Free Republic

To mask up or not mask up? That’s the pressing question for commuters and travelers across the country after a federal judge struck down a national public transportation mask mandate on Monday.

At today’s hearing on Marilyn Mosby’s motion to have the federal charges against her thrown out, her lawyer argued that Leo J. Wise, the lead prosecutor, “has a penchant for prosecuting Black elected officials.” “All we did was draw the logical conclusion from his past conduct that this prosecution is consistent with his history of prosecuting Black elected officials,” asserted attorney A. Scott Bolden. U.S. District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby, who is Black, pushed back. “Are you aware, Mr. Bolden, of any evidence that Mr. Wise has been found to have prosecuted someone because of their race?” she asked. “In...

A veteran New York state judge killed himself less than two weeks after his home was raided by investigators, according to one of his attorneys. John Michalski, an acting justice on the Erie County Supreme Court, died by suicide Tuesday at his Amherst home, where federal and state law enforcement officers had executed a search warrant 12 days earlier, the Buffalo News reported. He was 61. “It’s heartbreaking,” defense attorney Terrence Connors told the newspaper. “He was such a good guy. This just didn’t have to happen.”

....a cursory examination of the sentencing record of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as it relates to child pornography reveals that these cases are not, in fact, simply about the perceived injustice of sentencing a just-turned-18-year-old to years in prison for a crime he wouldn’t be punished for at the age of 17. The facts in many of these cases are far more heinous, and brutal – even in the cases involving teenagers.

Former President Donald Trump “more likely than not” attempted to illegally obstruct Congress on the day of last year’s Capitol riot, a California federal judge ruled Monday. “Based on the evidence, the Court finds it more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021,” US District Judge David Carter wrote in a ruling ordering attorney and Trump ally John Eastman to turn over more than 100 emails to the House select committee investigating the riot.

A federal judge on March 18 blocked a Washington, D.C., law that allowed children in the nation’s capital to receive a vaccine without parental consent.The parents who sued over the law appear likely to succeed in proving claims that the law violates federal statutes and will be irreparably harmed if a preliminary injunction weren’t entered, U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden wrote in a 38-page opinion.The D.C. Council passed the District’s Minor Consent for Vaccinations Amendment Act in 2020. It lets children as young as 11 get a vaccine without permission from their parents.But the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of...

A Florida judge on Monday agreed to an order that permanently blocks the release of photos, video and other records connected to the investigation of Bob Saget’s death. The permanent injunction, granted by Circuit Judge Vincent Chiu, had been requested by the comedian’s family.

On Friday, Federal District Judge Amita Mehta ruled that a civil suit alleging a conspiracy to foment the Jan. 6 insurrection could proceed. In an extremely thorough and detailed 112-page ruling, Mehta concluded that the plaintiffs had made a “plausible” case that former President Trump himself was at the center of a conspiracy to stop the peaceful transfer of power. While plausibility is not the same as proven, Mehta’s ruling is the first time such a finding has been made in an official proceeding.

A judge ruled in favor of a Derry firearms dealer and the New Hampshire Department of Safety on Monday after two Manchester police officers sued when they were shot in the line of duty. The lawsuit alleged that the man who shot those officers back in 2016 should have never been sold a gun in the first place. Ian MacPherson has since admitted to the shooting and been sentenced to a secure psychiatric unit. The judge's order said Chester Arms did the required background check and the sale was delayed to look into a domestic violence charge, but that charge...

A Virginia judge on Friday afternoon granted a temporary injunction to seven school districts in Virginia to allow school boards to continue to mandate mask-wearing for students.One of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s first executive orders sought to give parents flexibility in whether to allow mask-wearing for their children in education settings. Several school boards, in response, filed a lawsuit in the Arlington Circuit Court on Jan. 24.Arlington Circuit Court Judge Louise DiMatteo ruled in favor (pdf) of seven school boards involved in the lawsuit. The judge ruled that Youngkin cannot override the decision of local school boards on mask-wearing under a...

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) showed how fragile Democrat Joe Biden’s Judicial nominees really are with an embarrassing exchange between Cruz and Biden’s pick to rule over landmark legal cases. A video snippet of the smackdown made some great political theater- and, more importantly, really shows the viewing public the left’s agenda to promote radical activist judges to dismantle the civil liberties of American citizens. “She couldn’t even answer a simple question,” filmmaker and political pundit Dinesh D’Souza said about the video clip he posted of the Cruz wreckage.On Tuesday at a Senate hearing, Cruz asked radical nominee Kenly Kiya Kato...

President Joe Biden has pledged to nominate the first black woman to the Supreme Court, but he seems to have forgotten about the time he filibustered a black woman judge’s nomination to America’s second-highest court for two years. Way back in 2003 through 2005, when Joe Biden was still a Democrat senator from Delaware, President George W. Bush nominated Janice Rogers Brown to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, but due to her conservative views, Joe Biden and the Democrats filibustered her nomination, blocking a final vote on her confirmation. Bush nominated Brown for the District of...

A homeless man is charged with burglary for trying to steal a massive flat-screen television from the downtown Seattle Target. Staff say it was the 22nd time he stole from the store in the past 3 months. The entire alleged incident was caught on surveillance footage obtained by the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH. And thanks to a lenient judge, the man was released on his own personal recognizance. John Ray Lomack is a prolific offender who, according to the King County Prosecutor’s Office, has an extensive criminal history. A King County prosecutor argued that Lomack should be held on...

A federal judge in Texas issued a nationwide injunction on Friday barring the federal government from enforcing President Biden’s order that federal workers without the necessary medical exemption or religious exemption must receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Former President Donald Trump appointed Judge Jeffrey Brown to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas after the opposition to Secretary of Health and Human Services Joe Biden’s vaccination policy for federal employees was likely to prevail at trial. As a result, the government could not enforce the policy. In a September statement, Vice President Biden announced that more than...

A Minnesota COVID-19 patient was flown to a medical facility in Texas over the weekend after a judge ordered doctors to keep him on a ventilator, the Star Tribune reported. Scott Quiner, 55, was placed on a ventilator at Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids on Nov. 6 while experiencing critically low oxygen levels and has shown few signs of improvement in the ensuing weeks, according to the Star-Tribune.

A Pilot Mountain woman who took her 14-year-old son into the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, is challenging the sentence she received last week - three-months in federal prison followed by three years of probation. Virginia Marie Spencer, 38, pleaded guilty on Sept. 9, 2021, to a misdemeanor charge of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a federal building. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly sentenced Spencer after a hearing on Jan. 7. Allen H. Orenberg, Spencer’s attorney, filed a motion Tuesday, asking Kollar-Kotelly to enter an order correcting her sentence. He also asks the judge to delay the sentence...

On November 9, an Arizona Appeals Court declined to grant the request of private corporation Cyber Ninjas Inc. to prevent the Arizona Republic, a Gannett owned publication, from forcing them to turn over their private communications 100 Percent Fed Up reports – Cyber Ninjas Inc., a private corporation retained to serve as the primary vendor to audit voting equipment and ballots cast in the Maricopa County election in November 2020, sought relief from Superior Court Judge John Hannah’s order that it turn over copies of public records that it possessed. Jack Wilenchik of Wilenchik & Bartness appealed the decision.

The Biden administration has been granted the request to dismiss a lawsuit filed by more than 20 GOP attorneys general challenging the revocation of the Keystone XL Pipeline’s permit. In his ruling, Judge Jeffrey Brown of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas ruled that because TC Energy, the pipeline company, abandoned the project, he could not determine whether Biden’s action was constitutional. TC Energy announced on June 9 that it would permanently stop construction on the pipeline and focus on other projects. Upon taking office, Biden canceled the pipeline’s federal permit by executive order on...

A left-wing activist with ties to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) nominated by President Joe Biden to be a federal judge has argued photo ID and proof of citizenship constitute “voter suppression.” Nancy Gbana Abudu, the deputy legal director at SPLC, was picked by Biden in December to serve on the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. The 11th Circuit covers parts of Alabama, Florida, and Georgia. The vacancy came about upon the retirement of Judge Beverly B. Martin — a President Barack Obama appointee. Abudu worked for the ACLU...

A Trump-appointed federal judge threw out a lawsuit from the 45th president late Tuesday that sought to prevent House lawmakers from obtaining his tax returns. US District Judge Trevor McFadden ruled that the House Ways and Means Committee has broad authority to obtain and potentially publish the former president’s tax returns — and described Trump’s claims as “wrong on the law.” “A long line of Supreme Court cases requires great deference to facially valid congressional inquires,” McFadden wrote in his ruling, according to the Associated Press. “Even the special solicitude accorded former presidents does not alter the outcome.” McFadden stayed...