Free Republic

Police across the country have often been caught using excessive force during arrests and other confrontations. Even when such incidents are captured on video, officers are often able to escape punishment or other consequences. Such appears to be the case yet again. In a controversial ruling, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that an officer who admitted to twisting a teenage girl’s arms to cause her pain did not violate the law in his actions. The officer admitted to purposely hurting the teenage girl. _______________________ Martin ended up violently arresting the mother...

NEW ORLEANS — Government lawyers labored on Friday to persuade federal appeals court judges here to allow President Obama to move ahead with sweeping initiatives to protect immigrants in the country illegally. But the judges’ questions seemed to make it ever more unlikely that the president’s programs, which he has hoped would be a central piece of his legacy, would start any time before the last months of his term, if at all. A panel of three judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit heard arguments in a lawsuit by Texas and 25 other states...

President Barack Obama appears likely to lose – again – in the protracted legal fight over his executive actions on immigration. Two of the three appeals court judges who heard oral arguments Friday on the Obama administration’s immigration programs were skeptical about the legal merits of the directive, which could halt deportations for more than 4 million immigrants here illegally who have family ties in the United States The chilly reception from the three-judge panel in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on whether Obama had legal authority to take such action seems to indicate that a lower court decision...

The U.S Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans has ruled that Texas CAN enforce a new law that cuts off Taxpayer Funding of Planned Parenthood, and abortion provider. This has been a roller coaster ride for Texas. Soon after Texas passed the new law last year, Planned Parenthood sued. President Obama also responded by threatening to terminate funding for women's health services in Texas in response to Texas refusing to fund Abortion Providers like Planned Parenthood as part of the Texas Women's Health Service Program.  A liberal activist judge ruled that Texas cannot enforce the new law....

Guest Commentary by Laurie Roth This week I thought I would lose my mind when I heard of the horrifying decision by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals against Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean. So many of us who had followed this case for the last few years were hoping that once all the evidence had finally been heard, unlike with the first trial, that justice would be done. Wrong!! Justice was not done!!! You may recall in the first trial that the illegal alien, drug thug Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, who brought 743 pounds of marijuana over our border was...