Free Republic

A Sacramento federal judge has struck down as unconstitutional the part of California's so-called Victims' Bill of Rights that governs parole revocation. The law, enacted by voter approval of a 2008 ballot initiative known as Proposition 9, was a sweeping amendment to the state constitution, conferring a long list of entitlements on crime victims. The sections dealing with parole revocation were made part of the state's Penal Code. U.S. District Judge Lawrence K. Karlton ruled Tuesday that those sections fall short of providing the minimum due process guaranteed by the Constitution and two U.S. Supreme Court decisions, Morrissey v. Brewer...

The California Correctional Peace Officers Association may have to start making $500,000 payments every three months and put up its West Sacramento headquarters and other property as it appeals its loss in a federal defamation case. After hearing arguments this morning, Judge Lawrence Karlton is still deciding what to do about CCPOA's inability to buy a bond to cover a judgment rendered last October in his Sacramento courtroom -- eventually reduced from a total $12 million to $5 million by the court -- while the union appeals to San Francisco's 9th Circuit Court. Plaintiff Brian Dawe is appealing to the...

In only the third such ruling in the nation, a Sacramento judge has found to be unconstitutional a statute that makes it a federal crime for someone to fail to register as a sex offender and relocate from one state to another. U.S. District Judge Lawrence K. Karlton found that, in enacting the 2006 Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, "Congress overstepped its authority under the (Constitution's) commerce clause." Karlton made rulings this week in two prosecutions and threw them out, saying SORNA does not meet the U.S. Supreme Court's standard for congressional jurisdiction over interstate commerce. Federal prosecutors immediately...

By DON THOMPSON SACRAMENTO, Calif. - A special panel of federal judges has tentatively ruled that California must release tens of thousands of inmates to relieve overcrowding.

Now that U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton, a Carter appointee with many loony decisions behind him, has ruled that the Pledge of Allegiance’s reference to one nation "under God" violates school children's right to be "free from a coercive requirement to affirm God", a new battle has been joined. The judge has granted legal standing to two families represented by an atheist who lost his previous battle before the U.S. Supreme Court. The founders of our country were well aware that history teaches that when there is one established religion, there is tyranny; when there are two religions, there is...