Free Republic

Pennsylvania restaurant owners who were fined roughly $10,000 for opening their doors in defiance of coronavirus restrictions have been deemed not guilty. A judge in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, found Taste of Sicily not guilty in its fight against the Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s coronavirus restrictions, according to Local 21 News Harrisburg. “The crux of the legal argument is that orders that have been issued by the Governor and The Department of Health are legally unenforceable. Judge Garvey agreed with that argument,” the restaurant’s lawyer Eric Winter said. The restaurant, co-owned by siblings Michael Mangano and Christine Wartluft, opened in May...

New Boulder County Public Health order prohibits people ages 18-22 from gathering in any capacity By: Stephanie Butzer Sep 24, 2020 BOULDER COUNTY, Colo. — In an effort to slow the sharp rise of positive COVID-19 cases in Boulder, and transmission of those 18 to 22 years old, Boulder County Public Health issued a new public health order that prohibits all people in that age group ini the city from gatherings of any size. This applies to all indoor, outdoor, on-campus and off-campus locations in the city of Boulder, according to the order. In addition, the order identified 36 addresses...

A federal judge today (Tuesday) denied the Wolf administration’s request for a stay on the federal court decision that found some of Governor Tom Wolf’s COVID-19 pandemic restrictions to be unconstitutional. The administration sought a stay on the ruling while also appealing the decision, which was issued by U.S. Western District Judge William Stickman IV last week. .. the Wolf administration “did not proffer any specific evidence to differentiate between the danger allegedly posed by gatherings governed by specific numeric limitations and gatherings governed by occupancy limitations.”

Pennsylvania was like most states at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, soon enough implementing a series of coronavirus lockdowns and related mandates that included shuttering “non-life-sustaining” businesses to curb the spread of the virus. The measures also included clamping down on gatherings of 25 people indoors and 250 people outdoors. Unfortunately, the restrictions led a group of plaintiffs including hair salons, drive-in movie theaters, as well as some Republican officeholders to file a lawsuit against Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and his health secretary against measures they claimed were over-broad and infringed on their rights. And, in a bit of...

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry (R) said Wednesday in a 9-page legal opinion that the Democrat governor’s mask mandate is “likely unconstitutional and unenforceable.” Democrat Governor John Bel Edwards over the weekend announced a statewide mask mandate and additional restrictions ... Landry also said that the Governor has no power to make substantive law through an executive order, even in an emergency and asserts that the mask mandate “exposes individuals to unlawful searches and seizures, as well as burdens them with exposing potentially sensitive personal health information and having it exposed to others in a public setting.” “The mask mandate...

Arizona – -(Ammoland.com)- The FBI has stated that it cannot and will not comply with the mandate prescribed by the “universal background check” referendum that was passed in November in Nevada.  The referendum was Ballot Question 1, a complicated eight page referendum that required private sales to be conducted through federally licensed dealers. From the Nevada Secretary of State archive.org: You can see that explicitly in subparagraph 3., the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, (NICS) is required to do the check, and *not* the Central Repository in Nevada, as is done according to Nevada law, currently. Nevada law allowed...

(Reuters--LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas--An Arkansas judge ruled unconstitutional for the second time in about a week a new law requiring voters to show a photo ID, but said on Friday there was not enough time to prevent officials from applying the law at primary elections this month. Pulaski County Circuit Court Judge Tim Fox said he was staying his order because to do otherwise would create "turmoil" in thousands of precincts. Last week, he said the law was "void and unenforceable." Nearly three dozen U.S. states have voter identification measures, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Many Republicans have...

A barking dog is a nuisance - even if officials can't prove which dog is doing the barking, the state appeals court ruled Wednesday. The decision stems from the case of a kennel that's been the source of more than 130 noise complaints. The owner, Frederick Acker, successfully argued to a Superior Court judge in 2002 that he could not be charged under the state's nuisance law because officials could not identify which dog among 50 was causing the racket. But the appeals court overturned that decision Wednesday. "The statute requires that we distinguish between dogs that bark and dogs...