Free Republic

In a groundbreaking decision, Judge Christopher C. Conner of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania struck down the state’s ban on carrying firearms in vehicles without a license. This ruling, a win for the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and its allies, significantly alters the landscape of gun rights in Pennsylvania. The Core of the Ruling Judge Conner’s ruling dismantles the longstanding prohibition that kept Pennsylvanians from having firearms in their vehicles without a license. This was challenged as an infringement on constitutional rights, leading to its overturning. The decision directly addresses issues faced by many citizens,...

The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) pistol brace rule that would see millions of Americans become felons overnight was dealt another devastating blow in a Texas District Court. Gun Owners of America (GOA), Gun Owners Foundation (GOF), and the state of Texas successfully won a preliminary injunction (PI) against the new regulation. “For these reasons, the Court GRANTS IN PART Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction, (Dkt. No. 16). Defendants are ENJOINED from enforcing the Final Rule against the private Plaintiffs in this case, including its current members and their resident family members, and individuals employed directly by the...

An appeals court on Friday overturned the conviction and life sentence of a man found guilty of killing a U.S. Border Patrol agent whose death exposed the botched federal gun operation known as “Fast and Furious” has been overturned, a U.S. appeals court said Friday. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the convictions of Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes, saying his constitutional due process rights had been violated, and sent the case back to the U.S. District Court in Arizona for further proceedings. Osorio-Arellanes was sentenced in 2020 in the Dec. 14, 2010, fatal shooting of Agent Brian Terry while he...

A federal court has blocked the Federal Communications Commission‘s reinstatement of net neutrality rules that expanded government oversight over the internet. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’s ruling against the FCC on Thursday came after the federal agency voted earlier this year to reinstate former President Barack Obama’s net neutrality regulations. “The final rule implicates a major question, and the commission has failed to satisfy the high bar for imposing such regulations,” the court wrote. “Net neutrality is likely a major question requiring clear congressional authorization.” The court has paused the regulation, saying it will pick up the case...

U.S. District Judge Peter Sheridan's 69-page opinion says he was compelled to rule as he did because of the Supreme Court's rulings in firearms cases, particularly the 2022 Bruen decision that expanded gun rights. Sheridan's ruling left both 2nd Amendment advocates and the state attorney general planning appeals. The judge temporarily delayed the order for 30 days. Pointing to the high court's precedents, Sheridan suggested Congress and the president could do more to curb gun-related violence nationwide. “It is hard to accept the Supreme Court’s pronouncements that certain firearms policy choices are ‘off the table’ when frequently, radical individuals possess...

A “Gun Free School Zone” case has been appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The appeal attacks the Gun Free School Zone Act (GFSZA) as being an unconstitutional infringement of rights protected by the Second Amendment. An amicus brief has been filed by the California Rifle and Pistol Association (CRPA), the Second Amendment Law Center, and the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF). From January 5th to the 29th of 2023, Ahmed Allam spent several hours in the afternoon and evening parked across the street from a parochial school, St. Anthony Cathedral Basilica School in Beaumont,...

Afederal court in Kansas on Tuesday blocked the Biden administration's Title IX regulations from taking effect in four states, becoming the latest court to stop the new controversial rules from taking effect in August. The Department of Education's new rules expanded the definition of sex discrimination to include gender identity and pregnancy, and included a ban on single-sex bathroom and locker rooms. It also required schools to use pronouns based on a student's preferred gender identity. The new rules have now been stopped in 14 states as of Tuesday. [snip] “Gender ideology does not belong in public schools and we...

A federal judge has blocked President Joe Biden’s pro-transgender rewrite of the federal government’s Title IX regulations against sexual discrimination. “Joe Biden’s unlawful effort to weaponize Title IX for his extremist agenda has been stopped in its tracks,” said a statement from Ken Paxton, Texas’ Attorney General. “Threatening to withhold education funding by forcing states to accept ‘transgender’ policies that put women in danger was plainly illegal,” said Paxton, who filed the lawsuit. “Nothing in the [federal law] prohibits discrimination based on gender identity,” U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor declared Tuesday, in a decision that only protects Texans. The judge...

On Thursday a three-judge panel from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided that Steven Duarte, a felon, has a “right to possess a firearm for self-defense.” Courthouse News Service noted Duarte has five felony convictions and was a member of a street gang in Los Angeles. The decision upholding Duarte’s gun rights was split, with George W. Bush appointee Carlos Bea and Donald Trump appointee Lawrence VanDyke deciding in the majority. Bea wrote the majority opinion, noted the panel tested the prohibition against felons possessing guns in light of Bruen (2022) and found the government...

Prosecutors told a federal judge that the son of a prominent conservative activist convicted of bashing open a Senate window, joining rioters who chased a police officer before making his way to Speaker of the House’s office and finally perching himself in a gallery where he turned the view of CSPAN camera away from fellow rioters on Jan. 6 deserves 12 years in prison. Leo Brent Bozell IV of Pennsylvania is the son of Brent Bozell, the conservative founder of the Media Research Center, CNSNews, and the Parents Television Counsel, as Law&Crime previously reported, Bozell IV, 44, was convicted at...

Despite being slapped down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for ordering a Jan. 6 probationer’s computer use be monitored for so-called “disinformation,” a senior federal judge in Washington D.C. appears ready to reimpose the restriction on Daniel Goodwyn of Corinth, Texas. Senior U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton ordered Mr. Goodwyn to “show cause” for why the computer monitoring provision should not be reimposed. Judge Walton set a June 4 hearing date on the issue in Washington.

On Tuesday a 2-1 Democrat majority of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit invalidated a good West Virginia law protecting girls’ sports against invasion by male-bodied transgender students. The Richmond-based tribunal held that West Virginia’s Save Women’s Sports Act violates the federal Title IX law, which was enacted to protect girls’ sports, and also that West Virginia’s protection of girls’ sports may further violate the Constitution. The Biden-appointed judge who wrote this absurd decision repeatedly used the propaganda term “sex assigned at birth,” as if sex were arbitrary and merely “assigned” to a newborn. On the contrary,...

A federal appeals court on Tuesday overturned the West Virginia law banning transgender girls from playing on girls' sports teams, finding that it violates Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools. The ruling comes amid a wave of anti-trans legislation cropping up across the country, as well as efforts to fight back against it. The ban in West Virginia was originally signed into law by Gov. Jim Justice in 2021, and introduced as the "Save Women's Sports Act." It required that any official or unofficial school-sanctioned event involving athletics determine each athlete's participation in...

A federal appeals court on Friday ruled that an enhancement charge used against Jan. 6 defendants to lengthen their sentences couldn’t apply to the Capitol protest. In a unanimous opinion from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Patricia Millett, an Obama appointee, said prosecutors’ use of a “substantial interference with the administration of justice” charge to enhance the prison sentence of Larry Brock was too broad. “We hold that the ‘administration of justice’ enhancement does not apply to interference with the legislative process of certifying electoral votes,” wrote Judge Millett.... The ruling could affect other Jan. 6 defendants who...

A federal court dismissed a case Tuesday against Republican Iowa Gov. Kimberly Reynolds’ prohibition of mask mandate in school districts across the state, official documents showed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit found “persuasive” the argument that “the general risks associated with COVID-19, even though COVID-19 remains an ever-present concern in society, are not enough to show ‘imminent and substantial’ harm,” court papers showed in part. The court also decided that “because Plaintiffs have only alleged the potential risk of severe illness should they contract COVID-19 at school, the risk of harm is too speculative to satisfy...

The former FBI informant charged with lying about a $10 million-dollar bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden´s family is set to appear in a California federal court on Monday. A judge will determine whether Alexander Smirnov, 43, must remain behind bars while he awaits trial. Special counsel David Weiss' office is pressing U.S. District Judge Otis Wright II to keep Smirnov in jail, arguing the man who claims to have ties to Russian intelligence is likely to flee the country. A different judge last week released Smirnov from jail on electronic GPS monitoring, but Wright ordered the man to be...

[Video] The FBI is investigating an alleged murder-for-hire plot targeting a federal judge and the special prosecutor involved in an upcoming public corruption trial. HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) -- The attorney under federal investigation in a shocking contract killer case claimed in court on Friday that she was actually the victim of extortion. It’s yet another twist in a sprawling public corruption trial. Defendant Sheri Tanaka remains free on bail after a magistrate judge Friday declined to modify conditions of her pretrial release. She’s one of six people facing trial for bribery-related charges in the corruption case. Pretrial services filed a motion...

A federal judge on Wednesday found that the “selective prosecution” of far-right groups without charging their far-left counterparts for the same acts is “constitutionally impermissible.” U.S. District Court Judge Cormac Carney of southern California therefore dismissed charges against two men from the “white nationalist” Rise Above Movement (RAM) who violently clashed with members of the far-left group Antifa at three southern California pro-Trump events in 2017. In his 35-page order, the judge stressed the importance of equal protection under the law. He said that although the two men may have been involved in violent acts, prosecutors were wrong to exclusively...

This week, US District Court Judge Cormac Carney ruled that "the prosecution of two men from the Rise Above Movement (RAM) who violently clashed with members of Antifa at three southern California pro-Trump events in 2017 is constitutionally impermissible. Both sides engaged in behavior that is illegal, yet the Antifa rioters were not held accountable for their actions." US Attorney General Merrick Garland called Carney's ruling "outrageous. He completely ignores prosecutorial discretion. The state has the right to decide which cases merit the full punishment of the law and which do not. In the battle to preserve our democracy there...

Alexander Smirnov, the former FBI informant indicted for lying about President Joe Biden’s family and their alleged dealings in Ukraine, has been re-arrested in Nevada. Though prosecutors fought to keep him behind bars, Smirnov was released by Magistrate Judge Daniel Albregts in Nevada on Tuesday with several conditions, including GPS monitoring and the surrender of his two passports. Prosecutors asked the Nevada judge to delay his release, but the judge declined and Smirnov was allowed to walk out. Now, Smirnov’s defense lawyers say their client was re-arrested Thursday on a new warrant for the exact same charges – this time...