Free Republic

Arias Marxuach, described as a conservative who was originally recommended by Washington Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González, has already passed the Senate Republican majority. In May 2019, the then private practice attorney was confirmed 95-3 by the U.S. Senate for the seat he currently holds on the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico. Arias Marxuach was originally appointed to the San Juan Federal Court in 2018, but the appointment did not complete the legislative process and Trump nominated him again on January 22, 2019.

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday widened the ability of states to use criminal laws against illegal immigrants and other people who do not have work authorization in the United States in a ruling involving identity theft prosecutions in Kansas. In the decision, the justices upheld the authority of states to prosecute immigrants for identity theft when applying for a job. The court found that Kansas did not unlawfully encroach on federal authority over immigration policy in charging three men accused of using other people’s Social Security numbers. The justices overturned a 2017 Kansas Supreme Court decision that...

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- A man facing prison time on a drug charge has gotten a break from a judge -- so that he can vote. Twenty-four-year-old Javontez Lavel Ross pleaded guilty Thursday to possessing several bags of suspected heroin with intent to sell. But he asked Ramsey County District Judge Margaret Marrinan to postpone his sentencing so he could vote in the Nov. 4 election. Ross, who said he recently moved to the Twin Cities from Chicago, would have been barred from voting if he had been sentenced before Election Day. The judge granted his request, calling the contest...

The Washington Post headline says it all, in stating the obvious: A John McCain victory in November, just like the Bush wins in 2000 and 2004, will likely see the addition of more conservative judges to the U.S. Supreme Court. However, when using words like "could", the same can be said about Barack Obama: a win by him in November 'could' push the U.S. Supreme Court to the left. The article, however, doesn't say that, but rather throws stuff out there like this: "A victory by the presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama, would probably mean preserving the uneasy but roughly...

U.S. Senator John McCain yesterday declared his support for the California Protection of Marriage initiative on the state's November ballot, leaders of the ProtectMarriage.com campaign announced. In an email received by the ProtectMarriage.com campaign, Senator McCain issued the following statement: "I support the efforts of the people of California to recognize marriage as a unique institution between a man and a woman, just as we did in my home state of Arizona. I do not believe judges should be making these decisions." Commenting on the endorsement of Senator McCain, ProtectMarriage.com Chairman Ron Prentice said, "We are honored to have the...

WASHINGTON -- When the Supreme Court goes on recess at the end of this month, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy will be off to his summer teaching job in Salzburg, Austria. For the 19th year, he will teach a class called "Fundamental Rights in Europe and the United States" for the McGeorge Law School. He tells his American and European students that the belief in individual freedom and the respect for human dignity transcends national borders. There is, he once said in an interview, "some underlying common shared aspiration" in legal systems that protects the rights and liberties of all. That...

Maureen Monks, about to become the newest judge of the Middlesex Probate and Family Court, is a long-time radical lesbian activist attorney. She specializes in "gay" family issues. Last week, when her nomination hit some rocky waters getting through the Governor's Council, Governor Deval Patrick simply ignored their official vote and announced he will swear her in. Monks' nomination - and the governor's action -- was strongly supported by both the Boston Globe and Boston Herald on their editorial pages.

The woman responsible for the largest wildfire in Colorado history was released from a federal prison in Texas this morning. Terry Lynn Barton, 44, was convicted in 2003 of starting the Hayman fire in the mountains west of Colorado Springs. The June 2002 fire torched 138,000 acres, destroyed 133 homes, 466 outbuildings and forced the evacuation of 8,000 people. Barton has three days to report to the federal Probation Department in Colorado Springs, according to U.S. Attorney for Colorado Troy Eid. She then has to find a job and start paying $14 million in federal restitution that already has been...

We've often discussed anti-father bias in Child Protective Services cases. Fathers are frequently marginalized and deprived of custody of their children when their wives/ex-wives/ex-girlfriends abuse their children. This terrible Nebraska case detailed below is another example. In the case, a mother abused her daughter and child protective services took the girl. There were no accusations of abuse against the father. Nevertheless, they deceived and manipulated the father into relinquishing custody of his daughter. The girl was left fatherless -- can anyone guess what's going to happen to her?Surprise, surprise -- without her father, the girl's life, in the words of...

Amid confusion of a new Seminole County Courthouse, 11 citizens were directed to sit in the wrong courtroom to respond to traffic citations. Next door in an adjoining courtroom, an angry Judge John Sloop signed warrants for their arrest for failing to show. The citizens were handcuffed and chained by 15 officers who took them to jail, where they were strip-searched and sat locked up nine hours until 9 that Friday night. On the following Monday, when Chief Judge James Perry asked why he didn’t solve the problem when two judges and a bailiff first alerted him to the mistake...

There is poor reasoning, and then there is head-spinningly, jaw-droppingly poor reasoning. U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor's angry 44-page ruling against NSA terrorism surveillance is the latter, and constitutes little more than a political stunt, with ever-so-helpful declarations like "There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution." The American Civil Liberties Union forum-shopped this lawsuit, handed it to a reliably left-liberal Jimmy Carter appointee in Detroit and got its desired result.

An obscure law is evolving into a bludgeon against government regulation In January 2001 the New England Journal of Medicine published a study showing that reducing salt in the diet could lower blood pressure, even in people without hypertension. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, which funded the study, quickly posted a press release on its Web site announcing the findings. The Salt Institute, an industry group, was stung by the study's results. Unable to challenge the data on scientific grounds, the institute found another way to attack them. It filed a petition under the Data Quality Act--a law...

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court agreed Monday to consider whether the Bush administration must regulate carbon dioxide to combat global warming, setting up what could be one of the court's most important decisions on the environment. The decision means the court will address whether the administration's decision to rely on voluntary measures to combat climate change are legal under federal clean air laws. "This is the whole ball of wax. This will determine whether the Environmental Protection Agency is to regulate greenhouse gases from cars and whether EPA can regulate carbon dioxide from power plants," said David Bookbinder, an attorney...

Priscilla Owen's nomination to the federal bench has been scrutinized by Democrats who have balked at some of her rulings in Texas. Priscilla Owen was first nominated by President Bush to a federal appeals-court post in May 2001 - four years ago. That's enough time to earn a college degree. So it's hard to believe that there is anything that isn't already known about the Texas Supreme Court justice. And yet, four years into her battle to win Senate confirmation, clouds of rhetoric are obscuring exactly who Ms. Owen is. Republican senators say she is a careful and conservative jurist...