Free Republic

The Court of Appeals for the U.S. Ninth Circuit upheld this summer an Oakland, Calif., city government declaration that the phrase "marriage is the foundation of the natural family and sustains family values" was inflammatory and promoted harassment based on so-called sexual orientation. The phrase was also deemed to be homophobic and disruptive. It seems a few Christian women working for Oakland's city government formed a Good News Employee Association, and in promoting the club, included the aforementioned phrase on a flier. Later, a lesbian worker complained that the flier made her feel "targeted" and "excluded." Most recently, hate crimes...

In this opinion just released this morning, three Judges of the Ninth Circuit, including one of the most liberal anti-government judges in the Country, Harry Pregerson, sided with the Administration on its asserting of the “State Secrets” privilege in a lawsuit brought by Islamic groups and others against both the government. and the telecommunication companies that helped put in place the terrorist surveillance program that involved the use of warrantless wiretaps. The court first ruled that the existence of the program was no longer a state secret because the Admin. confirmed its existence and some of its details following the...

WARDLAW, Circuit Judge: Plaintiffs Cynthia and Craig Corrie, Mahmoud Al Sho’bi, Fathiya Muhammad Sulayman Fayed, Fayez Ali Mohammed Abu Hussein, Majeda Radwan Abu Hussein, and Eida Ibrahim Suleiman Khalafallah filed this action after their family members were killed or injured when the Israeli Defense Forces (“IDF”) demolished homes in the Palestinian Territories using bulldozers manufactured by Caterpillar, Inc., a United States corporation. The IDF ordered the bulldozers directly from Caterpillar, but the United States government paid for them. The district court dismissed the action under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), finding it lacked jurisdiction because, inter alia, the political...

Alcoholics Anonymous, the renowned 12-step program that directs problem drinkers to seek help from a higher power, says it's not a religion and is open to nonbelievers. But it has enough religious overtones that a parolee can't be ordered to attend its meetings as a condition of staying out of prison, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. In fact, said the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, the constitutional dividing line between church and state in such cases is so clear that a parole officer can be sued for damages for ordering a parolee to go through...

In 2004, within four months of each other, two three-judge panels of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided cases involving the Constitution's Establishment Clause and its requirement of government neutrality regarding religion. In May, a panel held that a Latin cross on federal lands in honor of American servicemen killed in World War I violated the Establishment Clause and must be removed. That the memorial commemorated American "history and culture" was irrelevant to the panel; after all, the cross symbolizes Christianity. In September, another panel held that Arizona's designation of private property as sacred to American...

A federal appeals court allowed the Navy today to resume using underwater sonar blasts in anti-submarine warfare tests off the Channel Islands in Southern California, saying the nation’s military needs outweigh the safety of endangered whales. In a 2-1 decision, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco suspended an April 6 injunction by a federal judge in Los Angeles that ordered the Navy to halt the sonar experiments during training exercises scheduled through 2009. In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper said the underwater sound waves could harm nearly 30 species of marine mammals, including five...

For years, the 9th Circuit has been the Supreme Court’s whipping boy. And this year was no different: The Court reversed more opinions from the 9th Circuit than any other: According to an Op-Ed in today’s LA Times, the Court reversed or vacated a whopping 19 cases out of 22 it took from the 9th Circuit. (Skeptics of 9th Circuit decisions aren’t limited to Washington, though. Several years ago, we heard a respected federal judge in New York refer to the circuit — in open court and not entirely in jest, it seemed — as “the land of fruits and...

A U.S. District Court judge has been asked to reconsider his ruling in a 2004 free speech lawsuit filed by a former Poway High School student who was prohibited by school officials from expressing his opposition to a “Day of Silence” sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. Tyler Harper, then a student at Poway High School, came to school wearing a T-shirt bearing the handwritten messages, “I will not accept what God has condemned” and “Homosexuality is shameful. Romans 1:27." School officials, claiming that Harper’s message could be disruptive, suspended him after he refused to take off...

We consider the Fourth Amendment’s limits on the use of trickery and force in conducting seizures. Facts Ascension Alverez-Tejeda and his girlfriend drove up to a traffic light. As the light turned green, the car in front of them lurched forward, then stalled. Alverez-Tejeda managed to stop in time, but the truck behind him tapped his bumper. As Alverez-Tejeda got out to inspect the damage, two officers pulled up in a police cruiser and arrested the truck driver for drunk driving. The officers got Alverez-Tejeda and his girlfriend to drive to a nearby parking lot, leave the keys in the...

SAN FRANCISCO (UPI) -- A court in San Francisco ruled that a roommate-matching Web site may be held accountable for what users say about their preferences. A three-judge panel of the federal appeals court ruled in favor of two California fair housing groups that brought the complaint against Roommate.com, saying the Web site violates the Fair Housing Act by allowing users to specify roommate preferences based on sex, race, religion and sexual orientation, The New York Times reported Wednesday. The ruling took away the main argument of the defense: that a 1996 ruling granting immunity to Internet service providers that...

Legislation restoring a parental consent law for minor girls seeking an abortion has been established in Idaho, after Governor Butch Otter signed the measure March 27. ?This is a tremendous victory for the families of Idaho. We fully expect this law to go unchallenged in court,? said David Ripley of Idaho Chooses Life. ?With the bill?s emergency clause, this law is now in effect. Hopefully the days are past when Planned Parenthood and others can prey upon Idaho?s daughters.? Court battles over parental consent legislation have cost the state hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal costs over the past...

From: LifeSiteNews US Court Rules it's OK to Censor the Terms 'Natural Family,' 'Marriage' and 'Family Values' Attorney representing harassed Christian employess warns, "If we choose to be silent, silenced we shall be" TEMECULA, California, March 8, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Earlier this week, San Francisco's United States notorious Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the matter of Good News Employees Association v. Hicks that municipal employers can completely censor the terms "natural family," "marriage" and "family values" as hate speech. The court concluded that municipalities have a right to literally dictate what form an employee's speech may take, even...

The [San Francisco] Chronicle has agreed to be held in contempt of court and could face fines of more than half a million dollars if a federal appeals court decides the newspaper must disclose its reporters' sources of information about grand jury testimony by Giants outfielder Barry Bonds and other star athletes about steroids. In court papers filed Thursday, The Chronicle and federal prosecutors stipulated that the newspaper would not oppose a finding of contempt, and that any penalty would be delayed until a panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled on appeals by...

(AgapePress) - A spokesman for a Michigan-based law center that defends and promotes the religious freedom of Christians says a recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court not to hear an Islamic indoctrination case indicates that Islam is "in" and Christianity is "out." The Thomas More Law Center represented the parents of the California seventh-graders who were subjected to an intensive, three-week indoctrination in Islam at school. The students were forced to become Muslims, in effect, and were not allowed to say anything critical about the religion. The original trial court and the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld...

Two judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals were wrong to disregard the will of Arizonans over a law requiring would-be voters to show identification at the polls and present proof of citizenship to register to vote. The ID and proof-of-citizenship provisions were part of Proposition 200, which Arizona voters approved by 56 percent in 2004. The Associated Press reported in Friday's Star that the order by the 9th Circuit judges means people who want to register to vote for the Nov. 7 general election won't have to prove U.S. citizenship. The deadline to register is midnight Monday....

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has ruled that the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) obligates the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to consider the environmental impact of potential terrorist attacks when conducting environmental reviews. The June 2 decision could affect the NRC’s decision-making processes for other nuclear facilities, and it could have far-reaching effects on decisions affecting other facilities in the nation’s infrastructure, observers say. In December 2001, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) applied to the NRC for a license to build and operate an on-site dry storage facility for used nuclear fuel at its Diablo Canyon nuclear...

An Alaska high school violated a student's free speech rights by suspending him after he unfurled a banner reading "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" across the street from the school, a federal court ruled on Friday. Joseph Frederick, a student at Juneau-Douglas High School in Alaska, displayed the banner -- which refers to smoking marijuana -- in January 2002 to try to get on television as the Olympic torch relay was passing the school. Principal Deborah Morse seized the banner and suspended the 18-year-old for 10 days, saying he had undermined the school's educational mission and anti-drug stance. Friday's ruling by...

February 7, 2006 - Breaking News: Representatives from the ACLU have announced that the Ninth Circuit Court of appeals has upheld Pandora Leftwitch’s right to kill her 2 month-old baby girl. In a unanimous decision, the court stated that she could have legally obtained a partial birth abortion a few months earlier anyway, and as such there seemed to be “…little difference between then and now.” If the phony news bite above seems farfetched, consider that two separate courts have ruled that President Bush’s partial birth abortion ban is unconstitutional. The Eighth and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals have both...

He’s the judge who says parental rights end at the schoolhouse door and that the Pledge of Allegiance in public school classrooms is unconstitutional. He admires an Israeli judge who’s outlawed spanking and radically expanded the power of the federal judiciary. He considers an opinion he wrote in 1996 in favor of assisted suicide his greatest achievement. He’s Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals—the most infamous member of the most radical court in America. He’s notorious because he’s caused real harm—to parental rights, public safety and the reputation of the federal courts. But one of...

<p>TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2005 ORDER It is ordered that the following allotment be made of the Chief Justice and the Associate Justices of this Court among the circuits, pursuant to Title 28, United States Code, Section 42 and that such allotment be entered of record, effective October 11, 2005. For the District of Columbia Circuit, John G. Roberts, Jr., Chief Justice, For the First Circuit, David H. Souter, Associate Justice, For the Second Circuit, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice, For the Third Circuit, David H. Souter, Associate Justice, For the Fourth Circuit, John G. Roberts, Jr., Chief Justice, For the Fifth Circuit, Antonin Scalia, Associate Justice, For the Sixth Circuit, John Paul Stevens, Associate Justice, For the Seventh Circuit, John Paul Stevens, Associate Justice, For the Eighth Circuit, Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice, For the Ninth Circuit, Sandra Day O’Connor, Associate Justice, For the Tenth Circuit, Stephen Breyer, Associate Justice, For the Eleventh Circuit, Anthony M. Kennedy, Associate Justice, For the Federal Circuit, John G. Roberts, Jr., Chief Justice.</p>