Free Republic

As a rule, few things are less likely to be the source of humor than court decisions. Sometimes there are excellent puns or low-key snark, but you don’t find belly-laugh material. Usually. Last Friday, a panel of the Ninth Circuit published a decision on a complaint arising from Ventura, California, that covered both the COVID panic and the Second Amendment. During the height of the COVID panic, that county ordered firing ranges, and gun shops closed. Presumably, this is because the Wuhan virus has a particular affinity for recreational venues. Several groups and individuals sued to overturn the order as...

In one opinion published last week, 9th Circuit Judge Lawrence VanDyke said Ventura County, California, violated the Second Amendment when it shut down gun stores early in the COVID-19 pandemic. In another opinion the same day, VanDyke said the county's policy was perfectly consistent with the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. That second, tongue-in-cheek opinion was meant to illustrate the disrespect that the 9th Circuit and other federal appeals courts have shown for the Second Amendment since 2008, when the Supreme Court explicitly recognized that the provision guarantees an individual right to armed self-defense. The Court may finally...

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a stay Tuesday which prevents the enforcement of California’s “large-capacity” magazine ban while an appeal is made to the Supreme Court.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit sided with a California seminary on Monday, ruling that it is entitled to ignore federal anti-discrimination law and expel students in same-sex marriages. Graduate students Nathan Brittsan and Joanna Maxon... sued the seminary, claiming that Fuller Theological Seminary accepts federal funding and is therefore bound by Title IX’s anti-discrimination mandate. In turn, the school argued that it is entitled to a defense based on what is known as the “religious exemption” under 20 U.S.C. § 1681(a)(3). ...

PHOENIX (AP) — A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that Arizona doesn’t have to give voters who forget to sign their mail ballot time after the election to resolve the issue, rejecting a lawsuit filed by Democrats. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, overturned a lower-court ruling that found it’s unconstitutional for Arizona to give voters time after an election to resolve mismatched signatures but not missing signatures. The appellate judges said Arizona’s interest in reducing the burden on busy poll workers justifies the disparity. The overwhelming majority of Arizona voters cast mail ballots, which...

U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed the three-judge panel decision in Duncan v. Becerra, the ban on magazines that hold over 10 rounds. The opinion was released on November 30, 2021.Update: The case nomenclature has changed from Duncan v. Becerra to Duncan v. Bonta, because of the change in the California Attorney General.At the end of March, in 2019, Judge Roger T. Benitez wrote a well-reasoned opinion that found the California ban on magazines of over 10 rounds to be an unconstitutional infringement on the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. The case was...

Four Ways the Ghislaine Maxwell Trial Is Already Rigged Nobody likes a Debbie Downer, but I’m being realistic when I say I’m not expecting a ton of bombshell revelations to come from the Ghislaine Maxwell trial. We aren’t going to see Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, or anyone significant taken down as a result of the major revelations. I hope I’m wrong, but the cards seem to be stacked against the truth. Here are four reasons for my pessimism: No Coverage It should be the biggest story of the day (yes, bigger than Omicron) yet it’s barely a blip on mainstream...

Alison Julie Nathan has previously served as a special assistant to resident Barack Obama and also as his associate White House counsel.. As the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell begins on November 29, 2021, some questions may finally be answered about the sex scandal involving late Jeffery Epstein. Maxwell was arrested on July 2, 2020, and is one of the few remaining links investigators have to Epstein after he died suspiciously while he was in jail. The trial is likely to finally tell us how far, wide and deeply Epstein's sex trafficking ring had spread, especially in the elite circles he...

Senator Dianne Feinstein was absent from the Senate yesterday, so Senate Republicans had the votes to defeat the cloture motion on controversial Second Circuit nominee Myrna Perez, director of the left-wing Brennan Center for Justice. Had Republicans stuck together, they would have defeated the motion by a vote of 50 to 49. Instead, Senators Lindsey Graham and Lisa Murkowski voted for cloture, giving Perez a 51-48 margin and paving the way for her confirmation. I’m reliably informed that Graham has not voted against cloture or against final confirmation of a single Biden judicial nominee. Indeed, Graham’s vote in committee yesterday...

The Supreme Court on Monday sided with law enforcement in a pair of cases that implicated “qualified immunity,” the controversial legal doctrine that gives police broad protection from lawsuits. In a pair of unsigned summary rulings issued without noted dissent, the justices reversed two federal appeals courts that had permitted excessive force lawsuits to proceed against officers in separate cases arising from California and Oklahoma. The justices ruled the officers should be granted qualified immunity, which shields government officials from liability unless it is proven they violated a “clearly established” right, a difficult legal hurdle. Both lawsuits dealt with police...

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is facing criticism after congratulating a Korean American judicial nominee on Wednesday, commenting on the “hard work ethic” of “you and your people.” “What you said about your Korean background reminds me a lot of what my daughter-in-law of 45 years has said: ‘If I learned anything from Korean people, it’s a hard work ethic. And how you can make a lot out of nothing,’ ” the 88-year-old told judicial nominee Lucy Koh on Wednesday. “So I congratulate you and your people,” he added. Koh thanked the senator following the comments. Grassley, who is running for...

The U.S. government can’t be held liable for the death of Kate Steinle on a San Francisco pier based on a federal ranger’s negligent storage of a gun that was stolen and used to shoot her, a Ninth Circuit panel ruled Tuesday.Steinle was killed by a bullet that ricocheted off a concrete walkway and struck her in the back on Pier 14 in San Francisco on July 1, 2015. . . . In arguments before a three-judge Ninth Circuit panel last month, a lawyer for Steinle’s parents argued U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) ranger John Woychowski had a duty...

A federal appeals court has concluded that a church in Washington state has the right to sue over a state law requiring health insurers to cover abortions, partially overturning a lower court decision dismissing the case. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a unanimous decision last Thursday reviving the Cedar Park Assembly of God of Kirkland's lawsuit against Gov. Jay Inslee and Washington Insurance Commissioner Myron Kreidler over a healthcare law known as Senate Bill 6219. All three judges were appointed by former President George W. Bush. The panel opinion concluded that...

In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, (9th Cir., July 19, 2021), the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a sua sponte request for a rehearing en banc in the case of a high school football coach who insisted on prominently praying at the 50-yard line immediately after football games. A 3-judge panel upheld upheld a Washington state school board's dismissal of the coach. (See prior posting.) The denial of the rehearing however generated six concurring and dissenting opinions and statements spanning 92 pages, reflecting sharp differences. Judge Smith's opinion concurring in the denial of review says in part: Unlike...

A Washington church won its case against a state abortion coverage mandate on Thursday, in a ruling by a federal appeals court.Cedar Park Church in Bothell, Washington had filed a complaint in March 2019 regarding a state law that required employers – including churches – to cover abortions if their health plans also included maternity coverage. While state law allowed religious groups not to pay for abortion coverage, it required it to be available to enrollees; the church argued that it could not find a health plan without abortion coverage included.The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday ruled that...

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected an appeal from former President Donald Trump to rule against funding used for the wall along the southern border. In an unsigned order, the court sent the case back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit with instructions to vacate its judgments. It also instructed a district court in the case to "consider what further proceedings are necessary and appropriate in light of the changed circumstances in this case," namely that Trump is no longer president. SUPREME COURT SUSPENDS TRUMP BORDER WALL CASE The case, Trump v. Sierra Club, frequently made...

For each of the challenged provisions, DOJ's complaint alleges black voters are burdened more than white voters in Georgia's new voting law.On Friday, the Biden administration filed suit against Georgia, challenging numerous aspects of the state’s Election Integrity Act of 2021. While many of the allegations contained in the nearly 50-page complaint struck a surreal chord, assessing the merits (or lack thereof) of the lawsuit requires an understanding of the Voting Rights Act. Here’s your lawsplainer. Last week, the Biden administration, through the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, filed a one-count complaint against the state of Georgia,...

The Supreme Court struck down a California regulation granting union organizers access to farmworkers on agricultural fields, ruling Wednesday that the 1975 measure violated growers’ private-property rights. The decision, by a 6-3 vote along the court’s conservative-liberal divide, erases a major victory that Cesar Chavez’s farmworker movement achieved in the 1970s, when they argued the nature of agricultural labor made it too difficult to reach workers outside the fields.

The 9th Circuit, acting on a June 10 appeal filed by Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, put Benitez’s ruling on hold pending a full-blown decision. “This leaves our assault weapons laws in effect while appellate proceedings continue,” Bonta said said in a tweet. “We won’t stop defending these life-saving laws.” The 9th Circuit judges on the panel issuing the stay were Barry G. Silverman, a Clinton appointee, Jacqueline Nguyen, an Obama appointee and Ryan D. Nelson, a Trump appointee. Benitez, appointed by former President George W. Bush, said the weapons ban unconstitutionally infringed on the rights of California gun owners and...

9th CIRCUIT COWBOY is the story of Judge Harry Pregerson who, for almost half a century, served on California’s famously liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and was known for placing his personal scruples over what he discounted as abstract legalities. “I looked upon being a judge,” he said, “as a chance to help as many people as I could through the law.” Growing up during the Depression in diverse East Los Angeles, Harry enlisted in the Marines in World War II and served in the Pacific. In the bloody Battle for Okinawa, he received a field commission to lieutenant...