Free Republic

I built http://CourtWatch.us — a free public database for American citizens who deserve safer communities. You can track which judges released defendants who then got rearrested, skipped court, or violated their release conditions. All public records. All free. I started with Orange County FL and will be expanding to all 67 Florida counties and eventually every state in the country. This first batch of info is from 2024 and since public reports are released in March/April for the previous year, data is behind. But I wanted to see if this is plausible. After adding 2024,I'll add 2025 and then figure...

The Trump administration scored a court win on Friday as a judge ruled the administration can fast-track immigration cases. Immigration advocates sued the Trump administration last month, arguing that the asylum process should take “years” to conclude and that lawyers want “at least a year” to prepare for court hearings while applicants remain in the United States, The Daily Signal previously reported. However, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols of the District of Columbia, a Trump appointee, said in his opinion that immigration law is clear on the timing of cases. “Immigration judges are directed to resolve cases ‘in a timely...

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has just dealt a crushing blow to open-borders activists. The full Fifth Circuit REFUSED to grant en banc rehearing in the critical case Buenrostro-Mendez v. Bondi, locking in its earlier February 2026 panel ruling that upholds the Trump administration’s full authority to detain illegal aliens without bond hearings while their deportation proceedings move forward. [snip] Even long-term illegal residents who snuck in years ago get no automatic bond hearings to waltz back into American communities. This victory comes on the heels of similar wins, including the Eighth Circuit’s recent ruling siding...

A federal judge in Idaho has delivered an order protecting the private communications of a pro-life organization that was hit with a subpoena for that information even though it was not party to a lawsuit brought against the state by a group of abortion promoters. It was the Northwest Abortion Access Fund, the Indigenous Idaho Alliance and others who had been in court demanding access to the communications of the Right to Life of Idaho, Inc. Magistrate Judge Debora Grasham quashed, or canceled, the subpoena, determining that the abortionists’ insistence on the subpoena because it would help them overcome “inefficiency,...

A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday denied Anthropic’s request to temporarily block the Department of Defense’s blacklisting of the artificial intelligence company as a lawsuit challenging that sanction plays out. The ruling comes after a judge in San Francisco federal court late last month, in a separate but related case, granted Anthropic a preliminary injunction that bars the Trump administration from enforcing a ban on the use of its Claude model. “In our view, the equitable balance here cuts in favor of the government,” the appeals court said in its decision. “On one side is a relatively...

A former San Francisco human rights boss accused of squandering city funds to pay for personal projects and her son’s tuition is still collecting a taxpayer-backed check as she faces a battery of criminal charges in court. Sheryl Davis — 57-year-old former head of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission who resigned in September 2024 after she was accused of conflicts of interest — is receiving a retirement benefit of $4,952.23 per month, according to the San Francisco Employees’ Retirement system. Davis was hired in 2018 to lead the troubled Human Rights Commission and earned close to $340,000 in total...

A federal court rejected Minnesota’s attempt to restart Medicaid funding that the Trump administration had halted over concerns people are stealing the money, with the judge saying even the state has acknowledged it has a “serious fraud problem.” Judge Eric Tostrud, a Trump appointee, said Minnesota may still prevail later in the case, but for now the feds are on relatively solid legal footing in deferring more than $250 million in Medicaid money to prod the state to combat fraud. “Though Minnesota credibly complains that the federal government’s deferral is historically unprecedented in its size and timing, I conclude on...

Jane Sullivan Roberts, the wife of Chief Justice John Roberts, generated $10.3 million in commissions as a legal recruiter over an eight-year period, according to internal records cited by Business Insider. Roberts, who worked at legal recruiting firm Major, Lindsey & Africa, generated the commissions from the years 2007 to 2014, according to the Business Insider story, which was noted by How Appealing. “Roberts’ apparent $10.3 million in compensation puts her toward the top of the pay scale for legal headhunters,” according to the article. Her “attributed revenue” to Major Lindsey was $13.3 million during that time. The commissions were...

A federal appeals court ruled Monday that the Trump administration can continue its swift deportation efforts of illegal migrants to third countries, overturning a lower court's ruling that the practice was illegal. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit did not give a reason for the ruling but allowed the deportations to continue in a 2-1 decision. The panel also expedited the schedule for the case’s next phase, according to The Hill. Judge Lara Montecalvo, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, dissented, while Judge Jeffrey Howard, nominated by former President George W. Bush, and Judge Seth...

A left-wing activist group is teaching liberals in Washington, D.C., and "across the United States" how to increase their chances of serving as jurors on cases brought by the Trump Department of Justice so they can undermine its chances of securing convictions, training materials reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show. Freedom Trainers, whose fiscal sponsor is the George Soros-funded group Community Change, is working to make "jury nullification"—the practice of voting against a conviction even if the defendant broke the law—a go-to legal weapon for the Left. Its sessions and training materials, reviewed by the Free Beacon, show how...

BREAKING - in Benson v. US, the DC Court of Appeals - not to be confused with the federal DC Circuit - has ruled that DC's ban on magazines over ten rounds is unconstitutional. This is the highest court in DC, akin to its Supreme Court.In the summary of the ruling, the majority appears to adopt what SAF and many others have long argued in accordance with Heller: commonality alone grants Second Amendment protection. "Because these magazines are arms in common and ubiquitous use by law-abiding citizens across this country, we agree with Benson and the United States that the...

March 5 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Thursday ruled that President Donald Trump had the authority to indefinitely suspend admissions of foreign citizens seeking to enter the United States ​under the U.S. refugee resettlement program.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled unanimously that immigration courts must defer to executive agencies on key findings of fact during certain immigration proceedings, handing a modest, procedural win to the Trump administration. Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson, writing for the entire court, said "[w]e granted certiorari to determine whether the Court of Appeals applied the appropriate standard of review under the INA. We conclude that the statute requires application of the substantial-evidence standard to the agency’s conclusion that a given set of undisputed facts does not constitution persecution. According, we affirm."

The Supreme Court will be releasing opinions from the October 2025 term this morning at 10:00 a.m.Scotusblog will be liveblogging the release and we will be following along.A list of the cases from this term can be found Here

Four election integrity groups filed an amicus brief in support of a case that requests the U.S. Supreme Court not allow state laws that permit counting ballots arriving after Election Day, with experts saying that the recent normalization of late ballots negatively affects trust in and efficiency of elections. Executive Director of Honest Elections Project Jason Snead told The Center Square that “this case is nothing more than a return to the norm and an enforcement of federal law against a novel scheme that illegally extends elections beyond Election Day.” Late arriving ballots “[erode] confidence in the outcome,” and “mean...

The Supreme Court will be releasing opinions this morning at 10:00 a.m. Scotusblog will be live streaming the opinions and we will be following along.A list of the pending cases can be found at: SCOTUS casesThere are four cases remaining from the October sitting yet to be decided. Of interest is Louisiana v. Callais (Voting Rights Act) Issue: Whether Louisiana’s intentional creation of a second majority-minority congressional district violates the 14th or 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.We may get that Opinion or maybe the tariffs case today. Or we may get just one or two boring opinions. In total...

One area where Republicans need to do a better job is learning to play the long game in politics, especially in the courts. Today, on issue after issue, the Trump administration is losing battles at the lower levels of the judicial system, while frequently winning at the appellate level. Lower courts are composed of younger judges who, as they gain experience, rise in the judicial ranks. The rulings we see today at those lower levels will in the future be made by older, more liberal judges, at all levels, including the Supreme Court. This will hold true if the Republicans...

Two new justices will join the Utah Supreme Court after the Legislature, bitter from repeated legal defeats, passed a bill to expand the state’s high court from five to seven members. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, who will nominate the two new justices, quickly signed the bill into law, his office announced Saturday. After filling the new seats, Cox will have appointed five of the seven justices. “I would err on the side that seven sets of eyes reviewing the most complex and difficult issues our state has ever faced is better than having only five sets of eyes,” said House...

On Friday, a young woman who had her healthy breasts removed at age 16 for supposed transgender “medical care” was awarded $2 million, marking the first successful detransitioner malpractice lawsuit in the nation. Fox Varian’s psychologist and surgeon were held liable by a jury in Westchester, New York, according to independent reporter Benjamin Ryan, who attended the three-week trial.

The Brief A federal judge declined to bring an immediate end to the ICE surge in Minnesota during a court hearing on Wednesday. However, the judge did fast-track arguments in the lawsuit, demanding federal authorities submit its response by Monday, Jan. 19. The State of Minnesota argues that the ICE operation has caused "serious harm", citing incidents like the shooting of Renee Good. MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - A federal court judge is allowing the ICE surge in Minnesota to continue for now amid a legal challenge by the state, but is demanding federal authorities respond to the lawsuit by early...