Free Republic

His leftward shift may have as much to do with institutional pressures as ideology.

The Supreme Court declined to take up two Second Amendment cases on Monday, which challenged laws banning assault weapons and open-carry in Maryland and Florida. Both cases were denied review without comment from the justices, which left the lower court rulings in place. In the Florida challenge, the state Supreme Court upheld Florida’s ban on open carry finding the Second Amendment doesn’t guarantee a right to open carry.

The Supreme Court issued orders from its November 21 conference today. The justices did not add any new cases to their merits docket for the term, but they did deny review in several high-profile cases. Perhaps the most noteworthy denials came in two cases involving gun rights: Kolbe v. Hogan, a challenge to Maryland’s ban on semi-automatic rifles and large-capacity magazines, passed in the wake of the mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school; and Norman v. Florida, a challenge to the state’s ban on the open carrying of guns in public. In both cases, the lower courts had upheld...

“The privacy of emails, photos stored in the cloud, even heart rate history from a smartwatch could be at stake, according to civil libertarians, as the Supreme Court takes up a potential blockbuster case after Thanksgiving. When they return to the bench after the holiday, the justices will weigh whether the history of cell phone locations stored by a phone service provider is searchable without a warrant. The case, Carpenter v. U.S., centers on Timothy Carpenter, who argues the government violated his Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure when it obtained his cell phone location records from MetroPCS...

More than 2,000 conservatives in tuxedos and gowns recently filled Union Station's main hall for steak dinner and the chance to cheer the man who saved the Supreme Court from liberal control. Justice Neil Gorsuch didn't disappoint them, just as he hasn't in his first seven months on the Supreme Court. "Tonight I can report that a person can be both a publicly committed originalist and textualist and be confirmed to the Supreme Court," Gorsuch said to sustained applause from members of the Federalist Society, using terms by which conservatives often seek to distinguish themselves from more liberal judges. The...

The Little Sisters of the Poor are heading back to court to defend themselves against the Obama administration’s Health and Human Services mandate to provide contraception, yet again. In an unusual political move, Pennsylvania and California sued the Little Sisters, demanding the same group who won at the Supreme Court in Zubik v. Burwell provide contraceptives in their state. In early October, HHS issued a new rule that protects religious non-profits like the Little Sisters of the Poor from providing anything like contraception that would violate their religious beliefs. In a press release, Mark Rienzi, senior counsel at Becket and lead attorney...

More than 2,000 conservatives in tuxedos and gowns recently filled Union Station’s main hall for a steak dinner and the chance to cheer the man who saved the Supreme Court from liberal control. Justice Neil Gorsuch didn’t disappoint them, just as he hasn’t in his first seven months on the Supreme Court. “Tonight I can report that a person can be both a publicly committed originalist and textualist and be confirmed to the Supreme Court,” Gorsuch said to sustained applause from members of the Federalist Society, using terms by which conservatives often seek to distinguish themselves from more liberal judges....

Most of you will be surprised to learn that this spring, while we were all fretting about what the Legislature or Jared Kushner’s father-in-law will do next, Texas got itself a new interstate highway: Interstate 14. Yup. Fourteen. Odd number for an interstate, given that most of them end in a zero or a five. The story behind that number, which I’ll get to shortly, is even odder. But, yes, in April, a couple of congressmen and other dignitaries gathered in Bell County to celebrate the opening of I-14 from Belton through Killeen and on to Fort Hood. Well, more...

“I think the goal is to end the progressive state as we know it,” said Baher Azmy, Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a progressive-leaning legal advocacy group.

WASHINGTON, D.C., November 21, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — While the U.S. Senate continues to lag behind in confirming judicial nominations, President Donald Trump keeps his campaign promises by offering candidates for the U.S. Supreme Court that pro-lifers say are outstanding. On Friday, the Trump administration announced five new candidates for the Supreme Court, considered the “short list” of 25 possible high court justices. “These five judges are exceptionally qualified and any one of them would make an outstanding Supreme Court justice,” Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser said. “President Trump set a high standard with Justice Neil Gorsuch and...

Justice Neil Gorsuch gave the most significant public address of his tenure on the nation’s highest court Thursday when he addressed the Federalist Society’s annual dinner, recently named in honor of the last man to hold his seat: Antonin Scalia. The newest Supreme Court justice took square aim at one of this year’s Federalist Society Convention’s main themes: the “administrative state,” the unelected mass of executive agency staff that actually creates most of the rules and regulations by which Americans live. Resistance of the administrative state’s growth and overreach is a driving force in the emergence of populist-nationalism and the...

The White House on Friday announced the addition of five new names to President Trump’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees. ... Two of the latest candidates, Judge Amy Coney Barrett and Judge Kevin C. Newsom, were both nominated to their current positions by Trump in May, according to the White House. Barret serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit and Newsom serves on U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, the statement said. The White House announced both nominations in May. Also on the list are Justice Britt C. Grant of the Supreme Court...

President Donald J. Trump Announces Five Additions to Supreme Court List One year ago, President Donald J. Trump was elected to restore the rule of law and to Make the Judiciary Great Again. Following the successful confirmation of Justice Neil M. Gorsuch to the Supreme Court of the United States and the nomination of more than seventy Federal judges—including five individuals from his Supreme Court list—President Trump today announced that he is refreshing his Supreme Court list with five additional judges. President Trump will choose a nominee for a future Supreme Court vacancy, should one arise, from this updated list...

The Supreme Court is facing two First Amendment issues, and we are at risk of having two different answers – ones that can only further confuse an already confusing selection of legal precedents. One is Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which hinges on a privately owned business's ability to pick and choose its customers based on religious beliefs. The other case is National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Xavier Becerra, which focuses on the rights of private, non-profit crisis pregnancy centers established by pro-life organizations and individuals to operate without being forced to advocate for abortion....

On Monday, a fifth woman came forward with allegations that Roy Moore sexually assaulted her when she was 16 years old and he was a prosecutor in Etowah County, Ala. The accusations to date are both plausible and disgusting. When Moore was in his early thirties, he allegedly sought out and sexually assaulted numerous teenage girls, including a 14-year-old. Moore has denied it, sort of, although his weird interview with Sean Hannity on Friday left the strong impression that the charges are most likely true. Yet it’s hard to understand why voters in Alabama are only just now realizing that...

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide whether a California law requiring private facilities that counsel pregnant women against abortion to post signs telling clients how to get state-funded abortions and contraceptives violates free speech rights. The justices will hear an appeal brought by Christian-based non-profit facilities sometimes called “crisis pregnancy centers” of a lower court ruling that upheld the Democratic-backed 2015 California law. The challengers argue that the law, by forcing them to post the information, violates the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guarantee of free speech. The California challengers included the National Institute of Family...

Some of President Trump’s judicial nominees have faced questioning from Democrat senators that seems more like a religious inquisition than discussion of judicial philosophy and temperament. Notre Dame law professor Amy Barrett was confirmed to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals last week, but not before having a notable exchange with Sen. Dianne Feinstein who challenged her on a number of Catholic teachings and concluded: “Dogma and law are two different things. And I think whatever a religion is, it has its own dogma. … The dogma lives loudly within you and, that is concerning.”Sen. Dick Durbin probed another fine...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Justice Elena Kagan has stepped aside from the Supreme Court’s consideration of a case involving the rights of immigrants who are detained while the government considers deporting them. Court clerk Scott Harris says in a letter Friday that Kagan belatedly discovered that she authorized a court filing at an earlier stage of the case when she was serving in the Justice Department. Justices typically take themselves out of cases if they’ve played even a minor role at any point.

America’s newest Supreme Court Justice – Neil Gorsuch – has made news in the liberal media – not necessarily for his opinions though. The media has portrayed the Trump-appointee as pedantic, boorish and juvenile and annoying. This is hard to square with the praise Gorsuch received from colleagues and former law clerks during his confirmation hearing, writes Elizabeth Slattery in a (commentary) on Heritage.org. In a recent episode of the Supreme Court podcast “First Mondays,” NPR’s legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg took aim at Gorsuch. First in her crosshairs was his habit of frequently citing the Constitution. She objected to...

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday overturned a lower court ruling that an Alabama man convicted of killing a police officer in 1985 was no longer legally eligible to be executed because strokes wiped out his memory of committing the murder. The nine justices ruled unanimously that Alabama can execute 67-year-old Vernon Madison, who has spent decades on death row. They said Supreme Court precedent had not established "that a prisoner is incompetent to be executed because of a failure to remember his commission of the crime."