Free Republic

Arizona -(Ammoland.com)- In Peruta v. California, the Ninth Circuit held that the right to carry concealed arms outside the home was not protected by the Second Amendment.The Ninth refused to consider that the ability to carry openly was prohibited by California law, thus nullifying the right to carry outside of the home. On Monday, 26 June, the Supreme Court officially denied the petition for a write of certiorari. The Ninth Circuit denial of Second Amendment rights outside the home will stand. From politico.com: The Supreme Court declined to review a case about the right to carry firearms outside the home,...

The conclusion of Justice Neil Gorsuch's abbreviated first term on the Supreme Court in April already has begun to reveal how the nine-justice court will develop. Conservatives have roundly praised Gorsuch's first two months on the high court, while liberals appear to fear that the worst is yet to come. Leah Litman, a University of California, Irvine law professor and former law clerk to Justice Anthony Kennedy, said Gorsuch is exactly as the president billed him: "a firm adherent to originalism and textualism." "I think he's competent. I think he is assertive," Litman told the Washington Examiner. "He is likely...

Former Sheriff Joe Arpaio has made a long-shot request with the U.S. Supreme Court to put on hold his criminal trial that began a week ago and is scheduled for closing arguments on Thursday. His lawyers argued in court papers made available Monday that the trial should be stopped because Arpaio is being denied the right to have a jury decide whether he’s guilty of a contempt-of-court charge. As it now stands, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton will decide if he’s guilty of the misdemeanor charge for disobeying a 2011 court order to stop his traffic patrols that targeted immigrants....

In a story that was ostensibly about new Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch's voting record, NPR legal affairs reporter Nina Totenberg dropped this tantalizing piece of news about Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's potential retirement: "Kennedy may also have thought it best to ensure that there is a full complement of nine justices for at least a year. He could even have been put off by President Trump's tweets about the judiciary. But it is unlikely that Kennedy will remain on the court for the full four years of the Trump presidency. While he long ago hired his law clerks...

Big news hiding in Nina Totenberg’s story on Justice Gorsuch voting 100% with Justice Thomas: But it is unlikely that Kennedy will remain on the court for the full four years of the Trump presidency. While he long ago hired his law clerks for the coming term, he has not done so for the following term (beginning Oct. 2018), and has let applicants for those positions know he is considering retirement. Kennedy’s position on the court is more than consequential. In the most hotly contested and closely divided cases, his vote often decides the outcome. With every passing day, it...

The Supreme Court’s latest ruling that says it’s discriminatory to exclude organizations from public programs solely on account of their religious nature helps the legal environment for school choice. So does a Tuesday Supreme Court order that New Mexico revisit its ban on religious schools participating in a state textbook program for poor children. Thirty-seven states have constitutional amendments like that in the Trinity Lutheran case, forbidding taxpayers from funding religious organizations. These provisions have stymied school voucher programs that have otherwise dramatically increased since 2012, thanks to increased Republican control of state legislatures. With Trinity Lutheran favorably decided against...

Property owners have long suffered under the Supreme Court's erratic rulings. It got worse last Friday when the court ruled against owners who wanted simply to sell their property. Both facts and law in Murr v. Wisconsin are complicated. But in a nutshell, the Murrs, four siblings, inherited adjoining lots on the St. Croix River that their parents had purchased at separate times in the 1960s, building a home on one and keeping the other as an investment. Deeded and taxed separately, the two lots remained so to the present. But in 1975 a local zoning ordinance combined the lots....

Dozens of congressional Republicans are demanding that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recuse herself from ruling on President Trump’s travel ban case before the Supreme Court hears arguments in October, saying she’s already shown she can’t be an impartial jurist when it comes to Mr. Trump. Justice Ginsburg had to apologize during last year’s campaign for saying she worried for the country should Mr. Trump be elected, and accusing him of being “a faker.” More than 50 House Republicans this week fired off a letter saying that creates a situation where her “impartiality might reasonably be questioned” — the standard laid...

The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 to hear the case on Donald Trump’s “Travel Ban”. They will hear arguments in October, but many of the provisions will be allowed to go ahead until then. The US can now halt immigration from the 6 proscribed nations except for those who have family ties within America. But a 9-0 decision raises a bigger question; what does this tell us about the 9th and 4th Circuit Judges who ruled against Trump earlier this year? Justices on the Supreme Court are not in position to make laws, that’s the job of Congress; they are there...

Justice Neil Gorsuch has been on the Supreme Court for only a couple of months, but he's already made his mark as a strong conservative voice. Gorsuch asserted himself in writing concurring and dissenting opinions, aligning himself most frequently with Justice Clarence Thomas and positioning himself to the right of Chief Justice John Roberts. Washington Times: "The guy's not afraid to write," said Josh Blackman, an associate professor at South Texas College of Law. "He's not afraid to assert himself." Confirmed to the court in April, Justice Gorsuch participated in only a small fraction of the cases this year. But in a year...

FULL TITLE: Supreme Court: Government Can’t Exclude Christian Groups From Programs Just Because They’re Christian In a huge victory, the Supreme Court today ruled that government programs can’t exclude Christian groups from them just because they are Christian. The specifics of the case at issue are not directly related to pro-life causes but the decision certainly could have impact on pro-life organizations. Previously, Christian-based abstinence organizations have been denied funding and pro-life organizations have been denied participation in governmental programs. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 Monday that the government cannot exclude churches and other faith-based organizations from a secular...

Appearing on today’s Morning Joe, law professor Jonathan Turley noted that Chief Justice John Roberts teamed with Justice Anthony Kennedy to devise an exception to the Court’s ruling of yesterday that permitted President Trump’s travel ban to remain in place. Under the exception, the ban does not apply to foreign nationals with a “bona fide” relationship with a person or entity in the United States. Turley said that as of late, Roberts has been “swimming a lot in the middle of the pool,” has become very Anthony “Kennedy-like,” and would become the new swing vote should Kennedy retire. View the...

President Donald Trump is quite pleased with today's Supreme Court decision reinstating the majority of the "travel ban" until the court can come to a decision this fall. The court overturned decisions from state courts and said that people from the six listed countries that lacked "bona fide" reasons to come to the United States can be blocked from entry. In a statement, Trump said that the ban is a "clear victory for national security" and that it is "gratifying" that the decision was unanimous. Trump further defended the ban as a way to ensure that people who come...

A Colorado clash between gay rights and religion started as an angry Facebook posting about a wedding cake but now has big implications for anti-discrimination laws in 22 states. Baker Jack Phillips is challenging a Colorado law that says he was wrong to have turned away a same-sex couple who wanted a cake to celebrate their 2012 wedding. The justices said Monday they will consider Phillips' case, which could affect all states. Twenty-two states include sexual orientation in anti-discrimination laws that bar discrimination in public accommodations. Phillips argues that he turned away Charlie Craig and David Mullins not because they...

The United States Supreme Court has reversed a lower court that upheld an Arkansas law that treated same-sex and opposite-sex married couples differently regarding the issuing of birth certificates. (Photo: REUTERS/Joshua Roberts)Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts (R) walks with associate Justice Neil Gorsuch during his investiture ceremony at the Supreme Court in Washington, U.S., June 15, 2017.Known as Pavan v. Smith, the case was centered on a state law that automatically listed an opposite sex spouse on a birth certificate even if they were not the biological parent. This was not done for same-sex couples.In an unsigned...

While there are many threats to religious liberty, few are more consequential over the long term than the state’s ever-expanding role in private life. If the government is able to vacuum up tax dollars, create programs large and small for public benefit, and then exclude religious individuals or institutions from those programs, it has functionally created two tiers of citizenship. Secular individuals and institutions enjoy full access to the government they fund, while religious individuals and institutions find themselves funding a government that overtly discriminates against them. That’s the issue the Supreme Court addressed today in Trinity Lutheran Church...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday reaffirmed its 2015 decision recognizing a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, ruling that states may not treat married same-sex couples differently from others in issuing birth certificates. The decision was unsigned. Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., dissented. The case concerns an Arkansas law about birth certificates that treats married opposite-sex couples differently from same-sex ones. A husband of a married woman is automatically listed as the father even if he is not the genetic parent. Same-sex spouses are not. The case, Pavan v. Smith,...

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the only justice to join Sotomayor in dissenting from the majority’s opinion in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer. Writing for the court, Chief Justice John Roberts, joined in full by liberal Justice Elena Kagan, concluded that a state government could not categorically deny churches that have playgrounds from competing with other institutions in the state grant program. “The Free Exercise Clause ‘protects religious observers against unequal treatment’ and subjects to the strictest scrutiny laws that target the religious for ‘special disabilities’ based on their religious status,” wrote Roberts. “Applying that basic principle, this...

Sen. Mazie Hirono (D., Hawaii) called Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas "the three horsemen of the apocalypse" on MSNBC on Monday as she decried President Donald Trump's executive order temporarily banning travel from six nations in the Middle East and North Africa. Hirono criticized the justices for wanting to lift the injunction against Trump's executive order, which the other six justices agreed to review. Hirono called the order a "Muslim ban," despite the fact that it does not affect about 88 percent of the world's Muslims. "This is like the three horsemen of the apocalypse,...

RUSH: The Supreme Court, ladies and gentlemen, has upheld Trump’s travel ban and has reinstated it. To me, this is an example of how silly and stupid we have been since Trump was — not us. There has been no question that Trump was totally constitutionally within his rights to issue this travel ban. An act of Congress that we read to you many times explicitly granted to Trump the official constitutional powers to do exactly what he did and more if he wanted to in his travel ban. It was stayed by all these lower courts and then upheld...