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The American Civil Liberties Union has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision that allows the Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors to exclude a local witch from leading the prayer at open meetings. The ACLU of Virginia yesterday filed its petition with the court seeking to reverse a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decision, said ACLU attorney Rebecca K. Glenberg. "Our position is that the 4th Circuit did something really extreme in its decision," she said. "It held that it was acceptable for a government body to treat people differently because of religion." Cynthia Simpson, a witch who...

RICHMOND, Va. - The lawyer for an American citizen accused of being involved in a "dirty bomb" plot told appeals court judges Tuesday that his client shouldn't be held indefinitely without charges. But a government attorney said the president must have the authority to protect U.S. citizens. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in the case of Jose Padilla, a former Chicago gang member and Muslim convert arrested at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport in May 2002. Accused of being an al-Qaida operative, he was designated an "enemy combatant" by President Bush one month later. "I may be...

WASHINGTON — Three years ago, before today’s white-hot struggle over judicial appointments and the philosophical direction of the federal courts grabbed hold of official Washington, a soft-spoken Virginia conservative and a loquacious New York liberal met at the Library of Congress to bat around some ideas. Brought together by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of Charlottesville and Sen. Charles Schumer of New York carried on a friendly debate over the role of political ideology in shaping legal decisions and influencing congressional evaluations of judicial nominees. It’s unlikely many minds were changed during the...

Bush And The Judiciary, What Should Be Next? May 26, 2005 - PipeLineNews - As we observes the smoke which continues to rise from the GOP’s latest Senate debacle we feel that it’s time to move on and to test the word and hopefully the mettle of the new Democrat working majority. It is no secret that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Justice, William Rehnquist is gravely ill, having undergone throat surgery and chemotherapy to treat his thyroid cancer. Over the past few weeks, rumors have been circulating that sometime in early Summer Mr. Rehnquist will resign...

National and local leaders of the NAACP challenged residents Thursday to report and protest racial discrimination during the Atlantic Beach Bikefest. The civil rights organization held a rally at Myrtle Beach City Hall to announce a hot line (1-888-362-8683) to file complaints as part of what is being called Operation Bike Week Justice, asking residents to hold Myrtle Beach's government accountable for "discriminatory practices" and hold Mayor Mark McBride responsible for his statements about black bikers. "We are here to demand equal treatment and first-class citizenship for all tourists that visit Myrtle Beach, for all African-American visitors to the beach,"...

Sen. Rick Santorum (R.-Pa.) says he wants an investigation of the content of controversial memos produced by the Democratic staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee to determine whether the Democrats committed any wrongdoing in their efforts to block President Bush's judicial nominees. Meanwhile, Majority Leader Bill Frist (R.-Tenn.) and Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch (R.-Utah) appear content to let Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle investigate only how the memos came into the hands of Republican staffers--a probe that was inspired by the Democrats, serves the interests of the Democrats, and turns attention away from the far more serious question of whether...

WASHINGTON - President Bush re-nominated Claude A. Allen for a federal appeals court seat yesterday, putting the conservative Virginian back in the spotlight and re-igniting a battle that pitted Maryland's two Democratic senators against the White House last year. Allen was nominated last spring to fill a vacancy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, formerly held by Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., a liberal from Baltimore who died in 2000.

VMI Prayer Battle Could Define America’s Fighting Force Dave Eberhart, NewsMax.com Saturday, Nov. 23, 2002 Since January, when a judge ordered Virginia Military Institute to stop its traditional dinner prayers, Col. Ronald D. Ray, USMCR (Ret.) has been fighting to overturn the controversial ruling. If the battle is lost, he predicts an ACLU juggernaut that will strip God from the service academies and even from aircraft carriers, whose warriors will soar into harm’s way with a wing and not a prayer. “Dinnertime prayers have been said at the 162- year-old military academy since Thomas J. ‘Stonewall’ Jackson taught there,” Ray...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 3 — Top White House officials personally approved the evacuation of dozens of influential Saudis, including relatives of Osama bin Laden, from the United States in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks when most flights were still grounded, a former White House adviser said today. The adviser, Richard Clarke, who ran the White House crisis team after the attacks but has since left the Bush administration, said he agreed to the extraordinary plan because the Federal Bureau of Investigation assured him that the departing Saudis were not linked to terrorism. The White House feared that the...

For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary April 28, 2003 Nominations Sent to the Senate Claude A. Allen, of Virginia, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Fourth Circuit, vice Francis D. Murnaghan, Jr., deceased. Robert C. Brack, of New Mexico, to be United States District Judge for the District of New Mexico, vice a new position created by Public Law 107-273, approved November 2, 2002. James O. Browning, of New Mexico, to be United States District Judge for the District of New Mexico, vice C. LeRoy Hansen, retired. Glen E. Conrad, of Virginia, to be United States...

While Senate Democrats are filibustering against the nomination of Miguel Estrada to the federal appeals court, liberals in the media are filibustering against conservative judges in general. The hallmark of these liberal media filibusters is that they can find little or nothing specific to criticize about how the judges have interpreted the laws, so the critics resort to rhetoric, confusion and guilt by association. A classic of this genre was an article in the New York Times magazine section on March 9th, attacking the conservative judges on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. This voluminous article contained not one example...

The judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. The 19th-century courthouse that houses the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit sits across from a CVS and a Dress Barn on a desultory stretch of Main Street in Richmond, Va. The entrance -- peeling ''Pull'' sign, metal detector, dim lobby -- is not awe-inspiring. But upstairs in the courtrooms, beneath the pendulous chandeliers and the oil portraits of former jurists, a hush prevails. Whether or not the judges are on the bench, people whisper. It is as if they tacitly accept that the...

Republicans concede they are powerless to win the confirmation of Dennis Shedd. With the Senate preparing to adjourn for the election recess, the fight over the federal-appeals-court nomination of Dennis Shedd has ended for the year, not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with something even less: the Republicans' quiet admission that they are powerless to end the Democratic block on Shedd's confirmation. It came Wednesday afternoon on the Senate floor. Angry that Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy had reneged on a promise to hold a vote on Shedd, Republicans had been weighing whether to attempt what is...

Last Friday, several of the most liberal Democrats in the Senate made plans for a filibuster to stop the confirmation of Dennis Shedd, President Bush's choice for a seat on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Frustrated that they did not have the votes to defeat Shedd in the Judiciary Committee, chairman Patrick Leahy, Sen. Edward Kennedy, and others explored the idea of blocking the nomination before it could reach a vote in the full Senate.The Democrats were cheered on by a number of liberal interest groups, who have attacked Shedd as "insensitive" to the rights of minorities and...

The Senate's online voting record shows simply that the nomination of Dennis Shedd to a seat on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals was confirmed last night by a 55 to 44 vote. But there was much more to it than that.The 44 votes against Shedd, all Democrats, were the most that Democrats have been able to muster against any Bush judicial nominee who came before the full Senate for a confirmation vote. And in that is a message — and a threat — to President Bush. Before last night's vote, Democrats worked hard to make sure they could...

What is your reaction to the Senate's approval of Judge Dennis Shedd to the Fourth US Circuit Court of Appeals?