Free Republic

Just in time for the holidays, ATRA, or the American Tort Reform Association, as they’ve done the past several years, has announced their list of the year’s Judicial Hellholes. The organization describes the hellholes thusly: Judicial Hellholes are places where judges systematically apply laws and court procedures in an inequitable manner, generally against defendants in civil lawsuits. . . . Not coincidentally, the local or state economies in many of these Hellholes jurisdictions have suffered more than most during the latest recession. And while reasonable people may disagree about the specific rankings assigned to each, no one can reasonably argue...

The stage is being set for a major ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on the question of whether the United States judiciary actually can enforce the provisions of the U.S. Constitution. The basic question is being raised as an appeal is being assembled to a district judge's decision to dismiss at legal challenge to President Barack Obama's occupancy in the Oval Office based on claims he doesn't even qualify for the position under the requirements of the U.S. Constitution. WND previously reported when U.S. District Judge David Carter decided to dismiss the complaint that listed several...

-- Vote could come as early as MondayHe has been called "extreme" by some. But to others, he's beyond extreme... he's a "Radical's Radical."  Whatever he is, he could become President Obama's next choice for the federal judiciary. This radical is Judge David Hamilton, and he's been nominated for a position on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Hamilton has made many political enemies on the right, seeing that his politics are to the far left of the political spectrum.  Oh yes, judges aren't supposed to be political, but this one has engaged in quite a bit of leftist activism....

Joan Orie Melvin, a Republican judge from Western Pennsylvania, prevailed in the Philadelphia suburbs yesterday to claim a decisive win in the hard-fought battle for a vacancy on the state Supreme Court. Melvin's victory shifts the political balance on the state's most powerful bench to Republican, and could portend a re-energized conservative base in the 2010 gubernatorial and congressional elections.

A panel concludes its investigation of the 9th Circuit's chief judge after he says he has stopped e-mailing his 'gag list.' No action is taken against him.Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, has apologized for having maintained an e-mail "gag list" in which he distributed crude jokes and other humorous material, according to an opinion made public Tuesday. Kozinski was admonished earlier this year in a separate case for being "judicially imprudent" and "exhibiting poor judgment" by placing sexually explicit photos and videos on an Internet server that could be accessed by the public....

Cruel to Be Kind? by: Brittany Fortier, August 27, 2009 One of the more controversial trends in the criminal justice system today is the lobbying effort currently underway to abolish life-without-parole for juvenile offenders. Anti-incarceration activists seek to extend the Supreme Court’s ruling in Roper v. Simmons, which prohibited the death penalty in the cases for juveniles. If they are successful, the “cruel and unusual punishment” analysis used in Roper will be applied to life-without-parole sentences. A panel of legal experts discussed this issue at the Heritage Foundation on August 17, 2009. Paul Wallace, Chief of Appeals at the Delaware...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's Supreme Leader appointed Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani as the new head of the country's judiciary on Saturday, state television reported. Some reformist websites had recently reported that Larijani was hesitant to accept the position because of the mass arrests of moderate detainees over unrest that erupted after the country's disputed June 12 presidential election. He will face controversy straight away -- the semi-official ISNA news agency said a new trial would start on Sunday of 25 opposition supporters detained after the election. Larijani, a brother of parliament speaker Ali Larijani and a member of Iran's hardline constitutional...

Federal law now criminalizes activities that the average person would never dream would land him in prison. ---------------------------cut--------------------------- Every year, thousands of upstanding, responsible Americans run afoul of some incomprehensible federal law or regulation and end up serving time in federal prison. What is especially disturbing is that it could happen to anyone at all -- and it has. We should applaud Reps. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), then, for holding a bipartisan hearing today to examine how federal law can make a criminal out of anyone, for even the most mundane conduct. --------------------------------------cut------------------ This is an inevitable...

Along largely partisan lines, the Senate Judiciary Cmte backed SCOTUS appointee Sonia Sotomayor, Pres. Obama's first high court pick, this morning by a 13-6 vote. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was the only Republican to support Sotomayor. The Senate cmte's Dems voted unanimously for the Bronx native. The full Senate will vote next, but with the Dems' 60-vote majority, Sotomayor's confirmation is all but a done deal. She will be the first individual of Hispanic heritage to sit on the SCOTUS.

"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" -- Emma Lazarus, "The New Colossus" (engraved on pedestal of Statue of Liberty) Foreign litigants suing American companies for torts committed abroad hope the golden door swings open into American courtrooms, even when the conduct and events underlying their claims occurred in far-off lands and have no effect on U.S. citizens. With increased frequency, American companies conducting operations abroad face lawsuits in American courts by...

<p>Speaking of judicial empathy, where was the empathy for the helpless Terri Schiavo as she was dehydrated to death by judicial order, without even the simple kindness of allowing the grieving parents to whet her blistering lips as she was being tortured to death?</p>

This one's going to blow baby boomers' minds. It concerns a little-known law dating to Elizabethan England suddenly being enforced with gusto in Pennsylvania. The law can force adult children to pay their parents' health-care costs. If Mom and Pop can't pay, you pay. If they have the money but refuse to pay, you pay. If you don't, watch your credit rating sink under the weight of a legal judgment that will haunt you for life. It happened to Don Grant. It can happen to you. The Havertown man is nearly 50 and struggling to pay his mortgage and $100,000...

WASHINGTON - Former Bush White House official Karl Rove was questioned by House Judiciary Committee lawyers Tuesday on any role he may have played in politically motivated firings of U.S. attorneys.

It seems that every time we have a contentious judicial nomination process, especially for the Supreme Court, a great fuss is made over not asking certain questions. More to the point, we're told that nominees should not answer questions that could disclose how they may rule on certain issues in the future. Hogwash. The problem with this notion is that the federal judiciary has grown ever more powerful over the years versus our other branches of government. Further, the Supreme Court is held to be the final arbiter of what the Constitution actually "means" at any given point in time...

WASHINGTON – The House on Friday impeached a federal judge imprisoned for lying about sexual assaults of two women, in the first such vote since impeaching former President Bill Clinton a decade ago. The impeachment of U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent of Texas sets up a trial in the Senate. Kent is the first federal judge impeached in 20 years. The House approved four articles of impeachment against Kent accusing him of sexually assaulting two female employees and lying to judicial investigators and Justice Department officials. All four articles passed unanimously.

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, in the Republican Party's weekly message, said today that confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor will be respectful, but he also warned that any evidence her personal history would shape her decision-making will be challenged forcefully. "Although we sometimes take our heritage of neutral and independent judiciary for granted, the truth is, this great tradition is under attack. And the American people are rightly concerned," Sessions said in the GOP address distributed nationally as a counterpoint to President Barack Obama's weekly address. ... In his remarks, Sessions maintained his cordial approach to...

This is Mr. Speaker’s second time on the schmuck list. (First time was last year when he jumped on the man-made global warming climate change bandwagon.) Congrats, Newt. Sorry, but Newt Gingrich is a wuss. After calling Sonia Sotomayor a racist for her 2001 comment that a Latina woman would make better conclusions than a white man, he since has retracted it, admitting he was too harsh. Rather than sticking to his guns, he took the political way out. And naturally, the Obamedia is enjoying reporting on this supposed arrival at decency. (Because we know Democrats have never smeared or...

First lady Michelle Obama used some high-profile examples - including Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor - to reassure high school graduates any doubts they have about how they will do in college and beyond are not unusual. She mentioned her own anxieties when first starting at Princeton University, as well as the concerns of Sotomayor, the first Hispanic considered for the nation's highest court. Sotomayor attended Princeton before Mrs. Obama and has said the surroundings intimidated her. "I don't know if you know about this phenomenal woman, but the president - she's the president's nominee for the Supreme Court -...

Judges should never show special "empathy" for the downtrodden and unfortunate. To do so not only undermines the integrity of the legal system, but goes against Biblical morality. How do we know? Because the Hebrew Scriptures are explicit and unequivocal on this issue, as I explained in a column a month ago. The controversy over the Sotomayor nomination gives that column fresh (and, if I do say so, prophetic) relevance. In fact, I suspect that in her confirmation hearings Judge Sotomayor will display the good sense to back away from some of the most controversial recent statements that she has...

Judge Sonia Sotomayor, Barack Obama's pick to replace David Souter on the United States Supreme Court, will be confirmed. Nothing anyone can do or say can prevent that. Republicans are falling all over themselves trying to determine whether it is in their best interest to make a show out of fighting her nomination. The infighting among conservatives escalated to a head this past week with Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich calling her a racist, and former congressman Tom Tancredo comparing the organization La Raza, of which Sotomayor is a card carrying member, to the Ku Klux Klan without the white...

How President Obama's choice for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, will place identity politics and liberal ideology above the Constitution.

Unless you've taken a very long Memorial Day vacation, you've no doubt heard the big news. President Obama has picked an anti-gun radical to replace Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court. Obama's pick is Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who is currently on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second District. There she has racked up an anti-Second Amendment record and has displayed contempt for the rule of law under the Constitution. The Heller decision put the Supreme Court in support of the Constitutional protection of the individual right to keep and bear arms. Sotomayor, a politically correct lover of...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Friday personally sought to deflect criticism of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, who finds herself under intensifying scrutiny for saying in 2001 that a female Hispanic judge would often reach a better decision than a white male judge. "I'm sure she would have restated it," Obama flatly told NBC News, without indicating how he knew that. The quote in question from Sotomayor has emerged as a rallying call for conservative critics who fear she will offer opinions from the bench based less on the rule of law and more on her life experience, ethnicity...

During a segment on Friday’s “American Morning,” CNN correspondent Carol Costello used two liberal talking heads to cast doubt on the “judicial activist” label used by conservatives. Costello used three sound bites from Jonathan Turley of George Washington University Law School, who branded the use of the term as “perfectly juvenile,” and one from NPR’s Nina Totenberg to cast aspersions on conservatives who are concerned about judges legislating from the bench. Costello’s report, which began 20 minutes into the 6 am Eastern hour of the CNN program, began by labeling the “judicial activist” term itself an “act” by politicians: “We...

You probably wouldn’t know it from the sycophantic Obamedia, but guess what? Not all minorities are jived about President Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. They’re actually not star stuck by the “historic” nomination of this Hispanic woman. (just as, not surprisingly, they weren’t so taken by the “historic” candidacy of Barack Obama). Some actually see Sonia Sotomayor for exactly who she is: A leftist activist judge who was appointed by a leftist president hell-bent on using her to achieve in the Supreme Court whatever he can’t from his throne in the Oval Office. Alicia Colon of...

 We've set up a "Supreme Court Action Center" where you can find pretty much everything you'll need to work your Senators over when it comes to the nomination of Sandra Sotomayer.We've got facts, video links, commentary, press releases and more.You can also link to our "No Liberal Judges" campaign and fax your senators, (even all Republicans or all Democrats), and let them know how you feel.If you come across other information that you think would be useful to others, please visit the page and leave a comment w/information or links. We'll then make it available on the site.

When President Bush named his two male Supreme Court nominees, he invariably called them "Judge Roberts" and "Judge Alito." Sotomayor is every bit as much a judge, but Obama calls her "Sonia." As in: "Well, Sonia, what you've shown in your life is that it doesn't matter where you come from, what you look like or what challenges life throws your way -- no dream is beyond reach in the United States of America." That hackneyed line would feel right in place at a high school graduation.

How will the GOP react to President Obama's pick to replace Justice David Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court? Who cares? It doesn't matter what Senate Republicans think of Sonia Sotomayor. The GOP does not have the votes to stop her. Only Democrats - or Sotomayor herself - can torpedo the admission of Sotomayor to the Big Bench. The fascination with the GOP's response to Sotomayor illustrates that Democrats are desperate to make Republican criticism, not Sotomayor, the issue. It's true: Republicans can raise questions about Obama's nominee, but only Democratic answers will determine her fate. So far, they seem...

Judge Sonia Sotomayor is a self-described “Newyorkrican,” the daughter of parents who moved from Puerto Rico to the Bronx. In speeches to Latino groups, she has echoed some of the same themes as President Obama about growing up as a minority, and feeling she never completely fit in anywhere. “I am always looking over my shoulder, wondering if I measure up,” she’s said. Sotomayor, 54, was nominated by Obama Tuesday to replace retiring Justice David Souter. If confirmed, she would be the first Hispanic justice — and third woman — to serve on the nation’s highest court. As a judge,...

<p>Evidently, the characteristics that matter most for a potential nominee to the Supreme Court have little to do with judicial ability or temperament, or even so ephemeral a consideration as a knowledge of the law. Instead, the tag line for this appointment says it all. The president wants to choose "a daughter of Puerto Rican parents raised in Bronx public housing projects to become the nation's first Hispanic justice."</p>

The vice president can't complain if Republicans object to Obama's Supreme Court nominee. Vice President Joe Biden is widely praised for the expertise he brings in helping Barack Obama choose a replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter. Having served for three decades on the Senate Judiciary Committee, he is considered an asset both for his relationships with committee members and his familiarity with the nuts and bolts of judicial nominations. So let's have a look at how the confirmation process actually fared under Mr. Biden's leadership. As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Biden was present...

Now that Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. has been named the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, some on the far-left are gunning for Alabama's junior senator. The battle is happening as President Barack Obama is on the verge of naming an appointee to the Supreme Court to fill void of Justice David Souter.Some of the left-wing points that suggest Sessions has racist tendencies were incorporated into a May 6 Politico story by John Bresnahan and Manu Raju. "By elevating Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions to their top spot on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Republicans have selected their chief inquisitor for...

With the hearings for President Barack Obama’s first Supreme Court nominee looming, Senate Republican leaders have tapped tried-and-true conservative Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., as the new ranking member on the Judiciary Committee — but only for two years. In a deal aimed at preserving the Senate’s long-used seniority system, Sessions will step aside in 2011 for Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who some conservatives say may not be tough enough on the liberal views of some judicial nominees. Republicans have been debating who should replace Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who was the panel’s ranking member but switched to the Democratic Party...

founders of America designed our system of government so that policy would be created by the representatives of the people/states in Congress, with the President’s approval (subject to Congressional override) needed before any given policy is made into law. The courts were intended to simply apply law created by Congress and approved by the President to a given situation. But the courts have long since began to make policy on their own. The states were prohibited from making abortion illegal, for instance, not through a vote of Congress but rather through the arbitrary fiat of unelected judges. That’s now how...

Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals is one of the likely candidates to replace Justice Souter. Chuck Schumer has been pushing her name and she meets Obama's stated interest in increasing diversity on the bench (she's Hispanic). "All of the legal defense funds out there-- they're looking for people with court of appeals experience. Because court of appeals is where policy is made. And I know, I know this is on tape and I should never say that because we don't make law. [Laughs] I know. I know. [Laughter] I'm not promoting it, I'm not advocating...

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) will take over the ranking member position on the Senate Judiciary Committee after striking a deal with his more senior colleagues over the weekend, sources confirm to The Hill. Sessions and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) reached the deal that will allow the Alabama Republican to take over for Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), whose departure from the GOP last week left the committee without a ranking member. Under terms of the deal, Sessions will serve as ranking member until the 112th Congress, when he will take over the ranking member post on the Senate Budget Committee. Current...

A Louisiana judge previously suspended for violating judicial conduct rules in a separate incident has been arrested and charged with corruption for taking bribes to alter defendants’ bonds. It marks the third case in the last decade that a Louisiana state judge is criminally charged for bond manipulation. Jefferson Parish judges Ronald Bodenheimer and Alan Green both went to jail for taking bribes from a bail bonds executive to alter bonds for the firm’s customers. Those judges got busted during an extensive federal investigation—Operation Wrinkled Robe—into Jefferson Parish Courthouse corruption. Bodenheimer spent nearly four years in prison and Green is...

there is no reason to expect that a Supreme Court justice appointed by President Obama will be significantly worse than Justice David Souter has been. But there is still less reason to hope that he or she will be any better than Souter. It has been a long time since the Democratic Party seemed capable of generating Supreme Court appointees who had any reliable notions of judicial restraint, let alone an attachment to originalism. This is the party that once gave us justices like Felix Frankfurter, Robert Jackson, Fred Vinson, and Byron White—all of whom would find themselves on the...

As Senate Republicans scramble to determine who will succeed Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter as the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Charles E. Grassley , R-Iowa, has some decisions to make — and perhaps even some favors to call in. In the coming days, panel Republicans must decide who will be ranking member for the rest of the 111th Congress. In the end, they may have to choose whether to install a conservative hard-liner — Alabama’s Jeff Sessions — now or preserve a spot for a more moderate “Old Bull” — Grassley — in the 112th Congress. For the various factions...

In a decision that could force Silicon Valley's largest water provider to refund millions — or perhaps tens of millions — of dollars to its customers, a judge on Thursday ruled that one of the Santa Clara Valley Water District's primary fees is illegal. Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Kevin Murphy found that the district's "groundwater extraction fee" requires voter approval under Proposition 218, a state law passed in 1996.

Members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee today rejected an opportunity to protect Christian pastors who preach the biblical condemnation of homosexuality and approved on a 15-12 vote a "hate crimes" bill that supporters admit could be used to bring charges against religious leaders.

....Birthed in Gold Rush calamity and come of age on the lawless frontier, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has been resolving disputes for 150 years in a region once prone to settling differences with pistols at high noon. If one looks closely at the bench in the main courtroom, there is a nick left by a bullet fired during the 1917 Hindu German Conspiracy Trial. Conservatives have been gaining sway over a court that for many years was widely perceived as one of the country's last bastions of judicial liberalism. Now, President Obama is about to start putting...

Loyal to Liberty This week the Iowa Supreme Court issued an opinion declaring its view that a state law banning same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. News articles reporting the opinion state that "the ruling becomes effective April 24." Many news services and publications reporting the story use language that suggests that this opinion makes same-sex marriages legal in Iowa. The Iowa Court's opinion, like all such rulings, constitutes a judicial insurrection that assaults unalienable right in a fashion that threatens the existence of democratic self- government in the United States. (I have elsewhere made the arguments, based on American principles of...

Judges are going to be the cultural death of this country.  Or at least they'll be its handmaiden.Just this morning, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the state's law banning gay marriage is unconstitutional. They have just thrown the will of the people of the state of Iowa under the bus, placing themselves above the people. Iowa became the first state in the Midwest to approve same-sex marriage on Friday, after the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously decided that a 1998 law limiting marriage to a man and a woman was unconstitutional.The decision was the culmination of a four-year legal...

There should be no more arrests or convictions for tax fraud, non-payment of taxes or vehicular homicide until Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Senator Ted Kennedy are tried for their "alleged" crimes! Are we a republic or an oligarchy? Why do powerful men and women get off scot-free when lower and middle-class people rot in a jail cell or prison for similar (or lesser) crimes?! "Equal Justice Under The Law" is what's inscribed on the front of the Supreme Court building in Washington! When will that become a reality?! We are either a nation of laws or men, we cannot...

The state of Wyoming has adopted a resolution to inform Washington bureaucrats and bureaucracies of its opposition to any plans to hold a Constitutional Convention that would recommend changes or alterations to the nation's founding document. House Enrolled Joint Resolution 3 was signed recently by Democratic Gov. Dave Freudenthal. The Wyoming Family Coalition said the measure, sponsored by state Rep. Bob Brechtel, R-Casper, is intended to announce the state's opposition to "any attempts to dismantle the United States Constitution which has generally served the country well for nearly 230 years." WND reported earlier when Wyoming legislators expressed alarm at the...

Busy week, busy people, and somehow I missed Matthew Vadum's report revealing that President Obama's first judicial appointee, David Hamilton, is a former ACORN fundraiser. I didn't see it until it was mentioned in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review today. Michelle Malkin has a whole blog category devoted to "ACORN Watch," so how she missed this one I don't know, but Twitter is an amazing tool: rsmccain@michellemalkin Michelle, please prepare to blow a gasket http://tinyurl.com/cdcszj #tcot So we're now in gasket-blowing countdown mode. Will let you know when Mt. Malkin erupts.

How many people out there think what's really been missing from the process of nominating federal judges...what's REALLY needed...is the input of the American Bar Association?? Well that's what the Bamster thinks. And he's brought them back into the loop, after having been kicked out of the loop by W years ago. And why were they put out of the process to begin with? Because what everyone in the know already knew became more and more obvious - that the organization is liberal, overly politicized and takes an official pro-abortion stance. Which explains why The One wants them back in...

Well, we can't say we didn't see this one coming...or that real conservatives everywhere didn't warn all their friends before they voted for this guy last November...but here we are. Obama first federal judicial pick is judge David Hamilton, and is the nominee for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals...and surprise, he's a pro-abortion liberal. "President Barack Obama has nominated his first pro-abortion judicial candidate as he named David Hamilton as his first Appeals Court nominee. Hamilton is a former Clinton nominee whom Obama has appointed to serve on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals." "Hamilton was initially appointed by...

Controversy over the American Bar Association's ratings of potential judicial nominees is likely to continue with the announcement that the bar group will resume its role of evaluating candidates before their nominations. In fact, a soon-to-be-released study by political scientists concludes what conservative groups have long charged: The ratings are biased against potential conservative nominees. Political scientists Richard Vining of the University of Georgia, Amy Steigerwalt of Georgia State University and Susan Smelcer, an Emory University doctoral candidate, will present their findings next month at the Midwest Political Science Association's 67th Annual National Conference. The three academics, all of whom...