Free Republic

New York businessman James Lieto was an innocent bystander in a fraud investigation last year. Federal agents seized $392,000 of his cash anyway. An armored-car firm hired by Mr. Lieto to carry money for his check-cashing company got ensnared in the FBI probe. Agents seized about $19 million—including Mr. Lieto's money—from vaults belonging to the armored-car firm's parent company. He is one among thousands of Americans in recent decades who have had a jarring introduction to the federal system of asset seizure. Some 400 federal statutes—a near-doubling, by one count, since the 1990s—empower the government to take assets from convicted...

Manassas, VA --(Ammoland.com)- It can be argued that the only personal property specifically protected by the US Constitution is firearms. While the Fourth Amendment promises “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects” and requires a sworn warrant “describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized,” it does specifically allow for such seizure if the “i’s” are properly dotted and the “t’s” correctly crossed. Similarly the Fifth Amendment guarantees against a person being “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private...

As federal criminal statutes have ballooned, it has become increasingly easy for Americans to end up on the wrong side of the law. Many of the new federal laws also set a lower bar for conviction than in the past: Prosecutors don't necessarily need to show that the defendant had criminal intent.

Pastor Harris Himes sent me this letter following the shocking verdict in the Gladney beatdown case. Pastor Himes and his wife Sandra witnessed the local SEIU thugs attack Kenneth Gladney outside a Russ Carnahan town hall event in 2009. They were there when the SEIU beat an innocent black man. Harris was obviously upset with the verdict yesterday. After a health care town hall meeting in August 2009 St. Louis native Kenneth Gladney was beaten, kicked and called racist names by Rep. Russ Carnahan’s SEIU supporters. Gladney spent the night in the hospital after the beating. Yesterday the two SEIU...

INDIANAPOLIS -- An Indiana Supreme Court ruling this week is a timely, cautionary reminder for Hoosiers who plan to consume alcohol over the holiday weekend. It is possible to be charged with public intoxication, even while in a vehicle with a designated driver. Police had arrested an Indiana woman who was drunk in the passenger seat of a car. The Supreme Court ruled that a public intoxication charge can stand against people in a car on a public street...

<p>ATLANTA — A federal judge on Monday blocked parts of Georgia's law cracking down on illegal immigration from taking effect until a legal challenge is resolved.</p> <p>Judge Thomas Thrash granted a request to block parts of the law that penalize people who knowingly and willingly transport or harbor illegal immigrants while committing another crime. He also blocked provisions that authorize officers to verify the immigration status of someone who can't provide proper identification.</p>

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...