Free Republic

For someone trying to demonstrate that the judiciary is not political, getting into a political fight with the president sure is a funny way to do it. ... Even Roberts's fellow justices know there is a difference. If there were no Obama judges or Trump judges, then why did Anthony Kennedy wait for Trump's election to announce his retirement? And why doesn't Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg just retire now and let Trump nominate her replacement? Because they both want a president who would appoint a successor who shares their judicial philosophy. (And, lo and behold, Trump appointed a former Kennedy...

A left-wing federal judge with a history of ruling against the Trump administration ruled against it again Friday by revoking its right to enforce federal immigration laws in California and demanding it funnel a total $28 million in unpaid grant money to “sanctuary cities” like San Francisco. The ruling by William Orrick concerned a decision by Attorney General Jeff Sessions last year to revoke funding from so-called “sanctuary cities” unless they began abiding my federal immigration laws.

Law is dead The first Trump immigration EO was stopped by a Bush-appointed judge out of the Seattle area. His legal reasoning was awful, and he had a background advocating for refugees, but nonetheless he made the ruling and an appeals court let it stand. Rather than defy the courts as his predecessor did, Trump had his administration draw up a new order that addressed the issues the court raised in the first one. So that would eliminate all possibility of the new order being halted by judges, right?

Casey Cooper is new to the bench, but he’s well-connected . Just three months into his tenure on the federal bench, and before his formal investiture ceremony later this week, newly minted — but well-connected — U.S. District Judge Christopher “Casey” Cooper has been handed one of the most high-profile and politically sensitive American terrorism cases in recent years ... Cooper, 47, was part of the Obama administration’s transition team and is one of the more connected people in D.C. legal circles, Marimow notes. His wife, Amy Jeffress, worked at the Justice Department as a national security adviser to the...

BOSTON — A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a judge's ruling granting a taxpayer-funded sex change operation for a transgender inmate serving a life sentence for a murder conviction, saying receiving medically necessary treatment is a constitutional right that must be protected "even if that treatment strikes some as odd or unorthodox." U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf ruled in 2012 that the state Department of Correction must provide sex reassignment surgery for Michelle Kosilek, who was born Robert Kosilek and is serving a life sentence for the killing of his wife in 1990. The Department of Correction challenged the...

WASHINGTON — President Obama will soon accelerate his efforts to put a lasting imprint on the country’s judiciary by simultaneously nominating three judges to an important federal court, a move that is certain to unleash fierce Republican opposition and could rekindle a broader partisan struggle over Senate rules. In trying to fill the three vacancies on the 11-member United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit at once, Mr. Obama will be adopting a more aggressive nomination strategy. He will effectively be daring Republicans to find specific ground to filibuster all the nominees. White House officials declined...

Politico’s Jennifer Haberkorn reports the disappointing news that the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the State of Virginia lacks the standing to sue the federal government over the Obama health-care law. The decision was based on a procedural question over the right to sue, and therefore does not change the high likelihood that this issue will be decided by the Supreme Court. Fortunately, it also appears as if the decision will not help the Obama administration bolster its legal case against the individual mandate. As Haberkorn reports, “The legal victories might not provide the administration with much...

No excerpt allowed from Bloomberg.com, story here .

Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, has a blunt and even testy side, and it was on display in December at an argument before the full federal appeals court in New York. The case concerned a Canadian man who said American officials had sent him to Syria to be tortured, and Judge Sotomayor peppered a government lawyer with skeptical questions. “So the minute the executive raises the specter of foreign policy, national security,” Judge Sotomayor asked the lawyer, Jonathan F. Cohn, “it is the government’s position that that is a license to torture anyone?” Mr. Cohn managed to...

Eighty-seven percent (87%) of voters nationwide believe Judge Sonia Sotomayor will be confirmed as the next U.S. Supreme Court justice. That figure includes 59% who believe her confirmation is Very Likely. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just five percent (5%) say her confirmation by the Senate is unlikely. Forty-five percent (45%) favor confirmation of Sotomayor, who, if approved by the Senate, will be the first Hispanic member of the high court. Twenty-nine percent (29%) oppose her confirmation, and 26% are not sure. Most Democrats favor confirmation while most Republicans are opposed. Among those not affiliated with...

In making Sonia Sotomayor his first nominee for the Supreme Court yesterday, President Obama appears to have found the ideal match for his view that personal experience and cultural identity are the better part of judicial wisdom. This isn't a jurisprudence that the Founders would recognize, but it is the creative view that has dominated the law schools since the 1970s and from which both the President and Judge Sotomayor emerged. In the President's now-famous word, judging should be shaped by "empathy" as much or more than by reason. In this sense, Judge Sotomayor would be a thoroughly modern Justice,...

The Senate's No. 2 Republican on Sunday refused to rule out a filibuster if President Barack Obama seeks a Supreme Court justice who decides cases based on "emotions or feelings or preconceived ideas." Sen. Jon Kyl made clear he would use the procedural delay if Obama follows through on his pledge to nominate someone who takes into account human suffering and employs empathy from the bench. The Arizona Republican acknowledged that his party likely does not have enough votes to sustain a filibuster, but he said nonetheless he would try to delay or derail the nomination if Obama ventures outside...

President Barack Obama has tried to hold off debate on contentious social issues such as abortion, immigration and gay rights as he focuses on the economy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Supreme Court vacancy will make that harder to do. Political battles over new justices tend to center on those types of social issues far more than on economic and foreign affairs, which have dominated the opening months of Obama's administration. Some liberals have criticized Obama for postponing efforts to revamp immigration laws, protect access to abortion and allow gays to serve openly in the military. The...

Many American presidents have been lawyers, but almost none have come to office with Barack Obama’s knowledge of the Supreme Court. Before he was 30, he was editing articles by eminent legal scholars on the court’s decisions. Later, as a law professor, he led students through landmark cases from Plessy v. Ferguson to Bush v. Gore. (He sometimes shared his own copies, marked with emphatic underlines and notes in bold, all-caps script.) Now Mr. Obama is preparing to select his first Supreme Court nominee to replace retiring Justice David H. Souter. In interviews, former colleagues and students say they have...