Free Republic

How 2 recent SCOTUS cases could change police search and seizureTwo cases recently argued before SCOTUS could narrow or expand warrantless searches – and they could reach back to what police are doing now 2018 started off with a double-feature in the U.S. Supreme Court starring the Fourth Amendment and police authority to search and seize. COLLINS V. VIRGINIA Motorcyclist Ryan Collins whizzed by an officer at 140 mph, eluding efforts to stop him. The officer did get photos and a license plate number. After seeing images of the parked bike on Collins’ Facebook page, the officer tracked it to...

Justice Clarence Thomas decried the contemporary culture of victimhood during remarks Thursday, telling an audience at the Library of Congress that constant aggrievement would exhaust the country. Ever a touchstone for controversy on racial issues, the justice related a story from a recent trip to Kansas, where a black college student told him she was primarily interested in school work, and less interested in the political tumult gripping college campuses. “At some point we’re going to be fatigued with everybody being a victim,” he said. Thomas has struck similar chords throughout his public life. He appeared on Laura Ingraham’s Fox...

The Supreme Court will hold a closed-door meeting to decide whether to take up a lower court opinion that blocked the White House plan to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, a program at the forefront of the debate on illegal immigration. In an unusual move, the nation's highest court will consider the possibility of reviewing the opinion without a ruling from a federal appeals court

....In 2010, a nationwide Republican wave swept the GOP into the Wisconsin governor’s mansion and legislature, giving the party the power to redraw the state’s electoral map for the first time in half a century. The result transformed Mr. Mason’s political life. The new District 62 separated him from most of his old constituents in Racine, Wis., and swept in rural and conservative precincts from elsewhere. He was stuck in a red district with just a comma-shaped sliver of blue. .............. Republicans engineered similar moves across Wisconsin, erecting a firewall that helped protect the GOP’s majority of 60 seats in...

A state commission in Colorado that punished Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips for refusing to use his artistry to promote same-sex marriage could be eliminated. Future funding for the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, where one member even likened Christians to Nazis, failed in a vote in the state’s Joint Budget Committee. State Sen. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, tweeted that the decision came down to a party-line vote that tabled plans to continue sending money to the commission. “My argument against approving their funding today is we need to wait and see what the legislature does with the renewal of the law...

GOP Rep. Devin Nunes of Calif., chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, may invite Chief Justice John Roberts to testify before the panel on alleged FISA abuses. Nunes told radio host and Republican wise man Hugh Hewitt Thursday that committee Republicans have entertained the idea, as Roberts appoints all FISA judges, but cautioned no decision has yet been made. Hewitt and Nunes discussed the idea in connection with the committee’s memo on the secret intelligence courts, which alleged the FBI sought authorization to surveil President Donald Trump’s campaign aides on the basis of political opposition research. “Now...

Paying union dues and baking a wedding cake may not seem like classic examples of free speech—except perhaps at the Supreme Court. This year, the high court is poised to announce its most significant expansion of the 1st Amendment since the Citizens United decision in 2010, which struck down laws that limited campaign spending by corporations, unions and the very wealthy.

Two groups leading the legal fight to defend the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program have retained the country’s most powerful law firms to protect DACA at the Supreme Court. That the DACA case would attract top legal talent is not surprising, especially since the litigation has reached a critical stretch. The University of California, which sued to stop DACA’s termination in Sept. 2017, hired Covington & Burling’s Robert Long, while Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s Ted Boutrous was retained to represent six DACA recipients who are individually suing the administration. Long and Boutrous are veteran Supreme Court advocates who have...

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday let a court-ordered redrawing of congressional districts in Pennsylvania proceed, raising Democratic hopes that a revamped map might yield them several more seats this fall. Justice Samuel Alito, who handles emergency appeals from Pennsylvania, rejected the request from GOP legislative leaders and voters to put on hold an order from the state Supreme Court intended to produce new congressional districts in the coming two weeks. The Pennsylvania high court ruled last month that the current map of 18 districts violates the state constitution because it unfairly benefits Republicans.

On February 5, 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt announces a controversial plan to expand the Supreme Court to as many as 15 judges, allegedly to make it more efficient. Critics immediately charged that Roosevelt was trying to “pack” the court and thus neutralize Supreme Court justices hostile to his New Deal. During the previous two years, the high court had struck down several key pieces of New Deal legislation on the grounds that the laws delegated an unconstitutional amount of authority to the executive branch and the federal government. Flushed with his landslide reelection in 1936, President Roosevelt issued a proposal...

The Supreme Court is allowing a court-ordered redrawing of congressional districts in Pennsylvania to proceed, denying a plea from Republicans to block it. Justice Samuel Alito on Monday rejected emergency appeals from Republican legislative leaders and voters to block an order from the state Supreme Court to devise new congressional districts. The state high court ruled last month that the 18 districts violated Pennsylvania’s constitution because they unfairly benefited Republicans. The state court gave lawmakers and Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf three weeks to submit a replacement plan, after which the state justices might draw up their own map. The Supreme...

She told a story about how she kept finding a new reason to stay on, but can't find a new one after being "the longest sitting Jewish justice and woman." "So, I'm just candid and say as long as I can do the job full steam, I will be here," Ginsburg said to applause.

A major split seems to be developing between conservative justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito over the issue of property rights and the Fourth Amendment.The most recent evidence of this division came on January 9, when the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Bryd v. United States. This case arose in 2014, when a woman named Natasha Reed rented a car and allowed her fiancé, Terrence Bryd, to drive it in violation of her rental contract, which listed her as the sole authorized driver. When the state police stopped Bryd for a minor traffic infraction, the officer searched the...

Neil Gorsuch is supposed to be a good writer. In fact, he once was: During his tenure on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Gorsuch produced a number of witty, lucid, and pithy opinions. But since his elevation to the Supreme Court, Gorsuch’s prose has curdled into a glop of cutesy idioms, pointless metaphors, and garbled diction that’s exhausting to read and impossible to take seriously. It may even be alienating the conservative justices whom Gorsuch was supposed to beguile with his ostensibly impeccable reasoning. Consider Gorsuch’s dissenting opinion in Artis v. District of Columbia, a rather arcane case...

On the night of Thursday December 7th, 2017 it was announced that U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras was recused from the case against General Mike Flynn. This recusal came five days after Judge Contreras accepted the initial pleading from Flynn. Almost two months have passed, and there’s no explanation why? (Reuters) The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia judge presiding over the criminal case for President Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has been recused from handling the case, a court spokeswoman said on Thursday. (read more) If sufficient judicial conflict existed on December 7th,...

Whispers are rampant throughout D.C. that a vacancy is imminent on the U.S. Supreme Court - one that is currently taken by one of the most liberal members of the Court. It has the Trump White House giddy over the prospect of potentially and forcefully shifting the balance of power on the Court while Democrats in Congress are said to be warning White House staff of a prolonged and brutal fight should President Trump attempt to replace a liberal Justice with a hardline-conservative nominee. The reason for the Justice's alleged departure is said to be "ongoing illness/physical limitations." The first...

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will not be attending President Donald Trump's State of the Union address on Tuesday. Instead, she will be at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island, for a talk that was announced in August, the Providence Journal reported. Ginsburg, 84, also has sent signals recently that she intends to keep her seat on the bench for years to come. When asked how long she intends to serve, she said she will stay as long as she can go “full steam,” drawing inspiration from her model, Justice John Paul Stevens, who stepped down in 2010 at...

GOP lawmakers in Pennsylvania are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to stop a state court’s decision that found Pennsylvania’s congressional map was unconstitutionally gerrymandered. Lawyers for Republican state legislative leaders argued in a court filing Thursday that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court violated a clause that allows state legislatures to handle congressional redistricting, The Associated Press reported. The filing asks the Supreme Court to put a hold on the lower court's ruling while it considers Republicans' argument, according to the AP. The state court ruled earlier this week that Pennsylvania’s congressional map was gerrymandered to the point that it was unconstitutional....

Supreme Court justices Anthony Kennedy and Ruth Ginsburg have announced plans to keep hiring law clerks for the next few years, which means they aren't retiring any time soon. Ginsburg, affectionately known by her fans as the "Notorious RBG," has already hired four clerks for the October 2018 term and four clerks for the October 2019 term, which ends in June 2020, according to CNN.  The news hints that Ginsburg is planning to stay on for the coinciding terms. Meanwhile, Kennedy's recent law clerk hires are also telling. According to Above the Law, which first reported the law clerk news, he's selected four clerks for...

The Supreme Court said Tuesday it will speed up a case involving the Trump administration’s request to cancel the Obama-era DACA deportation amnesty, moving to grab a piece of the unfolding immigration debate.