Free Republic

An appeals court on Friday overturned the conviction and life sentence of a man found guilty of killing a U.S. Border Patrol agent whose death exposed the botched federal gun operation known as “Fast and Furious” has been overturned, a U.S. appeals court said Friday. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the convictions of Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes, saying his constitutional due process rights had been violated, and sent the case back to the U.S. District Court in Arizona for further proceedings. Osorio-Arellanes was sentenced in 2020 in the Dec. 14, 2010, fatal shooting of Agent Brian Terry while he...

Arizona won't be able to block those who sign up to vote using a federal registration form from casting a ballot in the presidential race, at least not now. In a brief order Thursday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a plea by Republican legislative leaders to delay a ruling by a trial judge that barring enforcement of such a ban. In the same order, the three-judge panel also said those using that federal form still can cast their ballots by mail. What the judges decided, however, is that anyone who tries to register to vote using a state...

Officers should have known that handcuffing a compliant 10-year-old is unnecessary, the court ruled. In an unpublished opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled that the officers were not entitled to qualified immunity, a judicial doctrine that shields government officials from civil suits in cases where the rights they allegedly violated were not clearly established by prior case law. The doctrine protects a wide variety of abusive officials from legal consequences and makes it harder for victims to hold them accountable. Citing previous rulings holding that handcuffing a complaint child surrounded by adults constituted excessive force,...

13.5 minute video of a discussion between Dr. Martin & Emerald Robinson regarding a ruling by the 9th Circuit Court on whether Covid-19 injections are "vaccines."

Four innocent hostages brought home, and a legal blow against presumptuous government action. In a daring feat masterfully executed, the Israeli Defense Force rescued four of the hostages in Gaza. Most touching of all was the rescue of Noa Argamani, whose mother is dying of brain cancer, who had prayed she’d be reunited with her daughter before she died. The hostages had been held by private citizens in two separate apartments 200 feet apart within the central market of Nuseirat in Gaza and the rescuers had to stage a difficult simultaneous operation to free them. They operated under heavy fire...

As of Monday, it is no longer illegal in Hawaii to carry a dangerous weapon in public, and switchblade and butterfly knives are no longer banned. HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) -- As of Monday, it is no longer illegal in Hawaii to carry a dangerous weapon in public -- and switchblade and butterfly knives are no longer banned. That change led to an alarming sight in Waikiki at sunset Tuesday. The governor signed HB 2342 into law Monday without fanfare, making it immediately legal to openly carry weapons that were banned in public until now. Gun rights activist Andrew Namiki Roberts, leader...

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...

A DEA agent accused of killing a cyclist in Salem while on duty had his case presented before a federal appeals court today in Seattle. At the center of today’s hearing was whether the agent could claim immunity from state prosecution because he was an on-duty federal agent. On March 28, 2023, Marganne Allen was riding her bike home from work in southeast Salem. Video from that day shows a black pickup truck running a stop sign moments before striking and killing the cyclist.

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...

Today a unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit granted the U.S. Department of Justice's petition for a writ of mandamus seeking dismissal of Juliana v. United States, the so-called "Kids Climate Case." The brief order was short and direct. It noted that the Ninth Circuit had previously concluded that the plaintiffs lacked standing and ordered the case dismissed. Contrary to the plaintiffs' claims, no intervening decisions changed that fact, and that there was no basis for the district court to allow the plaintiffs to amend the complaint. This decision should not have been a...

California gun owners didn’t get to enjoy a full week of freedom as they did when Judge Roger Benitez enjoined the state’s ban on “large capacity” magazines a few years ago, but as attorney Kostas Moros wrote on X, the Ninth Circuit’s delayed stay in Rhode v. Bonta allowed them to experience what purchasing ammunition is like in the rest of the country for a short period of time. [embedded court ruling] Unfortunately, that brief taste of freedom came to an end, at least temporarily, on Monday evening as a three-judge panel on the Ninth Circuit granted Attorney General Rob...

On December 20, 2023, US District Judge Cormac J. Carney issued an order granting a preliminary injunction against the defendants (the State of California government). The injunction stopped the state from enforcing the blatantly unconstitutional SB-2 law declaring most of California as “sensitive places” where even licensed concealed carriers were forbidden to carry arms in public. The state asked for an order to stop the injunction from going into effect on December 22, 2023. The stay was granted on December 30, 2023, by an administrative three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit. The stay was appealed to the Ninth Circuit three-judge...

The FBI cannot seem to stop trampling American citizens' constitutional rights. But some victims of government abuse have fought back. And their tenacity has left the bureau scrambling to save face. According to Rob Johnson, senior attorney at the nonprofit Institute for Justice, a landmark Fourth Amendment case pending in California might soon result in severe chastisement for the tyrannical FBI. In 2021, the bureau raided U.S. Private Vaults, a safety storage company based in Beverly Hills, California, on suspicion of money laundering -- a charge to which the company later pleaded guilty. While conducting their raid, however, FBI agents...

A federal appeals court on Thursday ruled against Nirvana and revived a child pornography lawsuit filed by the man who appeared as a nude baby on the cover of the band’s 1991 album Nevermind.Spencer Elden, now in his 30s, claimed the photo – one of the most iconic album covers in rock history – violated federal child pornography laws by displaying a sexualized image of a minor. But a lower ruled last year that he had waited far too long to bring his lawsuit. In a decision overturning that ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled...

The panel affirmed the district court’s dismissal for lack of standing of an action, brought before the 2022 general election by former Republican nominees for Governor and Secretary of State of Arizona, alleging that Arizona’s use of electronic tabulation systems violated the federal Constitution. The gravamen of Plaintiffs’ operative complaint is that notwithstanding safeguards, electronic tabulation systems are particularly susceptible to hacking by non-governmental actors who intend to influence election results. On appeal, Plaintiffs conceded that their arguments were limited to potential future hacking, and not based on any past harm. The panel held that because Plaintiffs are no longer...

In a completely unsurprising ruling today, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has placed a stay on the lower court ruling on the constitutionality of California's outright ban on "high" capacity magazines. Last month, a lower federal court judge overturned that ban as unconstitutional. On Tuesday, the larger “en banc” panel stayed that decision — stopping it from taking effect — pending an appeal by the state. The decision divided the judges along ideological lines. The court’s liberal majority found that the state of California had made “strong arguments” for why the ban on ammunition magazines with more than 10...

The nation's largest federal appeals court has put public schools across the western U.S. on notice that they cannot penalize student groups for their religious beliefs while granting secular clubs exemptions to nondiscrimination policies. The sweeping ruling Wednesday prompted multiple partial and full concurrences, dissents and alliances, particularly on legal standing, among 11 judges of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. They heard the case en banc after California's San Jose Unified School District appealed a three-judge panel's ruling in favor of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. The 9-2 majority made no legal distinction between clubs that require leaders...

The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) just filed a reply brief in support of its petition for writ of certiorari with the United States Supreme Court. The petition was filed to correct the unjust result in a major abortion case involving Planned Parenthood. The newly filed brief responds to Planned Parenthood’s opposition to that petition. Since early 2016, the ACLJ has been representing Troy Newman, a former board member of the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), in a federal lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood. The abortion giant sued Newman and his co-defendants after CMP released videos from its...

The measure barred trans women and girls of all ages from participating in female sports teams at public schools in the state, from primary school through college. A federal appeals court on Thursday refused to allow Idaho to enforce a first-in-the-nation ban on transgender women and girls from participating in female sports leagues, saying the measure likely was unconstitutional. A 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel delivered a victory to LGBTQ rights advocates by upholding an injunction blocking Idaho’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, the first of many such laws to be enacted by Republican-led states. “This is an...

In 1999, Hawaii enacted a categorical ban on possessing, carrying, and using butterfly knives or “balisongs.” The knives had been legal to possess before that time. In 2020, the ban on butterfly knives was challenged in court. The District Court upheld the ban. The ban was appealed to the Ninth Circuit. On August 7, 2023, the three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the District Court, ruling the Hawaii ban was unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court Bruen decision (June of 2022) was cited in the ruling. Of particular interest is the logic used by...