Free Republic

 . . . and that's a GOOD thing. From FIJA.org:Jury Rights Day Press Release:Jury Rights Day September 5, 2008 This Friday, September 5, 2008, marks the 338th anniversary of the day when jurors refused to convict William Penn of violating England's Conventicle Acts, despite clear evidence that he acted illegally by preaching a Quaker sermon. In refusing to convict Penn, the jurors refused to enforce what they knew to be an unjust law. This is known as jury nullification. By refusing to enforce what they knew was an unjust law, the Penn jurors not only served justice, but provided a...

During his acceptance speech last night at the Republican National Convention in Minnesota, John McCain told the audience, “We believe in a strong defense, work, faith, service, a culture of life, personal responsibility, the rule of law, and judges who dispense justice impartially and don't legislate from the bench.” Most American voters (60%) agrees and says the Supreme Court should make decisions based on what is written in the constitution, while 30% say rulings should be guided on the judge’s sense of fairness and justice. The number who agree with McCain is up from 55% in August. While 82% of...

Aaron Schnore was wasted. But when he saw that mechanical bull at Johnny Utah's, he knew he had to ride it. He was going to ride the shit out of that thing. He was going to show that mechanical bull who was boss. And he did, for a while. Until some freakin' employee turned up the speed so that Schnore would get thrown off. WTF? Schnore was P.O.-ed. He had really been enjoying his ride — the rush that came to him from owning that mechanical bull as he bucked and twisted like the Cowboy of Rockefeller Freaking Center. And...

While 82% of voters who support McCain believe the justices should rule on what is in the Constitution, just 29% of Barack Obama’s supporters agree. Just 11% of McCain supporters say judges should rule based on the judge’s sense of fairness, while nearly half (49%) of Obama supporters agree.

BERKELEY, CA (KGO) -- U.C. Berkeley may begin cutting down the oak trees at the center of an ongoing battle. They pulled out the chainsaw after a huge legal victory on Thursday. At about 8:30 am on Friday, the chainsaws started up and branches of the tree that is home to the four remaining tree sitters began coming down. U.C. says this is the beginning of the end, but supporters say they are not giving up without a fight. For starters Friday morning, tree cutters removed every branch below their first platform. "We want to continue to make conditions for...

The state Court of Appeal refused Thursday to issue an order barring UC Berkeley from bringing the chainsaws to chop down trees at Memorial Stadium. Stephan Volker, attorney for the California Oak Foundation, said he will appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court Friday morning, asking the state’s highest court to preserve the grove—at least for the moment. The ruling prompted an email alert to supporters of the ongoing tree-sit:“the appeals court has ruled, UCB can cut trees any time they want, get ready, we need witnesses & direct action.” The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the...

BERKELEY, Calif.—UC Berkeley officials said they would immediately move forward on their long-delayed plan to build a new sports center after an appeals court refused Thursday to block the project that inspired lawsuits and tree-sitting protests. The California Court of Appeal denied a request from two citizens groups for an injunction barring construction of the athletic training facility near Memorial Stadium. Although the groups indicated they plan to take the case to the state Supreme Court, campus officials said they wouldn't wait any longer.

ANAHEIM A north Orange County high school has been told it can no longer ban a Bible club from meeting on campus and must offer them listings in the school's yearbook and Web site, it was reported Thursday. Until the federal court ruling, students had been prevented from starting a Bible club at Esperanza High School in Anaheim. Placentia-Yorba Linda School District officials argued that only curriculum-related groups are allowed on campus, the Los Angeles Times reported. But in issuing a preliminary injunction last Thursday, U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney said that Esperanza does allow other groups -- such...

b. Cultural Nationalism: The Silent Discriminatory Motive - Chief U.S. District Judge JOSE FUSTE SYLVIA DIFFENDERFER, et al. plaintiffs v. RAMON E. GOMEZ-COLON, et al., Defendants. -- Excerpt from "Opinion and Order" by Chief U.S. District Judge JOSE ANTONIO FUSTE - S/José Antonio Fusté -- September 2, 2008 b. Cultural Nationalism: The Silent Discriminatory Motive According to our experience as a federal judge, born, raised, and educated in Puerto Rico, we find that the only logical explanation for Defendants’ position against a bilingual ballot is a disguised form of discrimination rooted in cultural nationalism. Since 1898, Puerto Ricans have responded...

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Change Basis for Allowing Abortions to Slavery Amdt Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- In an amazing admission, pro-abortion Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told a feminist group that the basis for legalized abortion should be changed from the so-called right to privacy to the anti-slavery provisions found in the Constitution.

Motion denied in Obama lawsuitBy KEITH PHUCAS, Special to The Phoenix 09/02/2008 PHILADELPHIA - A Lafayette Hill lawyer who filed a legal challenge to Sen. Barack Obama's presidential candidacy claiming he doesn't meet U.S. residency requirements had a motion for a temporary restraining order denied Friday. A day earlier, Philip Berg filed a motion for a temporary restraining order in federal court in Philadelphia questioning the authenticity of Obama's Hawaii birth certificate and claiming the Illinois senator was actually born in Kenya, according to court papers. Though the motion was denied, Berg said he was encouraged that Judge R. Barclay...

In a scorching ruling today, the state Court of Appeals threw out the conviction of a man serving more than 60 years in prison on burglary, robbery and sexual assault charges, saying the Durham District Attorney's Office unfairly delayed his trial for nearly five years. The ruling could lead to freedom for Frankie Delano Washington, 47, an auto mechanic who was convicted of multiple charges last year in a 2002 invasion of a family's home in Trinity Park in Durham. Because the opinion was unanimous, the state has no automatic right to take the appeal further. The delay cost Washington...

Thomaston (WTNH) -- Restitution from a convicted scam artist saved a Thomaston business from bankruptcy, but now that business could be in jeopardy again because in a surprising turn of events the business owner has to pay the man who stole from him. The last time News Channel 8 saw Mark Koch he was in handcuffs at Bantam Superior Court after being extradited back to Connecticut. The building contractor was arrested by police in Missouri after a nationwide search. He was suspected of making off with hundreds of thousands dollars from customers from California to Connecticut, including Mark Poveromo, owner...

Montezuma’s Abortion Revenge Human Sacrifice demons have been given a new birth in Mexico By Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer, President, Human Life International FRONT ROYAL, Virginia, August 29, 2008 (hli.org) - Men like Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata may be remembered as some of the worst criminals of Mexican history, but yesterday’s vote of the Mexican Supreme Court will make Villa’s and Zapata’s killings seem like so much child’s play. Reminiscent of the US Supreme Court decision in 1973, eight (out of eleven) Supreme Court justices of Mexico legalized abortion yesterday, August 27th, and consigned themselves to the annals of...

District of Columbia v. Heller was historic, the first Supreme Court decision to clearly hold that the Second Amendment right to arms was an individual one not linked to militia service. But it was historic for another reason: the sheer number of mistakes made in the dissenters' opinions. Given that all four dissenters co-signed the Stevens and Breyer dissenting opinions, this means that the mistakes must have escaped, not only four members of the highest court in the land, but their sixteen research clerks! Case in point: Justice Stevens' dissent claims that he holds true to the Court's earlier, 1939,...

After the raids Friday and Saturday by the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Department and the Minneapolis Police Department led to six arrests, the Minnesota Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild is seeking a judicial review of the “probable cause holds” being used to detain the six activists in the Ramsey County Jail.Ramsey County can hold the arrestees for 36 hours on probable cause, a time line in place often used to gather evidence before formal charges are filed. However, weekends and holidays are not included in the 36-hour hold, which means all six of the activists arrested for “probable cause” could...

CORPUS CHRISTI — A group that wants the Nueces County Republican Convention declared illegal sued local party leaders and others this week, saying the elected delegates should be barred from participating in the national convention. Visiting Judge Richard Terrell on Friday denied a request from the group to grant a temporary restraining order that would have kept the national delegates from attending next week's Republican National Convention in Minnesota. About 40 people walked out of the Nueces County Republican Convention on March 29, with some accusing local party leaders of violating several rules, including illegally seating delegates. The group conducted...

Orange County, CA – During a court hearing yesterday, federal district court Judge David O. Carter announced that he is dismissing a last-ditch effort by "same-sex marriage" proponents to overturn the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The case is Smelt v. Orange County, and it is one of the last remaining challenges to DOMA. Liberty Counsel intervened in this case on behalf of Campaign for California Families in 2004, in order to protect marriage as the union of one man and one woman and to defend DOMA. [[Staver082808.jpg]]The federal DOMA allows states to reject same-sex marriages from other states....

To grasp why the Bill of Rights leads off by barring Congress from "establishing" any religion, "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," you must understand that in 18th century England there was no "separation of church and state." The English monarch to this day includes in her title "Fidele Defensor" -- Defender of the Faith. Which helps explain why even our right to a jury trial stems directly from this era. In 1670, it was declared illegal to hold a religious gathering or preach a sermon in England which was not a "Church of England" sermon. Dissident churches, including the...

The following is a near verbatim sentence imposed upon a defendant convicted of murder in the Federal District Court of the Territory of New Mexico many years ago by a United States Judge, sitting at Taos in an adobe stable used as a temporary courtroom (as the story goes). 'Jose Manuel Miguel Xavier Gonzales, in a few short weeks, it will be spring. The snows of winter will flee away, the ice will vanish, and the annual miracle of the years will awaken and come to pass, but you won't be there. 'The rivulet will run its course to the...

Settlement is in sight on a 9-year-old court battle over land on which Wasilla's Multi-Use Sports Complex is built. Anchorage Superior Court Judge Peter Michalski on Monday signed an order giving developer Gary Lundgren $314,739 in attorney fees and court costs in an eminent domain case the city filed against Lundgren's land in December 2002. In eminent domain cases, the plaintiff typically pays the defendants' court fees.

Lawyers for John McCain and the state and national Republican Party on Thursday asked a federal judge in San Francisco to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the candidate's place on California's Nov. 4 ballot. Markham Robinson of Vacaville, chairman-elect of California's American Independent Party, sued McCain, the GOP and California Secretary of State Debra Bowen on Aug. 11, arguing the presidential candidate's birth 72 years ago today in the Panama Canal Zone means he's not a "natural-born citizen" — a Constitutional requirement to be president. But lawyers for the GOP and McCain wrote Thursday that Robinson lacks standing to sue and...

SYLMAR, CA Philip Long’s words were urgent, “Terry, I think they are going to hand down a ruling against homeschooling and it will set a bad precedent for the State of California!” I asked him how can I help. “Talk to my lawyer, Christopher Blake,” Philip said. I called Christopher and identified myself as Terry Neven, the principal of Sunland Christian School, the homeschool program where the Long family was enrolled. Sunland had served the Long family for almost 10 years, knew about their challenges, and embraced helping them. I asked Christopher what could be done. He told me it...

The pluses and minuses of John McCain as the Republican presidential candidate have been beaten to death here already. Let me suggest that there is one single, over-riding issue in this year's presidential election. It's judges, people. The next President will chose between 1 and 3 Supreme Court justices, plus hundreds of other federal judges. It is this single overriding fact that should make supporting McCain a no-brainer. If The Obamacle is elected, he will pack the judiciary with Marxists and professional grievance pimps and other enemies of the United States who will run roughshod over the country for the...

TALLAHASSEE -- Gov. Charlie Crist has appointed Lakeland Judge Charles Canady to replace retiring Justice Raoul Cantero on the Florida Supreme Court, bringing the number of Hispanic justices back to zero. Canady, 54, sits on the 2nd District Court of Appeal, where he was appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush in 2002. A former Republican congressman, Canady was one of the floor managers in President Bill Clinton's impeachment attempt in 1999. The graduate of Yale Law School served in the Florida House between 1984 through 1990 as a Democrat. He changed his registration when he ran for Congress in 1992. ''He's...

(English-language translation) After hearing the pertinent parties out, Federal Judge José Fusté ordered that the ballots for the November 4 general elections [in Puerto Rico] be printed in English and Spanish. Fusté ordered the parties to begin to join efforts "immediately" towards having ready any changes to the ballots by September 5, so that they may be submitted to the Olés of Puerto Rico print shop on September 6. The ballots will begin to be printed on September 10. Olés of Puerto Rico owner Angel Figueroa pointed out during a hearing to show cause that printing the ballots in both...

TALLAHASSEE -- Gov. Charlie Crist has appointed Lakeland Judge Charles Canady to replace retiring Justice Raoul Cantero on the Florida Supreme Court, bringing the number of Hispanic justices back to zero. Canady, 54, sits on the 2nd District Court of Appeal, where he was appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush in 2002. A former Republican congressman, Canady was one of the floor managers in President Bill Clinton's impeachment attempt in 1999. The graduate of Yale Law School served in the Florida House between 1984 through 1990 as a Democrat. He changed his registration when he ran for Congress in 1992. ''He's...

The Justice Department on Wednesday recommended a dramatic reduction in the prison sentence of imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who became the key witness against lawmakers and congressional aides he spent years corrupting. Prosecutors asked federal judges in Washington and Florida to shave years of prison time off his sentence, citing his work in an FBI investigation that sent numerous powerful people to prison and contributed to the Republican Party's loss of Congress.

Court Awards US Oil Drillers 1 BILLION Dollars Democrats such as my congressman Steve Israel like to talk about how the oil companies have not drilled on the land leases they already have. Well maybe this is the reason. As reported in the Financial Times, a US federal appeals court awarded 11 different oil companies a total of more than ONE BILLION DOLLARS. It seems that the government kept changing the rules effectively preventing the companies from developing their land leases: US drillers to get $1bn court award By Sheila McNulty in Houston\ A US federal appeals court ruled yesterday...

A federal judge denied the White House's last-ditch attempt to block a former aide from testifying before Congress as part of the investigation into the U.S. Attorney scandal. Today's ruling by Judge John Bates of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is expected to pave the way for former White House Counsel Harriet Miers, who returned to her old law firm in Texas, to testify before Congress in the coming months. It also urges the White House to turn over documents subpoenaed from former chief of staff Joshua Bolten.

A U.S. appeals court Monday awarded nearly a dozen oil companies more than $1 billion to recover costs from breached 1980s exploration and production leases off the coast of California. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a previous court's decision for the plaintiffs claiming the government owed them for the bonuses paid for the Outer Continental Shelf leases. It may send a strong signal to congressional lawmakers who've been trying to force oil companies to pay royalties on offshore oil and gas leases signed in the late 1990s that omitted royalty relief provisions. "It's very important...

TRO Denied; Obama Can Still Run -- For Now The Obama campaign is probably breathing a sigh of relief now that the motion for temporary restraining order sought by Philip J. Berg, Esquire, has been denied. Berg, who says he is a Democrat (and presumably a Clinton supporter), filed a lawsuit last Thursday in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against Obama, the DNC and the FEC, claiming that Obama can't be president because he isn't a "natural born Citizen," as required by Article II, Section I of the Constitution. Berg also immediately sought a TRO to "put a stop to...

BERKELEY, Calif.— A judge has lifted an order blocking the University of California from building a sports center that has been the focus of an impassioned tree-sitting protest. Superior Court Judge Barbara Miller's ruling Tuesday clears the way for UC Berkeley to begin constructing an athletic training facility where several dozen oak trees now stand. Opponents of the project say they plan to appeal. University officials said they have promised construction will not begin until the state appeals court has ruled.

If Sarbanes-Oxley were a stock, we'd recommend selling it short. It's only a law, of course, and can't be sold in the literal sense. But on Friday a panel of judges who ride the District of Columbia Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals put it in what, in Constitutional terms, amounts to play. They decided, by a vote of two to one, to uphold the constitutionality of the law. But a devastating dissent by Judge Brett Kavanaugh all but begs for Supreme Court review. The issue is whether Sarbanes-Oxley's creation of an agency to police auditors of public...

Lawyers who won the historic Second Amendment gun rights case in the Supreme Court — District of Columbia v. Heller (07-290) — on Monday asked a federal judge to award them more than $3.5 million for attorneys’ fees, plus $13,215.30 for expenses and court costs. In a motion and memorandum filed with U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, the attorneys said that they had achieved “one of the most profound and important victories available under our system of justice.” Their argument also suggested that this was a David vs. Goliath clash, with the attorneys on their far side far outnumbered...

PHILADELPHIA - A Lafayette Hill attorney filed a lawsuit in federal court Thursday challenging Sen. Barack Obama's claim to United States citizenship. The action seeks to remove the Democratic candidate from the November ballot. To be eligible to serve as U.S. president, a person must be born in this country. According to Obama's birth certificate, which his campaign posted on its Internet site in June to quell rumors that he is foreign born, the Illinois senator was born in Hawaii on Aug. 6, 1961. On Thursday, Philip Berg filed a temporary restraining order in federal court to bar Obama from...

New York and 11 other states are suing federal environmental regulators over greenhouse gas emissions from oil refineries, the New York attorney general's office said on Monday. The suit, led by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, charges that the Environmental Protection Agency violated the federal Clean Air Act by refusing to issue standards, known as new source performance standards, for controlling global warming pollution emissions from oil refineries. Note: Other states in the suit are California, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. New York City and Washington D.C. also joined in...

"At the establishment of our constitutions, the judiciary bodies were supposed to be the most helpless and harmless members of the government. Experience, however, soon showed in what way they were to become the most dangerous; that the insufficiency of the means provided for their removal gave them a freehold and irresponsibility in office; that their decisions, seeming to concern individual suitors only, pass silent and unheeded by the public at large; that these decisions, nevertheless, become law by precedent, sapping, by little and little, the foundations of the constitution, and working its change by construction, before any one has...

Let's cause some senators distress. The great thing about Joe Biden during the Alito hearings, the reason he is, to me, actually endearing, is that as he speaks, as he goes on and on and spins his long statements, hypotheticals, and free associations--as he demonstrates yet again, as he did in the Roberts hearings and even the Thomas hearings, that he is incapable of staying on the river of a thought, and is constantly lured down tributaries from which he can never quite work his way back--you can see him batting the little paddles of his mind against the weeds,...

It took seven years, but Charles Ulrich did something many people dream about, but few succeed at: He beat the IRS in a tax dispute. Not only that, but tax experts say potentially millions of other taxpayers could benefit from his victory. The accountant from Baxter, Minn., challenged the method the IRS has used for more than 20 years to tax shares and cash distributed by mutual life insurance firms to their policyholders when they reorganize as public companies. A federal court recently agreed with his interpretation. "There's a tremendous amount of money at stake," said Robert Willens, a New...

WASHINGTON — Immigrants seeking asylum in the United States have been disproportionately rejected by judges whom the Bush administration chose using a conservative political litmus test, according to an analysis of Justice Department data. The analysis suggests that the effects of a patronage-style selection process for immigration judges — used for three years before it was abandoned as illegal — are still being felt by scores of immigrants whose fates are determined by the judges installed in that period. The data focuses on 16 judges who were vetted for political affiliation before being hired and have since ruled on at...

Democrat sues Sen. Obama over 'fraudulent candidacy'Lawsuit disputing U.S. citizenship based in part on discredited claims By Drew Zahn © 2008 WorldNetDaily Posted: August 23, 2008 A prominent Pennsylvania Democrat has sued Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic National Committee and the Federal Election Commission, claiming that Obama is not a natural-born citizen and, therefore, is not eligible to be president of the United States. Philip J. Berg, a former member of Pennsylvania's Democratic State Committee and former deputy attorney general of Pennsylvania, filed the lawsuit this week in U.S District Court, asking the court to declare Obama ineligible for the...

SAN FRANCISCO (Legal Newsline)-A federal judge has ordered expedited briefing in a case that contends that John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, cannot become president because he was not born on U.S. soil. The American Independent Party is seeking to have the Arizona senator's name removed from ballots in California. The group says in court papers that federal law would bar the former Vietnam War POW from taking office were he to be elected in November because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936.

Tort Reform: A man who blamed his compulsive gambling and the losses he incurred on a prescription drug was awarded nearly $8.2 million by a jury. It's a good bet that his jackpot comes at the expense of others.Gary Charbonneau, a retired Milwaukee police officer, gambled before he took Mirapex and gambled after he got off the medication. According to reports, Charbonneau admitted that he took Mirapex for more than four years, 1997 to 2002, before he became a compulsive gambler. Yet a Minnesota jury generously awarded him $204,000 on July 30 to cover his gambling losses, $175,000 for his...

Obama Crimes Is Obama a Natural Born Citizen? Obama Crimes Philip J. Berg, Esq. Files Federal Lawsuit Requesting Obama Be Removed as a Candidate as he does not meet the Qualifications for President Thursday, 21 August 2008 22:09 For Immediate Release: - 08/21/08Suit filed 08/21/08, No. 08-cv-4083 Contact information at the end of this press release. Documents filed with the court and a copy of this press release can be downloaded at the end of this press release. (Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania – 08/21/08) - Philip J. Berg, Esquire, [Berg is a former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania; former candidate for...

The California Supreme Court made it easier Thursday for prison inmates to win parole despite a governor's objections, ruling that a woman who fatally shot and stabbed another woman with a potato peeler should remain free. The 4 to 3 ruling, written by Chief Justice Ronald M. George, could affect nearly 1,000 parole cases now on appeal. Lawyers on both sides said it was the first time in recent history that the state high court ruled in favor of a prisoner in a parole case. The decision upheld the release of Sandra Davis Lawrence, who spent nearly 24 years in...

Excerpt - JACKSON – Something unusual happened Thursday at the Mississippi Supreme Court. It may be the first time a majority of the justices voted to prohibit a colleague from publishing a dissent in a case. In other words, Presiding Justice Oliver Diaz of Ocean Springs disagreed with a court decision and wanted to write about it. His fellow judges said, no, he couldn’t and they apparently stopped the court clerk from filing Diaz’s statement into the record. Diaz's document also wasn’t made available to the public, as every other order and dissent are. ~ snip ~

Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed suit against the City of Elmira, N.Y., after police threatened to arrest three Christians if they did not remove a shirt and stop sharing biblical messages during a "gay" pride event at a public park. John Barnes wore a shirt with the message "Liberated from sin by the blood of Jesus" to the Southern Tier Pride 2008 at Wisner Park – a June 14 event promoted as a celebration of homosexual, bisexual and transgender lifestyles. According to the complaint filed in a U.S. district court, Elmira police Capt. Michael Marrone ordered Barnes to remove...

A university student who challenged his school's "speech code" and won a ruling in federal court that it was vague, overbroad and stifled student speech, including his Christian views, is continuing his battle with Temple University because the school has – three years after he completed it – declined to provide a grade on his master's thesis, thus effectively denying him his degree. The Alliance Defense Fund recently announced that the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had affirmed the district court victory by Christian DeJohn, who is a sergeant in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard. The ADF handled DeJohn's...

A prominent Philadelphia attorney and Hillary Clinton supporter filed suit this afternoon in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee. The action seeks an injunction preventing the senator from continuing his candidacy and a court order enjoining the DNC from nominating him next week, all on grounds that Sen. Obama is constitutionally ineligible to run for and hold the office of President of the United States. Phillip Berg, the filing attorney, is a former gubernatorial and senatorial candidate, former chair of the Democratic Party in Montgomery (PA)...