Free Republic

Brown was sentenced in 2017 to five years in prison. She was let out last year due to COVID-19 concerns in the federal prison where she as serving her time.The appeal was based on arguments about a juror that Brown contended was improperly removed from her 2017 trial because he said the “Holy Spirit” told him Brown was not guilty of fraud and tax charges.

Earlier today I traced yesterday’s sequence of events in federal district court in Georgia that led to the issuance of a TRO by District Court Judge Timothy Batten, whereby he directed officials in Cobb, Gwinnett, and Cherokee Counties to not take any action to alter or delete electronic data stored on the Dominion voting system machines that were used in the Nov. 3 election. Judge Batten reserved, for now, the question of whether to allow the machines to undergo forensic examination by experts hired by the Plaintiffs in the case and gave the State and County Defendants until Wednesday to...

A federal appeals court on Friday ruled that ordinances in Florida banning the licensed counseling of people with unwanted same-sex attractions are unconstitutional violations of the freedom of speech. "We hold that the challenged ordinances violate the First Amendment because they are content-based regulations of speech that cannot survive strict scrutiny," the ruling from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said. The decision was the first from a federal appeals court laws against so-called "conversion therapy" – a term rejected by proponents – since a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. In NIFLA v. Becerra, the high court ruled the...

A federal judge appointed by President Donald Trump rejected what he called a “creative” lawsuit on Thursday. It was a suit that Georgia’s assistant attorney general warned would cause the Peach State’s largest disenfranchisement since the Jim Crow era.“To halt the certification at literally the 11th hour would breed confusion and disenfranchisement that I find have no basis in fact and law,” U.S. District Judge Steven Grimberg declared at the end of a roughly two-and-a-half hour hearing.The celebrity attorney making the breathtaking request was L. Lin Wood, Jr., who also represented former U.S. Congressman Gary Condit and the alleged victim...

1. A motion to delay certification of GA vote based on a flawed recount was denied this evening by Atlanta Judge Steven D. Grimberg. The oral ruling was unclear but he may have overreached to dismiss my claim that election was unlawful due to @GaSecofState consent agreement. 2. The recount issue was separate from unlawful election issue. Sounded like Court thinks a GA voter has NO standing to challenge unlawful federal election. Lawyer for Sec. Of State suggested only state AG could do so. What? AG represents @GaSecofState. Makes no sense. 3. GA voters have rights. It is OUR right...

A federal appeals court on Friday voted against extending the deadline for voters to return their absentee ballots in the state of Georgia. The Atlanta Constitution-Journal reports: A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided 2-1 to grant a stay of a judge’s ruling that would have allowed voters three more days to return their absentee ballots.

An atheist group has filed a brief in support of a lawsuit against a Georgia college that punished a Christian student for preaching outside of a limited free speech zone on campus. The American Humanist Association filed an amicus brief on Tuesday in the case of Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski, which will be argued before the United States Supreme Court. The Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative law firm, filed suit against George Gwinnett College for its treatment of Christian student Chike Uzuegbunam. Although the school has changed their policy on free speech and expression since stopping Uzuegbunam from preaching, they have...

WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge: Florida has long followed the common practice of excluding those who commit serious crimes from voting. But in 2018, the people of Florida approved a historic amendment to their state constitution to restore the voting rights of thousands of convicted felons. They imposed only one condition: before regaining the right to vote, felons must complete all the terms of their criminal sentences, including imprisonment, probation, and payment of any fines, fees, costs, andrestitution.

TALLAHASSEE — A Florida law requiring felons to pay legal fees as part of their sentences before regaining the vote is unconstitutional for those unable to pay, or unable to find out how much they owe, a federal judge ruled Sunday. The 125-page ruling was issued by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Hinkle in Tallahassee. It involves a state law to implement a 2016 ballot measure approved by voters to automatically restore the right to vote for many felons who have completed their sentence. The Republican-led Legislature stipulated that fines and legal fees must be paid as part of the...

The Supreme Court is making it harder for noncitizens who are authorized to live permanently in the United States to argue they should be allowed to stay in the country if they've committed crimes. The decision Thursday split the court 5-4 along ideological lines. The decision came in the case of Andre Barton, a Jamaican national and green card holder. In 1996, when he was a teenager, he was present when a friend fired a gun at the home of Barton's ex-girlfriend in Georgia. And in 2007 and 2008, he was convicted of drug possession in the state. His crimes...

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a lower court's decision that an immigrant with lawful permanent resident status cannot fight deportation due to a previous offense, even though that crime was not grounds for his removal. In a 5-4 ruling with conservative justices on one side and liberals on the other, the court ruled for the Trump administration in holding that the statute in question, as drafted by Congress, requires deportation in the case of Andre Barton, even though the assault offenses that prevent him from appealing were not enough to deport him in the first place. "Removal of...

A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled that prosecutors did not break the law in negotiating a plea agreement with Jeffrey Epstein while keeping his victims in the dark more than a decade ago. A three-judge panel on the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that federal prosecutors, led at the time by former Trump administration Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, did not violate victims' rights laws in negotiating a lenient and secretive plea agreement for the late financier. But the ruling tore into the prosecutors for their handling of Epstein's case, which the judges called a "national disgrace. "Despite...

On Easter Sunday, a federal judge ruled that Alabama cannot stop abortion facilities from killing unborn babies in elective abortions during the coronavirus outbreak. U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson ruled that abortion facilities should be the ones to decide if an abortion is essential, and the state cannot close them – even during a national health crisis, the AP reports. Thompson issued a preliminary injunction, which expands his earlier ruling blocking the state from enforcing health care restrictions on abortion facilities. His initial ruling expired Monday. Similar to most states, Alabama is restricting all non-essential medical care during the pandemic....

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing two former students at Georgia Gwinnett College asked the U.S. Supreme Court Friday to hear their case and vindicate their free speech rights. Two federal courts declined to address whether Gwinnett violated the students’ constitutional rights because the college modified its policies after the case was filed. Most federal courts will decide the constitutional question even if the government changes its policy because doing so prevents future misconduct and vindicates the essential freedoms that the Constitution protects. Student Chike Uzuegbunam tried to share his Christian faith with other students on the Lawrenceville, Georgia, campus in...

The meteoric rise continues for Andrew Brasher, who was confirmed as a federal district court judge for the Middle District of Alabama just nine months ago. Brasher is moving up the judicial ladder with confirmation Tuesday by the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate. He’ll now sit on the bench at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, based in Atlanta. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-AL, praised the young judge from the Senate floor, calling the confirmation “a testament to his vast legal ability and commitment to upholding the rule of law as it is written.” Brasher was nominated for the position...

Minutes after Chief Justice John Roberts gaveled out President Trump's impeachment trial, which had consumed the Senate for almost three weeks, Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., got right back to what he's said is his top priority -- confirming judges. Less than half-an-hour after TV networks cut away from the Senate to dive into the ramifications of the body acquitting Trump, McConnell filed cloture on the nomination of Judge Andrew Brasher to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, a procedural step that moved the controversial nominee one step closer to confirmation. The body took the next step to confirming...

Local and state governments in the United States and other nations have been banning counseling individuals to get rid of unwanted same-sex attractions. But there's one population that's being injured each time that happens. Rape victims. Male rape victims. In the United States, more than a dozen states or local governments have moved to suppress information that counselors could provide to those victims. Recently, officials in the city of Tampa, Florida, appealed a federal judge's decision to block an ordinance prohibiting the counseling of children who seek help overcoming same-sex attractions.

President Trump’s nominations to the federal courts have flipped three circuits making them majority Republican-appointed, lowered the age of GOP-appointed judges by 14 years, and reshaped the judiciary for decades to come, according to a series of new reports. When Trump took office in January 2017, only four of the 13 U.S. appeals courts had a majority of Republican-appointed judges. Today, seven of the 13 appeals courts do. This year alone, the Second, Third and 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have flipped from majority Democratic-nominated to majority Republican-nominated, according to Law.com. All total, 187 Trump-appointed federal judges have been...

Senate Republicans confirmed one of President Trump’s judicial nominees to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Tuesday and will flip the federal appeals court to a majority of Republican-appointed active judges with another confirmation later this week. It will be the third federal appeals court to be turned to a GOP-majority under the president’s promise to remake the federal judiciary with a conservative bent.

Trump has already “flipped” the Third Circuit. He’s made serious inroads on other circuits. Now, he’s posed to fully flip the Eleventh Circuit. At the outset of the Trump administration, it had an 8-3 Democratic majority (with one vacancy). So that’s an impressive swing. One administration, not even in power for three years, has flipped the federal circuit for Florida, Georgia, and Alabama from 8-3 Democrat to 7-5 Republican, with a majority of those Republicans being Trump judges.