State paid $18 million after voters changed constitution to ban funding - A judge’s decision letting Colorado’s pro-abortion governor direct tax funds to Planned Parenthood and other players in the nation’s abortion industry, even though taxpayers in the state specifically banned that action, is being appealed. 

Obama ominee claimed primary job to ‘write footnotes in the Constitution’ - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced his plans to move forward as early as Monday with a confirmation vote on the pro-abortion appeals court nominee who ruled against praying “in Jesus name” on the floor of the Indiana Legislature.

Municipality spared potential of refunds from illegal red light camera program thanks to non-publication rules of California courts. - A California appellate court on Wednesday declined to publish a decision overturning a ticket issued by an unlawful red light camera operation (view ruling). California Superior Court, San Mateo County Appellate Judge Mark R. Forcum turned down attorney Frank Iwama’s request that he explain his reasoning more fully in a published decision. Unpublished cases cannot be cited as precedent in California, and motorists interested in challenging citations will have to repeat from scratch all arguments about the program’s illegality.

President Obama has gone out of his way to “diversify” the federal bench with his spate of nominations of various minorities chief of which was his successful seating of the “wise Latina,’ Sonia Sotomayor, on the Supreme Court. Obama’s nominees* for 10 district court openings include four African-Americans, three Asian-Americans, one Latino and four women. One of those nominees, San Francisco U.S. Magistrate Judge Edward Chen, received a favorable vote(1) in the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington today.

On March 10, 2009(1) this Commentary reported upon the deplorable fate of the Federal Judiciary, particularly during the 110th Congress (2007 - 2009), when the George Walker Bush Administration had explicable difficulty enticing competent folk to accept nomination amid the inevitable attempt at character assassination from certain liberal Senators, protracted delay and/or defeat, text following.

On July 8, 2009, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that pharmacists are required, regardless of their moral opposition, to provide Plan B, commonly known as the “morning-after pill.” The court’s decision took immediate effect in all western states, although this ruling will inevitably encourage abortion rights activists throughout America to use the court system to eradicate the choice of pharmacists, and other medical professionals, who have a religious or ethical opposition to abortion. 

Invents “Right” to “Gay” Marriage - Des Moines, IA – Matt Barber, Director of Cultural Affairs with both Liberty Counsel and Liberty Alliance Action, and Associate Dean with Liberty University School of Law, released the following statement today in response to news that the Iowa Supreme Court has issued an opinion imagining a “fundamental” constitutional right to “same-sex marriage”:

A state Supreme Court today ruled that constitutional freedom of religion does not permit doctors to refuse services to homosexual clients, even when those services would violate doctors’ moral and religious convictions.

The recent spate of Supreme Court decisions, some good and some bad, focus attention on the critical role which the federal judiciary has come to play in public policy.  Civics students have been spoon fed the notion that our Founding Fathers constructed the Constitution upon principles of “separation of powers” and “checks and balances” with three co-equal branches of government.

The very high profile case of Fort Lauderdale police Chief Frank Adderley whose wife Eleanor Leisa Adderly shot at him, missed him by inches while he lay in bed, and then continued to fire at him while he fled the house provides South Florida and the nation with a unique opportunity to face squarely three realities regarding Domestic Violence.

For the first time in our nation’s history, the federal civil courts are actively involving themselves in the conduct of war, overriding the judgment of the two elected branches of government.

WHY did the Founders bother toiling in the summer heat of Philadelphia in 1787 writing a Constitution when they could have relied on the consciences of Supreme Court justices like Anthony Kennedy instead? 

Not since the conservative commentariat bought into the notion of a permanent Republican majority have the professional analysts of the right been more off-base about a political event than they have in the post-mortem of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in the case of the Washington, D.C., gun ban. The court’s acknowledgement of an individual right to gun ownership is being trumpeted as a major victory, and while it is certainly a good thing, the careful observer will note that seeds of strategic defeat have been sown even as the tactical victory is harvested.

A decision by the California Supreme Court that concluded the state could not constitutionally deny same-sex couples the right to be “married” will move back to the Court of Appeal, and the public interest advocates at Liberty Counsel have asked the judges there to stay the ruling until voters decide the issue in November.

The California Supreme Court, by a 4-3 vote, has ruled the voters of California have passed an unconstitutional law.