Free Republic

A federal appeals court panel on Friday allowed President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for larger private employers to move ahead. The 2-1 decision by a panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reverses a decision by a federal judge in a separate court that had paused the mandate nationwide. The rule from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration was to take effect Jan. 4. With Friday’s ruling, it’s not clear when the requirement may be put in place. Republican-led states joined with conservative groups, business associations and some individual businesses to push back against the requirement...

A U.S. district judge on Wednesday issued a sentence against a couple who took part in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot that went beyond what prosecutors recommended, giving them jail time. The Department of Justice (DOJ) had asked that Brandon Miller and his wife Stephanie Miller be sentenced to home confinement as part of a 36-month probationary period. The Ohio couple was charged with entering the Capitol, with Brandon Miller livestreaming their actions on Facebook. As WUSA reported, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled, however, that their actions warranted time behind bars. "They didn’t just walk through a door. They...

The owner of a wine and beer bar who openly flouted Gov. Tim Walz's executive orders to shut down last winter during the COVID-19 pandemic was found guilty of six criminal misdemeanor counts Thursday by a Freeborn County jury. A jury of three women and three men took only an hour of deliberation to convict Lisa Hanson, the 57-year-old bar owner, after a three-day trial punctuated by Hanson's repeated attempts to argue that Walz's orders were unconstitutional. Judge Joseph Bueltel followed the reading of the verdict with a scathing denunciation of Hanson's behavior, explaining why the governor's orders were legal....

For many rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, self-incriminating messages, photos and videos that they broadcast on social media before, during and after the insurrection are influencing even their criminal sentences. Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Amy Jackson read aloud some of Russell Peterson’s posts about the riot before she sentenced the Pennsylvania man to 30 days imprisonment. “Overall I had fun lol,” Peterson posted on Facebook. The judge told Peterson that his posts made it “extraordinarily difficult” for her to show him leniency. “The ’lol’ particularly stuck in my craw because, as I hope you’ve...

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The owner of a bar in Albert Lea was found guilty Thursday of six criminal misdemeanor charges and sentenced to 90 days in jail for defying Gov. Tim Walz’s executive orders to close her business last winter. The jury found Lisa Hanson, 57, guilty after deliberating for an hour, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported. Prosecutors had asked that Hanson be fined $500 and jailed for several days, but Judge Joseph Bueltel gave her a 90-day jail sentence and a $1,000 fine, saying he wanted to send a message to people who violate executive orders. “You wanted to make...

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge John Hannah, who was appointed to the bench by former Gov. Janet Napolitano, ruled that the Arizona Senate must turn over records from the Maricopa County ballot audit to satisfy a public record request from The Arizona Republic. The newspaper and left-wing watchdog American Oversight have been engaged in litigation attempting to get records from the legislature and the contractor that conducted the audit, Cyber Ninjas. Hannah said that while the legislature may keep conversations about legislation private, under “legislative privilege,” conversations about the audit are excluded. “This is not a confidential process,” Hannah said....

Afederal judge knocked former President Trump on Monday for his repeated claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, arguing that former Vice President Al Gore "was a man" and accepted his election loss in 2000. "Al Gore had a better case to argue than Mr. Trump and he was a man about what happened to him," Senior U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton said, according to CNN. "He accepted it and walked away." Walton was referring to Gore's decision to concede the race to President George W. Bush after weeks of legal battles, which were triggered due to an extremely...

The man who stood behind former Vice President Mike Pence’s Senate dais in a horned, coyote-fur headdress, red, white and blue face paint and a shirtless display of his tattooed torso on Jan. 6 will spend the next 41 months in a federal prison. “He made himself the very image of the riot,” Senior U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth said in pronouncing the sentence. “What you did was terrible,” Lamberth added later, imposing the lower end of the federal guidelines. “You made yourself the epitome of the riot.”

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has granted former President Trump's request for an "administrative" injunction, temporarily blocking the release of his White House records from the National Archives to the House Committee Investigating the January 6 Capitol attack. "The National Archives and Records Administration and the Archivist be enjoined from releasing the records requested by the House Select Committee over which appellant asserts executive privilege, pending further order of this court," the order reads.

A federal judge on Wednesday declined to delay a Friday deadline for the National Archives to begin handing over Trump administration documents to the House January 6 Select Committee. Lawyers for former President Trump had asked for a stay after U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected his lawsuit seeking to block the documents from being released while he appeals. In a six-page decision on Wednesday, Chutkan, an Obama appointee, denied Trump's request for a temporary stay for essentially the same reasons that she ruled against blocking the documents from being handed over.

The U.S. is facing a serious constitutional crisis over the handling of the cases of defendants in the Jan. 6 so-called "insurrection" in Washington, D.C. to protest the presidential election modus operandi and the results. Those being held for many months without a trial are being denied their habeas corpus rights under the U.S. Constitution and even dating back to English law hundreds of years before our Constitution was implemented. Not only are they being incarcerated without having had a trial, but there is some evidence that they are being mistreated or are being held 23 hours a day in...

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order prohibiting mask mandates in schools violates the Americans with Disabilities Act — freeing local officials to again create their own rules. The order comes after a months long legal dispute between parents, a disability rights organization and Texas officials over whether the state was violating the 1990 law, known as the ADA, by not allowing school districts to require masks. U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel barred Attorney General Ken Paxton from enforcing Abbott’s order. “The spread of COVID-19 poses an even greater risk for children with special health needs,”...

WASHINGTON, Nov 9 (Reuters) - A U.S. federal judge has ruled that a congressional committee investigating the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol can access some of former President Donald Trump's White House records. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in the District of Columbia rejected an argument by Trump's lawyers that telephone records, visitor logs and other White House documents should be kept from the committee. Trump had argued that the materials requested by the House of Representatives committee were covered by a legal doctrine known as executive privilege that protects the confidentiality of some White House communications....

A federal court on Monday declined to block the White House’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates for federal government employees and military service members. In a 41-page memorandum opinion, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly denied emergency relief sought by several avowedly “devout” Christians who have argued that being forced to take the vaccine would compromise their “closely held religious beliefs.” The Washington, D.C.-based judge’s decision to rule against the numerous plaintiffs in the case, some of whom are members of the U.S. Marine Corps, however, is largely a product of their own recent victories against the Biden administration in the exact same...

An Alaska Superior Court judge has issued a preliminary injunction halting part of a state law that restricts who can conduct abortions. Judge Josie Garton issued a ruling on Tuesday that allows nonphysician health care providers, such as nurse practitioners and physician assistants, to provide medication to induce abortion. The case was brought by a branch of Planned Parenthood that serves the Northwest, Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana and Kentucky. The organization filed a lawsuit in 2019 against a law that prohibits anyone other than a licensed physician from performing abortions. Alaska is one of many states that have laws saying only...

Southwest Airlines employees now know the date they must provide proof of COVID-19 vaccination to their employer, or face being placed on unpaid leave. A federal judge denied the Southwest Airlines’ Pilots Association (SWAPA) petition to temporarily strike down the carrier’s December 8, 2021 internal vaccination deadline, along with their entire lawsuit against Southwest alleging violations of the Railway Labor Act. Mandatory Vaccination Will “Improve the Safety of Air Transportation” The pilots union representing roughly 9,000 pilots working for the Dallas-based airline originally sued the carrier in August 2021, claiming the working conditions under the pandemic broke the “status quo”...

DENVER (AP) — A federal judge issued a restraining order against a suburban Denver county’s policy allowing parents to opt their children out of a mask mandate at school, finding the rule violates the rights of students with disabilities who are vulnerable to COVID-19. U.S. District Judge John L. Kane on Tuesday called the Douglas County Board of Health order that allowed parents to opt their children out of mask-wearing a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which guarantees equal access to education for all. Kane’s order came after the Douglas County School District filed a federal lawsuit challenging...

Prince Andrew must be questioned under oath by Virginia Giuffre's lawyers in her civil sexual assault case by mid-July next year, a US judge has ruled. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan set the deadline of 14 July 2022 to complete depositions in a scheduling order agreed to by lawyers for Andrew and Ms Giuffre It means the questioning could clash with the Queen's Platinum Jubilee celebrations, which will take place in June. Andrew has vehemently denied allegations he sexually assaulted Ms Giuffre when she was a teenager. Under something known as "Mutual Legal Assistance" (MLA), both prosecutors and the...

A federal court on Thursday nixed a Trump-era rule that limited state and tribal authority to block projects that could impact their waters, including pipelines. California Federal Judge William Alsup vacated the rule and sent it back to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for further proceedings. The Clinton appointee's move came after the agency asked the court to remand the issue back to the EPA amid litigation filed by states and environmental groups... ...The now-vacated rule had limited states’ authorities to block projects by giving them a strict one-year time limit to do so before the federal government could decide...