. In both cases, he just didn't want us to know. In her 2001 speech at Berkeley, Sotomayor said, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a...

Minnesota's U.S. Senate showdown will center on the state Supreme Court today. In Courtroom 300 in St. Paul's Judicial Center, an attorney for Republican Norm Coleman will tell five justices why he believes the case must be sent back to the trial court. An attorney for Democrat Al Franken will tell the justices why he thinks the trial court's April 13 decision that Franken won the race was correct. For Coleman, there can be no outright win at this stage. His best hope is that the court's decision — which may be weeks away — will send the case back...

Barack Obama is playing paint by the numbers. With his selection of Sonia Sotomayor, Obama has validated the philosophy of former US Senator Roman Hruska (R-Ne). Hruska defended the unsuccessful nomination of G. Harrold Carswell to serve on the US Supreme Court by stating: “[T]here are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they, and a little chance? We can’t have all Brandeises, Frankfurters and Cardozoes.” For the diversity minded, Benjamin Cardozo, who served as an Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court following a noteworthy judicial career in New...

We should debate Judge Sotomayor’s qualifications to serve on the Supreme Court. We should examine her view of people not as individuals, but as members of groups. We should examine her view of judges as makers of policy. But before we begin the debate, we first need to decide what language to use. Will it be English or Spanglish? Must we pronounce her name as if we were speaking Spanish? Must we refer to her as a Latina, not as a Latino, and certainly not as an American?

Though Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s record has raised some eyebrows, President Barack Obama rose to her defense saying “we are essentially on the same page on important policy matters.” Two items of major concern are Sotomayor’s statements contending that “Latino women make better judges than white men” and that “courts are where public policy is made.” Critics have argued that the first of these statements is racist and the second misconstrues the role of the judiciary in our government. “Imagine if President Bush’s nominee Samuel Alito had said that white men make better judges than Latino women,” wrote former...

what the role of the Federal Courts are and whether or not "activism" is something to be avoided, potential nominee to the highest court in the land, Sonia Sotomayor, gave her views on the subject..

I see "pragmatists" everywhere I look in the Republican Party -- those who say we must always be more concerned with not offending so-called moderates than with advancing our principles. The irony is that no one is less pragmatic, in the end, than these self-styled pragmatists because their prescriptions are a recipe for failure. Most recently, of course, the Republican branch of the political correctness sect insists that we must not oppose Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination for the Supreme Court because her confirmation is inevitable and by opposing it, we'll gratuitously alienate Hispanics and women -- as if they haven't...

Almost everybody cheers for the underdog -- maybe not those born to upper-class standing with great advantages, but those of us who weren't always want the little guy to be victorious. We want hard work and extra effort to be rewarded. Standing at the front of the East Room of the White House Tuesday morning were two Americans who clearly had started life as underdogs. One is now our president, son of a Kenyan. The other is the daughter of Puerto Rican parents who is about to sit on the highest court in the land. Both were born without privilege....

No one suggests that the GOP should sink this low. But they also need not fear to ask tough questions of Sotomayer!Within 45 minutes of the July 1st announcement by President Reagan that he had selected Robert Bork to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court Senator Ted Kennedy took to the Senate floor and unleashed this fireball of hate. The speech was telecast live on national TV: SEN. KENNEDY: "Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in...