Free Republic

Oral argument before the Supreme Court this week showed why it is nonsense to claim that anti-vagrancy laws violate the Constitution‘s Eighth Amendment provision against “cruel and unusual punishment.” Indeed, in the vernacular sense, what is cruel and unusual is a judicial edict that says law-abiding citizens must put up with public spaces featuring major health hazards, including even the plague. Yet that’s what some lower courts, bizarrely, say citizens must do. By any normal reading, the Eighth Amendment is intended to forbid overly harsh penalties, not to determine what sorts of conduct can or can’t be outlawed. Unfortunately, the...

Alford is one of the 75 January 6 defendants who joined The Gateway Pundit in our official request to RINO Speaker McCarthy last year for the government’s January 6 footage. Despite walking into the Capitol for just 13 minutes on January 6, where "he mostly stood to the side and observed" and "filmed protestors chanting," then leaving, according to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Alford was given the maximum sentence for four crimes, including Remaining in a restricted building, Disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted building, Disorderly or disruptive conduct in the Capitol Building...

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said the U.S. Supreme Court should be moved to the Republican National Committee (RNC) headquarters, after some conservative justices suggested being open to arguments in favor of presidential immunity from prosecution for former President Trump. “They’re politicians who are not even subject to popular election, unlike me,” Raskin said during his Thursday appearance on MSNBC’s “The ReidOut.” “They should move the Supreme Court over to the RNC headquarters because they’re acting like a bunch of partisan operatives.” Raskin’s assessment comes as D. John Sauer, the attorney representing Trump in Thursday’s arguments regarding the former president’s immunity,...

A pro-abortion politician received a promotional mailer for the upcoming Disney movie “The First Omen,” and has told the media she receives so much hate mail, she immediately mistook it for a pro-life threat. Business Insider reported that Amanda Taylor, a film critic currently running for office in Missouri, received a mailer that she assumed was a threat from angry pro-lifers. In the letter, there is a floating child surrounded by women in black, with their faces scribbled over. “Right away, I was thinking, ‘Ah, this has something to do with abortion,” Taylor told Business Insider. “The day before I...

SCOTUS Justices wrestled with how to define a president’s ‘official’ versus ‘private’ acts. A decision may delay President Trump’s trial, which would hand him a win. The Supreme Court seemed skeptical on April 25 of former President Donald Trump’s claim that he should receive absolute criminal immunity, but it appeared to be open to allowing some level of immunity for presidents. Conservative justices seemed poised to remand the case back to the district court in Washington with instructions on what constitutes official and private acts for further fact-finding proceedings. This would further delay President Trump’s trial in Washington and possibly...

Thursday’s argument in Trump v. United States was a disaster for Special Counsel Jack Smith, and for anyone who believes that the president of the United States should be subject to prosecution if they commit a crime.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito suggested Thursday during oral arguments regarding presidential immunity that criminalizing individuals just because they question government-run elections would destabilize true democracy. Special counsel Jack Smith indicted former President Donald Trump for questioning the administration of the 2020 election. The high court is now hearing challenges as to whether presidents have immunity from criminal prosecutions for actions taken while in office that fall within the scope of their presidential duties. “Let me end with just a question about, what is required for the functioning of a stable democratic society, which is something that we all want?”...

The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments Thursday on whether former President Donald Trump can be criminally prosecuted over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. The justices have taken up the monumental question of if, and if so to what extent, former presidents enjoy immunity for conduct alleged to involve official acts during their time in office. The high court's decision will determine if Trump stands trial before the November election on four charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith, including conspiracy to defraud the United States. Throughout arguments, multiple of the justices made clear they were looking...

In the most blatant move of hatred of the United States Constitution to date, U.S. Representatives Adam Schiff (D-Calif.)Ilhan Omar (MN-05), Jamie Raskin (MD-08), Melanie Stansbury (NM-01), and Senator Richard Blumenthal (CT) have filed legislation which will create an Office of the Inspector General to ensure accountability of justices in the Supreme Court of the United States.The U.S. Constitution establishes three separate but equal branches of government: the legislative branch (makes the law), the executive branch (enforces the law), and the judicial branch (interprets the law). This bold move by house Democrats basically erases the separation of powers in United...

In the final argument scheduled for its 2023-2024 term, the Supreme Court will hear argument on Thursday in former President Donald Trump’s historic bid for criminal immunity. The question before the justices is whether Trump can be tried on criminal charges that he conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The court’s answer will determine not only whether Trump’s trial in Washington, D.C., before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, originally scheduled for March 4 but now on hold, can go forward, but also whether the former president’s trials in Florida and Georgia can proceed. Jury selection is currently...

“We’re talking about sleeping … that is a basic function,” said the nation’s first Black female justice. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson argued that it is “cruel and unusual” to punish unhoused individuals for sleeping in public spaces. “We’re talking about sleeping … that is a basic function,” Justice Jackson said during Monday’s oral arguments in a case that could result in the criminalization of homelessness. On Monday, the Supreme Court heard more than two hours of arguments in the case of Grants Pass v. Johnson. The justices listened to both sides of the case to determine whether...

Though still far behind the number of cases granted for the next term this time last year, the court on Monday added two new cases to its docket for the 2024-2025 term. The justices agreed to weigh in on a challenge to a rule by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives regulating so-called “ghost guns” – firearms without serial numbers that virtually anyone can assemble from parts, often purchased in a kit. Garland v. VanDerStok was one of two cases granted on Monday on a list of orders from the justices’ private conference last week. The dispute over...

The Supreme Court brushed aside a lawsuit Monday from Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake challenging the use of electronic voting machines in Arizona. Lake, who filed the lawsuit during her failed campaign for governor in 2022, challenged whether the state’s electronic voting machines assured “a fair and accurate vote.” Two lower courts dismissed the suit, finding that Lake and former Republican state lawmaker Mark Finchem had not been harmed in a way that allowed them to sue. Calling the precise nature of Lake’s claim “not clear,” the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals said the lawsuit was based on speculative...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to take up a Biden administration appeal over the regulation of difficult-to-trace ghost guns that had been struck down by lower courts. The justices by a 5-4 vote had previously intervened to keep the regulation in effect during the legal fight. Ghost guns, which lack serial numbers, have been turning up at crime scenes with increasing regularity. The regulation, which took effect in 2022, changed the definition of a firearm under federal law to include unfinished parts, like the frame of a handgun or the receiver of a long gun, so...

During oral arguments on Tuesday, Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito exposed the Biden administration’s inexcusable practice of selective prosecution of protesters and rioters. The case, Fischer v. United States, involved the contention by Pennsylvanian Joseph Fischer that the charges of “obstruct[ion of] … any official proceeding,” based on 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c), should not apply to his actions during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Fischer, who also was charged with assaulting police officers, is hardly a sympathetic figure. His claims that he wasn’t trying to obstruct or “impede” official (and important) congressional business, in the ordinary (nonlegal)...

We have often discussed how cities and universities will use the threat of protests to block or shutdown free speech, particularly of conservative speakers or groups. We now have a major decision out of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that could prove an important precedent in resisting the growing anti-free speech movement in the United States. In Meinecke v. City of Seattle, the court ruled against Seattle in a case involving the arrest of a pro-life protester. Matthew Meinecke was harassed by Antifa and other counterprotesters, but police arrested Meineche when he refused to yield...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The most significant case in decades on homelessness has reached the Supreme Court as record numbers of people in America are without a permanent place to live. The justices on Monday will consider a challenge to rulings from a California-based appeals court that found punishing people for sleeping outside when shelter space is lacking amounts to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment. A political cross section of officials in the West and California, home to nearly one-third of the nation’s homeless population, argue those decisions have restricted them from “common sense” measures intended to keep homeless encampments from...

Former President Trump warned of the consequences of losing his presidential immunity argument, saying that if he loses that protection, so will "crooked" President Joe Biden. > The former president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee argued that presidential immunity is essential to the proper functioning of the presidency in a Friday post to his Truth Social account. "Without presidential immunity, it would be impossible for a president to properly function, putting the United States of America in great and everlasting danger!" he posted, in all capital letters. "If they take away my presidential immunity, they take away crooked Joe Biden’s...

Under a legal theory endorsed by the 5th Circuit, Martin Luther King Jr. could have been liable for other people’s violence.In his last protest march, Martin Luther King Jr. led a parade of demonstrators down Beale Street in Memphis, lending his support to striking sanitation workers. After a few young black men started breaking storefront windows, the indiscriminate police response killed one suspected looter and injured dozens of protesters. Under a legal theory blessed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, King could have been held liable for the unanticipated harm that ensued from that March 1968...

by Julie KellyAs I noted yesterday, Elizabeth Prelogar totally misrepresented (lied?) how DOJ routinely handles sentencing requests for those convicted of 1512c2. Under questioning from Kavanaugh about prison sentences, Prelogar tried to make it sound like 1512c2 defendants with other nonviolent offenses (common misdemeanors) only get about 24 months in jail. She quickly mentioned the "Brock" case--referring to Larry Brock, a man from Texas convicted at bench trial of 1512c2 and 5 misdemeanors--and the "enhancement" recently overturned by DC appellate court in 1512c2 convictions. So what did DOJ ask for in Brock case? Not 24-26 months as Prelogar attempted to...