Tag: judges

Texas Judge Imposes Media Blackout on Karmelo Anthony Murder Trial: Only 9 Reporters Allowed, No Cameras, No Livestreams — Family Spokesperson Previously Called Case a ‘Fight Against White Supremacy’

Collin County District Judge John Roach Jr. has issued sweeping new restrictions on media coverage for the upcoming murder trial of Karmelo Anthony, the teenager charged with fatally stabbing 17-year-old Austin Metcalf during a high school track meet last year.

The order, signed Friday in the 296th District Court, severely limits press access and bans all recording devices.

Citing the intense public interest and the precedent set by the U.S. Supreme Court in Sheppard v. Maxwell, Judge Roach claimed that excessive media coverage could prejudice the trial.

Under the new rules, which go into effect for the trial scheduled to begin June 1:

  • The courtroom opens at 8:30 a.m. with staggered entry: credentialed media at 8:30 a.m., victims’ and defendant’s families at 8:40 a.m., and the general public at 8:50 a.m. Doors close at 9:00 a.m. with no re-entry until recess.
  • Only nine credentialed media members are permitted inside the courtroom at any time. The Collin County Public Information Office will manage all credentials and seating.
  • No photography, video, audio recording, livestreaming, or any visual/audio capture is allowed by media or the public.
  • No images or recordings of witnesses, prospective jurors, or jurors may be published.
  • Media interviews with trial participants are prohibited inside the courtroom and can only occur after the trial ends.
  • Strict decorum is required — no reactions, outbursts, talking, signs, or gestures.
  • All attendees must clear security screening.
  • Trial exhibits will not be released until after the verdict.

The Collin County Sheriff’s Office will enforce the order, with violations potentially resulting in removal, loss of credentials, or contempt charges.

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Utah Supreme Court Justice Faces Inquiry for Relationship With Lawyer in Congressional Redistricting Case

Utah Supreme Court Justice Diana Hagen is facing an investigation by state leaders after it was revealed that she reportedly had a romantic relationship with the lawyer who helped Democrats redraw the state’s congressional maps, stealing a seat from Republicans. 

Utah Governor Spencer Cox, Senate President J. Stuart Adams, and Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz are looking into a complaint that was submitted late last year about Hagen’s conduct with the attorney who was arguing the redistricting case before the high court.

“Texts reveal intimate relationship between the Justice and Attorney for the Redistricting case while the case was live. She ruled in their favor,” Hayek wrote. “Utah lost a safe Republican district thanks to the new map. Governor + legislative leaders launching a probe into the cozy “friendship.” Utah never should’ve lost that seat. Judicial swamp just got exposed.”

Here’s more:

The complaint, which was obtained exclusively by KSL through a public records request, came from a Provo-based attorney who said Hagen’s ex-husband told him the justice had exchanged “inappropriate” text messages with David Reymann, one of the attorneys involved in a case about redistricting, which led to Utah getting a new congressional map.

Hagen strongly denies allegations of an inappropriate relationship of any kind. Reymann also called the allegations “false.” He does outside legal work for KSL and as an attorney for the Utah Media Coalition, of which KSL is a member.

The Judicial Conduct Commission conducted a preliminary investigation into the complaint and interviewed Hagen’s ex-husband but ultimately decided not to investigate further. Gov. Spencer Cox, Senate President Stuart Adams and House Speaker Mike Schultz told KSL that’s concerning.

“An initial review by the Judicial Conduct Commission and the court left important questions unresolved,” they said in a joint statement Thursday. “Allegations of this nature, especially involving public officials, must be examined with transparency and accountability to establish the facts and to maintain public confidence.”

They added, “We will move forward with an independent investigation to ensure the facts are fully examined. This process will be conducted objectively and thoroughly, because maintaining trust in our institutions is essential.”

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New Docs Reinforce The Newest DC District Judge Is A Legal Hack Skilled In Abusing Power

New federal documents released Monday shed more light on the wildly partisan history of power abuses by the troubled D.C. District Court’s newest judge, Sparkle Sooknanan.

An approximately 900-page Department of Justice report released Monday details systematic abuses of power and constitutional violations by Biden administration efforts to prosecute Americans for pro-life speech. Public records inside the report show the amazingly named Sooknanan was deeply involved in these systemic abuses of law and power. And she was rewarded with judicial robes for helping violate the law and Constitution.

During the Biden administration, Sooknanan was first a DOJ deputy associate attorney general, and then principal deputy assistant attorney general in the DOJ’s notoriously corrupt, anti-American Civil Rights Division. While a federal prosecutor, documents show, Sooknanan used her taxpayer-funded government position to collude with privately funded leftist activists to suppress Americans’ constitutional rights to free speech, freedom of association, and free assembly.

The Monday DOJ report discloses several emails from Sooknanan, showing her participation in Biden administration efforts to use an unconstitutional law called the FACE Act to prosecute prolifers for protected public speech.

An email dated May 12, 2023 shows Sooknanan discussing DOJ colleague Sanjay Patel’s appearance at a National Abortion Federation conference to show abortion businesses how to sic federal prosecutors on American citizens who speak against mass unborn murder. Sooknanan asked for a copy of Patel’s presentation that advertised federal assistance prosecuting Americans for prolife speech.

Sooknanan included a link to an Axios article claiming repealing Roe v. Wade increased violence against abortuaries. In fact, violence against prolife women’s health centers also increased at the time, including firebombings and arson against dozens of health charities dedicated to helping poor women sustain at-risk pregnancies.

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New York Hockey Fans Rally to Help NYPD Sergeant Who Received Outrageous Sentence from Far-Left Judge

During Tuesday night’s game between the New York Islanders and the Carolina Hurricanes on Long Island, hockey fans rallied to help jailed ex-NYPD Sgt. Erik Duran, during a fundraising push to help him in his fight to overturn the controversial sentence handed down by a far-left judge.

In August 2023, fleeing drug suspect Eric Duprey died after a Duran tossed a cooler he grabbed from a local family’s sidewalk table at him. Duprey, who was fleeing a Bronx buy-and-bust drug sting at the time, was knocked off his bike. Duprey died from injuries following the incident.

Duran was charged with second-degree manslaughter in January 2024.

Last week, The New York Post reported that radical Bronx Judge Guy Mitchell handed Duran a sentence of 3 to 9 years in prison despite pleas from the father of three to show mercy.

“Your honor, I am asking for a chance to be there with my kids. I am asking for a chance, just one,” Duran said.

During the Islanders game,  the NYPD’s Sergeants Benevolent Association shared a fundraiser for Duran on the Jumbotron to help him raise funds to overturn the harsh sentence.

The New York Post reports:

“This is all about Erik’s family,” said union head Vincent Vallelong, who was joined at the game by Post executive Patrick Judge, Islanders co-owner Jon Ledecky and other SBA members.

“Whatever it takes to get him out, is exactly what it is everyone on this board believes and everybody in law enforcement is going to do at this point. The message is that basically, this is going to affect law enforcement across the nation. They all feel that this can happen in their cities.”

Islanders fans were given the option to donate directly to the fund, which had already raised $40,000 as of Tuesday morning, via a QR code displayed on the jumbotron.

A portion of Tuesday night’s 50/50 raffle that took in nearly $45,000 will also go toward the legal fund launched Monday by the SBA to help Duran appeal his conviction.

The fundraiser, spearheaded by The National Police Defense Foundation (NPDF) notes, “In August 2023, Sgt. Erik Duran, a highly decorated member of the NYPD, was supervising a “buy and bust” operation in the Bronx. One of the suspects attempted to evade capture by mounting a nearby motorcycle and driving it on the sidewalk, directly at responding officers. Fearing that his officers would be seriously injured or killed by fleeing felon Eric Duprey, Sgt. Duran grabbed an Igloo cooler and hurled it at Duprey to divert him from crashing into his officers, their prisoner, or bystanders.”

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Appeals Court Torches Boasberg For Targeting Trump Immigration Officials: ‘Clear Abuse of Discretion’

D.C. District Chief Judge James Boasberg suffered a humiliating legal defeat on Tuesday in his efforts to stymie President Trump’s deportation of illegal aliens from the United States.

In a 2-1 ruling, a three-judge panel for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals shot down the Obama appointee’s attempted criminal contempt proceedings against Trump administration officials involved in last year’s deportation of suspected Tren de Aragua gang members to El Salvador. More specifically, the panel granted the government’s request for a writ of mandamus, “a rare and extraordinary order from a higher court directing a lower court or government official to stop exceeding their authority,” as described by the Washington Examiner.

The D.C. Circuit panel had temporarily halted Boasberg’s criminal contempt proceedings against the administration back in December. As noted by Judge Neomi Rao in her Tuesday opinion, however, Boasberg nonetheless plowed ahead by “expand[ing]” his inquiry “to extract more information from government counsel about exactly what happened” throughout the aforementioned deportations.

Those actions, Rao summarized, amount to a “clear abuse of discretion” by Boasberg.

“The district court proposes to probe high-level Executive Branch deliberations about matters of national security and diplomacy. These proceedings are a clear abuse of discretion, as the district court’s order said nothing about transferring custody of the plaintiffs and therefore lacks the clarity to support criminal contempt based on the transfer of custody,” Rao wrote for the majority. “Moreover, the government has already provided the name of the responsible official [then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem], so further judicial investigation is unnecessary and therefore improper. In these circumstances, mandamus is appropriate to prevent the district court from assuming an antagonistic jurisdiction that encroaches on the autonomy of the Executive Branch.”

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A Court Banned a Man from ChatGPT. No One Asked If That’s Constitutional.

On April 13, a California Superior Court judge granted a temporary restraining order requiring OpenAI to keep a user locked out of ChatGPT until at least May 6.

The user, identified in court filings only as “John Roe,” has been arrested on four felony counts, found incompetent to stand trial, and recently ordered released from custody on a technicality.

His ex-girlfriend, proceeding as “Jane Doe,” filed a lawsuit and emergency application alleging that ChatGPT fed Roe’s delusional thinking, generated fake psychological reports about her, and helped facilitate a months-long stalking campaign.

We obtained a copy of the complaint for you here.

The facts in the complaint are disturbing. But the court’s order raises a question that no one in the courtroom appears to have seriously grappled with, and that matters far more than this one case: can a judge order a person cut off from an AI platform without considering whether that violates the First Amendment?

OpenAI at least mentioned the problem. The company’s opposition brief cited Packingham v. North Carolina, the 2017 Supreme Court decision that struck down a state law barring sex offenders from social media.

Justice Kennedy, writing for a unanimous Court, called the internet “the modern public square” and warned against broadly restricting access to platforms where people speak, read, and think.

OpenAI’s lawyers argued that a court-ordered ban on a user’s access to a general-purpose AI service raises the same kind of constitutional concern. The plaintiff’s lawyers did not address it at all.

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Harold Kahn granted the TRO anyway, ordering Roe’s accounts to remain suspended.

According to Eugene Volokh, the George Mason law professor and First Amendment scholar who followed the hearing through a research assistant, there was no meaningful discussion of the user’s speech rights by the court.

That should worry anyone who cares about the principle that the government cannot casually strip individuals of access to communications technology, even individuals who have done terrible things.

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Canadian Judge Pauses the Certification of the Results in the Citizen Petition for the Independence of Oil-Rich Alberta Province

Will Alberta leave decadent Canada behind?

The process of forcing a referendum on oil-rich Alberta’s independence from woke Canada is going so well that the Canadian liberal establishment has started openly trying to derail the process.

It has arisen today that a Canadian judge has granted a month-long stay preventing Alberta’s chief electoral officer from certifying the results of a petition.

CBC reported:

“Justice Shaina Leonard’s ruling on Friday afternoon also prevents Stay Free Alberta, the group behind the petition, from referring the matter to Justice Minister Mickey Amery once signatures are submitted.

The decision follows an application from two of three First Nations groups who say they believe the petition process threatens treaty rights. The Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) and the Blackfoot Confederacy have been seeking a stay on the petition campaign pending a final ruling.”

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U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Overturns the 45-Year Drug Trafficking Sentence of Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned this April, the conviction and sentence imposed on former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández.

The court ordered the case to be remanded to District Judge Kevin Castel with clear instructions to dismiss the accusation in full, declaring the proceedings moot following the presidential pardon granted by Donald Trump on December 1, 2025.

Hernández, who governed Honduras between 2014 and 2022, had been extradited in April 2022 and sentenced in June 2024 to 45 years in prison on charges of conspiring to import cocaine into the United States and related firearms offenses.

The federal prosecution alleged that he facilitated the passage of more than 400 tons of cocaine during his term in office, relying primarily on the testimony of convicted drug traffickers.

However, Trump always maintained that Hernández was the victim of a “setup” and “unfair and harsh” treatment by the previous administration—a position that materialized in the full and unconditional pardon issued in December 2025, the same day the former Honduran leader regained his freedom.

The presidential pardon left the pending appeal without legal basis, rendering it “moot.” For that reason, the Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal and ordered the district court’s sentence to be vacated—a step that amounts to erasing the judicial record of the conviction.

Hernández celebrated the victory on his X account with a direct message: “Court of Appeals overturns sentence and conviction, orders Judge Kevin Castel to dismiss the charges.”

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Texas Judge Pauses New Rules Banning Hemp Products Like Smokable THCA Flower Amid Legal Challenge From Industry

A Texas judge has issued a temporary restraining order preventing the enforcement of new state rules restricting access to hemp-derived products such as smokable THCA flower.

The ruling on Friday comes in a lawsuit brought by a coalition of hemp industry leaders and advocacy organizations that claim the Department of State Health Services (DSHS) and the Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) illegally bypassed lawmakers to effectively ban the sale and manufacture of certain consumable hemp products.

The order from District Court of Travis County Judge Guerra Gamble pauses the new hemp product restrictions for 14 days while the broader legal dispute is considered.

“This lawsuit is really based on a constitutional separation powers issue,” Jason Snell, an attorney for the plaintiffs, including the Texas Hemp Business Council (THBC) and Hemp Industry & Farmers of America (HIFA), said during a hearing on Friday, characterizing the new restrictions enacted by regulators as “illegal rules.”

“Here we are today, with the regulators attempting to do what the legislators could not and did not do, and that’s illegal,” he said. “What the legislature refuses to enact cannot be imposed through rulemaking. The rule-makers cannot overstep their authority and enact rules that are more restrictive than what the legislators have enacted.”

“Thousands of people lose their products, their lifetime investments, their businesses, their jobs, everything they poured their heart and soul into,” Snell said. “Those are already going away and could be gone forever unless this illegal regulatory framework is stopped.”

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Obama-Appointed Judge DISMISSES DOJ Lawsuit to Obtain Massachusetts’ Unredacted Voter Rolls

Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge Leo T. Sorokin has dismissed the Trump DOJ’s lawsuit demanding the Commonwealth’s full, unredacted statewide voter registration list.

The case, United States v. William Francis Galvin, was part of the Department of Justice’s aggressive nationwide crackdown to force states to turn over their voter rolls under Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 to root out dead voters, non-citizens illegally registered, duplicates, and other irregularities that threaten the integrity of our elections.

But in Massachusetts, Democrat Secretary of State William Francis Galvin refused to hand over the data. The DOJ sued. And now, an Obama judge has let him off the hook on a technicality.

According to the 13-page order issued Thursday, Judge Sorokin ruled that the DOJ’s demand letter failed to include a proper “statement of the basis” for requesting the records, as required by the 1960 law.

The judge wrote that the Attorney General’s August 14, 2025, letter stated the purpose (to check compliance with NVRA and HAVA list maintenance rules) but offered zero factual basis, no specific concerns, no anomalies, no complaints, just a blanket demand for Massachusetts’ entire computerized voter list.

The court slammed the demand as “facially deficient” and tossed the entire complaint and motion to compel. Motions to dismiss from Galvin and intervenors were declared moot.

This marks the fourth loss for the DOJ, with zero wins, out of 30 active cases.

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