Free Republic

RICHMOND, Va. (Reuters) - A U.S. federal judge on Thursday upheld a 2013 Virginia law requiring prospective voters to show an approved photo identification before they cast their ballots. The state's Democratic Party had challenged the law, signed by former Republican Governor Robert McDonnell, saying it was politically motivated and intended to deter young and minority voters from turning out on Election Day. "The court's mission is to judge not the wisdom of the Virginia voter ID law, but rather its constitutionality," wrote U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson in his decision. While he noted that the measure created an "inconvenience"...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday upheld the first-ever U.S. proposed rules governing heat-trapping greenhouse gases, clearing a path for sweeping regulations affecting vehicles, coal-burning power plants and other industrial facilities. Handing a setback to industry and a victory to the Obama administration, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia unanimously ruled the Environmental Protection Agency's finding that carbon dioxide is a public danger and the decision to set limits for emissions from cars and light trucks were "neither arbitrary nor capricious." The ruling, which addresses four separate lawsuits, upholds the underpinnings of the...

"...This man who was raised by leftists in a disfunctional family, despising every principle upon which this great nation was founded is like a culmination of all our national sins, embodied in one very real individual. He has a plan for America and it makes fictional stories like The Manchurian read like Disney..." (continued)

"...This man who was raised by leftists in a disfunctional family, despising every principle upon which this great nation was founded is like a culmination of all our national sins, embodied in one very real individual. He has a plan for America and it makes fictional stories like The Manchurian read like Disney..." (continued)

California's budget crisis has proved a boon for some defendants. In a unanimous ruling, the California Supreme Court on Monday upheld the dismissal of 18 criminal cases, two of them felonies, in Riverside County because there were not enough judges to hear them. The court blamed the problem on the state's failure to hire more judges. Chief Justice Ronald M. George, writing for the court, said Riverside County's "congested criminal caseload represented a chronic" problem. "The lack of available courtrooms and judges was attributable to the Legislature's failure to provide a number of judges and courtrooms sufficient to meet

A federal judge in Detroit today upheld key provisions of President Barack Obama’s landmark health reform law. In a 20-page decision, U.S. District Judge George Steeh refused to issue an injunction to halt preparations for putting federal health reforms into full effect in 2014, a law known as the Affordable Care Act passed by Congress in March.

In a split decision, a U.S. appeals court upheld the convictions of animal-rights activists charged under a terrorism statute with using their Web site to incite threats and vandalism against a company that tests products on animals. The 2-1 decision was the first federal appellate court ruling on a constitutional challenge to the law. Defense lawyers call the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty case only the latest example of the government infringing on activists' free speech. One compared it to the pursuit of communists and civil-rights activists a half-century ago. "The government is always doing the same thing, prosecuting the loud...

SAN FRANCISCO – The state Supreme Court has upheld a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage, but also decided that the estimated 18,000 gay couples who tied the knot before the law took effect will stay wed. The decision Tuesday rejected an argument from gay rights activists that the ban revised the California constitution's equal protection clause to such a dramatic degree that it first needed the Legislature's approval.

A Russian court on Wednesday upheld the deportation of Chabad's Rabbi Yisroel Silberstein, Rabbi of the Primorye region in Russia's far east. According to the Vladivostok District Court's initial ruling on February 12, Silberstein, an American working in Russia for the last two years, listed "cultural activities," in his visa application, inconsistent with the religious work he was actually carrying out. According to the Federal Migration Service, Silberstein should have listed "religious activities." Silberstein told Lubavitch.com that he would be flying to New York on Wednesday night. In a statement, director of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Russia, Alexander...

There is a controversy concerning absentee ballots brewing in Ohio. According to the Columbus Dispatch, Republican lawmakers are concerned that Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, has instructed voters to break Ohio law, which states that voters must be registered for 30 days prior to casting a vote to be considered a qualified elector. GOP officials claim that allowing Ohioans to register and cast an absentee ballot on the same day violates the law. However, Brunner claims that what controls under current law is when the ballots are counted, not when they are cast. She released a statement addressing the...

A federal judge has refused to dismiss bribery charges against Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.). Jefferson is accused of orchestrating a complicated, and multi-layered scheme to receive bribes from companies seeking business in Western Africa. Proving bribery against a lawmaker is difficult because prosecutors must show that the defendant provided an “official act” such as a voting a certain way or sponsoring legislation in return for money or items he received. His lawyers argued that Jefferson didn’t do anything in his capacity as a congressman that could be considered a bribe. U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III turned that legal...

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court upheld the most common method of lethal injections executions Wednesday, clearing the way for states to resume executions that have been on hold for nearly 7 months. The justices, by a 7-2 vote, turned back a constitutional challenge to the procedures in place in Kentucky, which uses three drugs to sedate, paralyze and kill inmates. Similar methods are used by roughly three dozen states. The governor of Virginia lifted his state's moratorium on executions two hours after the high court issued its ruling. "We ... agree that petitioners have not carried their burden of showing...

SAN FRANCISCO – A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld the death sentence for convicted murderer Kevin Cooper, whose 2004 execution was stayed just hours before he was to die by lethal injection. The planned execution was halted after the 9th U.S. District Court of Appeals reopened the case so two DNA tests on a blond hair and a bloody shirt found at the murder scene could be done. DNA testing wasn't available in 1984. Cooper, who has long maintained his innocence, was convicted of the murders of Douglas and Peggy Ryen, both 41, their 10-year-old daughter, Jessica, and Christopher...

The California Supreme Court today upheld the death sentence of a San Jose man convicted in 1989 after two trials on charges he killed a witness against him in a robbery case. Fermin Ledesma was originally convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in 1980, in a case prosecuted by current Santa Clara County District Attorney George Kennedy, for the 1978 murder of Gabriel Flores, a gas station attendant Ledesma robbed and later killed after Flores identified him to police. That conviction was overturned in 1987 after the California Supreme Court ruled that he had received ineffective assistance from...

A federal judge on Monday rejected a request to dismiss some of the counts against a Lodi man convicted of supporting terrorists, leaving in place the possible maximum prison sentence of 39 years. Hamid Hayat, 23, was convicted in April of one count of providing material support to terrorists by attending an al-Qaida training camp in Pakistan and three counts of lying about it to FBI agents. His attorney, Wazhma Mojaddidi, argued that federal prosecutors were piling on potential prison time by charging three versions of the same lying offense. Each count brings up to eight years in federal prison,...

PARIS - France's highest court upheld George Soros' conviction for insider trading Wednesday in a case dating back nearly 20 years, and the billionaire investor vowed to fight the ruling at the European Court of Human Rights. The Court of Cassation upheld the 75-year-old American financier's conviction for buying and selling Societe Generale shares in 1988 after receiving information about a planned corporate raid on the bank. Apart from this case, Soros' record is unblemished after five decades in finance. Lawyer Ron Soffer said Soros planned to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights, saying that the...

A lesbian suing for parental rights over a daughter she had with a former partner is entitled to those rights if she meets several criteria for determining legal motherhood, a state appeals court ruled. The woman must have been integral in planning the conception, raising the child, treating the child as her own and accepting the responsibilities of parenthood, the Court of Appeal panel in San Francisco decided Friday in a 3-0 ruling. State law prefers for a child to be raised by two parents, and the child and parent are entitled to a relationship even if the parents are...

JERUSALEM - Israel's high court Sunday narrowly upheld a controversial law that restricts the right of Palestinians to live in Israel with their Arab Israeli spouses and children. The law, imposed in 2002 at the height of Israeli-Palestinian fighting, is believed to have kept hundreds, and possibly thousands, of West Bank and Gaza Palestinians from moving to Israel to live with their families. The law states that only Palestinian women over the age of 25 and men over 35 are eligible to join their families in Israel and eventually receive citizenship. A panel judges voted 6-5 against a petition to...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A state appeals court on Friday determined a California law used by billionaire investor Ron Burkle to seal records in his divorce case is unconstitutional, ruling the First Amendment allows public access to divorce proceedings. The 2nd District Court of Appeal unanimously affirmed a lower court's decision of last year. The three-judge panel noted that the state law, which was intended to improve privacy and confidentiality, places an "undue burden" on the public's ability to review court records in divorce cases. "While the interest in protecting divorcing parties from identity theft and other financial crimes may...

NEW YORK - A federal appeals court Friday upheld the conviction of celebrity homemaker Martha Stewart for lying to investigators about selling stock that plunged in price soon after her trade. Stewart completed her sentence in the case last summer but pursued the appeal anyway. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan issued a written ruling upholding the 2004 convictions of Stewart and former stockbroker Peter Bacanovic for lying about why Stewart sold nearly 4,000 shares of ImClone Systems Inc. stock in 2001. The sale came just before the stock took a dive on a negative government report...