Free Republic

CNA Staff, Oct 16, 2020 / 12:31 am MT (CNA).- A federal judge on Wednesday ruled unconstitutional a mandatory 48-hour waiting period for women seeking abortion in Tennessee, which had been in effect since 2015. In the legal challenge brought by Planned Parenthood and the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights, Judge Bernard Friedman wrote that most women are already certain about their decision to have an abortion when they go in for their first appointment. The judge cited testimony from abortion providers that abortion does not increase risk of negative psychological outcomes. He said the regulation placed an “undue burden”...

Friday, a federal district court judge allowed a lawsuit brought by 21 businesses against the city of Seattle to proceed, despite the city's attempt to have it dismissed. The lawsuit accuses the city of harming local business owners by allowing the existence of Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP), a self-declared autonomous zone that was established and occupied by racial justice protestors from June 8 to July 1. The occupied zone blocked all car traffic, reducing the businesses' access to customers, vendors and revenue, the lawsuit says. The lawsuit further alleges that city police largely neglected the zone, allowing protesters and...

On August 26, 2020 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued its decision in the case of Gavin Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board. The decision declared that rights of the plaintiff Gavin Grimm, a female student who considers herself male, were violated because the school board denied Grimm the right to access the boys' restroom and refused to amend school records to call her "male" after a court had ordered the state of Virginia to issue a new birth certificate indicating Grimm as a male. In justifying its opinion, the Court made many findings of fact...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A federal appeals court on Thursday blocked a decision to extend the deadline for counting absentee ballots in battleground Wisconsin, in a win for Republicans who have fought attempts to expand voting across the country. If the ruling stands, absentee ballots will have to be delivered to Wisconsin election clerks by 8 p.m. on Election Day if they are to be counted. Results of the presidential race in the pivotal swing state would be known within hours of polls closing. Democrats almost certainly will appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

<p>PHOENIX (AP) — A federal appeals court on Tuesday blocked a move that would have given Arizona voters who forget to sign their early ballot affidavits up to five days after the election to fix the problem.</p> <p>The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals put a lower court ruling on hold as it considers an appeal from Republican Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich.</p>

A federal court ordered Los Angeles to hand over more than $100,000 to the National Rifle Association after ruling that the city had violated the gun-rights group's First Amendment rights. Federal district court judge Stephen Wilson struck down a city ordinance aimed at punishing prospective contractors with ties to the NRA as an infringement on the right to free speech and association. On Tuesday, he ordered city officials to pay for the Second Amendment group's attorney fees, which totaled nearly $150,000. "Even though the Ordinance only forces disclosure of activity that may not be expressive, the clear purpose of the...

Federal district court judge Stephen Wilson ordered the city of Los Angeles to pay the NRA’s lawyer fees of approximately $150,000, just months after he ruled a city ordinance violated the NRA’s First Amendment rights. Wilson ruled on the First Amendment violation on December 11, 2019, in National Rifle Association of America et al v. City of Los Angeles, which was heard in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. The case centered on City Ordinance 18600, which required “a perspective contractor of the City to disclose all contracts with or sponsorship of the National Rifle...

A man who lost his leg in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing ripped the decision of an appellate court Friday to toss the the death sentence and overturn three of the convictions of terrorist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. “It’s ridiculous,” Marc Fucarile said when asked about the ruling on the local Boston WEEI radio show “Ordway, Merloni and Fauria.” Fucarile — who lost his right leg during the second of two finish-line explosions that killed three and left more than 260 wounded in April 2013 — said the case should be clear cut. “The guy did this. Put him to rest,” Fucarile...

BOSTON (CBS/AP) — A federal appeals court on Friday overturned the death sentence of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the man convicted in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. The three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston issued the decision more than six months after arguments were heard in the case. The April 15, 2013, attack killed three people and injured more than 260 others.

SHREVEPORT, La. – United States Attorney David C. Joseph announced that Melissa W. Richardson, 44, of Shreveport, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Donald E. Walter to serve one year in federal prison, followed by one year of supervised release, for stealing controlled substances from mail-out prescriptions. Richardson was found guilty on January 17, 2020, by a federal jury in Shreveport, of 15 counts of acquiring a controlled substance by fraud, following a one-week trial.According to evidence presented during trial, on June 9, 2017, Richardson, a licensed pharmacist, who was formerly employed with the Overton Brooks VA Medical...

Benjamin Jakes-Johnson Committed Crimes While on Supervised Release for Prior Offenses SYRACUSE, NEW YORK – Benjamin Jakes-Johnson, age 40, of New York City and Syracuse, New York, was sentenced today to serve 212 months in prison for distributing, attempting to receive, and possessing child pornography while on supervised release for an earlier conviction for possessing child pornography. The announcement was made by United States Attorney Grant C. Jaquith, Thomas Relford Special Agent in Charge of the Albany Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and New York State Police Superintendent Keith Corlett.In today’s sentencing Jakes-Johnson was ordered...

SYRACUSE, NEW YORK – Robert Bresee, age 57, of Norwich, New York, was sentenced today to 180 months (15 years) in prison for transporting and possessing child pornography, announced United States Attorney Grant C. Jaquith and Thomas F. Relford, Special Agent in Charge of the Albany Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).Bresee, who was previously convicted in Chenango County Court of Rape in the First Degree, and sentenced to 15 years’ in prison, admitted that while on post-release supervision from that offense he uploaded 70 images of child pornography to a Google account, and possessed an...

Amid the chaos and anarchy across blue-city America that exclusively possessed public attention for the last couple of weeks, it was not hard to miss any other bit of news — especially if that news has not appeared or been even briefly mentioned by any major mainstream media outlet. Take for example the news of Hillary Clinton, who lost her appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on June 2, where she tried to avoid testifying under oath about her emails and the Benghazi case. The hearing in the D.C. Circuit came in the case...

A three-judge federal appeals court said Tuesday the DOJ’s settlement with Fokker Services B.V. for alleged sanctions violations could go ahead after a district court judge rejected the arrangement as “anemic.” The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, DC said prosecutors and not judges make decisions to enter into deferred prosecution agreement with corporate defendants. In February 2015, federal district court judge Richard Leon refused to approve the settlement. He said the proposed $21 million penalty was “grossly disproportionate to the gravity of Fokker Sercvices’ conduct in a post-911 world.” Holland-based Fokker Services admitted in a 2014 plea deal that...

A former subcontractor for the U.S. Marine Corps pleaded guilty today to destroying records in connection with a federal investigation of bribery and procurement fraud at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune (MCBCL), located in Jacksonville, North Carolina.William J. Thompson, 56, of Sneads Ferry, North Carolina, pleaded guilty to one count of destruction of records in a federal investigation before U.S. District Chief Judge Terrence W. Boyle of the Eastern District of North Carolina.  A sentencing date has not been set.According to documents filed with the court, Thompson owned and operated C&D Painting and Construction, a construction company with its...

A federal judge on Thursday ordered Massachusetts authorities to allow gun shops to reopen after the governor deemed them non-essential businesses that needed to close to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. U.S. District Judge Douglas Woodlock in Boston ruled that the restrictions ordered by Republican Governor Charlie Baker in response to the pandemic imposed an “improper burden” on the constitutional rights of citizens seeking to possess firearms. Baker imposed the restrictions through executive orders issued beginning in mid-March that, like those adopted in other states, forced the closure of an array of brick-and-mortar businesses in response to the...

The Supreme Court is making it harder for noncitizens who are authorized to live permanently in the United States to argue they should be allowed to stay in the country if they've committed crimes. The decision Thursday split the court 5-4 along ideological lines. The decision came in the case of Andre Barton, a Jamaican national and green card holder. In 1996, when he was a teenager, he was present when a friend fired a gun at the home of Barton's ex-girlfriend in Georgia. And in 2007 and 2008, he was convicted of drug possession in the state. His crimes...

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a lower court's decision that an immigrant with lawful permanent resident status cannot fight deportation due to a previous offense, even though that crime was not grounds for his removal. In a 5-4 ruling with conservative justices on one side and liberals on the other, the court ruled for the Trump administration in holding that the statute in question, as drafted by Congress, requires deportation in the case of Andre Barton, even though the assault offenses that prevent him from appealing were not enough to deport him in the first place. "Removal of...

A federal judge handed abortion rights supporters a win in Tennessee Friday by blocking a statewide order banning surgical abortions during the coronavirus pandemic. U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman, a President Reagan appointee, said in an opinion released Friday evening that abortion is a time-sensitive procedure, CNN reported. The ruling will allow procedural abortions to continue during the pandemic for now. "Delaying a woman's access to abortion even by a matter of days can result in her having to undergo a lengthier and more complex procedure that involves progressively greater health risks, or can result in her losing the right...

A federal judge in Florida on Monday shot down an emergency request from former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) and fellow beachfront property owners to be exempted from a public health order that cut off beach access during the pandemic. Huckabee, the father of President Trump’s former White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders, argued that a county ordinance blocking him from access to the Gulf of Mexico shoreline behind his estimated $3.3 million home violated his constitutional rights. U.S. District Court Judge Roger Vinson on Monday denied the suit brought by Huckabee and more than a dozen other plaintiffs that...