Free Republic

INDIANAPOLIS -- A federal judge on Friday blocked the parts of Indiana's tough new abortion law that cuts off most of Planned Parenthood's public funding in the state because the organization provides abortions. U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt granted Planned Parenthood's request for an injunction in striking down the law's defunding provision as unconstitutional, and siding with federal Medicaid officials who have said states cannot disqualify Medicaid providers merely because they also offer abortions. The U.S. Justice Department also had filed a brief siding with Planned Parenthood, with attorneys saying the law restricts Medicaid recipients' freedom to choose their...

Billionaire George Soros spends tens of millions each year supporting a range of liberal social and political causes, from drug legalization to immigration reform to gay marriage to abolishing the death penalty. But a less well-known Soros priority -- replacing elections for judges with selection-by-committee -- now has critics accusing him of trying to stack the courts. Most non-federal judges around the country are selected by voters in elections. But some states use a process called “merit selection” in which a committee – often made up of lawyers – appoints judges to the bench instead. Soros has spent several million...

How could Wisconsin Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi do otherwise than strike down Gov. Scott Walker’s collective bargaining bill? Her son, remember, was a former field manager for both the Service Employees International Union and the AFL-CIO. Of course, Sumi promised her son’s prior affiliations wouldn’t affect her in any way. “My kids are adults, they are independent and they lead their own lives. I do not consult my family about my decisions,” she said in a statement in March, after conservative bloggers at Big Government and elsewhere first called the conflict to light. Maybe Sumi wasn’t biased against...

A Wisconsin judge has struck down a law taking away nearly all collective bargaining rights from most state workers. Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi ruled Thursday that Republican legislators violated Wisconsin's open meetings law during the run up to passage. She says that renders the law void.

The Fourth Amendment expressly imposes two requirements:All searches and seizures must be reasonable; and a warrant may notbe issued unless probable cause is properly established and the scope of the authorized search is set out with particularity. Although“ ‘searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are pre-sumptively unreasonable,’ ” Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U. S. 398, 403, this presumption may be overcome when “ ‘the exigencies of the situation’ make the needs of law enforcement so compelling that [a]warrantless search is objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment,”

INDIANAPOLIS | Overturning a common law dating back to the English Magna Carta of 1215, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Hoosiers have no right to resist unlawful police entry into their homes. In a 3-2 decision, Justice Steven David writing for the court said if a police officer wants to enter a home for any reason or no reason at all, a homeowner cannot do anything to block the officer's entry. "We believe ... a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence," David...

The Supreme Court is in no rush to either consider challenges to ObamaCare or consolidate them, at least not at the moment. Earlier today, the court passed on an opportunity to expedite the appeal process, turning down Virginia’s Ken Cuccinelli, despite his appeal for a fast-track review on constitutional grounds: The Supreme Court rejected a call Monday from Virginia’s attorney general to depart from its usual practice and put review of the health care law on a fast track. Instead, judicial review of President Barack Obama’s signature legislation will continue in federal appeals courts. The justices turned down a request...

Madison — Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi said Friday she will keep in place her order declaring that the collective bargaining law has not yet taken effect. Secretary of State Doug La Follette will remain barred from taking steps to implement the law.

As the dust settles in Madison, Wisconsin Republicans face a troubling coda: Gov. Scott Walker’s budget-repair bill is being tripped up in the courts. Union heavies smell blood. And the unruly parade of lefty activists and hulking Teamsters that occupied the state capitol for weeks is back for a bruising final round. On paper, at issue is whether senate Republicans violated the state’s open-meeting laws. In mid-March, after a three-week stalemate, GOP lawmakers hustled Walker’s bill to the floor. The senate clerk approved the maneuver. But 14 Democratic state senators, on the lam in Illinois, howled in absentia. So did...

A New Jersey court, Tuesday, took a step further in effectively tying Republican Governor Chris Christie’s hands on budget and education reform. Superior Court Judge Peter Doyne ruled that Christie’s budget cuts to school aid left public schools unable to provide a “thorough and efficient” education to New Jersey children. Now, the case goes to the state Supreme Court where those seven judges will decide whether to act on it or not. Doyne’s decision is based on a decades-old ruling in the case Abbott vs. Burke that says the New Jersey state government has to equalize funding for all public...

Abortion Has Caused 300K Breast Cancer Deaths Since Roe Washington, DC -- A leading breast cancer researcher says abortion has caused at least 300,000 cases of breast cancer causing a woman's death since the Supreme Court allowed virtually unlimited abortion in its 1973 case. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/01/17/abortion-has-caused-300k-breast-cancer-deaths-since-roe

Here, for reasons that I shall provide in a memorandum to be filed in due course, I am certain that “a reasonable person with knowledge of all the facts would [not] conclude that [my] impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” United States v. Nelson, 718 F.2d 315, 321 (9th Cir. 1983); see also Sao Paulo State of the Federated Republic of Brazil v. Am. Tobacco Co., 535 U.S. 229, 233 (2002) (per curiam). I will be able to rule impartially on this appeal, and I will do so. The motion is therefore DENIED.

Is using a forged Social Security Number -- but your own name -- to obtain employment or buy a car an identity theft crime? Lately, U.S. courts are saying it's not. The most recent judicial body to take on the issue, the Colorado Supreme Court, ruled last month that a man who used his real name but someone else's Social Security number to obtain a car loan was not guilty of "criminal impersonation," overturning convictions by lower courts. That follows a ruling last year by the U.S. Supreme Court that a Mexican man who gave a false SSN to get...

Federal Judge Blocks Red Light Camera Removal in Houston, Texas Houston, Texas city attorneys attempt to preserve red light camera program by throwing lawsuit filed with vendor. A federal judge issued an order last Friday blocking the immediate removal of red light cameras from Houston, Texas intersections. On November 2, voters adopted an amendment to the city charter making photo tickets unenforceable, against the wishes of the Houston city council and the private vendor that operates the cameras, American Traffic Solutions (ATS). Over the Thanksgiving holiday, US District Court for the Southern District of Texas Judge Lynn N. Hughes worked...

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved a bill that would give the Attorney General the right to shut down websites with a court order if copyright infringement is deemed “central to the activity” of the site — regardless if the website has actually committed a crime. The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) is among the most draconian laws ever considered to combat digital piracy, and contains what some have called the “nuclear option,” which would essentially allow the Attorney General to turn suspected websites “off.” COICA is the latest effort by Hollywood, the recording industry and...

Outrage is growing at the intersection of ideology and incompetence that is the jury's collapse in the trial of Ahmed Ghailani, declared acquitted in the murders of 224 innocents, including a dozen Americans.The outrage is growing as Americans learn more and more about how utterly avoidable this outrageous miscarriage of justice was. John Podhoretz's and Jennifer Rubin's criticisms are among the most pointed and both employ the damning word "debacle" in the title, and Powerline's Scott Johnson and John Hinderaker weigh in with "The Failure Option." Eric Holder who repeatedly declared his confidence in this process should resign and...

Sue Aitken called the police because she was worried about her son, Brian. She now lives with the guilt of knowing that her phone call is the reason Brian spent his 27th birthday in a New Jersey prison last month. If the state gets its way, he will be there for the next seven years. Aitken was sentenced in August after he was convicted of felony possession of a handgun. Before his arrest, Aitken, an entrepreneur and owner of a media consulting business, had no criminal record, and it appears he made a good-faith effort to comply with New Jersey's...

A convicted sex offender arrested in May after DNA evidence linked him to the death of a little girl was sentenced to life without parole Tuesday after negotiating a plea deal with prosecutors. Scott Eby's plea deal, accepted by Will County Judge Richard Schoenstedt, spares him from the death penalty for the rape and murder of Riley Fox. The courtroom was packed Tuesday with relatives and supporters of the Fox family. Reporters and court personnel were in tears as both Kevin and Melissa Fox read their victim's impact statements. Kevin went first, saying he has waited six years for this...

A temporary restraining order has been issued to block a state constitutional amendment that prohibits state courts from considering international or Islamic law when deciding cases. U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange handed down the ruling this morning in Oklahoma City following a brief hearing.

Although voters abolished Houston's red light camera system Tuesday, the 70 cameras have the green light to keep recording traffic violations for months as the city weighs a legal strategy for exiting its contract with the firm operating the cameras, city officials say. Anti-camera activists slammed the delay Wednesday, insisting on immediately terminating the five-year contract — whatever the cost - with ATS, the Arizona firm that manages Houston's system. The May 2009 contract has a termination clause that requires the city to provide the company with a 120-day notice of cancellation, a period when the cameras will still be...