Free Republic

As a rule, few things are less likely to be the source of humor than court decisions. Sometimes there are excellent puns or low-key snark, but you don’t find belly-laugh material. Usually. Last Friday, a panel of the Ninth Circuit published a decision on a complaint arising from Ventura, California, that covered both the COVID panic and the Second Amendment. During the height of the COVID panic, that county ordered firing ranges, and gun shops closed. Presumably, this is because the Wuhan virus has a particular affinity for recreational venues. Several groups and individuals sued to overturn the order as...

Still smarting from a federal appeals court's refusal to reinstate President Trump's controversial ban of nationals from seven predominantly Muslim nations, White House lawyers are working on a rewrite of his executive order that could pass legal muster, NBC News has learned. The work began several days before the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals shot down the White House's bid to lift a temporary restraining order on Trump's plan to bar nationals from Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Iraq and Yemen from entering the country for 90 days, a senior administration official told NBC. Trump's legal team still believes...

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling has cleared the way for a wave of bail hearings for immigrants across Arizona. Hundreds of immigrants who have been denied bail under a strict Arizona law will now have the opportunity to be released. The high court on Thursday kept intact a lower-court ruling that struck down the law passed in 2006 amid a series of immigration crackdowns in Arizona over the past decade. The law denied bail to immigrants who are in the country illegally and have been charged with a range of felonies that include shoplifting, aggravated identity theft, sexual assault and...

LOS ANGELES, June 21 (UPI) -- A U.S. appeals court in California has ruled a test to measure a male sex offender's sexual arousal deprives him of his liberty. A three-judge panel was unanimous in its ruling in Los Angeles, and sent Matthew Weber's case back to District Court, The Los Angeles Times reported. In 2002, Weber was sentenced to 27 months in prison for possessing child pornography on his computer. In addition, the judge ruled Weber would have to submit to penile plethysmograph tests in which a pressure-sensitive electronic device is placed around the penis as the response to...