Free Republic

A federal judge in Kentuck has overturned Governor Andy Beshear’s ban on mass gatherings as it relates to in-person church services. The ruling clears the way for churchgoers to attend services on Sunday.

A federal appeals court on Wednesday backed a lower court’s ruling that a Kansas voter identification law crafted by former Secretary of State Kris Kobach is unconstitutional and violates the National Voter Registration Act. The law heralded by Kobach took effect in 2013 and mandates that people provide documentation proving U.S. citizenship before being allowed to register to vote. The decision from the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals comes after a federal district court struck down the law on the same grounds. The judges said the state had failed to provide convincing arguments in its appeal that Kansas was...

On Easter Sunday, a federal judge ruled that Alabama cannot stop abortion facilities from killing unborn babies in elective abortions during the coronavirus outbreak. U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson ruled that abortion facilities should be the ones to decide if an abortion is essential, and the state cannot close them – even during a national health crisis, the AP reports. Thompson issued a preliminary injunction, which expands his earlier ruling blocking the state from enforcing health care restrictions on abortion facilities. His initial ruling expired Monday. Similar to most states, Alabama is restricting all non-essential medical care during the pandemic....

President Donald Trump may not divert $89 million intended for a military construction project in Washington state to build his border wall, a U.S. judge in Seattle ruled Thursday. The U.S. Supreme Court and some other courts have said the administration can begin diverting billions of dollars in military spending to the wall. But U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein ruled Thursday that a case brought by Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson contains different arguments which are not covered by those decisions. Rothstein found that diverting the money is unlawful because it would take money that Congress appropriated for military construction...

The Supreme Court has voted to allow the Trump administration to enforce its new rule that restricts the eligibility of new immigrants who are deemed to likely become “public charges” if they receive visas.The top court justices voted 5-4 on Monday to grant a stay on nationwide injunctions issued by a lower court, allowing the Trump administration to enforce its “public charge” rule across the country, except for Illinois, while the appeals play out in court. A separate injunction ordered by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois remains in effect but only in that state.Justices...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - WA federal appeals court on Wednesday refused to set aside an injunction blocking the Trump administration from enforcing a rule that would withhold green cards from immigrants likely to require government assistance such as Medicaid or food stamps. In a brief order, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan also set an expedited schedule for the White House’s appeal of a lower court ruling against the rule, with legal papers to be submitted by Feb. 14 and oral arguments to be held soon afterward. The “public charge” rule unveiled last year would make it...

DETROIT (AP) — A 95-year-old Detroit federal judge is reducing is caseload after 40 years on the bench. U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn is dropping criminal cases and will handle only civil lawsuits. “Judge Cohn is in his mid-90s and has been carrying a full caseload for all these years,” court spokesman David Ashenfelter said. “He has decided that it’s time to cut back.” Cohn was appointed in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter. He qualified for “senior status” in 1999, which can trigger a smaller caseload and give the court an opportunity to get an additional judge. But Cohn didn’t...

As predicted, today Judge Bertelsman entered an order allowing the Nickolas Sandmann case against NBCUniversal to proceed to discovery...

Alabama's near-total abortion ban blocked by federal judge By Kate Smith October 29, 2019 / 3:25 PM / CBS News Alabama's near-total ban on abortion has just been blocked from implementation. The ban, dubbed the "Human Life Protection Act," was set to take effect on November 15. A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction against the ban on Tuesday morning, effectively halting the law from taking effect while the lawsuit challenging the ban continues. Steve Marshall, Alabama's attorney general, said the decision "was not unexpected," noting that the point of the law was to potentially overturn Roe v. Wade, the...

Alabama's near-total ban on abortion has just been blocked from implementation. The ban, dubbed the "Human Life Protection Act," was set to take effect on November 15. A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction against the ban on Tuesday morning, effectively halting the law from taking effect while the lawsuit challenging the ban continues.

September 26, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – A federal judge has rejected D. James Kennedy Ministries’ (DJKM) lawsuit against the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), ruling that labeling the Christian organization a “hate group” falls within the protections of the First Amendment. Formerly known as Coral Ridge Ministries, DJKM filed a lawsuit against SPLC in 2017 for “trafficking in false or misleading descriptions of the services offered under the Ministry's trademarked name.” The suit also named Amazon and the charity monitor Guidestar, because they relied on SPLC’s “hate” designation in their own classification of the ministry. Guidestar eventually relented, but the...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A federal judge has denied a request by Missouri to allow a ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy to go into effect while the state waits for further court action. The Kansas Star reports that U.S. District Court Judge Howard Sachs had previously paused parts of Missouri's new abortion law. It was set to go into effect Aug. 28 and criminalizes abortions after eight weeks of pregnancy. It also triggered bans at 14, 18 and 20 weeks if the initial eight-week ban was found unconstitutional.

Missouri's eight-week abortion ban was temporarily blocked from being implemented by a federal judge on Tuesday. The regulation was scheduled to go into effect on Wednesday. State legislators in May passed the "Missouri Stands for the Unborn," act, a sweeping piece of anti-abortion legislation. In addition to banning the procedure after eight weeks into a woman's pregnancy, the legislation includes a "trigger law" and a ladder of less-restrictive time limits ranging from 14 to 20 weeks, depending on what the courts find to be constitutional. In late July, Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Paul Weiss LLP —...

A U.S. District Court judge in New York who was presiding over a lawsuit involving a wealthy, Clinton-connected financier and sex offender died Sunday at the age of 96. Robert W. Sweet died at his home in Ketchum, Idaho, while on vacation, The New York Times reported. He was appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1978. Politico reported that Sweet was presiding over the lawsuit that followed what many saw as an unusual plea deal for Jeffrey Epstein. Alexander Acosta, the current U.S. Secretary of Labor, negotiated what critics called a sweetheart, potentially corrupt plea deal with Jeffrey Epstein when...

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday questioned Alabama’s requirement for a transgender person to undergo full gender reassignment surgery before they can change the sex on their driver’s license, suggesting that a license that contradicts a person’s public appearance essentially marks them with a “scarlet letter T.” U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson held a hearing in the 2018 lawsuit filed by three transgender women seeking to change the gender on their state license. The American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the plaintiffs, said the requirement to show proof of sex-altering surgery is an unconstitutional violation of...

A federal judge in Kentucky tossed Covington Catholic High School student Nick Sandmann's massive defamation lawsuit against the Washington Post on Friday. What did the judge say? U.S. District Judge William Bertelsman said the Post was within its First Amendment rights to publish the subjective opinion of Native American Nathan Phillips, whose account of what happened on the Lincoln Monument fueled outrage against Sandmann and his classmates. "The Court accepts Sandmann's statement that, when he was standing motionless in the confrontation with Philip's his intent was to calm the situation and not to impede or block anyone," Bertelsman said in...

A federal judge in Kentucky Friday threw out a defamation lawsuit filed against The Washington Post by Covington Catholic High School student Nicholas Sandmann and his family over the paper's reporting of an incident between the young man and a Native American man this past January in Washington. The lawsuit, which was filed in February, sought $250 million in damages and accused the Post of practicing "a modern-day form of McCarthyism" by targeting Sandmann and "using its vast financial resources to enter the bully pulpit by publishing a series of false and defamatory print and online articles ... to smear...

A federal judge in Kentucky Friday threw out a defamation lawsuit against The Washington Post by Covington Catholic High School student Nicholas Sandmann and his family over the paper's reporting of an incident between the young man and a Native American man this past January in Washington.

A federal judge dismissed Friday the $25 million defamation lawsuit filed against the Washington Post by Kentucky teen Nicholas Sandmann over the newspaper’s coverage of his viral encounter with an elderly Native American activist at the Lincoln Memorial. Senior U.S. District Court Judge William O. Bertelsman found that activist Nathan Phillips may have been wrong when he said he was “blocked” by the teen and not allowed to “retreat,” but that such statements represented opinion protected by the First Amendment. “And The Post is not liable for publishing these opinions, for the reasons discussed in this Opinion,” said the 36-page...

upreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg voted against President Donald Trump’s proposed immigrant asylum restrictions from the hospital where she had cancer surgery Friday, according to media reports. NBC reported that Ginsburg voted from her hospital bed. National Public Radio and Mother Jones magazine said she cast the decisive vote in the 5-4 decision against the Trump administration shortly after her surgery to remove two cancerous nodules from her lungs. The ruling blocks the Trump administration from implementing new rules prohibiting people from seeking asylum if they cross the border illegally. By Friday night Ginsburg, 85, was sitting up in...