Free Republic

A federal judge in New York has ruled the Trump sanctuary city crackdown illegal Friday — but even went further and also ruled the law Congress passed requiring information-sharing is unconstitutional. Judge Edgardo Ramos‘ decision frees sanctuary jurisdictions in New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Washington, Massachusetts and Virginia to continue their policies without fear of losing federal money. The judge said the Trump administration attempted to write new conditions of cooperation, including notifying the feds of illegal immigrants ready for pickup, beyond what Congress had authorized. He said it is up to Congress to decide those conditions. “The...

In a decision that appears to flout Nevada election law, a Las Vegas judge has nullified the results of a Republican primary election. Jason Burke defeated Mack Miller by 122 votes in the June 12 primary for state Assembly District 5, but a judge declared Miller “the rightful winner of the election” because Burke did not file campaign finance reports in time. “This is certainly a novel case that I haven’t seen before,” said Las Vegas attorney Daniel Stewart, who specializes in Nevada election law. “But no two election contests are the same, and it seems like every election cycle...

An Iowa court has determined that the state’s ban on Medicaid coverage for medically necessary surgical care for transgender residents is unconstitutional. Chief District Judge Arthur E. Gamble of the Des Moines-based Fifth Judicial District of Iowa found that the Iowa Department of Human Services’ ban on surgical coverage violates both the Iowa Civil Rights Act and the state’s constitution. In his opinion, Gamble ordered DHS to immediately approve the women’s request for pre-approval of coverage under Medicaid. Both women, Carol Ann Beal, 42, of northwest Iowa, and EerieAnna Good, 27, of the Quad Cities, have been diagnosed with gender...

President Trump's decision to block his Twitter followers for their political views is a violation of the First Amendment, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, saying that Trump's effort to silence his critics is not permissible because the digital space in which he engages with constituents is a public forum. The ruling rejects administration arguments that the First Amendment does not apply to Trump in this case because he was acting as a private individual. In a 75-page decision, Judge Naomi Buchwald said Trump, as a federal official, is not exempt from constitutional obligations to refrain from "viewpoint discrimination." "No government...

A federal judge in Honolulu has expanded the Trump administration’s list of family relationships needed by people seeking new visas from six mostly Muslim countries to avoid a travel ban. U.S. District Court Judge Derrick Watson ruled today that the travel ban exemptions should include grandparents, grandchildren, uncles, aunts and other relatives. President Donald Trump’s travel ban, which was partially allowed by the U.S. Supreme Court, did not include grandparents, grandchildren and other relations considered “bona-fide” family relationships to be granted an exemption to the ban. The administration said a bona fide relationship would be a parent, spouse, fiance, son,...

A photo that appeared on Reddit last week of Travis County Judge Sarah Eckhardt wearing a pink “pussy hat” in the courtroom made the rounds on Twitter Monday. The knit cap, which recently made the cover of TIME, was conceived by two women in Los Angeles who envisioned “a sea of pink hats” at the Women’s March on Washington.

Our story takes us back to 2012 where an openly gay judge refused to issue marriage licenses. New York Daily News reported: An openly gay Texas judge says she refuses to conduct marriage ceremonies for straight couples until same-sex couples can also wed. Dallas County Judge Tonya Parker explained her decision Tuesday at a monthly meeting for the Stonewall Democrats of Dallas. “I do not perform them because it is not an equal application of the law. Period,” she said, according to the Dallas Voice, a newspaper for the gay community. “So I usually will offer them something along the...

Talk about blaming the victims! Outrage is growing over a Kentucky judge who let a home invader who robbed a family at gunpoint off with probation after a openly criticizing the victims for letting their child be afraid of black men because of the crime. Judge Olu Stevens of the Jefferson Circuit Court appeared even more offended by the victim impact statements offered by the family who was robbed than he was by the fact that a crime had been committed at all.

Florida's ban on marriages between same-sex couples is headed for a midnight end, with wedding vows planned around the state. A stay expires late Monday in a federal judge's ruling striking down the ban enacted in 2008 by voters. Several court clerks are planning to begin issuing....

The U.S. National Security Agency should have an unlimited ability to collect digital information in the name of protecting the country against terrorism and other threats, an influential federal judge said during a debate on privacy. "I think privacy is actually overvalued," Judge Richard Posner, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, said during a conference about privacy and cybercrime in Washington, D.C., Thursday. "Much of what passes for the name of privacy is really just trying to conceal the disreputable parts of your conduct," Posner added. "Privacy is mainly about trying to improve your social and...

Correction: This post initially stated that Judge Tonya Parker was “no longer” marrying straight couples. Judge Parker has never performed such marriage ceremonies. This version has been corrected. Catholic priests have refused to marry same-sex couples for years. Judge Tonya Parker (Dallas County) Now, a Texas judge has an answer to that, saying she will not marry straight couples until gay marriage is legal in the state. Judge Tonya Parker of Dallas County told the Dallas Voice that she respectfully tells couples why she can’t conduct their marriage ceremony: “I'm sorry. I don't perform marriage ceremonies because we are in...

A Louisiana district judge removed Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal’s executive order banning Common Core testing on Tuesday. Mr. Jindal has been fighting an uphill battle since June with the state’s board of education to combat Louisiana’s participation in PARCC, a collective of states working together to develop standardizes testing based on Common Core. In a written opinion, Judge Todd Hernandez, said the injunction on testing that was granted at Mr. Jindal’s request caused anxiety within the school system. “The evidence is clear that this state of the unknown has caused anxiety and other harm to the parents, teachers, administrators and...

State District Judge Jeanine Howard of Dallas has removed herself from a controversial rape case after questioning the victim's innocence and sentencing the admitted rapist to community service at a rape crisis center. Yes, really. Howard voluntary recused herself following an interview with the Dallas Morning News last week, in which she said the girl, 14 at the time, "wasn't the victim she claimed to be," and the attacker, then 18, "is not your typical sex offender." The judge, a Democrat running unopposed for reelection in the fall, cited medical records that showed the girl's past sexual activity and that...

If the state provides free IDs, is there really an “unjustified burden” on poor voters?To better understand the contrast between an activist, liberal judge who refuses to follow the law and a judge who understands that his job is to follow precedent and the Constitution, consider two recent federal cases on voter-ID laws. On Tuesday, federal-district-court judge Lynn Adelman — a Clinton appointee, former Democratic state senator, and former Legal Aid Society lawyer — held that Wisconsin’s voter-ID requirement violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, as well as the Fourteenth Amendment, because it places “an unjustified burden on...

Judge Robert J. Shelby, whom President Barack Obama appointed to the U.S. District Court in Utah last year, issued an opinion on Friday declaring that a right to same-sex marriage is "deeply rooted in the nation’s history and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty."

A day after a judge’s surprise ruling overturned Utah’s same-sex marriage ban, at least one county clerk intended to open early Saturday to issue licenses. About 40 minutes north of Salt Lake City, about 300 hundred people showed up at the Weber County Clerk’s Office on Saturday afternoon but were later turned away without marriage licenses. […] The confusion Saturday and reports of other crowds scrambling to find an open office illustrated how gay marriage caught many in Utah off guard. …

Judge Robert J. Shelby, whom President Barack Obama appointed to the U.S. District Court in Utah last year, issued an opinion on Friday declaring that a right to same-sex marriage is "deeply rooted in the nation’s history and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty." Shelby was confirmed to the federal bench by a voice vote of the Senate on Sept. 21, 2012. There was no debate over his nomination, and no senator objected to his confirmation. He has now issued an opinion that could fundamentally alter American law and culture. “The State’s second argument is that the Plaintiffs are...

The federal judge who recently issued a vitriolic 79-page ruling against Pastor Scott Lively has a disturbing background revealing prejudices and improprieties that under federal law should certainly have disqualified him from presiding over the case, MassResistance has discovered. Presiding Federal Judge Michael Ponsor issued the ruling back in August. The homosexual movement is infamous for its success at shrewd "judge shopping" to push their agenda in the US court system. Ponsor was clearly a perfect choice. Ponsor is openly liberal and a protégé of pro-homosexual Judge Joseph Tauro, who recently ruled to strike down DOMA in the federal court....

Starting Monday, Illinois same-sex couples facing terminal illness can marry — nearly six months ahead of the state’s new marriage equality law taking effect, a federal judge in Chicago ruled. U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman has ordered the Cook County Clerk’s office to immediately issue marriage licenses to all Illinois same-sex couples who can provide a doctor’s declaration stating that one or both of them has a life-threatening illness that would prevent them from marrying after the marriage equality law takes effect June 1. “When you have a terminal illness, every day is significant,” Camilla Taylor, Marriage Project...

Retired Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Frank Barbaro wants a white man he convicted in 1999 of killing a black man to be freed — claiming Wednesday he based the verdict on his own reverse racism. The 86-year-old former jurist convicted Donald Kagan, now 39, of fatally shooting Wavell Wint, 22, during a struggle over Kagan’s chain outside an East New York movie theater in 1998. But Barbaro told a court that, because of his viewpoint as a civil-rights activist, he didn’t consider a justification defense by Kagan in the nonjury trial. “Mr. Kagan had no intent to kill that man...