Free Republic

Federal judges are not historians, but they are increasingly obligated to play them on the bench. In his Bruen decision last June, Justice Clarence Thomas ordered courts to assess the constitutionality of modern-day gun restrictions by searching for “historical analogues” from 1791, when the Second Amendment was ratified. Ever since, judges have struggled mightily with this task—in part because most have no training in real historical analysis, but also because the record is often spotty and contradictory. In light of Bruen’s maximalist language, they have erred on the side of gun owners, finding a constitutional right to buy a gun...

Arguments in a case challenging the validity of the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that access to abortion is a constitutional right are scheduled to take place in the nation’s highest court near the end of 2021. The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization on Dec. 1, the court announced on Sept. 20. Justices had agreed in May to hear the case, but it hadn’t been known before when the case would be heard. Mississippi enacted a law in 2018 barring abortions after 15 weeks outside of medical emergencies or the discovery...

You cannot criticize me ever, but I can criticize you. Even though you’re up for reelection, you have no power, but I am the final say on all matters, even though I am unelected. I can disobey higher courts but you can’t push back even against a lower court. If you don’t like it, then you are a member of the KKK. Who am I? Well, a federal judge, of course. Last week, a radical federal judge went on a tirade against President Trump, ironically, criticizing him for criticizing outlandish rulings by federal judges. Carlton Reeves, an Obama-appointed judge in...

A federal judge delivered a speech Thursday lambasting President Trump’s administration, saying the president has selected judicial nominees that do not represent the diversity of America. During a speech at the University of Virginia School of Law, Judge Carlton W. Reeves, an Obama appointee, compared the president to the Ku Klux Klan and called his administration a “great assault on our judiciary.” “When politicians attack courts as ‘dangerous,’ ‘political,’ and guilty of ‘egregious overreach,’ you can hear the Klan’s lawyers, assailing officers of the court across the South,” the judge said. He noted 90 percent of the president’s picks for...

A federal judge struck down Mississippi’s controversial law banning most abortions after 15 weeks about eight months after the Republican governor approved it. The law, called the Gestational Age Act, was considered to be the most restrictive in the U.S. It banned abortions after 15 weeks and only allowed for exemptions if the pregnancy threatened a woman's life or "major bodily function" or if the fetus would be “incompatible with life” outside of the womb. Exemptions would not be granted for pregnancies that resulted from rape or incest. Doctors who violated the ban would have faced mandatory suspension or revocation...

A federal judge said Tuesday that the Confederate emblem on the Mississippi flag is "anti-American" because it represents those who fought to leave the United States. But U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves is not yet saying whether he will fully consider a lawsuit that seeks to eliminate the flag as a state symbol. Reeves heard more than three hours of arguments about motions in the lawsuit that Carlos Moore, an African-American attorney from Grenada, Mississippi, filed against the state. Moore is asking Reeves to declare the flag an unconstitutional relic of slavery.

Just when youÂ’re starting to think that the entire country is going down the tubes sideways, a story comes along to remind you that it all just might work out in the end after all. Todd Starnes at Fox news uncovered one of those small town stories of political correctness infecting the courts and running completely off the rails this week. At Brandon High School in Mississippi, the traditional Friday Night football game was missing their halftime show. The schoolÂ’s marching band had been ordered off the field because their presentation included the hymn How Great Thou Art. That may...

<p>Groups: State chips at choice Abortion rights group says state among worst for "anti-choice restrictions"</p> <p>Mississippi has few doctors who perform abortions. It has no Planned Parenthood, and it has only a handful of vocal abortion-rights advocates. It's hard to find a state lawmaker who believes in a woman's right to choose — or at least one who will state the belief publicly in an election year.</p>