Free Republic

Planned Parenthood’s decision to withdraw Monday from a federal grant program aimed at family planning services is the result of a ruling from an unlikely source: the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The historically liberal court allowed a Trump administration rule blocking federal funding from organizations that refer patients for abortions to move forward, and Planned Parenthood chose to lose the money rather than stop the referrals. The case is one signal that President Donald Trump’s judicial nominations may be shifting one of the nation’s most liberal courts further to the right, blunting what many consider his opponents’ most effective...

Depriving a transgender inmate with severe gender dysphoria of sex reassignment surgery is a form of “cruel and unusual punishment,” a federal appeals court ruled Friday, affirming a lower court ruling. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the state of Idaho to provide the surgery for trans inmate Adree Edmo. The ruling is the first time an appeals court has ordered a state to provide gender-affirming surgery to a prisoner, and the decision is at odds with a ruling issued earlier this year by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Idaho's Republican governor, Brad Little, vowed to...

A federal judge upheld most of California’s new sanctuary laws Thursday, but did rule the state went too far when it ordered businesses not to grant access to the Border Patrol or deportation officers. Judge John A. Mendez, a Bush appointee to the court, said the state does not have to turn over illegal immigrants and can refuse to cooperate with federal agents, as long as it still allows local police to share information. And he ruled that California has the right to perform inspections on any facility that holds illegal immigrants in the state.

Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has died, a court spokesperson confirmed. He was 87. A liberal champion, Reinhardt was appointed to the bench by President Carter in 1980. He authored key liberal court opinions on hot-button topics ranging from abortion and marriage equality to assisted suicide and immigration. At the same time, the opinions made him a target of criticism from conservative corners — and of regular reversal from the Supreme Court.

Read the judicial rules for radicals issued by the United States Court Of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in affirmation of the ban on The Ban. It follows the Executive Order issued by President Donald Trump, with the imprimatur of 62 million voters, to protect the nation from foreign terrorists entering into the United States. Two states objected to the president's undeniably badly written Order, which, while upholding negative rights—and neither denying natural rights nor minting positive ones—was nevertheless replete with administrative errors.Acting as coequal partners in the administrative tyranny the president is trying to break, the two states issued...

Ever since a federal judge, James L. Robart, issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) against President Trump's executive order (EO) temporarily suspending admissions of aliens from seven Middle Eastern countries, the question whether the President's EO was lawful or not has reached a heated national debate. Experts, pundits, and analysts, as well as civic organizations and governmental bodies, brought many arguments in favor and against the said EO. Some have tried to provide clarity to the context in which the question arose, while others tried to obfuscate it. What virtually all of them have missed is this simple fact: They...

SACRAMENTO – ProtectMarriage.com, the official proponents of California’s voter-passed Proposition 8, petitioned the United States Supreme Court today to review the misguided decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals declaring the initiative unconstitutional. Earlier this year in a 2-1 decision in the Perry v Brown case, the Ninth Circuit – the most frequently overturned federal appellate court in the nation – errantly upheld a federal district judge’s decision that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibited California from enacting Prop 8 to restore the traditional definition of marriage between a man and a woman. “Marriage between a...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A federal appeals court on Thursday nullified a California criminal law adopted after the Rodney King beating that made it unlawful for citizens to knowingly lodge false accusations against police officers. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the law was an unconstitutional infringement of speech because false statements in support of officers were not also criminalized. The decision, hailed by civil liberties groups and opposed by state prosecutors and law enforcement groups, overturns the California Supreme Court, which in 2002 ruled that free speech concerns took a back seat when it came to speech...

<p>Hewlett-Packard had the right to fire an employee who posted anti- gay passages from the Bible at his work cubicle in protest of the computer industry giant's diversity policy and in an effort to persuade gays to repent, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.</p>

<p>Appellate court says Placer deputies must answer charges they violated civil rights.</p> <p>SAN FRANCISCO -- Four Placer County sheriff's deputies must answer to a lawsuit accusing them of violating the civil rights of a woman and child during a 1999 marijuana raid of their Citrus Heights home, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.</p>

Tribes fail to halt study of ancient skeleton 01/09/03RICHARD L. HILL Four Northwest tribes lost another round in federal court Wednesday in their effort to halt a scientific study of the ancient skeleton called Kennewick Man. U.S. Magistrate John Jelderks in Portland rejected the tribes' request to delay the study until the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals can hear the legal dispute. In August, Jelderks ruled that eight anthropologists who sued the federal government could proceed to study the 9,300-year-old remains. The Nez Perce, Umatilla, Colville and Yakama tribes appealed his decision and later asked Jelderks to delay...