Free Republic

A federal appeals court on Wednesday stopped the federal government from destroying a fence of razor wire that Texas installed along the U.S.-Mexico border near Eagle Pass to deter migrants from entering the country illegally. The ruling, criticized by activists, came hours before Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum told President-elect Donald Trump that immigrants headed to the U.S. are being “taken care of” in her country. Texas had placed more than 29 miles of wire in the Eagle Pass area by last September when Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Biden administration over Border Patrol agents’ alleged illegal destruction of state...

A federal appeals court has upheld an Indiana law banning the use of puberty blockers and hormones for transgender children under the age of 18, one of numerous such laws passed by Republican-controlled states. The 2-1 decision from the seventh US circuit court of appeals on Wednesday comes as the US supreme court prepares to hear a challenge to a similar law in Tennessee, which may ultimately determine whether all such state laws around the country can be enforced. The seventh circuit had already allowed the law to take effect in February while it considered the challenge by families of...

On Thursday a three-judge panel from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided that Steven Duarte, a felon, has a “right to possess a firearm for self-defense.” Courthouse News Service noted Duarte has five felony convictions and was a member of a street gang in Los Angeles. The decision upholding Duarte’s gun rights was split, with George W. Bush appointee Carlos Bea and Donald Trump appointee Lawrence VanDyke deciding in the majority. Bea wrote the majority opinion, noted the panel tested the prohibition against felons possessing guns in light of Bruen (2022) and found the government...

On March 11, 2024, Judge William Q. Hayes of the United States District Court, Southern District of California, granted a summary judgement in the case of Nguyen V. Bonta. The case is a challenge to California’s one gun a month law. Judge Hayes ruled the law violated the text of the Second Amendment and there were no reasonable analogies in the relevant legal history of the United States. Judge Hayes granted one month for an appeal to be filed to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The case was sent to a three judge panel of the Ninth...

Tennessee and Kentucky can continue to ban gender-affirming care for young transgender people while legal challenges against those state laws proceed, federal appeals judges ruled. In a 2-1 decision by a 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel late Thursday, the majority wrote that elected lawmakers made “precise cost-benefit decisions” in instituting the bans and “did not trigger any reason for judges to second-guess them.” The laws were passed by Republican majorities in both states. “Prohibiting citizens and legislatures from offering their perspectives on high-stakes medical policies, in which compassion for the child points in both directions, is not something...

On Tuesday a 2-1 Democrat majority of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit invalidated a good West Virginia law protecting girls’ sports against invasion by male-bodied transgender students. The Richmond-based tribunal held that West Virginia’s Save Women’s Sports Act violates the federal Title IX law, which was enacted to protect girls’ sports, and also that West Virginia’s protection of girls’ sports may further violate the Constitution. The Biden-appointed judge who wrote this absurd decision repeatedly used the propaganda term “sex assigned at birth,” as if sex were arbitrary and merely “assigned” to a newborn. On the contrary,...

A federal appeals court on Tuesday overturned the West Virginia law banning transgender girls from playing on girls' sports teams, finding that it violates Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools. The ruling comes amid a wave of anti-trans legislation cropping up across the country, as well as efforts to fight back against it. The ban in West Virginia was originally signed into law by Gov. Jim Justice in 2021, and introduced as the "Save Women's Sports Act." It required that any official or unofficial school-sanctioned event involving athletics determine each athlete's participation in...

Last week the US Supreme Court allowed Texas to enforce its immigration law that allows police to arrest illegal aliens. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority rejected an emergency application by the Biden Regime requesting the high court block Texas’ immigration law. The high court temporarily rejected the Biden Regime’s request as litigation made its way through the courts. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals last week temporarily suspended the immigration law after the Supreme Court rejected the emergency application. A three-judge panel for the Fifth Circuit in a 2-1 ruling Tuesday night rejected ‘invasion’ claims and issued a new block...

A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled in favor of a gun rights group, saying Maryland's preliminary handgun-licensure requirement is unconstitutional and cannot be enforced. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled in favor of Maryland Shall Issue, which challenged the law, The Daily Record reported. The decision is a victory for gun rights advocates in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen.

On the face of it, Friday’s decision by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn an injunction against enforcement of Illinois’ recently enacted ban on “assault weapons” and “large capacity” magazines doesn’t change circumstances on the ground. The three-judge panel that issued today’s decision had previously stayed U.S. District Judge Stephen McGlynn’s injunction while the state appealed, so the law has been in effect throughout litigation. Still, the 2-1 decision does matter, both because it provides an opportunity for some or all of the plaintiffs to appeal on an emergency basis to the Supreme Court and because it will...

Nick Sandmann, who at the time was a Covington Catholic student, appears in a screengrab taken from a video filed as an exhibit in federal court. A federal appellate panel in a 2-1 decision Wednesday denied former Covington Catholic student Nick Sandmann’s bid to revive libel claims against mainstream media outlets over their coverage of his 2019 encounter with Native American activist Nathan Phillips in Washington, D.C. at the March for Life. In July 2022, Senior U.S. District Judge William O. Bertelsman, a Jimmy Carter appointee sitting in the Eastern District of Kentucky, granted summary judgment and threw out Sandmann’s...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A federal ruling that gender dysphoria is covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act could help block conservative political efforts to restrict access to gender-affirming care, advocates and experts say. A panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week became the first federal appellate court in the country to find that the 1990 landmark federal law protects transgender people who experience anguish and other symptoms as a result of the disparity between their assigned sex and their gender identity. The ruling could become a powerful tool to challenge legislation restricting access to medical...

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday ruled the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is denying defendants a constitutional right to a jury trial by putting them in front of its own internal judges. In a 2-1 ruling, the court ruled for George Jarkesy and Patriot28 LLC, who sued the SEC in 2011 after the agency imposed a $300,000 fine and other punishments in a securities fraud case. Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod wrote in the majority opinion the SEC violated the Seventh Amendment constitutional right to a jury trial by bringing defendants before in-house judges and allowing the agency...

A U.S. appeals court ruled Wednesday that California's ban on the sale of semiautomatic weapons to adults under 21 is unconstitutional. In a 2-1 ruling, a panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Wednesday the law violates the Second Amendment right to bear arms and a San Diego judge should have blocked what it called "an almost total ban on semiautomatic centerfire rifles" for young adults.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, however, ruled that a hunting license requirement for purchases of rifles or shotguns by adults under 21 who are not in the military or law enforcement was reasonable A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday ruled that California's ban on the sale of semiautomatic weapons to adults under 21 is unconstitutional, a move gun-rights advocates hope will pave the way for similar rulings in other courts. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the law violates the Second Amendment and that a San Diego judge should have blocked what is called...

LOS ANGELES -- A U.S. appeals court ruled Wednesday that California's ban on the sale of semiautomatic weapons to adults under 21 is unconstitutional. In a 2-1 ruling, a panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Wednesday the law violates the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms and a San Diego judge should have blocked what it called "an almost total ban on semiautomatic centerfire rifles" for young adults.

Former President Carter is taking the rare step of weighing in on judicial proceedings, saying that an appeals court is misinterpreting a conservation law he signed. On Monday, Carter filed a briefing chastising a ruling that upheld a Trump-era decision to build a road through a national wildlife refuge in order to enable medical evacuations nearby.

(CNN)With only a few days left in February, court watchers are trying to read tea leaves as to the identity of President Joe Biden's pick for the Supreme Court before his end-of-the-month deadline -- and a federal court on Thursday increased the buzz around DC Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit deviated from its typical procedure by issuing an opinion on a Thursday -- breaking with its usual schedule of Tuesday and Friday release days. Notably, Jackson -- who has interviewed with Biden for the Supreme Court nomination -- was...

A federal appeals court has reinstated the Biden administration’s vaccine and testing requirement for private businesses that covers about 80 million American workers. The ruling by the 6th U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati lifted a November injunction that had blocked the rule from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which applies to businesses with at least 100 workers. In the decision Friday, the 6th Circuit noted that OSHA has historical precedent for using wide discretion to ensure worker safety and “demonstrated the pervasive danger that COVID-19 poses to workers—unvaccinated workers in particular—in their workplaces.”

After being struck down by lower courts, an appeals court has reinstated Joe Biden’s OSHA vaccine mandate for businesses with 100 or more employees. Around 80 million Americans will be directly affected by this ruling. After the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration had the authority to Impose the mandate due to take effect Jan. 4, all eyes turn now to the Supreme Court where the final decision will be made. According to Just The News: “Given OSHA’s clear and exercised authority to regulate viruses, OSHA necessarily has the authority...