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With the confirmation of White House attorney Steven Menashi to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, another federal appeals court has a 'majority' of Republican-appointed judges. Menashi, whose nomination was vehemently opposed by Democrats and civil rights groups, was confirmed by the Senate, 51-41. Republican Maine Sen. Susan Collins joined Democrats in opposing the 40-year-old's nomination. The 2nd Circuit now has seven judges tapped by Republican presidents and six named by Democrats. The 2nd Circuit is the second federal appeals court Trump has remade to have a majority of judges appointed by GOP presidents. In March, the president flipped...

The Senate on Thursday confirmed Steven Menashi to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, bringing an end to a confirmation battle that at times drew ire from members of both parties toward the judicial nominee. The Senate confirmed Menashi 51 to 41, largely along party lines. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, broke with her party to vote against the nominee. Menashi’s confirmation flips the Second Circuit to a majority of Republican appointees.

There are thirteen judges on the 2nd Circuit (encompasses New York, Connecticut, Vermont). There are currently six democrat appointees (3 Clinton, 3 Obama), six republican appointees (2 George W, 4 Trump) and one vacancy. Cloture was agreed to on Steven Menashi today! When he is confirmed, the 2nd Circuit will have flipped. And this ain't the south. This is the NEW YORK circuit.

President Trump was granted at least a brief reprieve Monday after a federal judge issued a scathing order allowing the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office to subpoena his tax returns from accounting firm Mazars USA. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals put the subpoena on hold after Trump's attorneys filed an emergency appeal. “We are very pleased that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has issued a stay of the subpoena issued by New York County District Attorney Cy Vance,” Trump attorney Jay Sekulow said. The administrative stay will only be in place while the court reviews the...

The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday asked a federal appeals court to reconsider a case in which President Trump was told he could not legally b lock people on Twitter from seeing his tweets. The DOJ’s Friday court filing requests a rehearing from the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which has not yet said whether it will hear the case, CNN reported. In the filing, the DOJ argued that Trump — whose personal Twitter account is not owned by the federal government and which was used by Trump for years prior to taking office — should be able to...

NEW YORK (AP) - An appeals court has revived a defamation lawsuit Sarah Palin brought against The New York Times. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals restored the lawsuit on Tuesday, saying Palin must be allowed to collect evidence to support her claims. Still, it said Palin's burden of proof was high to show the Times acted with actual malice when it published an editorial titled "America's Lethal Politics" in 2017. The onetime Republican vice presidential nominee sued over the editorial published after a gunman opened fire on Republican lawmakers in Virginia, wounding U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal appeals court [the Second Circuit Court of Appeals with jurisdiction over New York] revived former U.S. vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s defamation lawsuit against the New York Times, over an editorial that she said maliciously linked her to the 2011 mass shooting that seriously wounded Representative Gabrielle Giffords.

Less than six weeks after Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) signed into law New York’s so-called “Green Light Bill,” Assembly Bill (AB) 3675, which allows illegal aliens to apply for drivers’ licenses, a second county clerk has stepped forward to sue the state in an attempt to prevent the law from taking effect. On July 24, Rensselaer County Clerk Frank Merola (R) followed Erie County Clerk Mickey Kearns (D) lead and filed suit. Recent polls show a clear majority of New Yorkers are against giving drivers’ licenses to illegal aliens. Rensselaer County Clerk Merola called the Green Light Law a “travesty,”...

Federal appeals Judge Christopher F. Droney said Monday that he is retiring from active service, a decision certain to focus attention on how President Trump, who has vowed to remake the federal judiciary, chooses a Connecticut lawyer to fill a vacancy on one of the nation’s most influential courts. Droney notified the judiciary by letter that he will assume senior status June 30 on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. As a senior judge, Droney remains a member of the court, but with reduced responsibilities.

U.S. Circuit Judge Christopher Droney of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit plans to take senior status at the end of June, providing President Donald Trump with yet another appointment opportunity, the judge confirmed to the New York Law Journal Monday. The Hartford-based appellate judge said the decision was driven by a desire to spend more time with his family, including grandchildren. He said while he’ll be taking senior status, he expected to remain an active member of the court and to continue to participate fully. “It’s been a privilege for me to be on the court...

The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it will examine New York City’s ban on carrying a licensed and unloaded handgun outside the city limits, the first Second Amendment challenge it has accepted in nearly a decade. The decision to hear the case in the term that begins in October may signal that the reinforced conservative majority on the court is ready to consider more laws that restrict gun rights. New York’s law is not replicated elsewhere: It permits transporting handguns only to firing ranges within the city. Those who challenged the law have a licenses to keep a handgun at...

Democratic attorneys general in four states announced on Thursday that they will try to block President Donald Trump’s revised executive order on travel in court, The Hill reported. Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson said Thursday his office will file a motion asking U.S. District Judge James Robart, who issued the order blocking the first version of the ban, to reaffirm that the order applies to the new version of the travel ban as well. ..... The new ban, which was signed by Trump on Monday, blocks citizens of six Muslim-majority countries: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Iraqi citizens,...

A divided panel of the Second Circuit ruled today (in Windsor v. United States) that section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines “marriage” for purposes of provisions of federal law as “only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife,” “violates equal protection.” The majority opinion was authored, alas, by Second Circuit chief judge Dennis Jacobs, a Bush 41 appointee who has generally been regarded as a conservative. Jacobs was joined by Obama appointee Christopher Droney. In a second departure from type (at least as determined by appointing president), senior circuit...

The Obama administration is asking the Supreme Court to overturn a court ruling that greatly diminished the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) ability to police the airwaves for indecency. Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal filed a certiorari petition ahead of Thursday's deadline after previously filing for two extensions. The administration is asking the Supreme Court to overturn the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals decision that struck down the FCC's indecency policy last July. The court ruled that the FCC's policy against fleeting expletives on live television, instituted in 2004 after U2 frontman Bono used an expletive during the 2003 Golden Globes,...

Today the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a Catholic nurse who was forced by a New York hospital to participate in an abortion does not have the right to sue her employer. Administrators at Mt. Sinai Hospital had threatened Catherine DeCarlo with disciplinary measures in May 2009 if she did not honor a last-minute summons to assist in a scheduled late-term abortion. The hospital insisted on her participation in the procedure on the grounds that it was an “emergency.” Lawyers for DeCarlo, however, have pointed out that the procedure was not classified by the hospital as an emergency,...

President Barack Obama's nominee to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals evidently doesn't know the difference between a motive and an excuse. Judge Robert Chatigny, a federal court judge based in Connecticut, was picked by the president despite a judicial record which includes trying to bully a convicted serial killer's attorney into delaying his client's execution despite lower court rulings and the client's own instructions, Or perhaps he was picked because of such an attempt at judicial activism.

On September 21, 2009, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit handed down a decision reversing a lower court's dismissal of claims brought against several major electric utilities seeking to abate CO2 emissions from power plants owned by the utilities because of alleged injuries from global warming. State of Connecticut v. American Electric Power Company Inc., 2009 WL 2996729 (2d Cir. Sept. 21, 2009). Click here to view the decision. The case was brought by several states, New York City, and three non-profit conservation organizations. In 2005, a lower court dismissed the complaints on the basis that the...

In the DeLano case, 06-4780-bk, Judge Sotomayor, presiding, and her colleagues on a panel of the Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit (CA2), issued a summary order to protect, not the rule of law, but rather their appointee to a bankruptcy judgeship, Bankruptcy Judge John C. Ninfo, II, WBNY. Her conduct in that case and the order are so contemptuous of the most important Constitutional guarantee that a judge, let alone a justice of the Supreme Court, must safeguard, namely, due process of law, that Judge Sotomayor withheld the order from the Committee in her three principal and supplementary responses to...

The following letter was confirmed to me by Mr. Greenberg with the following statement:"The letter was sent to Senators Sessions, Hatch, Grassley, Graham and Coburn. It was also sent to Cong. Peter King (R) NY. The story is being covered extensively by the photo blogs, the trade publications and the NY Times. No politician has responded. The NY Times quotes attributed to me are accurate and therefore I assume that the quotes of my adversary Mr. Fairhurst are accurate as well."Text of the letter: I am an attorney in NYC who represented White House Photographer Chris Usher in litigation against...

For all the publicity about the Supreme Court's 5-4 reversal of Judge Sonia Sotomayor's decision (with two colleagues) to reject a discrimination suit by a group of firefighters against New Haven, Conn., one curious aspect of the case has been largely overlooked.That is the likelihood that but for a chance discovery by a fourth member of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, the now-triumphant 18 firefighters (17 white and one Hispanic) might well have seen their case, Ricci v. DeStefano, disappear into obscurity, with no triumph, no national publicity and no Supreme Court review.