Free Republic

It took nearly twelve years, but we did it. My organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), has just won an important victory for the freedom of speech. Back in 2009, the Detroit area's SMART transit refused to run our AFDI ads offering help to people who were in fear for their lives for wanting to leave Islam or having left it. After an incredibly protracted court battle, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals just stood up for the First Amendment and completely reversed the judgment banning our ads. It's a total victory for freedom: we won our free speech...

A federal judge on Tuesday night ordered the U.S. Postal Service to reverse limitations on mail collection imposed by Trump-backed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, giving the agency until Wednesday morning to inform workers of the court's changes as more mail-in ballots continue to flood in. In a highly detailed order, Judge Emmet Sullivan of the District Court for the District of Columbia granted an emergency motion by plaintiffs against President Donald Trump to enforce and monitor compliance with Sullivan's previous injunction tied to USPS services. No later than 9 a.m. Wednesday, the judge said, agency workers must be told that...

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in New York ruled Tuesday that the Justice Department cannot step in to shield President Donald Trump from a libel lawsuit filed by a woman who claims he raped her in a New York City department store more than 20 years ago. The Justice Department had sought to block the lawsuit, filed by former gossip columnist E. Jean Carroll, by arguing that the president was acting in his official capacity when he told White House reporters that she made up the rape story. Carroll sued, claiming that his statements branding her a liar damaged her...

Involved parties: Michigan Eastern District Judge Stephanie Dawkins Davis [Trump judge] Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals three-judge panel: Overrules Davis 2-1. Majority opinion by Judges Danny J. Boggs [Reagan judge] and Debora L. Cook [Dubya judge]. Judge R. Guy Cole Jr. [RapinBill judge], chief judge for the Sixth Circuit, dissented.

In an unusual order posted Friday, the federal judge in the case of former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn told the Justice Department to file a declaration -- under penalty of perjury -- by Monday that evidence in the case is “true and correct.”

CNA Staff, Oct 19, 2020 / 09:00 am MT (CNA).- A federal court ruled against the Diocese of Brooklyn on Friday in its case against new coronavirus restrictions which impose local limits on Mass attendance. The diocese had sued the state of New York on Oct. 8 over new public health restrictions that limited the size of gatherings in certain “hot spots” around the state, or localities where the new coronavirus has been spreading. Certain churches in Brooklyn and Queens were effectively limited to holding 10 or 25 people for indoor Masses, under the new rules. On Friday, a federal...

State has 14 days to ask full 5th Circuit to hear caseTexas Right to Life responded yesterday to the 2-1 decision: The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled against the Texas Dismemberment Abortion Ban, upholding the district court ruling that blocked enforcement of the Pro-Life law. After a three-year wait, the decision by the three-judge panel is disappointing and demonstrates the need for judges who follow the strictest interpretation of the Constitution. However, Texas must continue the legal battle to force a federal circuit court split, pressuring the Supreme Court of the United States to evaluate...

A federal judge in Miami is warning Carnival Corp. that she plans to hold the cruise line to the parameters of its probation, meaning the company must certify that every ship is compliant 60 days before setting sail again in U.S. waters. The stern reminder from U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Florida Patricia Seitz will certainly endanger Carnival’s plan to resume operations on Dec. 1, assuming the Centers for Disease Control lifts its ‘no-sail order’ on Nov. 1, according to the Miami Herald. Carnival has been on probation since April 2017 after pleading guilty to dumping oily...

The Supreme Court has refused to take up an emoluments case filed by Democrats back in 2017. That means the lower court ruling that Democrats do not have standing to bring the case will stand. This little corner of the resistance is dead: The Supreme Court on Tuesday put an end to a lawsuit brought by congressional Democrats that accused President Donald Trump of violating anti-corruption provisions in the U.S. Constitution with his business dealings.The justices refused to hear an appeal by 215 Senate and House of Representatives Democrats of a lower court ruling that found that the lawmakers...

On Monday, Judge Phyllis Hamilton of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that denying incarcerated prisoners stimulus checks is unlawful, paving he way for prisoners to receive $1,200 checks in the near future, pending appeal.

Want a painting of President Trump in your parking space? So be it. That's what a federal judge ruled Friday after a Louisiana teen's portrait of Trump sparked a brouhaha at his school, the Times-Picayune reports. "The painting of President Trump cannot reasonably be described as obscene or plainly offensive on its face, nor can it be construed as school-sponsored speech," US District Judge Eldon Fallon wrote, calling the Trump portrait a type of "pure political speech" the school can't prevent. The student, Ned Thomas, had the portrait commissioned after Pine Junior-Senior High School near Franklinton offered seniors the chance...

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ruled that President Trump’s use of emergency powers to allocate millions of dollars in funding for the construction of a southern border wall was illegal, the latest blow to the Trump administration’s effort to limit immigration. In the 2-1 decision, the court upheld a December 2019 district court summary judgment in favor of a request from the advocacy groups the Sierra Club and the Southern Border Communities Coalition against Defense Secretary Mark Esper, acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and “all persons acting under their direction ... from using military construction funds...

On Wednesday, former National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn’s legal team filed a motion to remove U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan from the case.The basis for the motion was that Sullivan has shown “contempt and disdain for the defense,” according to Just the News.  Flynn’s attorneys, Sidney Powell and Jesse Binnall, filed the motion after a hearing last week saw the several clashes between the judge and the defense. Flynn has also tried to get the D.C. Circuit Court to issue a writ of mandamus forcing Sullivan to drop the case. The full court sided with Sullivan’s appeal after a panel...

Former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn on Wednesday demanded in a new court filing that Judge Emmett Sullivan recuse himself from "further participation" in his case, citing an "appearance of bias," which his legal team cast as "terrifying and mandates disqualification." In a filing on Wednesday, Flynn and his legal team argued that Sullivan “cast an intolerable cloud of partiality over his subsequent judicial conduct” and “risked undermining the public’s confidence in the judicial process.” “[A]ll that must be demonstrated to compel recusal,’ then, is ‘a showing of an appearance of bias …sufficient to permit the average citizen...

Key Points A federal appeals court in Manhattan rejected President Donald Trump’s effort to block enforcement of a grand jury subpoena that demands years of his income tax returns from his accountants. But court suspended enforcement of that subpoena by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., giving Trump time to ask the Supreme Court, for a second time, to step into the case and block the subpoena permanently. Trump’s lawyer Jay Sekulow said he will ask the Supreme Court to stay the unanimous decision against the president by the three-judge panel on U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit....

A federal judge says the IRS can't keep withholding coronavirus relief payments from incarcerated people, potentially clearing the way for at least 80,000 checks totaling more than $100 million to be sent to people behind bars across the United States. The ruling from U.S. District Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton late last month gives the IRS until Oct. 24 to reconsider the payments for those who were denied or had their money intercepted solely because of their incarceration.

A federal appeals court on Friday voted against extending the deadline for voters to return their absentee ballots in the state of Georgia. The Atlanta Constitution-Journal reports: A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided 2-1 to grant a stay of a judge’s ruling that would have allowed voters three more days to return their absentee ballots.

Click link for live feed (audio) of Flynn hearing, happening now.

The Trump administration will begin to retroactively apply its controversial "public charge" rule to immigrants, following a court decision that lifted a nationwide injunction on the policy. A notice posted on the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) website said the rule will apply to all future and pending green card applications and petitions postmarked or submitted electronically as of Feb. 24, 2020. The move to reimpose the rule comes after the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals on Sept. 11 overturned a nationwide injunction on the policy that had been imposed earlier in the summer because of the coronavirus pandemic....

On 28 August 2020, Attorney General Becerra of California petitioned the Ninth Circuit to review the case of Duncan v. Becerra. The review would be of the three-judge panel which held the California ban on magazines that hold over 10 rounds of ammunition to be unconstitutional. From the Petition for En Banc: 1 INTRODUCTION AND RULE 35 STATEMENTCalifornia respectfully petitions for rehearing en banc of the panel’s decision, which invalidates a state law restricting large-capacity magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition (LCMs). California voters adopted the current LCM law in response to a spate of mass...