Free Republic

The measure barred trans women and girls of all ages from participating in female sports teams at public schools in the state, from primary school through college. A federal appeals court on Thursday refused to allow Idaho to enforce a first-in-the-nation ban on transgender women and girls from participating in female sports leagues, saying the measure likely was unconstitutional. A 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel delivered a victory to LGBTQ rights advocates by upholding an injunction blocking Idaho’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, the first of many such laws to be enacted by Republican-led states. “This is an...

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has declined to reconsider its decision to uphold the dismissal of a case over the practice known as “conversion therapy,” teeing up a circuit split that may ultimately land the case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Licensed marriage and family therapist Brian Tingley sued Washington state in 2021, claiming that a 2018 law that prohibited licensed mental health professionals from subjecting minors to conversion therapy violated his First Amendment rights. The Ninth Circuit issued its decision Monday not to rehear the appeal of a Washington state therapist’s challenge to a 2018...

Former President Carter is taking the rare step of weighing in on judicial proceedings, saying that an appeals court is misinterpreting a conservation law he signed. On Monday, Carter filed a briefing chastising a ruling that upheld a Trump-era decision to build a road through a national wildlife refuge in order to enable medical evacuations nearby.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ruled that President Trump’s use of emergency powers to allocate millions of dollars in funding for the construction of a southern border wall was illegal, the latest blow to the Trump administration’s effort to limit immigration. In the 2-1 decision, the court upheld a December 2019 district court summary judgment in favor of a request from the advocacy groups the Sierra Club and the Southern Border Communities Coalition against Defense Secretary Mark Esper, acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and “all persons acting under their direction ... from using military construction funds...

The Supreme Court has allowed President Trump to defy Congress and continue to spend more than $6 billion diverted from military funds to pay for the construction of a border wall in parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California.

The Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote has denied a request to halt construction of President Trump’s border wall over environmental concerns. A number of groups, including the ACLU and Sierra Club, had asked the high court to get involved again after the justices last year cleared the way for the administration to use military funds for construction while the case played out in the courts. A federal appeals court had ruled against the administration last month, but the justices, for now, have given another temporary victory to the administration.

A federal appeals court decided 2-1 Friday that the Trump administration violated the law when it used military funds to build a wall on the Mexican border. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said the power of the purse belongs to Congress, and the administration lacked constitutional authority to transfer the military money. Two Democratic appointees were in the majority. A Trump appointee dissented.

But the three judges invited inmates’ attorneys to file a new motion with either or both of two individual judges who oversee major class action lawsuits over inmate medical and mental health care. Both judges are members of the three-judge panel, which also includes a federal appellate judge. The judges virtually laid out a pathway for the inmates’ attorneys to seek help from the individual judges, and perhaps come back to the special panel after they lay the proper groundwork. The third judge, U.S. District Judge Kimberly Mueller of Sacramento, agreed on legal grounds but said she thought the special...