Free Republic

A California judge with ties to Planned Parenthood told a jury this week that David Daleiden is guilty of trespassing. The statement from Judge William Orrick came at the conclusion of a month-long trial against Daleiden, Sandra Merritt and others with the Center for Medical Progress who helped to release undercover videos of Planned Parenthood allegedly selling aborted baby body parts for profit. Planned Parenthood filed the lawsuit accusing them of more than a dozen crimes, including trespassing, breach of confidentiality, wiretapping and conspiracy. The trial is separate from a criminal case against Daleiden and Merritt launched by former California...

A federal judge lambasted former national security adviser Mike Flynn in court Tuesday, threatening to upend a proposed agreement between him and prosecutors that he should receive a lenient sentence after his extensive cooperation with investigators. “I’m not hiding my disgust—my disdain—for this criminal offense,” said U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan. He questioned whether Mr. Flynn had truly accepted responsibility for his crimes, including lying to FBI agents, and suggested he might require incarceration, despite prosecutors’ contention that Mr. Flynn deserves no jail time. Judge Sullivan seemed especially troubled by Mr. Flynn’s lobbying work for Turkish interests and his...

Russian bots pushed out tweets about the death of Mollie Tibbets, the University of Iowa student who was missing for several weeks, just after the news broke regarding the verdict of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and the guilty plea of the president’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, according to a new report. The Independent reports that bots believed to be linked with Russia began posting about Tibbets’ death just minutes after Manafort was found guilty on eight counts of fraud on Tuesday. The tweets were analyzed by the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a group that is known for tracking...

Dan Rather warned Wednesday night that if you think Tuesday was a shock with the Cohen guilty plea and Manafort's conviction, then "stay tuned." The former news anchor said other things Mueller is working on will "make yesterday pale by comparison." "Always keeping in mind that Mueller knows so much more than he has shown," Rather said in an interview with CNN's Don Lemon. "If you think [Cohen guilty plea, Manafort conviction] was a shock to our democratic system, just stay tuned. Because the other things Mueller is working on, and sooner or later we'll find out what they are,...

On 'The Jimmy Dore Show' Ron Placone, Stef Zamorano, and Jimmy Dore discuss an NBC News article which gleefully reported that the conviction of Paul Manafort for tax fraud was the first successful "public test" of Robert Mueller's investigation. "The problem with this is, you can't charge the sitting president with a crime, and Trump will never be impeached," Dore said. "Get that out of your head, that will never happen. Well, maybe if they found collusion, like if there was evidence of him being a Manchurian candidate to help Russia at the expense of the U.S., then maybe, maybe,...

CNN recently asked a wide-range of Americans living in northeast Pennsylvania — Republicans, Democrats, and independents — for their opinions on President Donald Trump following the legal developments surrounding Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen, two men deeply tied to the president. It’s clear the segment did not go as CNN planned. When CNN correspondent Jason Carroll asked residents in Luzerne County — which supported Barack Obama in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, but flipped to support Donald Trump in 2016 — for their thoughts on the president following this week’s news, he was met with reactions that will shock...

Prosecutors from special counsel Robert Mueller’s team can use evidence from a 1980s Department of Justice review of Paul Manafort’s lobbying activities in the former Trump campaign chairman’s upcoming Washington, D.C., trial, a federal judge ruled Tuesday. The same federal judge also pushed back Manafort’s trial date to Sept. 24. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson approved the use of the roughly 30-year-old report, which prosecutors argued is proof that Manafort was long aware of the disclosure requirements under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. He is charged with failing to register as a foreign agent under the FARA.

ury in Paul Manafort financial fraud trial says it's reached a verdict on 8 counts, but remains undecided on 10 others. The jury in the financial fraud trial of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort suggested to the judge Tuesday that it was stuck on at least one count in the case. Jurors asked U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III on their fourth day of deliberations how they should fill out the verdict form if they were unable to reach consensus on a single count, though they did not suggest what charge was at issue. The jury of six men...

A U.S. judge has declared a mistrial in the case against a Nevada rancher accused of leading a 2014 armed standoff with federal agents in a cattle grazing dispute. Chief U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro dismissed the jury Wednesday and faulted prosecutors for what she called “constitutional due-process violations” and failing to properly turn over evidence to the defense. The decision in the case against Cliven Bundy, two of his sons and another man is the latest in a string of failed prosecutions in Nevada and Oregon against those who have opposed federal control of vast swaths of land in...

A mistrial was declared Friday in the trial of Jacob Carrizal, the first biker from the May 2015 Twin Peaks shootout to stand trial. Jurors told 54th State District Judge Matt Johnson they were hopelessly deadlocked after more than 14 hours of deliberation, forcing the judge to declare a mistrial at about 2:50 p.m. snip In a note to Johnson, the jury initially reported they had reached a unanimous vote on one count, but that vote later changed. The initial decision was for not guilty on the first count, the source said.

The judge declared a mistrial in the Jessica Chambers murder case Monday evening after jurors failed to reach a unanimous decision over the fate of Quinton Tellis, who is charged in the 2014 burning death of the 19-year-old Mississippi woman. The jurors, who had deliberated between nine and 10 hours since Sunday, began deliberating Sunday, told Circuit Judge Gerald Chatham they could not reach a verdict at the trial in Batesville, about 50 miles south of Memphis. District Attorney John Champion said the government will retry Tellis in Chambers' death. Tellis, 29, is charged with capital murder in the December...

The trial involving the Flagstaff shooting of a mob of drunken fraternity members who attacked an 18 year old pistol owner, is over.Jones and two of his friends were attacked after midnight on Friday, October 9, 2015. Jones was sucker punched and chased toward his car. He retrieved a pistol and went back to aid his friends who were on the ground.The shooting occurred in October of 2015.  A mistrial was declared by the judge on 2 May, 2017.A motion for mistrial by the defense was refused by the trial judge, Dan Slayton. on 27 April.  Slayton previously took...

HOUSTON, Texas — The lawyer for Planned Parenthood who has been accused of colluding with the Harris County DA against the Planned Parenthood undercover videographer, filed an affidavit to deny this charge, but admits that a prosecutor gave him a copy of the undercover video. As reported on April 14, Jared Woodfill, a lawyer for undercover videographer David Daleiden told Breitbart Texas, “We have clear evidence that the DA is colluding with Planned Parenthood.” The District Attorney in Harris County, Texas, is Devon Anderson. David Daleiden, is the president and founder of the Center for Medical Progress (CMP). Daleiden’s undercover...

Instead of a dramatic conclusion to the first of six trials of police officers in the death of Freddie Gray, the mistrial left Baltimore in suspense and confusion, with no immediate understanding of what happens next. The city had braced for a possible repeat of the protests, destruction and dismay that engulfed the city in April after Gray's neck was broken in the back of a police van. But several small marches ended peacefully overnight as the community tried to process the news. Baltimore Circuit Judge Barry Williams acknowledged the hung jury Wednesday after the panel deadlocked over whether Officer...

“In a major blow for the prosecution in the George Zimmerman case, a judge on Saturday barred the testimony of two audio experts who suggested that a taped 911 call indicated Trayvon Martin was crying out for help during the violent struggle that ended with a gunshot,”

WASHINGTON — The judge declared a mistrial Thursday in baseball star Roger Clemens’ perjury trial after prosecutors showed to jurors evidence that he had ruled would out of bounds in the case. U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton said Clemens could not be assured a fair trial after prosecutors showed jurors evidence against his orders in the second day of testimony. Walton scheduled a Sept. 2 hearing to determine whether to hold a new trial. He told jurors he was sorry to have wasted their time and spent so much taxpayer money, only to call off the case. "There are rules...

A federal judge says he intends to declare a mistrial on the remaining counts in the political corruption trial of ex-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (blah-GOY'-uh-vich). The jury found Blagojevich guilty of one count of lying to federal agents. There were 23 other counts against Blagojevich and four against his brother. The jury delivered its verdict on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON – A judge declared a mistrial Thursday in the case of a former lobbyist caught up in the Jack Abramoff affair, the biggest setback in the government's long-running prosecution of the influence-peddling scandal. The jury deadlocked over allegations that Kevin Ring lavished thousands of dollars worth of tickets and meals on employees of then-Republican Reps. John Doolittle of California and Ernest Istook of Oklahoma and on Justice Department officials in return for congressional appropriations and other assistance for Abramoff's clients. The panel of seven women and five men also was unable to reach a verdict on another count, on...

A judge declared a mistrial Wednesday in the case of a man who stormed into a Jewish center two years ago and shot six women, killing one, as he ranted against Israel and the Iraq war. Jurors had indicated in questions posed to the judge that they were hopelessly deadlocked and struggling to determine whether Naveed Haq, 32, was not guilty by reason of insanity, as he claimed. King County Superior Court Judge Paris Kallas ended the jury's deliberations in their eighth day. The jurors reached a partial verdict on only one of the 15 counts against Haq, finding him...

MIAMI - The federal judge in Jose Padilla's terrorism support trial refused to declare a mistrial Thursday after at least one juror saw one of Padilla's co-defendants in shackles outside the courtroom. Attorneys for Adham Amin Hassoun said his right to a fair trial had been jeopardized, but U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke said after interviewing jurors that none had been "unfairly prejudiced in this matter." On Tuesday, the 16 jurors were being transported in government vans from the courthouse's basement garage to their cars. As one of the vans was leaving, three deputy U.S. marshals escorted Hassoun through the...