Free Republic

Cardinals defensive lineman Darnell Dockett isn't afraid to speak his mind, and it usually takes place on Twitter. Often, it's funny, other times it's just weird (and ultimately not true). But on Saturday, Dockett probably would've been better off saying nothing at all.

It's crunch time at the Supreme Court, where the justices are racing to issue opinions in 17 cases over the next two weeks. The religious rights of corporations, the speech rights of abortion protesters and the privacy rights of people under arrest are among the significant issues that are so far unresolved

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected two National Rifle Association challenges to laws that ban gun permits to people under 21. The rejections came in one-line orders without comment. One of the rejected cases brought by the NRA challenged a Texas law that bans those under 21 from getting a gun permit. The other NRA challenge was to a Federal law that restricts selling handguns to people under 21. “Given the number of laws enacted by the federal government, states, and localities in the years when a mistaken understanding of the Second Amendment held sway, one would have expected a...

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to wade into the politically volatile issue of gun control by leaving intact three court rulings rejecting challenges to federal and state laws. The court's decision not to hear the cases represented a loss for gun rights advocates, including the National Rifle Association, which was behind two of the challenges. The first case involved a challenge by the NRA to a Texas law that prevents 18-20 year olds from carrying handguns in public. It also raised the broader question of whether there is a broad right under the Second Amendment to bear arms in...

The Supreme Court will decide whether or not it should be a crime for someone to purchase a gun for another person if both are legally allowed to possess a firearm.

Today the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Navarette v California, a case in which a wrong decision will effectively repeal the 4th Amendment rights of the American people. The text of the 4th Amendment reads: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. In 1968, the Supreme Court ruled that “…law enforcement...

Obamacare is before the U.S. Supreme Court again. On Thursday, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) lawyers filed the first viable petition for Supreme Court review involving Kathleen Sebelius’ HHS Mandate, which requires employers to provide abortion-related insurance coverage, even if those employers have a religious objection to abortion. Section 1001 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obamacare) requires all large employers to offer “preventive services” to their employees or face enormous financial penalties. With President Obama’s approval, Sebelius issued a regulation that defined preventive services to include access to birth control, including those that cause abortions after conception. The regulation...

The U.S. Supreme Court just announced it will hear in October 2013 the case Galloway v. Greece, concerning freedom of speech and legislative prayer. In 2008 two Greece residents, Susan Galloway and Linda Stephens, filed suit against the town alleging that the town’s habit of having explicitly Christian prayers delivered prior to board meetings flouted the First Amendment. In August 2012, U.S. District Court Judge Charles Siragusa disagreed, ruling that prayers in Jesus’ name were not a violation of the U.S. Constitution. But a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in May 2012 overturned Siragusa’s decision...

Supreme Court on Friday agreed to consider whether a suspect's refusal to answer police questions prior to being arrested and read his rights can be introduced as evidence of guilt at his subsequent murder trial. Without comment, the court agreed to hear the appeal of Genovevo Salinas, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison for the December 1992 deaths of two brothers in Houston.

A San Francisco couple is waiting to find out if the U.S. Supreme Court will take their case challenging the 1996 law that prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages. Karen Golinski and Amy Cunninghis got married during the brief window in 2008 when gay and lesbian couples could tie the knot in California. Golinski immediately tried to add her wife to her employer-sponsored health care plan. But because she is married to another woman and works for the U.S. government, her otherwise routine request was denied...

(Reuters) - The ninth Circuit Court of Appeals cleared the way for the Supreme Court to consider California's gay marriage ban, declining an appeal to revisit the case.

The key to the Supreme Court's upcoming ruling will be clear recognition of constitutional alternatives to Obamacare. On November 14, the Supreme Court granted the Writ of Certiorari to hear the appeal of the cases testing the constitutionality of Obamacare. The resulting decision will mark an historic watershed not only in the restoration of constitutional jurisprudence, but in fundamental, market reform of the entire entitlement state... --snip-- While the decision of simpatico Judge Laurence Silberman upholding the Obamacare mandate is somewhat troubling, that reflected Silberman's poorly reasoned conclusion that he was bound as a lower court judge by the Supreme...

Last week, President Obama's Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to hear oral arguments in a case that pits religious protections against the courts' ordinary ability to intervene in a labor dispute to prevent discrimination.In the early 2000s, Cheryl Perich was a "called teacher" or "commissioned minister" at Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School in Redford, Mich. As such, she taught religious classes, led students in prayer and incorporated religious teachings into secular subjects like math, science, social studies and art.But in 2004, she was diagnosed with narcolepsy and became unable to teach the fall semester that year. When she...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has turned down ACORN's request for help in its lawsuit claiming Congress was wrong to shut off the activist group's federal funding. The high court on Friday refused to throw out a decision by the federal appellate court in New York City. That court had decided to freeze a judge's determination that Congress acted unconstitutionally in yanking the group's funding.

A sharply divided US Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Monday in a case examining whether a California law school can refuse to officially recognize a Christian student group that requires its members to embrace biblical passages denouncing homosexuality. Officials at the University of California’s Hastings College of Law in San Francisco said the group’s stance violates the school’s antidiscrimination policy – including bans on discrimination based on religious belief or sexual orientation.

The same Supreme Court justices whom President Obama blasted during his State of the Union address this year may ultimately decide the fate of his crowning achievement as more than a dozen states have called on the courts to strike down the health insurance mandate of Democrats' health care overhaul - a move that would threaten the entire law. Two major constitutional challenges have been levied against the new law, one by the state of Virginia, which enacted a law exempting its citizens from the federal health insurance mandate, and another by Florida and 12 other states. Legal scholars are...

The Supreme Court takes up another Second Amendment case. The Supreme Court today is the scene of a Constitutional duel in a case that will decide if the Second Amendment's guarantee of an individual right to bear arms applies to the states. The answer will determine whether the Court's landmark 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller is a hollow legal anomaly, or if it extends nationwide. In McDonald v. Chicago, the Justices will consider whether the Windy City's ban on handguns is Constitutional. Brought by plaintiffs including 76-year-old Otis McDonald, who wants to keep a handgun in his...

Supreme Court To Consider Another Case On Racial Bias In Hiring Chicago firefighters say they were illegally discriminated against through test scores. A lawyer calls it the flip side to last year's case involving white firefighters in New Haven, Conn. By David G. Savage February 20, 2010 Reporting from Washington - The controversy over racial bias, testing and firefighters that blew up at both the Supreme Court and the Senate last year returns Monday, this time as the justices decide whether blacks who were not hired in Chicago because of their test scores are due damages for years of lost...

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected on Tuesday to issue its latest decision on the fate of Mumia Abu-Jamal, arguably America's most famous death-row inmate, convicted of slaying a Philadelphia policeman, a crime he denies committing. The court is due to rule on an appeal by the Philadelphia district attorney who is seeking to have Abu-Jamal executed and bring an end to a decades-long legal saga the inmate, a former journalist, wrote about while in prison. Abu-Jamal, now 55, was convicted in 1982 of killing officer Daniel Faulkner on December 9, 1981. He has become an international cause celebre for...

Washington - The Supreme Court agreed today to hear an appeal from a Christian student group in San Francisco which refused to admit gays and lesbians and decide whether the group's right to religious liberty and freedom of association can trump a university's ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation. The case, to be heard next year, could set new rules for campus groups across the nation. The University of California's Hastings College of Law says its officially recognized student groups must be open to all of its students. The law school also has a general non-discrimination policy which applies...