Free Republic

In the months since I was terminated for expressing opinions, I have learned that my experience is all too common in Big Law. I am a Navy SEAL and Iraq war veteran who transitioned back into civilian life as a lawyer. Recent experience has taught me that people with my beliefs and values are viewed as parochial, at best, and in any case are not welcomed by many of those who are considered “leaders” in the legal profession. One of the things I realized soon after I started practicing law is that there are very few practicing attorneys who are...

“The prophet of Allah took off his gown and put it on Om Ali and slept with her in her grave and they kicked dirt on him, saying: ‘Oh messenger of Allah, we saw you do something no one else has ever done.’ He said: ‘I dressed her in my gown, so she can wear the gowns of paradise and I slept with her in her grave to relieve her of the torments of the grave.'” (Kanz al-‘Ommal in Sunan al Aqwal wa al-Af’al, vol. 16, p. 158) “There is no need to rewash a dead woman if her husband...

Texas's new abortion bill will overrun courts with amateur prosecutors avenging wrongs that have not caused them any particularized harm.Texas is the latest state to test the limits of federal abortion jurisprudence by passing the Texas Heartbeat Act, a law severely limiting abortions there. It is part of a trend — a Louisiana abortion law was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2019 and a Mississippi law to ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy is on the docket for next term in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.The Texas law would ban all abortions after the baby’s...

Critics of President Trump have made several arguments against the importance of the presidential election for pro-life policy. Let’s investigate these one by one. The battle for America’s most powerful office just inherited a whole new layer of intensity. On Sept. 18, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg passed away, creating a new vacancy on the Supreme Court. Ginsberg had been a stalwart advocate and defender of abortion throughout her 27 years on the court.The vacant seat represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the pro-life movement to achieve the highly sought-after reversal of Roe v Wade. While only time will tell whether this...

President Trump will select a Supreme Court nominee to fill the vacancy created by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg within a matter of days. We know that it will be a woman. And based on multiple reports, the top two potential finalists are Judge Amy Coney Barrett of the Seventh Circuit, and Judge Barbara Lagoa of the Eleventh Circuit. A law professor at Notre Dame, Barrett was confirmed 55-43 (nearly exactly along party lines) to her current post in the fall of 2017, following a contentious process. To be clear, I believe Barrett is a brilliant and capable...

Ever since he matured from Marxist revolutionary to conservative heavyweight champ, the American left has felt free to smear Clarence Thomas. Ever since he matured from Marxist revolutionary to conservative heavyweight champ, the American left has felt free to smear Clarence Thomas in ways they’d scream “racism!” at if he were still one of them. It’s a half-century reminder of which political team consistently weaponizes a twisted conception of racism to obtain power at any cost, instead of recognizing racism as a moral evil with objective standards of transgression that apply equally to all.In this reprehensible tradition, The New York...

I am a woman outraged by sexual assault being exploited to dismantle the foundation of American jurisprudence I am a woman. I am a woman outraged by sexual assault. I am a woman outraged by sexual assault allegations made for political purposes.

Vanity: Sixteen states have filed lawsuits claiming that President Trump’s rescission of the directive on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Firstly, as many of you already know, the 14th Amendment does not apply to the Federal Government, but only State action. Secondly, the 5th Amendment “due process” clause which does apply to federal action has been tortured and twisted and interpreted by former liberal courts to incorporate equal protection guarantees. The 16-state argument is that since most of the people who would be affected are Mexican and...

I haven’t had time to weigh in yet on the Gorsuch nomination to the Supreme Court, so it is time to catch up. In addition to having a law degree from Harvard, it is notable that Gorsuch also took a leave from his lucrative law practice to attend Oxford University to earn a Ph.D under the direction of John Finnis. Never heard of John Finnis? I predict you will in the confirmation hearings. And the likelihood is that Democrats will make fools of themselves, or at the very least unwittingly reveal their essential contempt for the American Founding, and the...

Despite ‘Castle Doctrine,’ defendant is convicted in slaying A PHILADELPHIA JUDGE said Wednesday he was convinced that a disabled, retired Marine was being attacked in the moments before he fatally stabbed a man last October, but he concluded that the stabbing was still a criminal act rather than self-defense. Common Pleas Judge Benjamin Lerner then convicted Jonathan Lowe, 57, of voluntary manslaughter and possession of an instrument of crime. The judge found him not guilty of the more-serious charges of first- and third-degree murder. Lowe, who wears a pacemaker and has survived two strokes and two heart surgeries, could face...

F ROM D RED S COTT TO B ARACK O BAMA : T HE E BB AND F LOW OF R ACE J URISPRUDENCE Charles J. Ogletree, Jr. 1 I NTRODUCTION The Harvard Law School Blackletter Law Journal, affectionatelyknown as BLJ, celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. The BLJ has muchto celebrate. During its life span, Harvard Law School and the country asa whole have made great strides in advancing civil rights and racialequality. During this past monumental year alone, Barack Obama, aHarvard Law School graduate and the first African American Presidentof the prestigious Harvard Law Review, became the 44th...

On April 20, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court turned down a challenge from a Texas death row inmate who claimed his constitutional rights were violated because the jurors consulted the Bible in the sentencing phase of the trial. The jurors consulted a passage that stated that a murderer who used an iron object to kill should be executed: “But if he struck him down with an iron object, so that he died, he is a murderer; the murderer shall surely be put to death” (Num. 35:16). The defendant Khristian Oliver was found guilty for shooting and bludgeoning his victim to...

What is “transnationalism” generally? Well, let’s start by considering how two academics—one a critic of transnationalism, the other an ardent proponent—have described it. Our first academic contrasts a “nationalist jurisprudence” with a “transnationalist jurisprudence.” A nationalist jurisprudence “is characterized by commitments to territoriality, extreme deference to national executive power and political institutions, and resistance to comity or international law as meaningful constraints on national prerogatives.” A nationalist jurisprudence “largely refuses to look beyond U.S. national interests when assessing the legality of extraterritorial action,” has “largely rejected international comity as a reason unilaterally to restrain the scope of U.S. regulation,” and...

WASHINGTON, March 26, 2009 – Coalition forces have placed an emphasis on the rule of law as they serve as mentors for the Afghan army’s military justice system, a senior officer involved with the effort said. “I work very closely with their military justice system from the corps level down and mentor the Afghan National Army legal training, as well as oversee and mentor cases from arrest through court martial,” Army Lt. Col. Pam McArthur told bloggers and online journalists during a “DoDLive” bloggers roundtable March 24. McArthur is the judge advocate for the Afghan Regional Security Integration Command South...

One of the most controversial justices on the U.S. Supreme Court is sometimes at controversy with himself. Justice Antonin Scalia explained to a large crowd Friday at the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center Exhibit Hall how his ardent belief in the quest to interpret the Constitution as its writers intended sometimes puts him at odds with his own personal beliefs. Scalia illustrated his conundrum by pointing to his vote upholding flag burning as a protected means of free speech. "You have a right to express contempt for the country, for the flag, for the government, for the president, for the Supreme...

Recently, when the Supreme Court declined to strike down as unconstitutional a federal law prohibiting the killing of partially delivered babies by the grisly practice formally known as “dilation and extraction abortion,” a reptilian creature known to Americans of an earlier time as Blanshardism–a creature thought by many to be long and mercifully extinct–crawled out from under a rock.Paul Blanshard was the Ian Paisley of American anti-Catholicism in the middle third of the twentieth century. He was the author of the vile anti-Catholic tract titled American Freedom and Catholic Power and general counsel to the organization then known as “Protestants...

A federal judge in Brooklyn ruled yesterday that the government has wide latitude under immigration law to detain noncitizens on the basis of religion, race or national origin, and to hold them indefinitely without explanation. The ruling came in a class-action lawsuit by Muslim immigrants detained after 9/11, and it dismissed several key claims the detainees had made against the government. But the judge, John Gleeson of United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, allowed the lawsuit to continue on other claims, mostly that the conditions of confinement were abusive and unconstitutional. Judge Gleeson's decision requires...

This morning, Judge Alito mentioned Stare Decisis, the issue of a precedential legal opinion that may have been decided incorrectly. He said that he had previously discussed the factors that come into play when a stare decisis situation arises. Is anyone here aware of what those factors are and how he said he would use them? I have not been listening to/watching the hearings regularly and I missed that analysis. Thank you.

<p>FOR the lawyers who file lawsuits against corporations, it looked like the next big thing — the next fen-phen, asbestos or even tobacco, the mother of all jackpots.</p> <p>Like the lawsuits involving asbestos, the fire-retardant material that when inhaled can cause a horrible lung cancer, the new suits involved a substance that under certain circumstances could harm the lungs: silica, a purified sand used as a cleaning abrasive as well as in making glass, paint, ceramics and other materials. Silica dust, when inhaled, can lodge in the lungs, causing silicosis, a disabling and often fatal lung disease.</p>

President George W. Bush makes one of the most important decisions defining his legacy by uttering a name. If that name for Supreme Court justice is a constant conservative to the end of the life-time term, then the Bush presidency defines the start of an era. The momentum for change, like a glacier, will creak forward. Anything less, including a scheme of one conservative for two open seats means enough conservative Christians stay home, even if Hillary runs, and liberals win the 2008 election. The U.S. Culture War widens, deepens, and threatens because the judges will get worse. A conservative...