Free Republic

‘I worry that the disrespect they have been shown will not inspire continued respect for the judiciary, without which we cannot long function.’The refusal by a majority on the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) to shut down leftists’ lower court judicial coup against President Trump has drawn sharp rebukes from conservatives across America. These critics (correctly) argue that the high court’s unwillingness to stop (and at times, its willingness to participate in) this effort both subverts the power of the executive branch and undermines the will of the more than 77 million Americans who voted for the president in the 2024...

On Friday afternoon, the Supreme Court remanded A.A.R.P. v. Trump to the Fifth Circuit with very precise instructions. [snip] Last Friday, the Supreme Court vacated the judgment of our court, which had dismissed this appeal for lack of jurisdiction. The Court remanded the case back to us for further proceedings, and directed us to proceed "expeditiously." A.A.R.P. v. Trump, 605 U.S. _, _ (2025). Accordingly, this matter is expedited to the next available randomly designated regular oral argument panel. Judge Ho wrote an seven-page concurrence. He defended his colleague, Judge Wes Hendrix, against an unfair attack from the Supreme Court:...

Interesting things are happening in the Fifth Circuit case involving silencers, USA v Peterson. A three-judge panel ruled that silencers were not “arms” as defined by the text of the Second Amendment. Peterson and his attorneys have asked the case be reheard in an en banc review. The Fifth Circuit has been reasonably diligent in its Second Amendment cases, so an en banc (review by the whole court) has a good chance of reversing the three-judge panel. The Peterson case appears to be seriously considered by the Fifth Circuit. The court has sent a request to the parties involved to...

CV NEWS FEED // The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Feb. 26 that Planned Parenthood is not required to pay back millions of dollars it defrauded from Medicaid, reversing a lower court ruling. POLITICO reported that both Texas and Louisiana attempted to remove the local branches of Planned Parenthood from their Medicaid programs after a whistleblower revealed that the abortion company provided fetal tissue from abortions to researchers in 2015. During years of litigation to remove Planned Parenthood, the company’s attorneys advised that the Texas and Louisiana branches continue billing Medicaid. Texas ultimately succeeded in removing Planned Parenthood from...

NEW ORLEANS (January 30, 2025) – Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the federal government’s handgun ban for adults aged 18 to 20 years old is unconstitutional. The opinion in Reese v. ATF can be viewed at firearmspolicy.org/reese. “Ultimately, the text of the Second Amendment includes eighteen-to-twenty-year-old individuals among ‘the people’ whose right to keep and bear arms is protected. The federal government has presented scant evidence that eighteen-to-twenty-year-olds’ firearm rights during the founding-era were restricted in a similar manner to the contemporary federal handgun purchase ban [...] In sum,...

A federal appeals court has dealt a critical blow to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, a controversial Obama-era policy that has shielded over half a million illegal immigrants from deportation. As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office, this ruling signals a potential turning point in America’s battle against illegal immigration. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld a lower court ruling that found the Biden administration’s attempt to codify DACA violated U.S. immigration law. The decision affirms that the 2012 Obama-era memo, which unilaterally created DACA without congressional approval, was both unconstitutional and...

A federal appeals court on Wednesday stopped the federal government from destroying a fence of razor wire that Texas installed along the U.S.-Mexico border near Eagle Pass to deter migrants from entering the country illegally. The ruling, criticized by activists, came hours before Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum told President-elect Donald Trump that immigrants headed to the U.S. are being “taken care of” in her country. Texas had placed more than 29 miles of wire in the Eagle Pass area by last September when Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Biden administration over Border Patrol agents’ alleged illegal destruction of state...

Judicial Watch Victory: Federal Appeals Court Rules against Counting of Ballots Received after Election Dayicial Watch Victory: Federal Appeals Court Rules against Counting of Ballots Received after Election Day Judicial Watch announced today that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has issued an opinion reversing a lower court ruling on Mississippi’s election law that permitted absentee ballots to be received as late as five business days after Election Day.

A U.S. federal appeals court ruled against Mississippi’s mail ballot law that allows election officials to count ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but arrive afterward, setting the stage for a possible Supreme Court review. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, sent the issue back to a lower court for further review. The decision would only impact Mississippi should a federal district court judge agree to bar the state from counting late-arriving mail-in ballots. The decision, issued by a panel of 5th Circuit judges, some of which appointed by former President...

MASSIVE ELECTION INTEGRITY VICTORY: The 5th Circuit has just ruled that ballots must be received BY ELECTION DAY to be counted — not days after — following an RNC lawsuit. This is a seismic win for fair, accurate, secure, and transparent elections

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,...

An explosive, anonymous letter has shaken the legal departments in the US, alleging a conflict of interest at the heart of Houston’s bankruptcy court. The letter, which surfaced in March 2021, accuses US Bankruptcy Judge David R Jones of maintaining a romantic relationship with Elizabeth Freeman, a prominent attorney at Jackson Walker and co-counsel for Kirkland & Ellis in billion-dollar cases overseen by Jones, reported The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). According to WSJ, the allegations suggest that Freeman’s involvement in cases before Jones was influenced by their personal relationship, potentially compromising the impartiality of court rulings affecting numerous stakeholders. Known...

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has made what the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons Educational Foundation (AAPS) calls a landmark decision in a case – AAPS v. ABIM – seeking the right to proceed with a case alleging censorship. The case was previously dismissed by the District Court for the Southern District of Texas, but the appellate court took the position that AAPS did manage to support its claims with sufficient allegations. We obtained a copy of the decision for you here. AAPS, a professional association, believes that the actions of three other medical associations,...

Since SCOTUS ruled this afternoon, and as an edit to this article, Texas’ new immigration law is blocked againHours after the U.S. Supreme Court had allowed Senate Bill 4 to go into effect, a federal appeals court let an earlier injunction stand. SB4 lets Texas police arrest people suspected of illegally crossing the Texas-Mexico border.Texas’ new immigration law is blocked againSo, here below is the article I was preparing to post. Suddenly, the story changed with an edit stating that the SCOTUS decision has been.....overturned???? A new Texas law allowing police to arrest people suspected of illegally crossing the southern...

A voting rights lawsuit that could cost Texas Democrats seats across all levels of government received a hearing Tuesday by the full Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, known as the most conservative federal appellate court in the country. The Galveston County redistricting case is challenging how the appellate court has previously interpreted the Voting Rights Act, which was passed to protect individual minority groups but has been “twisted” for political advantage. At issue is whether Section 2 of the law requires the county to create a majority-minority district by grouping a “coalition” of black and Hispanic voters....

The oral arguments in the Paxton v Dettelbach case, will be heard at the Fifth Circuit Courthouse in New Orleans on Wednesday morning at 9:00. Texas AG Ken Paxton is challenging the power of the federal government to tax and require serial numbers on homemade silencers which are made and stay in Texas. The case is bolstered by the Bruen decision at the Supreme Court. Paxton says silencers are protected under the Second Amendment, the Tenth Amendment, and the Fourteenth Amendment, and there is no historical tradition requireing American citizens to serialize and pay a $200 tax to exercise their...

Last week the US Supreme Court allowed Texas to enforce its immigration law that allows police to arrest illegal aliens. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority rejected an emergency application by the Biden Regime requesting the high court block Texas’ immigration law. The high court temporarily rejected the Biden Regime’s request as litigation made its way through the courts. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals last week temporarily suspended the immigration law after the Supreme Court rejected the emergency application. A three-judge panel for the Fifth Circuit in a 2-1 ruling Tuesday night rejected ‘invasion’ claims and issued a new block...

Oh, where to begin in the latest episode of “America’s Judicial Rollercoaster” featuring the audacious blockade by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals against Texas's gallant effort to enforce its own borders? Yes, you heard that right. In a move that could only be concocted in the wildest dreams of a liberal screenplay writer, the appellate court decided to thumb its nose at the U.S. Supreme Court. Why? Simply to prevent Texas from using Senate Bill 4 to do the unfathomable: arrest and deport illegal immigrants. Gasp! The horror of a state taking steps to protect its citizens and...

A federal appeals court has set a mid-January deadline for the Louisiana state legislature to draw up a new congressional map, which comes in a long-running legal dispute that included a lower court ruling that found the current map likely unfairly diluted the power of black voters. A three-judge panel in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued its order on Nov. 10, requiring the state legislature to pass a new map by Jan. 15, 2024. The appeals court's order notes that, if the state legislature fails to adopt a new map by the deadline, then the lower court should...

(The Epoch Times)—Restrictions imposed by President Joe Biden’s administration on so-called ghost guns are illegal, a federal appeals court ruled on Nov. 9. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), an Executive Branch agency that promulgated the rule containing the restrictions in 2022 with President Biden’s support, overstepped its authority, according to a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. “The agency rule at issue here flouts clear statutory text and exceeds the legislatively-imposed limits on agency authority in the name of public policy,” U.S. Circuit Judge Kurt Engelhardt wrote in the ruling....