Free Republic

Texas is one of only two states with a bifurcated court system: After going through intermediate appellate review, criminal matters are routed to the Court of Criminal Appeals while civil matters are routed to the Texas Supreme Court. It’s unique. But so is Texas! This division of labor is supposed to get Texans better legal results. Civil lawyers take the bench on the Supreme Court and handle civil matters while criminal lawyers take the bench on the CCA and handle criminal matters. But a recent decision coming out of the CCA has exposed what many have been shy to say...

Journalism and the Constitution are greatly intertwined. Our Bill of Rights explicitly protects the right of the ‘press’ to operate and our founders believed that a vigorous media was essential for government accountability. But who watches the watchdogs? Last fall many Americans were aghast by the actions of Big Tech and the mainstream media which pushed a false narrative about Russia’s role with Hunter Biden’s laptop and simultaneously quashed all contrary reports implying that it would be libelous to do so. Washington policymakers of all political stripes have publicly questioned whether social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter should be...

In early January, the Seoul Central District Court in South Korea issued a surprising judgment with potentially far-reaching global impact, ordering the Government of Japan to pay $91,800 to each of the 12 last surviving “comfort women” from Japan's World War II-era military brothels.The ruling not only represents a setback in diplomatic relations for the region at large but also seeks to challenge longstanding principles of international law.The announcement, which additionally included execution orders to seize Japanese government-owned property, was met with mixed reactions. South Korean civic groups who have long advocated on this issue celebrated. Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu...

Making its case against the reelection of Donald Trump this week, The New York Times complains that the president has been "filling the benches of the federal judiciary with young, conservative lawyers as a firewall against majority rule." While it is hardly surprising that the Times would be dismayed by the appointment of conservative judges and justices, the suggestion that courts are acting improperly when they check the power of "majority rule" is puzzling. Courts are supposed to frustrate the will of the majority when it violates the Constitution. Americans on the left and right expect courts to do that,...

This week, the Supreme Court struck down a Montana constitutional provision barring religious schools from benefiting from the state's tax dollars. There are similar now-unconstitutional laws on the books across the nation -- many of them borne of anti-Catholic bigotry -- that subvert religious liberty and further empower government, rather than parents, to make educational choices for their kids. In most cases, those laws are now dead. Some of us happen to believe that this development is more consequential than another tax cut or better trade policy. For us, school choice and the meaningful protection of religious liberty are non-negotiable....

There is no constitutional right to be arrested. But I have been trying my damnedest lately without much success. In fact, last Tuesday I tried to do so in front of the governor’s mansion in Raleigh, North Carolina. But despite my flagrant violation of their order to get off the sidewalk, the police refused to arrest me. Instead, they arrested three women for peacefully standing on public property. Then, they lied about it to the general public. The details of the one arrest I actually witnessed are important. And they call for an immediate challenge in federal court. When I...

Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (Ret.) is awaiting his fate. The former national security advisor pled guilty to lying to federal investigators about his contact with Russia's U.S. ambassador Sergey Kislyak in 2017 but has since signaled his intention to withdraw that plea. And this week's new exculpatory evidence revealed that Flynn may have been "framed" by the FBI. The unsealed documents reveal that FBI agents were less interested in information on Kislyak, and more interested in getting Flynn in trouble. The seemingly damning notes were written by former FBI general counsel James A. Baker. #FLYNN docs just unsealed, including handwritten...

President Trump continues his record-breaking transformation of the federal judiciary with the selection of Judge Justin Walker -- a young, brilliant conservative legal mind and everyday American -- for the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Walker, a new federal trial judge in Louisville, Kentucky, is a first-generation college graduate, an outside-the-beltway legal powerhouse, and a committed constitutionalist who understands a judge’s modest, but critical, role is to interpret the law as written -- not how that judge wishes it were written if he were a senator. Very few Trump could pick for this sought-after seat would...

The Supreme Court will soon hear arguments in a Louisiana case that will be avidly followed by both sides of the abortion divide. June Medical Services v. Russo will test whether a state can require abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. The clinic will argue that women are perfectly safe without this precaution. Louisiana, on the other hand, will argue that the requirement is a common-sense health and safety regulation to protect mothers’ lives. Who is right? One amicus brief supporting the state – signed by 207 members of Congress – makes a compelling case that women...

There’s been a lot going on—I know. But something might be going on with the Federal Judges Association and this aborted meeting about the president over the Roger Stone case. Attorney General William Barr noted that Trump’s tweets make his job more difficult. Then, there was an overreach by the media who suggested Barr could resign. He’s not going anywhere—and notice how that story died within36 hours. It was crap. Do we have another instance of the media getting it wrong with this FJA meeting that reportedly centered on rebuking Trump? The case that supposedly caused the organization to...

Despite his short time in politics, President Trump has mastered the art of the stump speech. Beyond his trademark speaking style, he has proven adept at firing up his base by citing the most popular accomplishments of his administration. Among those garnering the loudest reactions are construction of the border wall, reforming the Veterans Administration and getting more worker-friendly trade deals. Big cheers all around. Further down the list is the presidentÂ’s growing number of appointments to the federal bench. It gets applause, but do people really understand what it means? While it lacks the red-meat sizzle of the border...

Article One, Section 9, clause 2 of the United States Constitution states, “the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.” It says something about the importance of that clause that, to this day, the right of habeas corpus has been suspended only twice in criminal cases: once in the case of Abraham Lincoln’s prosecution of the Civil War (rebellion), and once in the case of detaining suspected terrorists during the Bush administration (which, at least in theory, was tied to preventing something like...

Great job, New York Democrats, you’ve really done it this time!  As the rest of the nation watches, your misguided far-left policies, passed in the middle of the night due to one party rule, are deconstructing law and order across the Empire State and replacing it with so called “criminal justice reforms” that embolden career criminals and put innocent New Yorkers at risk.As of January 1, those committing a wide and varied list of crimes in New York state, including: coercion, menacing, stalking, assault, aggravated harassment and even aggravated assault of a child (click here for list) are freed with...

Fairfax County, Virginia: The largest county in Virginia with a population of 1.2 million people, elected a George Soros-backed prosecutor for a leftist re-design of criminal prosecution. On January 1, 2020, the Soros plant, Steve Descano, took office. The very next day, he announced that Fairfax County is officially a marijuana possession sanctuary. Fairfax is already a sanctuary city for illegal aliens.  Descano declared this position during his campaign, saying, "I would not prosecute cases of marijuana possession." Descano called his approach to criminal justice reform "a holistic approach." He reaffirmed his position a few weeks ago on Twitter, stating that marijuana possession...

President Trump has accomplished many great things in less than three years in office. His longest-lasting legacy is his transformation of the federal judiciary through the lifetime appointment of judges in the mold of the late, great Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Justice Scalia understood a judge’s modest but critical job is to interpret the law as written (textualism) and commonly understood at the time of its enactment (originalism) -- rather than to improperly legislate from the bench and simply make it up to fit that judge’s political goals (liberal-judicial activism). The People, through their elected representatives, write our nation’s...

Beth  touched on this yesterday, but I think the extraordinary nature of what's happening here needs to be highlighted repeatedly.  In an effort to bully the Supreme Court, a group of Senate Democrats are warning that if the conservative justices refuse to "heal" the court -- in this case, "healing" constitutes declining to take up a specific gun rights case -- the Court will face a "restructuring."  This is nothing less than a threat against the independent judiciary by hardcore partisans: Several high-profile Senate Democrats warned the Supreme Court in pointed terms this week that it could face a fundamental...

The family court systems in both the United States and Canada are supposed to adjudicate fairly when families face strife and dissolve. The courts are supposed to take the interests of both parents into account and they are supposed to look out for the interests of the children involved. In an ideal world, this is what would happen.But we do not live in an ideal world.Are family courts places where justice and fairness are meted out, or are they enablers of bias, abuse or even fraud?Everyone agrees, and statistics bear out, that children who have both parents involved in their...

The just-ended Supreme Court term went exceedingly well for individual liberty. From property rights to government agencies to offensive words, there were triumphs for individual rights and a pushback against the encroaching regulatory state.Take property rights, for example. When rural Scott Township, Pennsylvania, told the public it could trespass across Rose Knick’s 90 acres of farmland to look for alleged graves, she could get no relief out of state court. But, when she went to federal court arguing that the town took an easement across her property, she was again rebuffed based on a 34-year-old Supreme Court precedent — Williamson...

It's time, once again, to hail the important and historic progress being made in the Republican-held United States Senate on the judicial confirmation front.  Having adopted and modestly expanded Democrats' endless and ends-oriented power grabs of years past, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has wisely prioritized the reshaping of the federal judiciary.  He and his conference have steadily and diligently worked to tip the balance away from the Obama-era deluge of liberal judges, and toward constitutionalism.  No recent partnership in Washington has been more lastingly impactful than the Trump-McConnell alliance, resulting in this ongoing generational shift -- and with all the...

There are many reasons the Senate should confirm Neomi Rao to the Court of Appeals for D.C. Circuit seat left vacant by Brett Kavanaugh’s elevation to the Supreme Court. She may very well be the cream of President Trump’s excellent crop of nominees to the federal judiciary. But it is her impressive scholarly writing on “dignity” that make her nomination timely – and especially worthy of quick Senate confirmation. Rao’s not talking about “dignity” in the everyday sense of the term (one’s manner of being).  What Rao has written about is the judicial or constitutional concept of dignity.  That is,the type...