Free Republic

Few subjects are more touchy that the topic of criminal justice. From the George Floyd incident to “defund the police,” everybody appears to have a strong opinion on the matter. That also holds true for the criticism that leftists are far too soft on crime, oftentimes to the detriment of society. Tragically, the issue reared its ugly head again recently after a horrific shooting in Ohio. According to Fox News, a repeat offender criminal shot and killed an Ohio man just days after a liberal nonprofit had helped pay for his bail, thus getting him out of prison. “Donnie Allen...

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rebuffed the Trump administration over its plan to deploy National Guard troops in Illinois over the strenuous objections of local officials. The court in an unsigned order turned away an emergency request made by the administration, which said the troops are needed to protect federal agents involved in immigration enforcement in the Chicago area. In doing so, the court at least provisionally rejected the Trump administration’s view that the situation on the ground is so chaotic that it justifies invoking a federal law that allows the president to call National Guard troops into federal service...

The group of men challenging their deportations include migrants who were deported to a prison in El Salvador under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act in March, over allegations that they were members of Tren de Aragua. ================================================================= Federal District Court Judge James Boasberg ruled Monday that the Trump administration must allow Venezuelan men who were deported earlier this year to return to the United States to fight allegations they were part of violent gangs. The group of men challenging their deportations include migrants who were deported to a prison in El Salvador under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act in March,...

Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan has been found guilty of one count against her and not guilty of another. She was found guilty of impeding a proceeding, a felony, but not guilty of the less serious misdemeanor charge of concealing an individual to prevent his arrest or discovery.

A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked a Trump administration policy that sought to require members of Congress to submit requests a week before visiting and inspecting Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities. U.S. District Court Judge Jia Cobb ruled that the policy likely violated an appropriations law passed by Congress saying that the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, cannot use funds to require lawmakers in Congress to "provide prior notice of the intent to enter a facility" to conduct oversight. That DHS policy, announced in June, said members of Congress should file requests to inspect ICE facilities...

Levy went as far as to praise Diaz for illegally crossing the border several times, saying, “I commend you for supporting your family, for expressing your devotion to them and for working here in the United States in jobs that Americans apparently do not want to work in and certainly not for the wages that were undoubtedly abusive of your work for them.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that the National Guard deployment in the nation’s capital can continue for now, staying a lower-court ruling that had ordered an end to the troops’ presence. The three-judge panel for U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that Donald Trump may prevail in his argument that the president “possesses a unique power” to mobilize the Guard in Washington, which is a federal district. The ruling stops the implementation of U.S. District Court Judge Jia Cobb’s Nov. 20 opinion and order, and reaffirms that residents and visitors...

Former FBI Director James Comey got another assist from a Clinton-appointed judge Friday as the Justice Department looks to hold him accountable for his role in Russiagate. Last month, U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, a Clinton appointee, ruled that Interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan was incorrectly appointed and therefore, the charges brought by her office against Comey were “defective.” “All actions flowing from Ms. Halligan’s defective appointment … constitute unlawful exercises of executive power and must be set aside,” the judge wrote. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced at the time that the Justice Department would be appealing the ruling....

A federal appeals court on Monday took Judge Boasberg to task and delayed his contempt hearings until 2026. In March Boasberg granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) to stop the Trump administration from deporting thousands of Venezuelan nationals believed to be members of Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang under the Alien Enemies Act. Boasberg then threatened to hold Trump officials in contempt for not bringing some of the world’s most vicious killers, criminals, and rapists back to the United States. Judge Boasberg said he found probable cause to hold the Trump Administration in criminal contempt of court for defying his...

A panel of judges on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has delayed proceedings in U.S. District Judge James Boasberg's contempt inquiry until 2026, instructing the litigants to opine on the authority of the court to pursue contempt at all. Boasberg has overseen a challenge involving the Trump administration's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to deport members of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Boasberg had planned contempt hearings this week, though the Department of Justice appealed to the upper court and even moved to boot him from the case altogether. In the Monday order, the judges set a Jan....

A wicked judge recently proved that the next step from toxic empathy is pure evil as the third branch of government continues to sabotage the Trump Administration. The Detroit News reported on Friday that a violent illegal alien from Honduras who sexually assaulted a woman with cerebral palsy in a Michigan laundry room will be released from prison as early as July 2028, less than three tears from now thanks to a federal judge appointed by Barack Obama. The illegal, 30-year-old handyman Edys Renan Membreño Díaz was previously caught sneaking into the U.S. at least seven times since 2019. He...

A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a key provision of President Donald Trump’s signature domestic policy bill, allowing the administration to defund the Planned Parenthood abortion business. The One Big Beautiful Bill that Trump signed this summer withholds Medicaid funding from Planned Parenthood and other major abortion sellers, delivering a major victory to pro-life advocates seeking to end taxpayer support for organizations that kill babies in abortions. The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court’s preliminary injunction, ruling that the measure in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act does not constitute an unconstitutional punishment. “It instead...

During the oral argument over Trump v. Slaughter at the Supreme Court, Justice Elena Kagan got seriously exercised. “You’re asking us to destroy the structure of government!” Trump’s solicitor general, John Sauer, wisely declined to respond. She went on. “Where else have we so fundamentally altered the structure of government?” Indeed. The 1934 Humphrey’s Executor case did exactly that as the New Deal got into high gear during FDR’s reign. The Constitution defines three, not four, branches of government. Article I defines all the bits and pieces about the legislative branch. In particular, Section 8 lists the things that Congress...

A federal judge in Massachusetts on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to restore billions of dollars in canceled FEMA disaster mitigation funding, siding with 22 states and the District of Columbia that sued over the canceled grants this summer. President Donald Trump’s administration said in April it was “ending” the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program, which helped communities with predisaster projects to harden infrastructure and improve resilience against the increasing threats of climate change. The administration called the program “wasteful and ineffective” and said it would halt $3.6 billion in funding awarded but not yet paid and would...

Angry protests have erupted in Oklahoma this week over the light sentence handed down to an 18-year-old for a string of rape and strangulation charges that left one girl near death. Jesse Mack Butler, a former high-school baseball player, was initially facing ten years behind bars for his crimes but must instead participate in a rehabilitation program and community service. On Monday protestors gathered around a courthouse where Butler was facing a routine probation hearing to call for a tougher sentence. Butler, who comes from an influential sports family in Stillwater, originally pleaded not guilty to ten felony charges, including...

CHICAGO (WLS) -- A federal appeals court is blocking the release of hundreds of people detained by immigration agents during "Operation Midway Blitz" in the Chicago area, at least for now. The case centers around whether the government violated a consent decree banning warrantless arrests in certain cases. The appeals court said each detainee's case should be evaluated individually. A federal judge has ordered the release of hundreds of migrants arrested in the Chicago area, including some arrested under the Department of Homeland Security's "Operation Midway Blitz," by Nov. 21 after finding their arrests could have violated a 2022 consent...

A federal judge in Greenbelt, Maryland, on Thursday ordered Salvadoran migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia released from ICE custody, capping — for now – an extraordinary, 10-month legal fight that has spanned two continents, multiple federal courts, and prompted dozens of hearings in the aftermath of his removal. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered Abrego Garcia released from the ICE Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Philipsburg, Pa., ruling that the Trump administration had not obtained the final notice of removal order needed to remove him to a third country. "Since Abrego Garcia’s return from wrongful detention in El Salvador, he has...

I’ve spent my life covering Chicago politics and Chicago political corruption. So, I guess you could say that I’ve seen some things: Many years ago, when I was first starting out in the newspapering business, the vaunted Chicago press corps—the corporate legacy media–was bowing and sniveling before a black “reform” mayor (not named Johnson) for fear of being branded as racists. This was just as the mayor’s top aide wearing a bad wig, collected rent in a city limousine from impoverished women living in his slum buildings full of rats. Or later, when Chicago politicians were terrified into silence when...

The Trump administration must stop deploying the California National Guard in Los Angeles and return control of the troops to the state, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco granted a preliminary injunction sought by California officials who opposed President Donald Trump’s extraordinary move to use state Guard troops without the governor’s approval to further his immigration enforcement efforts. But he also put the decision on hold until Monday. California argued that conditions in Los Angeles had changed since Trump first took command of the troops and deployed them in June. The administration initially...

Justice Department lawyers said Tuesday that a recent ruling barring their access to key evidence has effectively crippled their efforts to reindict former FBI director James B. Comey, two weeks after their original case against him was dismissed. The concession came in a court filing urging a federal judge in Washington to lift a temporary order she imposed Saturday restricting the government’s ability to review or use emails and other electronic communications seized as part of an investigation more than five years ago involving Comey confidante Daniel Richman. Richman’s records had played a central role in the Justice Department’s effort...