Free Republic

Few thought that Brian Hagedorn would win the April 2 election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Reports of an anti-gay bias prompted groups that traditionally back conservative candidates to pull their support. Groups backing his liberal opponent, Lisa Neubauer, spent heavily on negative ads highlighting his anti-abortion views and paid speeches to what they referred to as an anti-gay “hate group.” Polling by a group backing Hagedorn showed him trailing badly as he headed into the final week of the campaign. Yet on Election Day, he edged out Neubauer by nearly 6,000 votes, thanks, some say, to a $1.3 million...

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that apprehended migrants do not have the right to be held in the same state as their children while in detention, thrusting the issue of migrant family separations back into the spotlight. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit affirmed a district court’s ruling that migrants do not have a “due process right to family unity.”

ROME - Italy’s Justice Ministry has ordered a preliminary inquiry into an appeals court ruling that overturned a rape verdict in part by arguing that the woman who was attacked was too ugly to be a credible rape victim. The ruling has sparked outrage in Italy, prompting a flash mob Monday outside the Ancona court, where protesters shouted “Shame!” and held up signs saying “indignation.” The appeals sentence was handed down in 2017 — by an all-female panel — but the reasons behind it only emerged publicly when Italy’s high court annulled it on March 5 and ordered a retrial....

An attorney who helped Gov. Chris Christie’s administration handle fallout from the “Bridgegate” investigation was confirmed Tuesday to a lifetime seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, based in Philadelphia, despite vigorous objections from New Jersey’s two Democratic senators. Paul Matey, a former deputy chief counsel under Christie, became only the second judge since at least 1979 to be confirmed while both of his home state senators opposed him — a further break with Senate tradition, which for decades has given deference to senators in both parties when it came to judicial nominees from their states.

Congress could never get away with creating constitutional rights for illegal aliens to remain here, yet a single lower court just did so on Thursday. And where Congress would face deep reprisal in the next election, faceless judges will never feel the heat. Conservatives fear that extreme Democrats might actually abolish ICE and all immigration enforcement, but the lower courts are already systematically abolishing ICE’s authority, nullifying immigration enforcement statutes, violating separation of powers, and constantly increasing the wave of bogus asylum-seekers that they originally spawned with other radical rulings. The latest ruling from the Ninth Circuit demonstrates that unless...

Mississippi just passed a fetal heartbeat law like the one Iowa passed last year, but it is unlikely to stick around long. Mississippi already had a less-restrictive 15-week bill blocked by a federal judge last year.Iowa’s law was “struck down” by an Iowa state court for violating the Iowa State Constitution, but if it hadn’t been, a federal court likely would have blocked it. In Ohio, the new governor says he will sign a heartbeat bill that former governor John Kasich vetoed because he was certain it would be defeated in the courts. It is hard to say he...

One of the fundamental differences between liberals and conservatives is how both view the Constitution. Conservatives believe that adhering to constitutional principles. if not the letter and spirit of the document, should be the guiding force of government. Liberals, on the other hand, see the Constitution as an impediment - something to be gotten around. Keep that difference in mind when you hear what former Attorney General Eric Holder had to say about the Supreme Court. Daily Beast: Former Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday that the next Democratic president should “seriously” consider adding additional seats to the United...

These new and soon-to-be judges will have a significant impact on the median political alignment of the 9th Circuit’s judicial compliment, and will likely make a difference in at least three ways: First, because the 9th Circuit decides many appeals in three-judge panels comprised of both active judges and older, often part-time judges — a group of 18 “senior” judges split 9-9 between Republican and Democratic appointees — these numbers mean any given panel will have a nearly even chance to draw a majority of Republican-appointed judges as Democrat-appointed ones. That means the 9th Circuit will boast a political balance...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer claim that President Donald Trump’s Southern Border National Emergency Proclamation is an unlawful declaration over a crisis that does not exist, and that it steals from urgently needed defense funds — that it is a power grab by a disappointed president who has gone outside the bounds of the law to try to get what he failed to achieve through the constitutional legislative process. In fact, this isn’t about the Constitution or the bounds of the law, and — in fact — there is a very real crisis at the...

(CNN)A judge has overturned a more than $37 million verdict awarded to the family of a woman killed in an armed standoff with Baltimore County police. Korryn Gaines, 23, was shot and killed in August 2016 after an hours-long standoff with police in Baltimore County. She was trying to livestream the encounter with police, authorities said at the time.

It’s hard to keep up with everything going on in Washington, but if there’s one thing constantly humming along in the background, it’s the Republican effort to push through President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to send 44 of Trump’s court picks to the Senate floor for a confirmation vote. That’s a huge number at once; progressive judicial advocacy groups dubbed the committee’s hearing a “monster markup.” Most of these nominees were introduced in the last Congress but didn’t get confirmed in time, so Republicans are expediting them in one big batch. Thursday’s action comes...

A California jury recently awarded $289 million in damages (later reduced to $78 million) to a former groundskeeper, who claimed the weed killer glyphosate caused his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and Monsanto deliberately or negligently failed to warn him adequately about the chemical’s cancer risks.The case is on appeal, and a second trial will soon begin before U.S. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria, who himself has 620 more glyphosate cases on his docket. Overall, more than 9,300 additional cases are in the works against Monsanto and its new owner, Bayer – and personal injury mass-tort law firms are trolling for more alleged...

I more or less lost interest in newspapers when my old boss Conrad Black stopped running them. His flagship Daily Telegraph in London is a pale shadow of its former self, and The Chicago Sun-Times is even more diminished, a pale shadow of a pale shadow. Lord Black's career as a publisher ended with a multi-count conviction in US federal court in the Northern District of Illinois for a "corporate governance" "crime" that none of his enemies can even explain. He was imprisoned, and, either because he's Canadian or a member of the House of Lords, was deemed ineligible for...

Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) may shed more than $40 billion worth of power purchase agreements after the California utility was driven into bankruptcy by liabilities for sparking deadly wildfires, The Wall Street Journal reports. PG&E wants the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in San Francisco to rule whether the company must honor $42 billion worth of contracts with about 350 different energy suppliers, mostly solar and wind plants. The court’s decision could have a major impact on California’s renewable energy industry and power makeup. Many green energy suppliers only do business with PG&E, California’s largest utility. Shedding those contracts would likely...

While trekking the internet I came across this article from March 2018 by David Faris in the Washington Post about packing the Supreme Court: Democrats must consider court-packing when they regain power. It’s the only way to save democracy. I did a search and came up with the book he wrote, "It’s Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics: It’s Time to Fight Dirty How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics The American electoral system is clearly falling apart—as evidenced by the 2016 presidential election. In It’s Time to Fight...

Recently, President Trump announced his 19th (yes, nineteenth) round of judicial nominees. The president has not only had two outstanding Supreme Court justices successfully confirmed, fulfilling a key campaign promise, but also has appointed a record number of lower federal court judges. With a new majority in the Senate, these well-qualified nominees should not have trouble being confirmed. It’s impossible to imagine victories like these without the vision and courage of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Justice Antonin Scalia’s death was not only a great loss, it was a moment of turmoil for our nation that tested the resolve of...

Amid the imbroglio over a partial furloughing of nonessential workers in a handful of federal departments, the political class has ignored that the government has already been shut down – in full and permanently. Individual district judges now control our national sovereignty, border policy, and every other political question. And now Chief Justice John Roberts has essentially barred the doors of the Supreme Court shut to any judicial redress of this judicial crisis One district judge said that children must be released. Then another one said parents must be released with the children. Then a district judge in D.C. said...

Over the last decade, California has led the nation in reducing its prison population. The state has shortened sentences and diverted some offenders to the counties for incarceration and supervision, transforming California’s criminal justice system into what supporters hope will become a humane model around the country. But amid the changes, crime has increased in recent years, sparking debate about the causes and giving ammunition to those leading a new effort to roll back some of the reforms. An analysis by the Marshall Project and the Los Angeles Times found that California’s crime rates remain near historic lows, but overall...

Judge John Bates of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia made the remarks Thursday at a townhall-style event on judicial independence in Philadelphia at the National Constitution Center. Though he did not name Trump specifically, his comments left little mystery as to whom he was referring. “There are a lot of pressures,” Bates said. “The pressures are fairly severe in some quarters. And there’s a risk of eating away at the rule of law, eating away at judicial independence, and that’s not easily recovered if it is impacted.” “‘Once the independence of judges is destroyed, the Constitution...

Immigration courts treat asylum seekers lackadaisically, incongruous to how our state and federal courts treat Americans and everyone else seeking a hearing. In our legal system, if you don’t show up for court when you’re supposed to, a bench warrant is ordered for your arrest, be it a civil or a criminal case. If you don’t show up, you get arrested the next time that you are stopped for a speeding violation and the officer sees you have a warrant out for your arrest. But the same does not hold for “asylum” seekers. When they don’t show up for court for...