Free Republic

If You Want To Fight, Let’s Go Out Back and I’ll Just Beat Your Ass’ BREVARD COUNTY • VIERA, FLORIDA – Judge John Murphy and Bevard County public defender Andrew Weinstock exchanged heated words during court today in which Murphy allegedly pressured Weinstock to get his client to waive his right to a speedy trial.

The Louisiana Supreme Court has ruled that enhanced penalties for the possession of a legal firearm while in possession of illegal drugs do not violate the States new protections of the right to keep and bear arms. In 2012, the voters of Louisiana approved a constitutional amendment to the state Constitution that removed the constitutional provision that gave the State the power to regulate concealed weapons.   It added the requirement that the court use the strongest level of judicial review, strict scrutiny, for Amendment 2 cases.   There is a a good discussion of the history behind this amendment...

A Chinese court on Friday convicted a mining billionaire said to have links with former security tsar Zhou Yongkang of murder and sentenced him to death. Liu Han led private company Hanlong, which once launched a billion-dollar bid for an Australian firm. He and his brother Liu Wei were found guilty of "organising and leading a mafia-style group", murder and other crimes, the Xianning Intermediate People's Court said. They and three accomplices were sentenced to death.

MILWAUKEE, WI — The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that it is not a violation of constitutional rights if police break down a citizen’s door, search the home, and confiscate firearms, so long that they believe it is in the citizen’s best interest. A Doctor’s Concern The lawsuit stems back to an incident that occurred on May 22, 2011. A psychiatrist, Dr. Michelle Bentle, phoned police to report that a patient had expressed a suicidal thought during an outpatient appointment; the woman had received some bad news and privately expressed grief during a difficult appointment. At approximately...

Milwaukee police who forced their way into a gun rights advocate's home without a warrant, took her for an emergency mental evaluation and seized her gun were justified under the circumstances and protected from her civil rights claims, a federal appeals court has ruled. "The intrusions upon Sutterfield's privacy were profound," Judge Ilana Rovner wrote for three-judge panel. "At the core of the privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment is the right to be let alone in one's home." But the court also found, that on the other hand, "There is no suggestion that (police) acted for any reason other...

Marina Baer watched her father get dragged away by a police officer after he violated the two-minute rule at a school board meeting in Gilford, New Hampshire. The dad, William Baer, was speaking out against the sexually graphic content found in a book assigned to his young daughter. Earlier this week, 14-year-old Marina confronted the school board over the incident, telling members: “I honestly don’t feel safe around you people.” “I just watched my father get arrested because he broke the two minute rule, at a board of education meeting,” she said. “This just shows that you resort to force...

A federal appeals court heard arguments on Thursday that Obamacare is unconstitutional because it is a tax that originated in the Senate rather than the House and thus violates the Origination Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The case, Sissel v. Health and Human Services, was argued before a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals with two jurists recently appointed by President Barack Obama and the other by President Bill Clinton. Appearing before the panel, Timothy Sandefur, co-counsel for the Pacific Legal Foundation that launched Sissel, said the House bill that became the Affordable Care Act in the...

GILFORD, NH, May 6, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The father of a Gilford High School student was arrested at a school board meeting on Monday night after objecting that the school had assigned his 14-year-old daughter to read a pornographic book without his knowledge or consent. William Baer, an attorney who moved to New Hampshire from New Jersey, registered his complaint about the book Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult, which includes a graphic depiction of sex between two teenagers, at the local school board meeting.

The police are allowed to walk up to a house and knock on the door in an attempt to speak to residents inside. But if no one answers, how long can they stay at the door? Not for as long as 45 minutes, holds the Court of Appeals of Indiana in J.K. v. State. The court bases this conclusion on the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Florida v. Jardines, which held that a knock-and-talk is permitted by implied social custom but that other steps such as bringing a drug-sniffing dog to the front steps go too far. From the...

US Marshal Shoots Defendant in Federal Court A U.S. marshal shot and critically wounded a defendant on Monday in a new federal courthouse after the man rushed the witness stand with a pen at his trial in Salt Lake City, authorities said. Defendant Siale Angilau was hospitalized with at least one chest wound, FBI spokesman Mark Dressen said. The witness wasn't hurt. Angilau was one of 17 people named in a 29-count racketeering indictment filed in 2008 accusing gang members of conspiracy, assault, robbery and weapons offenses.

Submitted by Simon Black via Sovereign Man blog, In the Land of the Free, people grow up hearing a lot of things about their freedom. You're told that you live in the freest country on the planet. You're told that other nations 'hate you' for your freedom. And you're told that you have the most open and fair justice system in the world. This justice system is supposedly founded on bedrock principles-- things like a defendant being presumed innocent until proven guilty. The right to due process and an impartial hearing. The right to counsel and attorney-client privilege. Yet each...

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- A story that sounds like a movie script is slowly grinding its way to trial. All of the 29 defendants in the massive corruption case involving suspended State Senator Leland Yee and reputed gangster Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow appeared in federal court Thursday. With so many defendants, lawyers, and documents, the judge is trying to set up a system to manage what could be an unwieldy trial. What makes it even harder is that not everyone's on the same page. The frustration is beginning to show. There are 29 defendants, even more lawyers, a 137 page...

Demonstration against Neo-Nazism in Dresden (13 February 2012) When I was being trained as a peace officer, the subject of searching or "frisking" citizens was addressed several times.   Some of the training seemed to be  more about how to finesse the legal boundaries than the necessity of respecting citizens' rights.   I vividly remember one instructor saying: "I have never heard of a judge throwing out a case where a weapon was actually found." The pendulum seems to be swinging back the other way. From AP at FindLaw.com: The judges ordered that the officers' discovery of the loaded pistol carried...

In 2012, the voters of Louisiana approved a constitutional amendment to the state Constitution that removed the constitutional provision that gave the State the power to regulate concealed weapons.   It added the requirement that the court use the strongest level of judicial review, strict scrutiny, for Amendment 2 cases.   There is a a good discussion of the history behind this amendment at the Volokh Conspiracy, by David Kopel.  The amendment passed with over 73 percent of the vote. The court has already upheld bans on the possession of handguns by minors without parental approval and on felons on...

It took more than 400 years, but the infamous Lancashire Witches have finally got justice. The city of Lancaster, where 12 were convicted and 10 of them hanged in 1612, corrected one of history’s most celebrated miscarriages of justice with a re-trial in a busy shopping centre. Panels of jurors invited to sit in judgement on the case through the day returned a not guilty verdict. The “witches” of Pendle, including rival matriarchs Demdike and Chattox, were fitted up. A bit late, maybe. But at least the poor souls who were rounded up around Pendle Hill and subjected to a...

A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld Texas' tough abortion restrictions that have led to the closure of nearly 20 clinics around the state, saying the new rules don't jeopardize women's health. A panel of judges at the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court judge who said the rules violate the U.S. Constitution and served no medical purpose. Despite the lower court's ruling, the appeals court already had allowed some rules to go into effect while it considered the case. The latest decision means more regulations will begin later this year, as scheduled, and sets...

A frustrated chief justice told Kenyans on Tuesday that even witchdoctors could help them resolve their disputes without taking each other to the overburdened courts. Willy Mutunga, a respected lawyer, was appointed in 2011 to reform a judiciary widely seen as in the pay of the political elite and to cut red tape, at a time when many Kenyans had lost confidence in the courts. Opening a new court building in Kiambu county near Nairobi, Mutunga said he was concerned that the growing demand for court services was adding to a backlog of thousands of lawsuits.

Abu Ghaith is on trial in Manhattan federal court for conspiring to kill AmericansJurors in the trial of alleged Al Qaeda operative Suleiman Abu Ghaith on Monday watched videos of the defendant warning of a "storm" of airplane attacks a month after Sept 11, 2001.

If the most disturbing, if underreported, news from yesterday, was Obama's "modification" of NSA capabilities, which contrary to his earlier promises, was just granted even greater powers as phone recording will now be stored for even longer than previously, then this latest development from the Supreme Court - one which some could argue just voided the Fourth amendment - is even more shocking. RT reports that the US Supreme Court has ruled that police may search a home without obtaining a warrant despite the objection of one occupant if that occupant has been removed from the premises. With its 6...

When a hypertotalitarian banana republic takes another turn for the gigasurreal, even Elon Musk is speechless. In the most glaring example of how farcical idiocy has become the new normal, we will remind readers (especially those who do not follow us on twitter), of the following blurb from last night: