Free Republic

Corrupt federal prosecutors presenting false evidence in order to shake down a blameless corporation and bring in tens of millions of dollars seems like a pretty dramatic story. Especially when former prosecutors support the charge and a chief judge acts on the allegations and takes dramatic action. Yet the media silence is deafening. Eric Holder’s Justice Department is implicated in a dramatic and shocking case of alleged corruption that is so bad that the Chief Judge of the Eastern District of California has taken what can rightly be called the “nuclear option” and recused all the judges in the district...

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has temporarily blocked an appeals court ruling that declared gay marriage legal in Idaho and Nevada. The order came minutes after Idaho on Wednesday filed an emergency request for an immediate stay. The state's request said that without a stay, state and county officials would have been required to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples at 10 a.m. EDT. Kennedy's order requested a response from the plaintiffs involved in Idaho's gay marriage lawsuit by the end of day Thursday. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared gay marriage legal in Idaho and Nevada...

WASHINGTON—The San Francisco-based Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday struck down same-sex marriage bans in Idaho and Nevada, setting the stage for legal gay marriages in five more Western states. The unanimous decision comes a day after the U.S. Supreme Court let stand lower-court rulings that ended bans in five other states, a move that effectively expanded the right to gay marriage to 30 U.S. states. The Ninth Circuit decision will apply to five states with marriage bans in that appellate circuit, likely expanding to 35 the number of states with legal same-sex marriage.

Rights: A Ninth Circuit Court ruling that students can't wear American flag T-shirts because they may offend Mexican students celebrating Cinco de Mayo is a ridiculous yet dangerous assault on the First Amendment. On Sept. 17, more than four years after Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, Calif., sent students home for wearing American flag t-shirts, an 11-judge Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled that it was the right choice, "tailored to avert violence and focused on student safety." The decision upheld the court's three-judge ruling in February that justified the school's actions based on tensions between Mexican...

A heckler's veto. The Ninth Circuit has once again proved its status as the leftmost leaning court of appeals in the country with their refusal to rehear a case involving the banning of American flags in public schools. This refusal means that the ruling that a three-judge panel issued in February stands, which allowed the Morgan Hill Unified School District to ban American flags and American flag apparel because of threats of violence. Now some of you might be thinking, "That sounds reasonable. After all, we don't want to have violence in our schools!" But the issue here is that...

I blogged about the case in February, when the Ninth Circuit panel opinion came down; here’s an excerpt, which summarizes the issue: Today’s Dariano v. Morgan Hill Unified School Dist. (9th Cir. Feb. 27, 2014) upholds a California high school’s decision to forbid students from wearing American flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo. (See here and here for more on this case.) The court points out that the rights of students in public high schools are limited — under the Supreme Court’s decision in Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Comm. School Dist. (1969), student speech could be restricted if “school...

BELLEVUE, WA, and ROSEVILLE, CA – The Second Amendment Foundation and The Calguns Foundation earned a significant victory today when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the case of Richards v. Prieto, challenging the handgun carry license issuing policy of Yolo County, California, Sheriff Ed Prieto. “Today’s ruling reinforces the Second Amendment’s application to state and local governments, and will help clear the way for more California citizens to exercise their right to bear arms,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “California officials have been put on notice that they can no longer...

Today’s Dariano v. Morgan Hill Unified School Dist. (9th Cir. Feb. 27, 2014) upholds a California high school’s decision to forbid students from wearing American flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo. (See here and here for more on this case.) The court points out that the rights of students in public high schools are limited — under the Supreme Court’s decision in Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Comm. School Dist. (1969), student speech could be restricted if “school authorities [can reasonably] forecast substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities” stemming from the speech. And on the facts of...

Last week, in a 2-1 decision, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a restriction on carrying concealed handguns. The court held that carrying a handgun “outside the home for the lawful purpose of self-defense, though subject to traditional restrictions, constitutes ‘bear[ing] Arms’ within the meaning of the Second Amendment.” The question of whether the Second Amendment right to bear arms extends to the public is contentious. The 7th Circuit agrees with the 9th Circuit that carrying a gun outside the home is protected by the Constitution, but other courts (the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Circuits) are unsettled on...

Dear Supervisors: On Thursday February 13, 2014, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion in the case of Peruta, et.al v. County of San Diego, et.al concluding that the State of California's requirement of "good cause," in cases where an applicant wants a firearm for personal protection, impermissibly infringes on the Second Amendment right to bear arms in lawful self-defense. In its opinion, the Ninth Circuit defined the issue on appeal as "whether a responsible, law-abiding citizen has a right under the Second Amendment to carry a firearm in public for self-defense." In so doing, the Ninth Circuit...

Politics comes down to people.  Some of them are real people, and some of them are invisible.  This is true even in the case of sophisticated legal appeals to the 9th district court.  Bill Gore is the Sheriff of San Diego County.  He said he wanted to issue licenses so citizens could carry a concealed weapon in public.  He really wanted to.  That is what he told me.  He said, sadly, that California law prevented him from granting those licenses.  That is what his un-named lawyer told him.  I’ve had legal experts tell me otherwise, but it is hard to...

The Ninth Circuit’s decision in Peruta v. San Diego, released minutes ago, affirms the right of law-abiding citizens to carry handguns for lawful protection in public. California law has a process for applying for a permit to carry a handgun for protection in public, with requirements for safety training, a background check, and so on. These requirements were not challenged. The statute also requires that the applicant have “good cause,” which was interpreted by San Diego County to mean that the applicant is faced with current specific threats. (Not all California counties have this narrow interpretation.) The Ninth Circuit, in...

Via Gabe Malor, who’s already found the tastiest chestnuts in the opinion. The novelty here isn’t the ruling itself but the court issuing it. It’s the Ninth Circuit, which has jurisdiction over the west coast and typically leans left thanks to liberal all-stars like Stephen Reinhardt. (He wasn’t part of the panel that heard this one, thankfully.) With today’s ruling, the Ninth joins the Seventh in holding that the Second Amendment, just as it says, includes a right to “bear” arms. States can regulate that right but they can’t ban it altogether. Three other federal appellate courts have ruled the...

I have marveled over the years at the kind of fear and anger the Christian Faith generates in some sectors of our society. Even the suggestion that there might a a small nativity scene in a park, or Christmas tree near City Hall, or a display of the Ten Commandments often elicits a hew and cry and brings forth camera crews and elicits lawsuits. But the venom seems especially reserved  for symbols of the Christian faith in particular and to some extent the wider Judeo-Christian heritage. A reference from the Q’ran in school is seen by many of this same...

Since 1949, the government has been taking its share of their harvests under a Department of Agriculture protectionist order - Marketing Order 989 – originally designed to keep prices high and growers in business. “It began as 25 percent and then it went to 35 percent and then the year in question, they told us, we're going to take 47% of your crop. I said you’re not taking any of it,” Horne told me as we trod softly through the avenues of sugary sweet Thompson grapes, waiting to be trimmed by seasonal Hispanic harvesters. Reserves for agricultural products had existed...

Several Republican lawmakers are urging a federal district court in California to block the removal of a war memorial cross in a San Diego public park that was declared unconstitutional in 2011. "We're urging the court to permit a private organization to obtain and operate the war memorial – a remedy that would remove any constitutional questions and protect this longstanding tribute to our men and women in uniform," Sekulow said in a statement. The legal fight over the Mount Soledad cross began in 1989 when atheist Philip Paulson sued the city of San Diego.

I am a certified firearms instructor who has taught CCW classes in Arizona since the beginning of the CCW program there in 1994. As we are on the border with California, I watch the developments there with some interest. Unfortunately, nearly everything that I have read and heard about the LAPD and guns has lead me to distrust them. I had numerous students who had dealings with the LAPD. I started hearing stories about how guns were seized, even if there were no crime involved. If an officer came across a gun, it was seized, and it would not be...

Jack Koency, an 86-year-old California man, was one of nearly 1.5 million surviving World War II veterans. He was neither terminally ill, nor bedridden, nor immobile. His neighbors remember him as quiet and good natured. Koency died at the hands of Elizabeth Barrett, an acquaintance of his. She served the decorated war vet a cup of yogurt in which she ground up a lethal dose of Oxcontin with two other medications. Barrett, a social worker, pled guilty a fortnight ago to so-called “assisted suicide.” She could have received up to three years in state prison for her role in Koency’s...

The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco has a well-earned reputation as the hippiest, dippiest, most-reversed appellate court in these United States. It’s where the Pledge of Allegiance gets scrutinized for possible eradication, at least, the “under God” part. But every so often, the Court gets something right. On December 22, a unanimous Ninth Circuit panel reversed a federal district judge’s order to evict the Boy Scouts from their longtime camp and local headquarters in San Diego’s Balboa Park. The ruling came in a case filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in 2001 on...

In a surprising decision last week that drew little press attention, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, handed the Boy Scouts a victory over a lesbian couple and an agnostic couple. The Ninth Circuit is considered the most liberal appellate court in the land.