Free Republic

Judge Kato Crews, nominee for US District Court for the District of Colorado, appeared on Capitol Hill Wednesday as part of his confirmation hearings and became the latest nominee who was unable to answer a basic legal question by Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA). Crews, who currently serves as a federal magistrate in Colorado, was unable to describe what the landmark US Supreme Court case Brady v. Maryland was about. Brady, decided in 1963, “held that withholding exculpatory evidence violates due process ‘where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment.'” Seems like a pretty important case (and principle)...

A panel of three federal judges in South Carolina ruled Friday the state’s 1st District was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander and ordered state lawmakers to redraw the congressional map before any more elections can be held. The decision gave lawmakers until March to draw new lines for the district, which runs along the state’s southern coast and is currently represented by Republican Nancy Mace. The ruling is the latest in suits over this decade’s congressional redistricting based on the 2020 census results, including in states such as Florida and Texas. An individual voter and the state’s NAACP filed the lawsuit...

Judge Todd Edelman had been nominated to serve on the U.S. District Court of WashingtonPresident Biden's nominee for District of Columbia District Court, who once released a man later involved in the murder of a 10-year-old, failed to get enough votes to clear the Judiciary Committee. So, his nomination will expire with the end of the 117th Congress. President Biden nominated Judge Todd Edelman in September to serve on the U.S. District Court of Washington, D.C. Edelman currently sits on the district's Superior Court, where he presided over a case involving Christian Wingfield. Wingfield was awaiting trial for illegal possession...