Free Republic

While political partisanship flourishes in the halls of Congress, it has no place in the chambers of the U.S. Supreme Court, the chief justice said Friday in remarks to Nebraska law students. Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. said he worries that the partisan rancor of the age has skewed the public understanding of the court’s role in government. During a 55-­minute talk at the University of Nebraska College of Law, he stressed that the rule of law, rather than politics, drives the court’s decisions. “We are not Democrats and Republicans in how we go about it,” he told an audience...

The Kansas Supreme Court sided Thursday with Democrats attempting to remove their candidate from the ballot in Kansas’s razor-tight Senate race, a blow to incumbent Republican Sen. Pat Roberts’ reelection prospects. The withdrawal of the Democratic nominee in the race, Chad Taylor, clears a path for independent Greg Orman to challenge Roberts one-on-one. Polls show Orman leading in the contest in a head-to-head matchup. Although Taylor announced earlier this month that he was ending his campaign, Republican Secretary of State Kris Kobach had ruled that Taylor’s name must remain on the ballot because his withdrawal failed to meet the precise...

Michael Brown’s body may be gone, but a serious effort is afoot in St. Louis County to assassinate his character — just as a Missouri grand jury is deciding whether to charge police officer Darren Wilson in his killing last month. Judge Ellen Levy Siwak, a St. Louis County Circuit Court judge, had to deny two separate petitions Tuesday by media outlets trying to get their hands on Brown’s juvenile criminal records. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch and GotNews.com are both seeking the records, even though a juvenile court official said last week that Brown had no serious felony convictions as...

An illegal immigrant who killed two children in a hit-and-run accident is not only avoiding deportation from the United States, she won’t receive any prison time at all. Cinthya Garcia-Cisneros, an illegal immigrant, recently had her immigration case dismissed, despite the fact that she was convicted of two felonies for a hit-and-run that resulted in the tragic deaths of two young girls. On top of the fact that her case was dismissed—although the reason for dismissal and the judge’s name have not been released—Garcia-Cisneros received no prison time for her conviction, an example of how the immigration laws in the...

The news came out yesterday afternoon that yet another blow had been dealt to Chris McDaniel’s ongoing challenge to his runoff election against Thad Cochran. The ruling seemed to bear very little – if any – relevance to questions about voting improprieties at the ballot box, and everything to do with some paperwork. A Mississippi judge has tossed out state Sen. Chris McDaniel’s challenge to that state’s June 24 GOP primary runoff results, ending another chapter in one of the most bitterly contested U.S. Senate primaries in recent memory and bringing longtime Sen. Thad Cochran one step closer to...

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A Louisiana district judge removed Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal’s executive order banning Common Core testing on Tuesday. Mr. Jindal has been fighting an uphill battle since June with the state’s board of education to combat Louisiana’s participation in PARCC, a collective of states working together to develop standardizes testing based on Common Core. In a written opinion, Judge Todd Hernandez, said the injunction on testing that was granted at Mr. Jindal’s request caused anxiety within the school system. “The evidence is clear that this state of the unknown has caused anxiety and other harm to the parents, teachers, administrators and...

A transgender man in Arizona who gave birth to three children after beginning to change from female to male can continue to pursue a divorce, a state appeals court said Wednesday in reversing a judge who refused to end the marriage. A three-judge panel of the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled that Thomas Beatie's marriage to Nancy Beatie in Hawaii in 2003 is considered valid in Arizona and concluded it wasn't a same-sex union. Last year, a lower court judge denied the divorce request and ruled that Arizona's ban on same-sex marriages prevented the marriage from being recognized as valid.

For the second time in eight days, a South Florida circuit judge has declared the state's gay marriage ban unconstitutional and ordered that same-sex couples be allowed to marry.

A federal appeals court panel ruled Tuesday that the University of Texas can continue using race as a factor in undergraduate admissions as a way of promoting diversity on campus, the latest in an ongoing case that made it to the U.S. Supreme Court last year only to be sent back to lower courts for further review. In a 2-1 ruling, judges from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that barring the university from using race would ultimately lead to a less diverse student body in defiance of previous legal precedent that promoting diversity was an important part...

Deep in the nation’s Bible Belt, new signs emerged this weekend of an evolution among Republican governors on gay marriage, an explosive social issue that has divided America’s families and politics for years. While the Republican Party’s religious conservatives continue to fight against same-sex marriage, its governors appear to be backing off their opposition- in their rhetoric, at least. For some, the shift may be more a matter of tone than substance as the GOP tries to attract new voters ahead of the midterm elections. Nonetheless, it is a dramatic turn for a party that has long been defined by...

An Australian Judge has implied that incest is okay ad to make matters worse he suggested legalized abortion can get rid of children that may be born deformed from the relationship. According to The Independent, District Court Judge Garry Neilson has been criticized for espousing the view that sexual contact between siblings or between adults and children should perhaps no longer be viewed as “unnatural” or “taboo”, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. australiajudgeNeilson drew parallels with widely changing attitudes towards gay sex. In the same way, he said, “a jury might find nothing untoward in the advance of a brother...

The US government has forced the state of Oklahoma to overturn its anti-Sharia bill, after a Muslim man named Muneer Awad sued the state for supposed violations against “freedom of religion.” CAIR also played a role in subverting the bill. Adam Soltani of CAIR said: Sharia is the moral code of conduct for Muslims, and that includes certain aspects of laws, like marital laws, divorce, inheritance, wills…it encompasses part of that, but it’s also the moral code of conduct The state of Oklahoma must now pay $303,333 to Awad for legal fees, costs and nontaxable expenses. The money is going...

Here's a safe prediction: Florida's same-sex marriage ban is going down. The end could come soon if a Miami-Dade County judge sides with six couples who claim that the ban is unconstitutional. On Wednesday their attorney asked Judge Sarah Zabel to award the plaintiffs summary judgment, meaning they would win without a trial because the facts are clear. Zabel will rule in a few weeks. Based on what has happened in the year since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, however, the six couples should be optimistic. Nearly two dozen consecutive judicial rulings have gone...

Their unusually strident dissent written by Sotomayor said the Wheaton injunction threatened the credibility of the Hobby Lobby decision. "Those who are bound by our decisions usually believe they can take us at our word," Sotomayor wrote. "Not so today." The point of the dissent? "It is not the business of this court to ensnare itself in the government's ministerial handling of its affairs in the manner it does here," Sotomayor wrote.

Just in time for the Fourth of July, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it has added a new regulatory weapon to its arsenal. In a Federal Register notice on July 2 titled “Administrative Wage Garnishment,” the EPA stated that by the authority of the Debt Collection Improvement Act (DCIA ) of 1996 it issued a proposed rule that “will allow the EPA to garnish non-Federal wages to collect delinquent non-tax debts owed the United States without first obtaining a court order.” According to the Treasury Department, under DCIA, such debts include “unpaid loans, overpayments or duplicate payments made...

Judge rules against George Zimmerman in NBC lawsuit Zimmerman claimed defamation in edited 911 call SANFORD, Fla. - A judge on Monday ruled against George Zimmerman in a defamation lawsuit he filed against NBC Universal over edited 911 calls made after Trayvon Martin was shot and killed in 2012. In the ruling, Judge Debra S. Nelson said, "There are no genuine issues of material fact upon which a reasonable jury could find that the Defendants acted with actual malice."

The Rev. Peter Gregory of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Fort Wayne said he’s not surprised by Wednesday’s court ruling that overturns Indiana’s ban on same-sex marriages. “It’s a disappointment, but not a surprise the judge ruled in this way,” Gregory said. “The disappointment is that he failed to recognize what marriage is – a union between one man and one woman – and the unique social good that marriage between a man and a woman is.” While the courts may be sending the nation in a headlong rush toward gay marriage, Gregory said they will not be the final...

Approximately 150 representatives from among the world’s Chief Justices, Heads of Jurisdiction, Attorneys General, Auditors General, Chief Prosecutors, other high-ranking representatives of the judicial, legal and auditing professions, are gathering here in Nairobi as participants to the first ever session of the United Nations Assembly on the Environment. There is a formal aspect to what these legal experts are doing here, namely to “raise awareness for the role of environmental law as an indispensable tool on the path towards sustainable development and… identify the means by which the development and implementation of environmental rule of law can help ensure just...

A judge who condemned a Christian couple for turning away gay guests from their hotel yesterday said her decision may have been wrong. Supreme Court deputy president Baroness Hale called for a rethink on religious and gay rights six months after she rejected the B&B owners’ arguments in a key test case. Lady Hale said in a speech that the law has done too little to protect the beliefs of Christians. And she cast doubts over her own judgment in the landmark case in which a gay couple sued Christian hoteliers Peter and Hazelmary Bull.