Free Republic

A US court on Friday shot down orders to slap graphic anti-tobacco messages on cigarette packs, saying the government overstepped its authority by trying to "browbeat" smokers into quitting. In line with campaigns in several other nations, the United States planned from September 22 to require images on cigarette packs including a man smoking through a hole in his throat and a body with chest staples on an autopsy table. In a 2-1 decision, the US Court of Appeals in Washington said that the images planned on cigarette packs were not necessarily false but they went beyond "pure attempts to...

Koranic law: Coming to a city near youA panel of federal judges has ruled that states cannot protect their courts from jurists who base their decisions on international or Koranic law. America needs better judges. On Tuesday, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal district court order blocking implementation of an amendment to the Oklahoma constitution that sought to ban judges from using international or Muslim law as a basis for deciding cases. The amendment was approved in November 2010 by a 70 percent popular vote but has never been enforced. Plaintiff Muneer Awad, executive director of the...

WASHINGTON — A conservative-leaning appeals court panel on Tuesday upheld the constitutionality of President Barack Obama's health care law, as the Supreme Court prepares to consider this week whether to resolve conflicting rulings over the law's requirement that all Americans buy health care insurance. A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued a split opinion upholding the lower court's ruling that found Congress did not overstep its authority in requiring people to have insurance or pay a penalty on their taxes, beginning in 2014. The requirement is the most controversial requirement of Obama's signature...

No, it was not a headline from the satirical newspaper, The Onion. It was just the latest scorn by President Obama toward conservatives everywhere, and conservative women in particular. The President has seriously nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit Stephen Six, whose prints are all over the obstruction of justice in an investigation of an alleged systematic statutory rape cover-up at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Kansas. The people of Kansas know Steven Six well. Radical pro-abortion advocate Kathleen Sebelius, former Kansas Governor and now Secretary of the Department of Health & Human Services ,...

Obama Nominates Abortion Advocate for Federal Appeals Court Washington, DC -- President Barack Obama has nominated a pro-abortion former Kansas state attorney general to serve on the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, setting up another battle over abortion and a top judicial pick. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/03/11/obama-nominates-abortion-advocate-for-federal-appeals-court/

Jan Brewer is asking a federal court to disallow foreign governments from joining the federal lawsuit. | AP Photo Close By SCOTT WONG | 10/6/10 9:57 AM EDT Updated: 10/6/10 7:21 PM EDT In a new twist in the fight over Arizona’s immigration law, Republican Gov. Jan Brewer on Tuesday asked a federal court to disallow foreign governments from joining the U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit to overturn the law. The move comes in response to a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling issued Monday, allowing nearly a dozen Latin American countries — Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador,...

Note: Video included. January 21, 2009 For hate speech -- after declining to do so last year, which means that Islamic supremacist groups in the Netherlands have kept up the pressure on lawmakers until they got the outcome they wanted. Hate speech, of course, is in the eye of the beholder, and hate speech laws are tools in the hands of the powerful that they can use to silence the powerless and crush dissent. And make no mistake: even though the Muslims in the Netherlands and elsewhere in the West present themselves as embattled victims of racism and "Islamophobia," that...

On Tuesday, January 13th, RFFM.org detailed the history of Illinois' Parental Notification Law (see: Illinois' Parental Notification of Abortion Act: Thomas More Society's Long Battle for Law's Enforcement: http://rffm.typepad.com/republicans_for_fair_medi/2009/01/illinois-parental-notification-of-abortion-act-thomas-more-societys-long-battle-for-laws-enforcement.html). On Wednesday, a three judge panel of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals conducted a hearing regarding the case titled, "David Zbaraz vs. Lisa Madigan". The case was not decided and the three judge panel said the case would be "taken under advisement." The Parental Notification Law was passed in 1995 and signed by then-Governor Jim Edgar. However, the law, which would require parents to be informed when their minor children...

Former USA Today reporter Toni Locy urged the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington on Thursday not to throw out her case seeking a reporter’s privilege to keep her sources confidential. Locy became embroiled in the legal battle after reporting about Steven Hatfill, the former Army scientist who was investigated in the 2001 anthrax attacks but whose name has since been cleared. When Locy refused to give up her confidential sources in Hatfill's ensuing Privacy Act suit against the government, the U.S. District Court in D.C. held her in contempt. She appealed that decision to the Court of Appeals.

LANSING, Mich. - Public universities and state and local governments would violate the state constitution by providing health insurance to the partners of gay employees, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled Friday. A three-judge panel said a 2004 voter-approved ban on gay marriage also applies to same-sex domestic partner benefits. The decision reverses a 2005 ruling from an Ingham County judge who said universities and governments could provide the benefits. "The marriage amendment's plain language prohibits public employers from recognizing same-sex unions for any purpose," the court wrote. A constitutional amendment passed by Michigan voters in November 2004 made the...

Meet the Candidates In the Ohio Republican Primary for 11th District Court of Appeals The Court of Appeals might appear boring to some, a ho-hummer to others. No juries present, the Court of Appeals hears cases concerning errors in the lower courts. Is Matlock even around? Dorothy Lee, Jeff Black, Paul Brickner - how do they feel about the subjects such as judicial activism? What about the doctrine of stare decisis? Would they side with the Taney Supreme Court? Or would Dred Scott have been a free man? As a magistrate does Dorothy Lee have the background to sit...

NEW YORK A preacher found relief from a higher authority today when an appeals court ruled that Ithaca selectively used its noise ordinance to silence him in violation of his rights to free speech, equal protection and freedom of religion. The 2nd U-S Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ordered a federal judge in Albany to declare victory for Kevin Deegan -- saying it found the noise ordinance "cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny." Deegan had sued Ithaca, its attorney and its chief of police in a bid to strike down the ordinance in the college town 45 miles south of Syracuse....

This is what they are protecting! Read More... Craig DeLuz Visit The Home of Uncommon Sense... www.craigdeluz.com

Briefing Book Casts Alito As Mainstream By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent 1 hour, 46 minutes ago WASHINGTON - Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito's opinions on abortion, discrimination and other contentious issues are the work of a mainstream jurist, not the ideologue depicted by critics, the White House argues in a voluminous briefing book meant for Republican senators. ADVERTISEMENT Alito's dissent in a 1991 abortion ruling showed "concern for the safety of women," the material says. By approving a requirement for spousal notification, he "reflected the position advanced by the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania." A 1996 dissent in a sex...

...[A] panel for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously last Friday that the President "unquestionably" has the power to detain an American citizen who has taken up arms against his country. But wait. Didn't the Supreme Court say precisely that in its Hamdi decision last year? So it did, as Judge Michael Luttig notes repeatedly in his 25-page opinion penned for the court. That wasn't enough for José Padilla's attorneys, who argued that Hamdi, which concerned an American picked up on a battlefield in Afghanistan, didn't apply to their client, who was arrested domestically, at O'Hare Airport. Padilla,...

IOWA CITY, IA - The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today denied a request to suspend a law, pending a possible U.S. Supreme Court review, restricting where Iowa sex offenders can live. This decision is the latest setback for an Iowa Civil Liberties Union lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a 2002 law that prohibits certain sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of schools and day cares. The ICLU, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of more than a dozen sex offenders, has not ''demonstrated a particularly strong probability'' that the U.S. Supreme Court will review the law, the...

Issues & Insights Wednesday, May 4, 2005 Profile Of An Extremist INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Washington: Ever wonder just what it is about Janice Rogers Brown that prompted the Democrats to so fiercely oppose her nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals? It's her radical position on the Constitution. Or rather, it's her dedication to constitutional limits that has enraged the left. They don't want anyone on the bench who might get in the way of federal policies and programs that can't withstand constitutional scrutiny. Brown, the African-American daughter of an Alabama sharecropper, happens to believe the Supreme Court's protection of...

Immigrants fighting to stay in the United States are flooding the federal appellate courts with cases, creating huge backlogs and fundamentally changing the character of the second-highest courts in the nation. The deluge reflects growing dissatisfaction with the nation's immigration courts, and attorneys representing asylum-seekers and others say they have little choice but to appeal to the federal judiciary. The trend is nationwide, federal records show, but bearing the brunt of this sudden surge is the San Francisco-based U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. In the year ending June 30, 2001, the immigration caseload was 965. It skyrocketed to 4,835...

News Break 04/10/2005 05:19:43 EST Court Overturns 1995 Murder Conviction SAN FRANCISCO - A federal appeals court has tossed out a 1995 murder conviction and ordered a new trial for a man convicted of killing his estranged wife's fiance. The court said buttons the victim's family wore at the trial may have influenced jurors. Mathew Musladin, who is serving a life sentence, maintained that he acted in self-defense when he shot Tom Studer in 1994. In ordering a new trial for Musladin, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday said the buttons, which showed...

Child Care Provider Takes on Politics "Work on the book, work on the book." That thought pestered me for my whole Christmas vacation. "Across the Centuries," a nationwide 7th grade social studies book which maligns Christianity and embraces Islam had recently gotten my attention. Not that I had time for it. I was to have a whole week off from child-care over Christmas vacation, a much needed time of silence and freedom. HA! "Work on the book, work on the book." "But GOD! (whiney voice) What about that Christmas party?" The reply was consistent, "Work on the book." I'm a...