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In what is likely to become a landmark case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in an en banc decision of all the judges in the circuit, struck down the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) rule which changed the definition of a machinegun to include bump stocks. Thirteen judges were in the majority, with three judges dissenting. The case is Cargill v. Garland. This correspondent wrote about it previously. Here is a summation of how the sixteen judges ruled. From the opinion: Of the sixteen members of our court, thirteen of us agree...

Jan 6 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Friday struck down a rule the Trump administration had adopted following a 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting that banned "bump stocks," devices that allow people to rapidly fire multiple rounds from semi-automatic guns. In a 13-3 decision, the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that despite "tremendous" public pressure to impose a ban, it was up to the U.S. Congress rather than the president to take action.... "The resulting circuit split should bring this decision to the U.S. Supreme Court's attention promptly and supply a suitable vehicle for...

A federal court denied a petition for rehearing in a case surrounding United Airlines’ vaccine mandate — one judge accusing the company of “coerc[ing] its employees into violating their religious beliefs.” Judges for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, widely considered the most conservative federal court, voted 13-4 on Thursday to deny a rehearing. The court also denied United Airlines’ request to vacate a panel opinion from February, which held that the mandate inflicted irreparable harm and remanded the case to district court. Trump-appointed Judge James Ho penned a concurring opinion, admonishing the airline for creating...

U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed the three-judge panel decision in Duncan v. Becerra, the ban on magazines that hold over 10 rounds. The opinion was released on November 30, 2021.Update: The case nomenclature has changed from Duncan v. Becerra to Duncan v. Bonta, because of the change in the California Attorney General.At the end of March, in 2019, Judge Roger T. Benitez wrote a well-reasoned opinion that found the California ban on magazines of over 10 rounds to be an unconstitutional infringement on the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. The case was...

A federal appeals court overrode a three-judge panel decision Wednesday, restoring an injunction blocking President Joe Biden’s “sanctuary country” orders as legal challenges continue.These “sanctuary country” orders are directions by top officials in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). They require immigration agents to delay the deportation of illegal aliens until they have been convicted of aggravated felonies.In August, Judge Drew Tipton of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas issued a preliminary injunction blocking the sanctuary country orders following a lawsuit from the states of Texas and Louisiana.However, a three-judge...

The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Texas law on Wednesday that bans the most common abortion procedure used during second-trimester pregnancies. A majority of the 14 judges sided with the 2017 Texas law, overturning an earlier decision by the same court to block it. The legislation would stop doctors from the standard dilation and evacuation method which employs forceps to remove the fetus without the use of an injection or suction. Abortion activists say it outlaws the safest method for women in the second trimester to terminate a pregnancy. Under the law, medical professionals will now be...

Planned Parenthood and the Center for Reproductive Rights said they will continue to fight the waiting period. “The forced delay requirement has nothing to do with patient health,” Ashley Coffield, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi, said in the News Channel 5 report. The abortion industry argued that Tennessee’s policy harms “low-income and communities of color” even as pro-life advocates point out that while black Americans account for about 14 percent of the child-bearing population in the United States, 36 percent of abortions are black babies. “Abortion is health care and we at Planned Parenthood...

The case shows the judiciary is just as fractured as the rest of America, and leftist judges are defiantly ignoring Supreme Court and circuit precedent.On Friday, in a procedural oddity, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals voted to hear the initial appeal in Bristol v. Slatery as a full court, rather than allowing the case to proceed as normal before a three-judge panel. The case involved abortion, and the takeaways are two-fold: The judiciary is just as fractured as the rest of America, and leftist judges are defiantly ignoring Supreme Court and circuit precedent.To understand the significance of the Sixth...

...Powell began with a short opening statement and then responded to questions posed by the 10 active judges hearing the appeal. (Judge Gregory Katsas did not participate in the en banc proceedings.) Jeff Wall, the acting solicitor general, argued next on behalf of the government, followed by Beth Wilkinson, the private attorney retained to represent Sullivan. Powell and Wall concluded with short, two-minute rebuttals. The questions posed focused mainly on the propriety of mandamus in the Flynn case given that Sullivan has not yet ruled on the government’s motion to dismiss. Mandamus is an extremely rare remedy, appropriate only when...

LIVE United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit Live Stream

Maybe Judge Luttig was right all along. I had the misgivings you’d expect back in late May, when I disagreed with J. Michael Luttig, the stellar scholar and former federal appeals court judge, regarding how the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals should handle the Flynn case. At the time, that court’s three-judge panel had not yet heard oral argument on Michael Flynn’s mandamus petition — i.e., Flynn’s request that the panel find that federal district judge Emmet Sullivan was acting lawlessly. Sullivan had not only failed to grant the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss the criminal case against Flynn; he...

The full bench of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington DC has agreed to consider whether judge Sullivan should be forced to dismiss a felony charge against Michael Flynn. The insanity continues. Everything about this case has been bizarre including Judge Sullivan’s refusal to accept the unopposed motion to dismiss the case. Now the full DC Circuit panel will hear arguments about why Sullivan should be allowed to continue the case without DOJ prosecution. It appears the court has pinned their en banc acceptance on the notion that Judge Sullivan had yet to issue a final ruling prior...

The dispute over the Department of Justice's move to dismiss criminal charges against former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn will get a rehearing by the entire District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, the latest twist in the long-running legal drama that stemmed from the FBI's investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in 2016. The order was issued Thursday by the court. Called an "en banc" hearing, all 11 judges on the appeals court will sit in on a rehash of arguments that were made before a three-judge panel in June, which led to a...

United States Court of Appeals FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT No. 20-5143 September Term, 20191:17-cr-00232-EGS-1Filed On: July 30, 2020In re: Michael T. Flynn,Petitioner BEFORE:Srinivasan, Chief Judge, and Henderson, Rogers, Tatel, Garland,Griffith, Millett, Pillard, Wilkins, Katsas*, and Rao, Circuit Judges US Court of Appeals Columbia District O R D E R Upon consideration of the petition for rehearing en banc, the responses thereto, and the vote in favor of rehearing en banc by a majority of the judges eligible to participate, it is ORDERED that this case be reheard by the court sitting en banc. It is FURTHER ORDERED that...

U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit responded on Friday to a petition for rehearing en banc by halting a prior order for U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan to dismiss the Michael Flynn case. *** Upon consideration of the petition for the rehearing en banc, it is, on the court’s own motion, ORDERED that, within 10 days of the date of this order, petitioner file a response to the petition for rehearing en banc. not to exceed 3,900 words. The government is invited to respond in its discretion within the same ten-day period. Any response from the...

Judge Emmet Sullivan filed an appeal Thursday of the 2-1 writ of mandamus ruling last month by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to dismiss the Justice Department case against former Trump National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (US Army Ret.) Sullivan is asking for an en banc hearing by the entire eleven judges on the appeals court. The main argument by Sullivan and Wilkinson seems to be, “Get off my yard!”: “The panel’s decision threatens to turn ordinary judicial process upside down. It is the district court’s job to consider and rule on pending...

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, through his counsel Beth Wilkinson, has asked for U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to rehear his case against the immediate dismissal of the Michael Flynn prosecution. The Thursday petition for rehearing comes after a three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit granted Flynn’s petition for writ a mandamus on June 24, directing Sullivan to dismiss the case. “The panel majority granted the extraordinary writ of mandamus to prevent the district court from receiving adversarial briefing and argument on a pending motion. The opinion is couched as a fact-bound ruling based on...

The judge in Michael Flynn’s criminal case asked a federal appeals court Thursday to reconsider its ruling last month ordering him to dismiss the prosecution of the former national security advisor to President Donald Trump. Judge Emmet Sullivan’s lawyer asked for a so-called en banc review of the decision of the appeals court, which would involve all active judges on the court to re-hear the case.

Everyone needs to cool their heels on this Flynn dismissal order for a bit. While we are all very happy that the three-judge panel of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals ordered District Judge Emmet Sullivan to end his abusive treatment of General Flynn in its order Wednesday, it is a tad too soon to just assume Sullivan will simply accede to the order and dismiss the case. General Flynn himself is on with Rush Limbaugh confirming this is the case as I write this, in fact. Sullivan is clearly a tool of the deep state, and we must remember...

A federal court has ruled Arizona Republicans’ ban on mail-in ballots is illegal and unconstitutional, calling it intentionally discriminatory toward people of color, who already face increased barriers to voting. The ruling is a major victory for the Democratic party, which filed the suit, and will likely make it easier for minorities to get their ballots counted in the largely red state.