Free Republic

RICHMOND, Va. (Reuters) - A U.S. federal judge on Thursday upheld a 2013 Virginia law requiring prospective voters to show an approved photo identification before they cast their ballots. The state's Democratic Party had challenged the law, signed by former Republican Governor Robert McDonnell, saying it was politically motivated and intended to deter young and minority voters from turning out on Election Day. "The court's mission is to judge not the wisdom of the Virginia voter ID law, but rather its constitutionality," wrote U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson in his decision. While he noted that the measure created an "inconvenience"...

The fight over Second Amendment rights in the nation’s capital has entered a new phase. A federal judge has ruled that the city’s concealed carry law is likely unconstitutional, citing the “good reason provision” in the injunction order on Tuesday (via WaPo ): For the second time in as many years, a federal judge in Washington ordered the city to halt enforcement of its new, concealed-carry law, requiring applicants to state “good reason” to carry a weapon in order to obtain a permit from police. The preliminary injunction was contained in a 46-page ruling Tuesday by U.S. District Judge...

federal court has ordered a town in Mississippi to desegregate its high schools and middle schools, ending a five-decade-long legal battle over integrating black and white students. The United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi ordered the Cleveland School District to consolidate the schools after rejecting two alternatives proposed by the school district, saying they were unconstitutional.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that yes, there is a right to sell guns under the Second Amendment.The case involved the three owners of a proposed gun store in Alameda, CA, who were denied a zoning permit for their establishment. (The anti-gun fools are trying to use the building permit process in Arlington, VA, as well.)“If ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms’ is to have any force, the people must have a right to acquire the very firearms they are entitled to keep and to bear,” wrote Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain for the...

The plaintiffs in the case included three individuals who wanted to open a new gun store in Alameda County. They were joined by pro-Second Amendment groups: The Calguns Foundation, California Association of Federal Firearms Licensees, and the Second Amendment Foundation. “Today, the Court appropriately reminded the County that civil rights can’t be outlawed through piles of regulation. We look forward to securing Second Amendment rights through this case and many others to come,” concluded Brandon Combs, executive director of The Calguns Foundation. “We’re very happy to see the Court take a very principled and reasoned approach to protecting the fundamental,...

A New York judge decided Tuesday that a fraud case against Donald Trump over his former school for real estate investors will go to trial – raising the possibility that the Republican presidential primary front-runner could testify during campaign season.

DENVER (CBS4)– The Colorado Supreme Court decided to let an appellate court ruling that a bakery violated the state’s anti-discrimination law when it turned away a gay couple stand by refusing to hear the case. On Monday, the state Supreme Court let the lower court ruling stand. Attorneys for Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, filed the appeal last fall. They argued the government shouldn’t force Phillips to violate his Christian beliefs.

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady's four-game suspension is — for now — back on, per Reuters. The Second Circuit court has ruled in favor of the NFL, ordering the district court and The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned last year’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman to to enforce that Brady miss the first quarter of the 2016 season. NFL commissioner still holds the right to rescind the four-game punishment and declined to say last week if he'd enforce Brady’s suspension this season if the appeal was won, as it was. A fine...

LOS ANGELES (CN) - A federal judge has ruled a requirement that a Koch brothers' charitable foundation release tax information to the California attorney general that includes donor information is unconstitutional.     In a 12-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Manuel Real said that while the disclosure requirement was not "facially invalid," it is "unconstitutional as applied to Americans for Prosperity Foundation, especially in light of the requirement's burdens on the foundation's First Amendment rights."     The foundation, a conservative advocate of free-market economic policies, sued California Attorney General Kamala Harris in 2014 arguing that it should be allowed to keep donor names secret.     Backed by...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A Virginia high school discriminated against a transgender teen by forbidding him from using the boys' restroom, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in a case that could have implications for a North Carolina law that critics say discriminates against LGBT people. The case of Gavin Grimm has been especially closely watched since North Carolina enacted a law last month that bans transgender people from using public restrooms that correspond to their gender identity. That law also bans cities from passing anti-discrimination ordinances, a response to an ordinance recently passed in Charlotte. In the Virginia case,...

Just reported that Roberts supports Obama's immigration plan. Thanks to Bush and Cruz

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. – A lawsuit can go forward against the maker of the rifle used in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, a judge ruled Thursday. Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis said that a 2005 federal law protecting gun-makers from lawsuits does not prevent lawyers for the victims' families from arguing that the semi-automatic rifle is a military weapon and should not have been sold to civilians.

In a long-awaited ruling, a federal judge has sided with plaintiffs who argued it was unconstitutional for Los Angeles County supervisors to place a Christian cross on the county seal. A divided Board of Supervisors voted in 2014 to reinstate the cross on top of a depiction of the San Gabriel Mission, which appears on the seal among other symbols of county history. They were sued by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and a group of religious leaders and scholars, who said placement of the cross on the seal unconstitutionally favored Christianity over other religions.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a request from a lawyer who once represented a woman known as the "DC Madam" to release records from her famous escort service. Those records include such sensitive information as customer names, Social Security numbers and addresses— information the lawyer, Montgomery Blair Sibley, has said could affect the 2016 presidential election. The so-called DC Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey ran a high-priced escort service in the Washington D.C.-area for a number of years before her eventual conviction. She died in 2008. Sibley wanted the Supreme Court to lift a lower court order, in place...

A unanimous Supreme Court ruled Monday that illegal immigrants and other non-citizens can be counted when states draw their legislative districts, shooting down a challenge by Texas residents who said their own voting power was being diluted. The ruling does not grant non-citizens power to vote, but says the principle of “one person, one vote” doesn’t require localities to only count those who are actually eligible to vote. Justice Ruth Baden Ginsburg, writing for the court, said even though only eligible voters are supposed to cast ballots, elected officials represent all people within their districts, and it is that act...

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A federal judge Thursday overturned Mississippi's ban on allowing same-sex couples to adopt children. U.S. District Judge Daniel Jordan, in a preliminary injunction issued Thursday, ruled for the couples who had sued, saying the ban is unconstitutional after recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions legalizing gay marriage and benefits for gay couples. He ordered John Davis, executive director of the Department of Human Services to stop enforcing it.

Democrats hoping to use the death of Antonin Scalia to their political advantage hit upon what they mistakenly thought was another piece of “evidence” in their favor yesterday. To the shock of many with little understanding of the history of the Supreme Court, the justices are back in business and doling out decisions from the current session. On Tuesday, while the world was focused on the awful events in Brussels, SCOTUS delivered the first of what may turn out to be several deadlocked votes, delivering a 4-4 tie in the case of Hawkins v. Community Bank of Raymore. This...

Judge Merrick Garland, Barack Obama's choice to be the next justice on the Supreme Court, ruled against Priests for Life in a case involving the HHS mandate. He also gave ObamaCare subsidies a second chance at life in a separate case. The two rulings give a window into the philosophy of Judge Garland, whom the National Organization for Women referred to as a “cipher” with little paper trail on issues related to abortion or other feminist concerns. ObamaCare's HHS mandate opt-out does not violate the Constitution Priests for Life sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) over...

President Barack Obama's nominee to fill the vacancy on the United States Supreme Court once joined an opinion that rejected an evangelical Christian defense based on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Judge Merrick Garland of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia was recently tapped by President Obama as a nominee to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. In a case decided in June 2001, Judge Garland joined an opinion authored by fellow appellate judge A. Raymond Randolph that rejected a RFRA argument for a pair of evangelical Christians who wanted to...

After a long battle in the courts, pro-lifers in North Carolina will finally be allowed to display their support for unborn babies on their license plates. On Thursday, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the “Choose Life” license plates that state lawmakers approved in 2011 are constitutional, according to WRAL. The battle over the North Carolina pro-life plates went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court last year, LifeNews reported. In June 2015, the high court ordered the 4th Circuit Court, which previously struck down the law, to reconsider the case in light of the Supreme...