Free Republic

A federal judge has ordered the New York Elections Board to count more than one thousand disqualified absentee ballots in the primary race between House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and challenger Suraj Patel. It appears that the limited ruling will not be enough to impact the outcome of the race. The New York Times estimates the ruling will affect 1,200 ballots. Maloney leads Patel by about 3,700 votes. Maloney declared victory in a statement and called on Patel to concede. “Weeks ago I called for all of these ballots to be counted," Maloney said. “Although the...

A man who lost his leg in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing ripped the decision of an appellate court Friday to toss the the death sentence and overturn three of the convictions of terrorist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. “It’s ridiculous,” Marc Fucarile said when asked about the ruling on the local Boston WEEI radio show “Ordway, Merloni and Fauria.” Fucarile — who lost his right leg during the second of two finish-line explosions that killed three and left more than 260 wounded in April 2013 — said the case should be clear cut. “The guy did this. Put him to rest,” Fucarile...

BOSTON (CBS/AP) — A federal appeals court on Friday overturned the death sentence of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the man convicted in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. The three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston issued the decision more than six months after arguments were heard in the case. The April 15, 2013, attack killed three people and injured more than 260 others.

The Dakota Access Pipeline is the major means used to transport oil produced in the Bakken region of North Dakota to an existing pipeline in Illinois which can take the oil to Texas and the Gulf of Mexico. Earlier this month a judge ordered the Dakota Access Pipeline to cease operating so that a new environmental review, which could take a year or more, could be conducted. Fortunately, the U.S. Court of Appears for the District of Columbia has issued a stay of that ruling, at least while the appeals court reviews it.

The Dakota Access Pipeline, an oil route from North Dakota to Illinois that has inspired intense protests and legal battles, must shut down pending an environmental review and be emptied of oil by Aug. 5, a district court ruled on Monday. It essentially vacates a federal permit that had allowed the pipeline to operate while the United States Army Corps of Engineers, which had granted the permits for the pipeline, conducted an extensive environmental impact review. The decision, which could be subject to appeal, is a victory for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and other Native American and environmental groups...

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton reacted today to a federal court decision , which Judicial Watch may appeal, upholding the secrecy of controversial subpoenas for phone records issued by Adam Schiff, Chairman of the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence relating to the impeachment of President Trump. “Adam Schiff secretly subpoenaed, without court authorization, the phone records of Rudy Giuliani and then published the phone records of innocent Americans, including President Trump’s lawyers, a member of Congress, and a journalist. And now a federal court ruled today that Schiff, or any member of Congress can’t be...

A tale of two judges. – Chief Justice John Roberts – the clearly-compromised former conservative jurist who now does the bidding of the progressive left whenever they demand it, apparently – famously stated in 2017 that there are no “Obama judges” or “Bush judges,” there are only federal judges. That, of course, is abject bullshit, but hey, it’s what the Chief does these days. Late this week, we saw the dichotomy between the kinds of decisions we get out of Bush/Reagan/Trump judges and Obama/Clinton judges in two decisions related the ongoing rioting taking place in Portland. It is a classic...

A federal judge on Friday criticized the Trump administration for a confusing and sluggish response to the Supreme Court’s decision last month invalidating the administration’s attempt to rescind the Obama-era program protecting so-called Dreamers. During a telephone hearing, U.S. District Court Judge Paul Grimm said he was troubled that the Department of Homeland Security’s website has yet to be updated to account for the high court’s ruling on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, better known as DACA.

<p>SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — A U.S. judge in Spokane has firmly rejected a water park's challenge to Gov. Jay Inslee's emergency powers as the state responds to the coronavirus pandemic.</p> <p>Slidewaters LLC, a water park in Chelan, sued the governor and the Department of Labor Industries last month, saying that Inslee abused his power in declaring the emergency and that the state's restrictions were likely to prevent it from opening for the summer.</p>

Portland, Oregon - A federal judge specifically blocked U.S. agents from arresting or using physical force against journalists and legal observers at the ongoing Portland, Oregon, protests that have sparked confrontations between local officials and President Trump over the limits of federal power. U.S. Judge Michael Simon made his ruling late Thursday, a day after Portland's mayor was tear-gassed by federal agents as he made an appearance outside a federal courthouse during raucous demonstrations. Protesters have gathered in Oregon's largest city for nearly two months straight since George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis. **SNIP** Judge Simon had previously ruled that...

Financial Advisor in Wealth Management Section of Global Investment Bank Used Stolen Victim Funds to Pay His Own Lifestyle Expenses, Including Country Club Membership Fees Greenbelt, Maryland – Michael Barry Carter, age 47, of Potomac Falls, Virginia, pleaded guilty today to federal charges of wire fraud and investment adviser fraud, in connection with a scheme to steal more than $6 million.  The guilty plea was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Robert K. Hur and Special Agent in Charge Jennifer C. Boone of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Baltimore Field Office.“For over 12 years, Michael Carter...

A court has ordered the Trump administration to restore the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to its “pre-September 5, 2017 status,” effectively allowing younger illegal immigrants to apply for work permits. .....snip..... Judge Paul W. Grimm declared: “The [2017] rescission of the DACA policy is VACATED, and the policy is restored to its pre-September 5, 2017 status.” The Maryland judge was appointed by Obama in 2012.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday lifted another injunction on the Trump administration's rapid push to resume federal death sentences this week. A divided court lifted one of a handful of injunctions temporarily blocking the execution of a man whose lawyers say suffers from severe dementia. The vote was 5-4 with the liberal justices — Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor — dissenting. DEVELOPING...

A federal judge in Washington has blocked federal executions scheduled for this week, citing concerns that the lethal injection protocol involved is "very likely to cause extreme pain and needless suffering." Judge Tanya Chutkan said the last-minute ruling only hours before executions were set to resume for the first time in 17 years was "unfortunate," but she blamed the Justice Department for racing ahead before legal challenges had been fully aired. The judge said the prison's plan to use a single drug, pentobarbital, could cause pulmonary edema, producing a sense that the condemned men were drowning. That would violate the...

Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite and ex-girlfriend of the late US convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has been denied bail in a high-profile sex case. At a hearing via video link, a New York judge said she would remain in custody while awaiting trial on charges of trafficking minors for Epstein. Ms Maxwell, who pleaded not guilty, will go on trial in July 2021. Her lawyers had said she was at risk of contracting coronavirus in prison. Epstein died in prison on 10 August 2019 as he awaited his trial on sex trafficking charges.

he U.S. on Tuesday carried out its first federal execution in almost two decades, killing by lethal injection a man convicted of murdering an Arkansas family in a 1990s plot to build a whites-only nation in the Pacific Northwest. The execution of Daniel Lewis Lee, over the objection of the victims’ relatives and following days of legal wrangling and delays, revived the debate over capital punishment during a time of widespread social unrest. *** Lee, 47, of Yukon, Oklahoma, professed his innocence just before he was executed at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. “I didn’t do it," Lee...

Ghislaine Maxwell pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges she helped traffic young women for Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse. Maxwell appeared via video conference for her arraignment on a six-count indictment charging her with recruiting and grooming young women to be molested by Epstein. Prosecutors said she took part in some of the abuse herself. “How do you wish to plead to the charges?” Manhattan federal court Judge Alison Nathan asked. “Not guilty, your honor,” Maxwell replied in a raspy voice

A federal appeals court ruled Monday that the Trump administration cannot withhold federal grants from California sanctuary cities, affirming previous rulings in the state. The U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco said its ruling that the Justice Department cannot block police funds from cities not enforcing immigration laws does not extend nationally, Bloomberg News reported. The decision follows rulings from three other regional federal appeals courts against the administration. But a New York court unanimously ruled in February that the department had the authority to withhold funds from the cities that do not comply with federal authorities' enforcement of...

ATLANTA - A federal judge on Monday permanently blocked Georgia’s 2019 “heartbeat” abortion law, finding that it violates the U.S. Constitution. U.S. District Judge Steve Jones ruled against the state in a lawsuit filed by abortion providers and an advocacy group. Jones had temporarily blocked the law in October, and it never went into effect. The new ruling permanently enjoins the state from ever enforcing House Bill 481. In his ruling, Jones said that part of the law "violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution." In response to the ruling, Gov. Brian Kemp said that his administration would...

A federal judge on Monday ordered the government to explain the “scope” of President Trump’s commutation of longtime GOP operative Roger Stone, including whether the move only involved the sentence of incarceration, or also the period of supervised release. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ordered the government to provide the court by Tuesday, July 14, “a copy of the Executive Order commuting the defendant’s sentence and to address the question of the scope of the commutation, in particular, whether it involves the sentence of incarceration alone or also the period of supervised release.” In February, Jackson sentenced Stone to...