Free Republic

A federal judge says Broward schools and the Sheriff’s Office had no legal duty to protect students during the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom dismissed a suit filed by 15 students who claimed they were traumatized by the crisis in February. The suit named six defendants, including the Broward school district and the Broward Sheriff’s Office, as well as school deputy Scot Peterson and campus monitor Andrew Medina. Bloom ruled that the two agencies had no constitutional duty to protect students who were not in custody. “The claim arises from the actions of...

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...

The Trump administration on Tuesday formally asked the Supreme Court to block a nationwide ban on the administration's new asylum policy that was unilaterally instituted by a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals judge last month. In a November news conference days before the midterm elections, Trump had vowed to turn away all asylum seekers who attempt to cross the border illegally instead of properly presenting themselves at ports of entry. The president, who has long said the asylum process is rife with fraud, said the emergency policy was necessary as the leading Central American migrant caravan approached the U.S. border...

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a temporary restraining order against a Trump administration policy that denies asylum to illegal aliens. The 2-1 decision is the latest setback the 9th Circuit has rendered to President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda. “Just as we may not, as we are often reminded, ‘legislate from the bench,’ neither may the executive legislate from the oval office,” Judge Jay Bybee wrote for the majority. Former President George W. Bush appointed Bybee to the bench, and the judge has a conservative reputation.

SAN FRANCISCO — A divided U.S. appeals court late Friday refused to immediately allow the Trump administration to enforce a ban on asylum for any immigrants who illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border. The ban is inconsistent with an existing U.S. law and an attempted end-run around Congress, a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a 2-1 decision. "Just as we may not, as we are often reminded, 'legislate from the bench,' neither may the Executive legislate from the Oval Office," 9th Circuit Judge Jay Bybee, a nominee of Republican President George W. Bush, wrote for...

Split 3rd Circuit Upholds NJ's Ban on Large-Capacity Gun Magazines The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has rejected a challenge to New Jersey’s ban on firearm magazines holding more than 10 rounds. The appeals court, by a 2-1 margin, said the law limiting high-capacity magazines does not violate the Second Amendment, the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause or the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The court affirmed an order from the U.S. District Court that denied challengers’ motion to preliminarily enjoin enforcement of the law. Judges Joseph Greenaway Jr. and Patty Shwartz ruled to affirm the lower court....

A federal appeals court on Tuesday struck down a portion of federal law that makes it a crime to encourage illegal immigration, ruling that the statute violates the First Amendment. “Criminalizing expression like this threatens almost anyone willing to weigh in on the debate,” Judge A. Wallace Tashima wrote in his opinion for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Politico reported. Federal prosecutors argued that the law should apply only to individuals who provide "substantial assistance" to immigrants entering or residing in the U.S. illegally, according to Politico, which noted that the law took effect before President Trump took office....

A federal judge in New York has ruled the Trump sanctuary city crackdown illegal Friday — but even went further and also ruled the law Congress passed requiring information-sharing is unconstitutional. Judge Edgardo Ramos‘ decision frees sanctuary jurisdictions in New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Washington, Massachusetts and Virginia to continue their policies without fear of losing federal money. The judge said the Trump administration attempted to write new conditions of cooperation, including notifying the feds of illegal immigrants ready for pickup, beyond what Congress had authorized. He said it is up to Congress to decide those conditions. “The...

A federal judge struck down Mississippi’s controversial law banning most abortions after 15 weeks about eight months after the Republican governor approved it. The law, called the Gestational Age Act, was considered to be the most restrictive in the U.S. It banned abortions after 15 weeks and only allowed for exemptions if the pregnancy threatened a woman's life or "major bodily function" or if the fetus would be “incompatible with life” outside of the womb. Exemptions would not be granted for pregnancies that resulted from rape or incest. Doctors who violated the ban would have faced mandatory suspension or revocation...

In Jackson Women's Health Organization v. Currier, (SD MS, Nov. 20, 2018), a Mississippi federal district court held unconstitutional a recently enacted Mississippi statute that prohibits most abortions after 15 weeks gestation. The court said in part: [T]he real reason we are here is simple. The State chose to pass a law it knew was unconstitutional to endorse a decades-long campaign, fueled by national interest groups, to ask the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. This Court follows the commands of the Supreme Court and the dictates of the United States Constitution, rather than the disingenuous calculations of the...

A liberal-leaning California-based federal appeals court that has often ruled against President Donald Trump dealt him another setback this week in a major immigration case and soon could be asked to weigh in on a pipeline project he has championed. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, has been a thorn in Trump’s side since he took office last year and has drawn the Republican president’s ire for its decisions in high-profile cases. See more examples

A federal judge on Tuesday ruled that the U.S. law banning female genital mutilation was unconstitutional and dismissed charges against several doctors in Michigan who carried out the procedure on underage girls as part Muslim sect’s religious practice.

<p>A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from denying asylum to migrants who illegally cross into the United States, saying the policy likely violated federal law on asylum eligibility.</p> <p>The judge pointedly denied the claim that the president, by fiat, could give the manner of entry added legal weight as a determinant of asylum. He reasoned that the “interpretive guide” of United Nations compacts on asylum lent extra force to congressional requirements. The intent of Congress, Tigar wrote, was “unambiguous.”</p>

One emailer wrote: ““You are a disgusting, vile Jew … This is OUR country: you’re merely living here (for now).” A caller said: “You should have died in the Holocaust with the rest of your people.” But the calls that most disturbed Tanya Gersh consisted only of the sound of gunshots being fired. The terror campaign — known as a “troll storm” — was the result of Daily Stormer publisher Andrew Anglin’s December 2016 directive, urging hundreds of thousands of readers to harass the Jewish woman and her family, according to court filings. Gersh sued the known neo-Nazi. On Wednesday,...

A Georgia federal judge ruled in favor of Democrat Stacey Abrams’ campaign Monday night, ordering election officials to review thousands of provisional ballots that have not been counted in the contested election for governor. Judge Amy Totenberg, a New Yorker who serves on the Atlanta-based court, said that the race cannot be officially certified until those ballots were counted. Many voters have complained they were told at polling stations they weren’t registered and had to file provisional ballots. Abrams would need to gain more than 20,000 votes to force a runoff against Republican Brian Kemp.

A federal judge blocked the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline Thursday, ruling that the Trump administration hadn’t justified changing President Obama’s earlier rulings. Judge Brian Morris of the U.S. District Court for Montana, who was appointed by Mr. Obama, handed environmentalists a huge victory by saying Mr. Trump’s decision to sign the permit for the Canada-to-Texas pipeline shortly upon taking office did not have a sufficient basis ....

All the Lefty Twitter blue-checks are touting the opinion of the toothless geezer John Paul Stevens that Brett Kavanaugh doesn't have the temperament to be on the Supreme Court. Stevens also believes that the Second Amendment should be abolished, and that Merrick Garland should have been given a hearing. He also believes that pixies steal his dentures when he can't find them.

The Trump administration’s plan to deport more than 300,000 undocumented immigrants whose home countries have been hit by disasters was blocked Wednesday by a San Francisco federal judge, who said the administration had abruptly changed federal policies without explanation and may have been motivated by racism. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen issued a nationwide injunction preserving temporary protected status for former residents of El Salvador, Nicaragua, Haiti and Sudan. President Trump’s Department of Homeland Security had decided to revoke that status for all four nations, eliminating the immigrants’ protections from deportation. The deportations had been scheduled to start with the...

KOIN 6 Reports: A lawsuit filed by a Democratic senator from Oregon aiming to compel the Trump administration to release 100,000 pages of documents on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is inching forward in federal court, with an Obama nominee assigned to hear it.Sen. Jeff Merkley’s lawsuit, filed Wednesday in federal court in the nation’s capital, has been overshadowed by sexual harassment accusations against the nominee, but the case remains alive, with summonses prepared for U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and others, court documents show.Now Merkley is asking the federal court to order the Trump administration, which has claimed executive...

A federal judge in San Francisco is asking whether President Trump’s “America first” agenda is camouflage for racial hostility. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen on Tuesday heard arguments over whether the Trump administration should be blocked from rolling back parts of George H.W. Bush-era humanitarian policy that offers foreign nationals U.S. residency from dangerous countries, Bloomberg reported. Roughly 300,000 people from El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Sudan could be deported if the Trump administration is successful in overturning sections of the policy, the news outlet noted. Chen noted a memo authored by former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Deputy Secretary...