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A Georgia judge has blasted attorney Orly Taitz, who has handled a number of court challenges to President Barack Obama's eligibility under the constitutional demand the Oval Office be occupied only by a "natural born" citizen, fining her $20,000 for what he called "frivolous" court actions, and he then mocked the concern over Obama's background. "Although counsel's present concern is the location of the president's birth, it does not take much imagination to extend the theory to his birthday," wrote U.S. District Judge Clay Land in an order released today. "Perhaps, he looks 'too young' to be president, and he...

WASHINGTON (AP)— A federal judge has ordered the release of a Kuwaiti man held at Guantanamo Bay and rebuked the U.S. government for relying on scant evidence, uncredible witnesses and coerced confessions to hold him for more than seven years. In an opinion declassified Friday, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said government attorneys presented a “surprisingly bare” record during four days of classified hearings last month to oppose Fouad Al Rabiah’s request for release from the U.S. naval detention facility in Cuba. She said the aviation engineer is being held almost exclusively on confessions obtained through abusive techniques and that...

In the now-famous Ricci v. DeStefano case, the city of New Haven made the claim that Federal civil rights laws forced it to discriminate on the basis of race. The plaintiffs had earned promotions by outperforming their colleagues on a test, but the city threw out the results because almost all of the top performers were white. Officials claimed they feared black firemen would sue under the Civil Rights Act of 1991, on the grounds that the test had a “disparate impact” on minorities. The Supreme Court’s decision to hear the case Ricci v. DeStefano of the, New Haven Firefighter...

There are no legal grounds for prosecuting Bush administration lawyers who supported the use of enhanced interrogation techniques to thwart planned terrorist attacks, so civil libertarians have the tort system to try to ruin Bush lawyers. They may succeed. Last week, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White of San Francisco backed a complaint filed by convicted terrorist Jose Padilla and his mother against former White House Office of Legal Counsel John Yoo for writing memos that allegedly led to Padilla's illegal imprisonment and treatment during the three-plus years that Padilla was jailed as an enemy combatant. You are part of the...

I just had a liberal friend tell me that the terms "legislating from the bench" and "activist judges" stem ONLY from the right wing nuts. I KNOW this is not true, but I am having a hard time finding articles which come from the left when talking about Bush nominees or actual cases where activist judges legislated from the bench. In case you guys hadn't seen (something I caught a ton of in my searching), there are a PILE of articles piling up that are blaming conservatives for making up the whole activist judge thing. They're saying that we only...

By now many of you have either heard about or read about the infamous sentence spoken by President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States -- Justice Sonia Sotomayor: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life” (From a lecture delivered by judge Sonia Sotomayor published in the Spring 2002 issue of Berkeley La Raza Law Journal entitled "Raising the Bar: Latino and Latina Presence in the Judiciary and the Struggle for Representation.”)...

President Obama hit a home run with his nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court -- and not just because she's the "woman who saved baseball" by ending the strike in 1995, nor simply because she would be the first Latina ever to serve on the high court. It was a home run because in her three-decade career as a prosecutor, judge, private litigator and law professor, she has time and again earned bipartisan praise as one of America's finest legal minds. And it was the right choice because Judge Sotomayor -- herself born and raised in a...

Three of the five majority opinions written by Judge Sotomayor for the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and reviewed by the Supreme Court were reversed, providing a potent line of attack raised by opponents Tuesday after President Obama announced he will nominate the 54-year-old Hispanic woman to the high court. "Her high reversal rate alone should be enough for us to pause and take a good look at her record. Frankly, it is the Senates duty to do so," said Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America.

U.S. President Barack Obama talks with Judge Sonia Sotomayor after announcing her as his choice to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, May 26, 2009. Obama nominated Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, selecting a woman who would be the court's first Latino. Obama's choice of the liberal Sotomayor, a 54-year-old judge on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, was unlikely to change the ideological balance of the high court because Souter, 69, was part of the panel's liberal wing

Obama’s Supreme Court Pick, the first pick by a Democratic President in 15 years, is Sonia Sotomayor, a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Surprise surprise, she is a liberal with little understanding of law and the Constitution. Today I form a list of grievances, if you will, giving good reason for why Sotomayor shouldn’t be seated on the Supreme Court bench. My biggest problem with Sotomayor is that she rules from the bench, that is, she is no impartial but instead acts as a legislator does and imposes her own opinion.

A judge who ruled that prayers in Jesus Name, at the Indiana House of Representatives was unconstitutional, but prayers to Allah were not, has been nominated by the Obama Administration to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. The change we were supposed to believe in is worrying more Americans as the days go by. With the democrats in the majority in both the House and Senate, Dems feel empowered or better yet, a sense of duty to bring forth their version of social change. Upon ending his Euro-trip, our President decreed to his Muslim audience,...

A San Francisco County judge, who yesterday struck down California’s ban on homosexual marriage, today ruled on the same basis that separate restrooms for men and women are unconstitutional. Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer likened the division of washrooms to laws requiring racial segregation in schools, and said there appears to be “no rational purpose for denying women access to men’s facilities and vice versa.” “The state’s protracted denial of equal protection cannot be justified simply because such constitutional violation has become traditional,” Judge Kramer wrote. “The court finds that the legal principle of lavatorio proportio [potty parity] offers inadequate...

Sacramento, CA (AP) -- A federal judge is blocking a portion of a crime victims' rights measure approved by California voters in November. U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton in Sacramento says a federal injunction that had been agreed to by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration trumps the section of Proposition 9 that limits legal rights for parole violators.

Sacramento, CA (AP) -- A federal appeals court says a judge can proceed with hearings to determine whether Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger can be held in contempt for refusing to pay for improved inmate health care. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday rejected an appeal from the administration that attempted to block U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson's hearing.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- The U.S. has rejected a Guantanamo prisoner's proposal to end his 3 1/2-year hunger strike in exchange for easing his conditions at the American prison in Cuba, saying such a deal would undermine security and encourage similar protests. A federal judge in Washington had urged U.S. authorities to consider the proposed deal in the case of Ahmed Zuhair, a Saudi prisoner who has refused to eat since the summer of 2005 and is force-fed a liquid nutrient mix to keep him alive.

RALEIGH -- Home-school groups and conservatives across the country are infuriated by a Wake County judge's declaration that he will make a North Raleigh mother stop teaching her children at home and send them to public schools. As part of a continuing divorce case, Wake District Court Judge Ned Mangum said last Friday that it would be in the "best interests" of Venessa Mills' three children to go to public school this fall. Mangum said at the hearing that while the children are "thriving," they need to be exposed to the "real world." "It will do them a great benefit...

A New York artist known for her colorful canvases of drag queens and gay pride parades gave $1,000 to help pass California's ban on same-sex marriage. Maureen Mullarkey, 66, made her sizable contribution to the National Organization for Marriage's "Yes on 8" fund in June, a Daily News review of campaign records found. The Westchester County woman was one of tens of thousands who poured a total of more than $83 million into the coffers of Proposition 8 support groups - money that helped convince California voters to overturn an earlier court decision granting gays the right to marry in...

Jenny, they've got your number in a legal battle ASSOCIATED PRESS May 20, 2007 LINCOLN, R.I. – One-hit wonder Tommy Tutone made the phone number 867-5309 famous in the band's 1982 hit single, which uses the digits over and over in its catchy refrain. Now, a Rhode Island company and a national firm are battling over the right to use the number, which doesn't reach the “Jenny” that Tutone sings about but could find callers a decent plumber. Two years ago, Gem Plumbing & Heating of Lincoln, R.I., trademarked the phone number from the song, which reached No. 4 on...

NEW ORLEANS -- A same-sex couple in California has won a federal court ruling that their adopted son's Louisiana birth certificate must bear the names of both adoptive fathers. The facts are so clear that no trial is needed, U.S. District Judge Jay Zainey wrote. "What a great Christmas present for these guys!" said Kenneth D. Upton Jr. who represented Oren Adar and Mickey Ray Smith of San Diego. In his ruling Monday, Zainey said Louisiana's Office of Vital Records must give full faith and credit to the New York State court in which Adar and Smith adopted the boy,...

Attorney General Jerry Brown made noises like a 19th-century states' rights zealot last week in opposing a looming federal court order requiring the state to spend up to $8 billion to improve health care in its much-overcrowded prison system. As Brown depicted it in his appellate filing opposing the order obtained by federal receiver Clark Kelso, the order violates a federal law barring courts from ordering states to build new prisons as well as constitutional guarantees of state sovereignty. "In ordering the state to fund the receiver's massive prison construction program, the district court clearly violated federal law, and its...