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ERRE HAUTE, Indiana (Reuters) - A U.S. federal judge issued an injunction on Monday delaying what would have been the first federal execution in 17 years, scheduled for later in the day, thwarting at least for now the Trump administration’s goal of reviving capital punishment at the federal level. Judge Tanya Chutkan of the U.S. district court in Washington ordered the U.S. Department of Justice to delay four executions scheduled for July and August to allow continuation of the condemned men’s legal challenges against a new lethal injection protocol announced in 2019. “The scientific evidence before the court overwhelmingly indicates...

Chief District Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson ruled Friday in Indiana that the execution would be delayed because of concerns from the victims’ family about the coronavirus pandemic. The Justice Department (DOJ) argued that the judge’s order misconstrued the law and asked the appeals court to immediately overturn the ruling. The appeals court found that the claim from the victims’ family “lacks any arguable legal basis and is therefore frivolous." The Justice Department also argued that while the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has taken measures to accommodate the family and implemented additional safety protocols because of the pandemic, the family’s concerns “do...

FRESNO, Calif. — U.S. District Judge Dale A. Drozd sentenced a Turlock man today to two years and three months in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release for purposefully striking a Stanislaus County Sheriff’s helicopter with the beam of a powerful laser, U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott announced.In March 2018, Roger Shane John, 34, pleaded guilty. According to court documents, on the evening of Oct. 22, 2017, John struck a Stanislaus County Sheriff’s helicopter, Air 101, five to six times with a powerful green laser, causing visual interference of both the pilot and tactical flight...

Political appointees are just that, appointees, and they can be removed from their jobs just about any time for any reason. Civil service employees, however, are another matter. They have more job protections than just about anyone else in the country. So it was a hit to the "deep state," the entrenched bureaucrats who wield immense power in the government, writing rules and imposing agendas, when a court released a recent decision. It ruled an employee who maneuvers around some of the requirements of the civil service system to change jobs – from appointee to civil servant – can be...

Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson, of the Southern District of Indiana, sided with the family of Lee's victims, who had pleaded for a delay given the coronavirus pandemic. Lee's death was expected to usher in a new era for the death penalty in the United States, and three other men convicted for murdering children were slated to be killed in the coming weeks. Earlene Peterson -- whose daughter, granddaughter and son-in-law were tortured, killed and dumped in a lake by Lee and an accomplice -- has opposed Lee's execution, telling CNN last year that she did not want it done in her...

A federal judge cast doubt on Bayer AG ’s proposal to neatly resolve all future lawsuits over the safety of its Roundup weedkiller, potentially snagging the German company’s attempts to move past the massive liability. Bayer said recently it would pay up to $10.9 billion to settle tens of thousands of current Roundup cases and create a system for handling future cases. The deal came after three juries in recent years awarded large verdicts to plaintiffs alleging Roundup caused non-Hodgkin lymphoma, spooking investors. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco, who must approve the class action, said Monday he...

NEW YORK -- Jeffrey Epstein's ex-girlfriend will appear remotely by video for a July 14 courthouse arraignment and bail hearing on charges she recruited girls for him to sexually abuse over two decades ago, a judge said Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Alison J. Nathan set the date in an order as she announced special arrangements to allow limited public access to the video feed of Ghislaine Maxwell facing charges for the first time in Manhattan federal court next week. **SNIP** Prosecutors say they plan to ask that Maxwell be kept incarcerated pending trial on the grounds that she has the...

Roger Stone is asking a federal appeals court to delay the date when he has to report to prison to begin serving his 40-month sentence. A federal judge last week granted him a short delay, to July 14 after Stone cited coronavirus concerns. But late Monday Stone’s lawyers asked the D.C. Court of Appeals to delay his reporting date to Sept. 3. “He is at considerable risk from serious health consequences, including death, if his surrender date is not extended,” Stone’s motion says. The judge “failed to give adequate deference to the government’s uniform policy not to oppose surrender date...

@JackPosobiec BREAKING: Roger Stone to report to federal prison in 7 days Developing story...

Canadian company blocked from getting key permit to continue building BILLINGS, Mont. — The U.S. Supreme Court has handed another setback to the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada by keeping in place a lower court ruling that blocked a key permit for the project. Canadian company TC Energy needs the permit to continue building the long-disputed pipeline from Canada across U.S. rivers and streams. Without it, the project that has been heavily promoted by President Donald Trump faces more delays just as work on it had finally begun this year following years of courtroom battles. Monday’s order also put on...

A federal court ruled Monday that the Dakota Access Pipeline must shut down within 30 days, by Aug. 5, according to a copy of the brief obtained by USA Today. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia scrapped a key permit from the Army Corps of Engineers, and ordered the pipeline to end its three-year run of delivering oil out of North Dakota’s Bakken shale basin to its endpoint in Illinois. The decision marked the end of a yearslong legal battle over the Energy Transfer Partners-owned pipeline’s environmental damage to the Missouri River. President Donald Trump granted the...

A federal judge has ordered the shutdown of the Dakota Access Pipeline while a lengthy environmental review is conducted of the project opposed by environmentalists and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The move was requested earlier this year by Standing Rock and three other Sioux tribes in the Dakotas who fear environmental harm from the oil pipeline and sued over the project four years ago. North Dakota officials have said such a move would have “significant disruptive consequences” for the state, whose oil patch has been hit hard in recent months by falling demand for crude amid the coronavirus pandemic....

downstate judge has ruled in favor of a Republican legislator in his lawsuit against Gov. J.B. Pritzker over whether the Democratic governor exceeded his legal authority in issuing a stay-at-home order in March to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Just hours earlier, Pritzker notched a win in federal court against the Illinois Republican Party, which sued the governor claiming he violated the GOP’s constitutional rights to assemble during the coronavirus outbreak. In the downstate lawsuit, state Rep. Darren Bailey, R-Xenia, and his attorneys fought hard to keep it in state court. And Clay County Judge Michael McHaney ruled in favor of...

The US Supreme Court on Thursday blocked a lower-court ruling that would have allowed residents of Alabama to vote by absentee ballot without providing a copy of a photo ID. Alabama also requires the absentee ballot to be signed by two witnesses or notarized.

On June 5, 2020, we reported that Appeals Court Orders Molotov Cocktail Lawyers Back to Jail: Two Brooklyn-based lawyers facing federal charges for allegedly throwing Molotov cocktails into a NYPD cruiser during the riots are back in federal custody after an appeals court reversed the bail decision. That initial and temporary appeals court decision now has been reversed, with a panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, ordering the defendants released on bail and home confinement pending trial. ... ridiculous justification from the majority ... Judge Jon Newman wrote in Dissent: On the night of...

A U.S District Court judge in the Central District of California ordered the federal government to release migrant children being held in detention for more than 20 days. The order calls for the children to be released by July 17 due to concerns over the coronavirus pandemic. U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee, appointed to the Central District of California by President Barack Obama in 2009, ruled on Friday that the federal government cannot hold children in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities for more than 20 days, NBC News reported. Judge Gee cited concerns over the danger posed by...

The Supreme Court's decision in DHS v. Regents of the University of California will likely decide the face of the DACA program and that opinion is expected in weeks. If you have read an article on DACA recently, it is likely that it was a one-dimensional piece featuring some DACA recipient working in healthcare who is facing a loss of employment. At the same time, you would have more luck looking for a unicorn than you would looking for an article in the nation's elite media that analyzes the legal issues before the Supreme Court or makes any mention of...

Amid the chaos and anarchy across blue-city America that exclusively possessed public attention for the last couple of weeks, it was not hard to miss any other bit of news — especially if that news has not appeared or been even briefly mentioned by any major mainstream media outlet. Take for example the news of Hillary Clinton, who lost her appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on June 2, where she tried to avoid testifying under oath about her emails and the Benghazi case. The hearing in the D.C. Circuit came in the case...

A federal appeals court judge repeatedly asked Friday whether dropping the case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn would mean police can escape accountability for brutalizing black people. DC Circuit Judge Robert Wilkins raised the possibility as Flynn’s attorneys and the Justice Department pleaded with a skeptical three-judge panel to order US District Judge Emmet Sullivan to dismiss Flynn’s case and his 2017 guilty plea for lying to the FBI. Wilkins, an African American Harvard Law School graduate, asked whether dismissing Flynn’s case would mean that judges must also dismiss cases against police if prosecutors offer racist reasons.

A Denver judge has restricted cops from using tear gas and rubber bullets on protesters, saying smashed windows and graffiti are a 'fair trade' to prevent demonstrators' bones being broken and their eyesight being lost at the hands of police. US District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson limited the force cops can use against protesters in a ruling late Friday night, which also included ordering cops to keep their body cameras on at all times. Jackson said the safety of demonstrators and their right to free speech is greater than the need to protect buildings during protests.