Free Republic

An Idaho law passed this year that bans gender-affirming care for minors will not go into effect on Jan. 1, as planned. A federal judge on Tuesday granted a preliminary injunction on the lawsuit against the ban. House Bill 71, "The Vulnerable Child Protective Act" was signed into Idaho law in April. It outlaws gender-affirming care for transgender minors; including puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries. The law finds any doctor that provides gender-transition care guilty of a felony, punishable by up to 10 years of prison time. After the law was signed, a lawsuit was filed against the state on...

A self-proclaimed “Christmas Lawyer” faces losing his legal license after he criticized a judge who banned his festive home display, which featured a live camel and 700,000 bulbs, allegedly calling the justice “corrupt” and a “hateful anti-Christian bigot.” Jeremy Morris was informed the Idaho State Bar has “probable cause to proceed with formal charges” against him for accusing federal Judge B. Lynn Winmill of corruption following an ongoing legal battle with the West Hayden Estates Homeowners Association. “The Idaho State Bar has made it clear they’re going to protect their friends, in this case, a federal judge,” Morris told Fox...

A federal judge hearing a challenge to a transgender health care ban for minors and restrictions for adults noted Thursday that Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis repeatedly spread false information about doctors mutilating children's genitals even though there's been no such documented cases. The law was sold as defending children from mutilation when it is actually about preventing trans children from getting health care Hinkle said he will rule sometime in the new year on whether the Legislature, the Department of Health and presidential candidate DeSantis deliberately targeted transgender people through the new law. He raised some skepticism about the...

On the face of it, Friday’s decision by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn an injunction against enforcement of Illinois’ recently enacted ban on “assault weapons” and “large capacity” magazines doesn’t change circumstances on the ground. The three-judge panel that issued today’s decision had previously stayed U.S. District Judge Stephen McGlynn’s injunction while the state appealed, so the law has been in effect throughout litigation. Still, the 2-1 decision does matter, both because it provides an opportunity for some or all of the plaintiffs to appeal on an emergency basis to the Supreme Court and because it will...

“Long live rescue!” That was the rallying cry of pro-lifers amid tears in response to Tuesday’s verdict against five rescuers. As Live Action News reported, five defendants – Lauren Handy, Herb Geraghty, Heather Idoni, Will Goodman, and John Hinshaw – were found guilty of conspiring to violate civil rights and blocking access to notorious abortionist Cesare Santangelo’s clinic in October of 2020. The case seemed to reflect an attempt by the administration of President Biden, who claims to be a practicing Catholic, to protect abortion after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs. Each defendant faces up to 11 years in...

On August 3, 2023, Judge Janet Bond Arterton of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut ruled on whether the recent Connecticut law banning the possession of common semi-automatic rifles and pistols under the appellation of “assault weapons” and of standard capacity magazines which hold more than ten rounds. Judge Arterton ruled the law is not prohibited by the Second Amendment. She does not see it as an infringement because, she claims, “assault weapons” and magazines over ten rounds are not arms protected by the Second Amendment. Magazines that hold more than ten rounds are referred to...

From Westenbroek v. Kappa Kappa Gamma Fraternity, decided today by Judge Alan Johnson (D. Wyo.) (the defendant is, for historical reasons, labeled a "fraternity," but today it would be described as a sorority): "Embittered by their chapter's admission of Artemis Langford, a transgender woman, six KKG sisters at the University of Wyoming sue their national sorority and its president. Plaintiffs, framing the case as one of first impression, ask the Court to, inter alia, void their sorority sister's admission, find that KKG's President violated her fiduciary obligations by betraying KKG's bylaws, and prevent other transgender women from joining KKG nationwide....

Last month, U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton tossed out a lawsuit challenging Connecticut’s ban on concealed carry in state parks, ruling that the plaintiff in the litigation didn’t have standing to sue because there was no credible threat of him being arrested or prosecuted for violating the ban. That was an exceedingly odd decision, but it kept the ban in place (at least for now), which counts as a win as far as anti-gunners are concerned. Now Arterton has followed up with another legal doozy, rejecting a preliminary injunction against the state’s newly-expanded ban on so-called assault weapons and...

A federal judge has voided the court-martial conviction of former Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who left his post in Afghanistan in 2009 and was then captured and held by the Taliban for five years. U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton on Tuesday issued a 63-page ruling granting summary judgment in favor of Bergdahl, who was convicted after pleading guilty in 2017 to charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. Walton argued that Bergdahl was denied a fair trial because the military judge who presided over the court martial, Jeffrey Nance, failed to disclose that he had applied to the executive...

A federal judge has voided former Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's court-martial sentence and subsequent rulings on the case by military judges, setting up the possibility that he could request a reinstatement of rank or change of status for his dishonorable discharge. Senior Judge Reggie Walton, of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., issued an order Tuesday that partially granted the federal government's motion to dismiss the Bergdahl case. But Walton ruled in favor of Bergdahl's argument that the Army judge in his case failed to disclose a possible conflict of interest -- that he had applied for a civilian...

U.S. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan says that former President Donald J. Trump may be said to have “raped” E. Jean Carroll, even though a jury specifically declined to find that he had done so in his recent civil trial in New York. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post reported the judge’s finding — approvingly, calling it a “clarification”: [Kaplan] says that what the jury found Trump did was in fact rape, as commonly understood. The filing from Judge Lewis A. Kaplan came as Trump’s attorneys have sought a new trial and have argued that the jury’s $5 million verdict against...

A record number of bills aimed at restricting the rights of LGBTQ people have become law in the past three years, but the majority of those that have faced legal challenges haven’t held up in court, according to an NBC News analysis, legal experts and the American Civil Liberties Union, which has filed legal challenges against some of the laws. Just this year, state representatives introduced 491 bills aimed at restricting LGBTQ rights, with 77 of them becoming law, according to the ACLU. The majority of bills proposed and passed focused on limiting the ability of transgender youth to receive...

A Federal Court has blocked the implementation of a controversial Florida law banning children from attending drag shows. The law championed and signed by Governor Ron DeSantis faced a legal challenge from Orlando Restaurant Hamburger Mary’s, which has run 'family friendly' drag shows for 15 years. The law can now no longer be enforced until Hamburger Mary finishes litigating its case, after a Federal judge issued a preliminary injunction.

A federal judge has created a preliminary injunction which prevents the city of Seattle from enforcing the law against graffiti and misdemeanor property destruction. The SPD released a statement today.Late yesterday afternoon, SPD received an order from a US District Court judge that enjoined, in full, enforcement of SMC 12A.080.020 – the City’s misdemeanor property destruction law. This means that until further order of the Court, SPD cannot take action on damage to property under this law. This is not a matter within SPD or City discretion; we are bound by the court order as it is written.We understand and...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WFLA) — A federal judge ordered Florida to stop enforcing its ban against providing gender-affirming healthcare to transgender children for three families, according to newly-released court documents. On Tuesday, Judge Robert L. Hinkle, of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida, issued a preliminary injunction in favor of three families with transgender children in a lawsuit filed against dozens of Florida officials, including the Florida Surgeon General, the Florida Board of Medicine and its members, the Florida Board of Osteopathic Medicine and its members, the Florida Attorney General and Florida’s 20 State Attorneys. The...

By any standard, the treatment of January 6 defendants has been a disgrace to the Department of Justice, the DC federal bench, and the Constitution. Scores of people have been held in inhumane conditions in the DC Gulag, denied their constitutional right to speedy trial, and denied access to exculpatory evidence. The blanket media coverage excoriating them as “violent insurrectionists” has prevented these constitutional outrages from becoming a national scandal. But there is a chance, a small chance, that the release of CCTV Capitol video by Speaker McCarthy may change the national consensus (other than in conservative media) that there...

Washington D.C., Feb 9, 2023 / 13:35 pm Despite the U.S. Supreme Court ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade, a federal judge is claiming that the 13th Amendment, which was ratified to abolish slavery, might establish a constitutional right to have an abortion. Under Roe v. Wade, the court previously held that the 14th Amendment protects a right to privacy and a right to privacy protects a woman’s right to decide whether to have an abortion. In the Dobbs decision last June, the court revoked that precedent, stating that “the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion” and that...

Douglass Mackey is alleged to be one of the many anonymous Twitter users who made the 2016 election so different, so memorable, and so important. Like other anonymous internet memesmiths (anons), Mackey had no external reason that anyone should care what he said. He held no office. He had no byline at an elite publication. He had no vast pool of wealth that conferred legitimacy, deserved or undeserved, on what he had to say. Mackey’s notability, like that of Bronze Age Pervert or Libs of TikTok, came exclusively from what he had to say, and that people found it funny...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A federal judge in Wisconsin on Wednesday ruled that a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the father of a man shot and killed by Kyle Rittenhouse during a protest in 2020 can proceed against Rittenhouse, police officers and others. The father of Anthony Huber, one of two men shot and killed by Rittenhouse, filed the lawsuit in 2021, accusing officers of allowing for a dangerous situation that violated his son's constitutional rights and resulted in his death. Anthony Huber's father, John Huber, also alleged that Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time of the shootings, conspired...

One of the two men charged with vandalizing electrical substations in Washington state over the holidays to cover a burglary was ordered released from federal custody Friday to seek substance abuse help. A federal judge issued the order for Matthew Greenwood, 32, after renewed efforts by his attorney to get Greenwood into a drug-treatment facility, The News-Tribune reported. Greenwood and Jeremy Crahan, 40, both of Puyallup, have been charged with conspiracy to damage energy facilities. According to the complaint, Greenwood told investigators after his arrest that the two knocked out power so they could burglarize a business and steal from...