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Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen, former gang member, and designated enemy combatant who was sentenced to 17 years in prison, is mounting an aggressive appeal. The oral arguments on October 26 in Richmond’s Fourth Circuit will strike at the heart of the Constitution. Padilla brought a lawsuit against former Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld and other high-ranking officials, alleging he was illegally detained and tortured in the military brig after his 2002 arrest. That suit, which has been described as “lawfare” or exacting personal and financial “flesh” from an opponent, was dismissed last February by a federal judge in Charleston,...

As Ed Whelan has noted, today the Fourth Circuit handed down a decision against both Virginia and Liberty University in their cases challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare. While this is a defeat for the particular plaintiffs and a boon for the government insofar as it eliminates two more fronts on which the law is being attacked, it’s hardly a victory for Obamacare itself. Both decisions rest on grounds that will not affect the other appellate decisions now en route to the Supreme Court.

Politico’s Jennifer Haberkorn reports the disappointing news that the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the State of Virginia lacks the standing to sue the federal government over the Obama health-care law. The decision was based on a procedural question over the right to sue, and therefore does not change the high likelihood that this issue will be decided by the Supreme Court. Fortunately, it also appears as if the decision will not help the Obama administration bolster its legal case against the individual mandate. As Haberkorn reports, “The legal victories might not provide the administration with much...

A three-judge federal appeals panel comprised of two Obama nominees and a Clinton nominee will hear arguments later this morning in two lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the national health care law. The makeup of the U.S. Fourth Circuit of Appeals panel is crucial, because in lower court rulings so far, Democratic judges have upheld the law while Republican judges have declared it unconstitutional. The judges on the panel will be Obama nominees James A. Wynn, Jr and Andre M. Davis, who will sit on the panel along with Clinton nominee Diana Gribbon Motz.

A five-week flurry of federal appellate hearings on the constitutionality of the Obama health care law kicks off Tuesday in Richmond, Va., beginning the second round of a race to the Supreme Court among a multitude of litigants eager to strike down the president’s signature domestic achievement. At Tuesday’s hearing, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit will consider a pair of contradictory rulings sent up from the lower courts. In one case, filed by Virginia’s attorney general, a federal district judge in Richmond ruled late last year that Congress had exceeded its authority by requiring most...

It wasn’t a drug raid. But the details are fun. From the opinion: On May 31, 2007, Sam Bellotte printed some photographs from a memory card at a self-service station in a Winchester, Virginia Wal-Mart. When he went to pay for the prints, a clerk insisted on inspecting the photos. Mr. Bellotte admitted that some contained nudity and surrendered them, then made other purchases and left the store. The Wal-Mart employees charged with discarding the photos noticed one depicting male genitalia seemingly next to a child’s face. Concerned that the photograph was child pornography, the employees notified the Frederick County...

RICHMOND, Va. - A federal appeals court on Monday upheld the conviction of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person to stand trial in a U.S. court in the Sept. 11 attacks, rejecting arguments that he was denied access to evidence and the right to choose his own attorney. Moussaoui, 41, is serving life in a federal prison in Colorado, after pleading guilty to helping plan the attacks. Since his sentencing, he has said he lied when testifying that he plotted to hijack a fifth jetliner on Sept. 11, 2001. A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously...

Chief Justice John Roberts held a conversation with Judge Harvie Wilkinson at the Fourth Circuit's Judicial Conference in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. Chief Justice Roberts oversees the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Topics included the decisions of the 2008-2009 term of the U.S. Supreme Court, which would conclude the next Monday, June 29, 2009.

Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III Richmond, Va., Jun 26, 2009 / 03:23 am (CNA).- The Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a 6-5 decision on Wednesday upheld Virginia’s partial-birth abortion ban. In his concurring opinion, one judge wrote that the law protects the “weakest” and “most helpless” and condemned the use of the Constitution to justify “dismembering” a partly born child and “crushing” its skull.In its ruling “Richmond Medical Center v. Herring,” the court said the 2003 Virginia law does not unduly burden a woman’s legal right to terminate a pregnancy by more conventional means. It also ruled...

RICHMOND, Va., Oct. 31 — It seemed like a foregone conclusion that the full United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit would be receptive to the Bush administration’s contention that it has the authority to detain people it calls enemy combatants. The court’s conservative reputation is well known, and in August it decided to rehear the case in which a three-judge appeals panel rejected aspects of the administration’s position. But, based on the pointed, practical and frequently passionate questioning here on Wednesday in the case of Ali al-Marri, the judges of the Fourth Circuit are divided and troubled,...

Former White House Adviser Arrested Maryland Man Faces Theft Charges POSTED: 7:10 pm EST March 10, 2006 COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- A former White House adviser and Bush administration nominee to the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has been arrested and charged with theft for receiving phony refunds at department stores. Montgomery County police arrested Claude Alexander Allen, 45, of Gaithersburg, on Thursday for allegedly returning more than $5,000 worth of merchandise he did not buy, according to county law enforcement officials and a federal law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the charges are state,...

Padilla Lawyers Link Case to Wiretapping Probe Arguments Part of Supreme Court Filing Dec. 28, 2005 — - Lawyers for "dirty bomb" suspect Jose Padilla have filed a brief with the Supreme Court urging it to take Padilla's case, linking it to the National Security Agency wiretapping controversy. The brief, filed yesterday, uses strong language against the government for its treatment of Padilla, who was arrested as an "enemy combatant" in June 2002 and indicted by a federal grand jury last month. "The government continues to defend this sweeping view of the president's power to substitute military rule for the...

[S]ocial conservatives face a problem: a new theory of "superprecedents" ... The term superprecedents first surfaced at the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Judge John Roberts, when Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, asked him whether he agreed that certain cases like Roe had become superprecedents or "super-duper" precedents - that is, that they were so deeply embedded in the fabric of law they should be especially hard to overturn. In response, Judge Roberts embraced the traditional doctrine of "stare decisis" - or, "let the decision stand" - and seemed to agree that judges should...

WASHINGTON - Rebounding from the failed nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, President Bush is poised to select between two of the nation's leading conservative federal appeals court judges - both experienced jurists with deep backgrounds in constitutional law - for what promises to be a bruising Senate confirmation battle. With an announcement expected Sunday or Monday, administration officials have narrowed the focus to Judges Samuel Alito of New Jersey and Michael Luttig of Virginia, sources involved in the process said. Both have sterling legal qualifications and solid conservative credentials, and both would set off an explosive fight...

Judge Boyle, whose nomination to the Fourth Circuit has been delayed since 1991 (ok, he was renominated by GWB), has been out of the Judiciary Committee since June. Yet, here it is October, and the GOP (supposedly the majority?) will not bring his nomination up for a vote. Even accepting a lame excuse like "Roberts preempted him" etc., this delay is shameful and inexcusable. Perhaps this act of cowardice, much like the traitorous "Gang of 7," is why GWB sends us a hack like Miers for SCOTUS. He knows that the spineless GOPers in the Senate really don't want a...

...[A] panel for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously last Friday that the President "unquestionably" has the power to detain an American citizen who has taken up arms against his country. But wait. Didn't the Supreme Court say precisely that in its Hamdi decision last year? So it did, as Judge Michael Luttig notes repeatedly in his 25-page opinion penned for the court. That wasn't enough for José Padilla's attorneys, who argued that Hamdi, which concerned an American picked up on a battlefield in Afghanistan, didn't apply to their client, who was arrested domestically, at O'Hare Airport. Padilla,...

A three-judge federal appeals court panel ruled unanimously on Friday that President Bush had the authority to detain as an enemy combatant an American citizen who fought United States forces on foreign soil. The panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit... threw out a ruling... that Mr. Bush had overstepped his bounds by detaining Jose Padilla, a Chicago native, for three years.... In an opinion written by Judge J. Michael Luttig, who has been considered by President Bush for a nomination to the Supreme Court, the panel said Mr. Bush had the right to detain...

A federal appeals court panel yesterday ruled that the president has the authority to indefinitely detain a U.S. citizen as an enemy combatant, reversing a lower court order that the government either charge or release suspected would-be "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla.

Court Rules U.S. Can Indefinitely Detain Citizens Ruling Comes in the Case of 'Enemy Combatant' Jose Padilla By Jerry Markon Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, September 9, 2005; 10:39 AM A federal appeals court ruled today that the president can indefinitely detain a U.S. citizen captured on U.S. soil in the absence of criminal charges, holding that such authority is vital to protect the nation from terrorist attacks. The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit came in the case of Jose Padilla, a former Chicago gang member who was arrested in Chicago in 2002 and...

RICHMOND, Va. - A federal appeals court Friday sided with the Bush administration and reversed a judge's order that the government either charge or free “dirty bomb” suspect Jose Padilla. The three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that the president has the authority to detain a U.S. citizen closely associated with al-Qaida. “The exceedingly important question before us is whether the President of the United States possesses the authority to detain militarily a citizen of this country who is closely associated with al Qaeda, an entity with which the United States is at war,”...