Tag: judges

Judge rules Scottish guidance for housing trans prisoners is unlawful

A judge has ruled that prison guidance which allows some transgender prisoners to be held in jails matching their gender identity, rather than their sex at birth, is unlawful.

Judge Lady Ross said sex segregation in prisons must be based on biological sex, based on a Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a woman in equality law in April last year.

Campaign group For Women Scotland challenged the Scottish government guidance through a judicial review, saying only those born biologically female should be held in the women’s estate.

Lawyers for the government had argued this would breach transgender prisoners’ human rights. The first minister said they will take time to consider the judgement.

Lady Ross said the guidance was “in conflict with the requirement that prison accommodation be provided separately for men and women” and constituted “a mis-statement of the law”.

She said: “In all the circumstances, the prisons guidance is unlawful.”

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DERANGED Anti-Trump Leftist Charged with Hate Crime After Burning Cross With MAGA Hat on Top in Chicago’s Grant Park Released From Jail — Judge Only Bans Him From Possessing Wood or Kerosene

A 21-year-old anti-Trump activist charged with multiple felonies, including hate crimes, was released from jail Thursday after burning a cross in Chicago’s Grant Park and placing a Make America Great Again hat on top of it.

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, what was initially hyped by Chicago officials, Rev. Michael Pfleger, and media as a racist “white supremacist” or KKK-style attack in Grant Park turned out to be the work of a deranged anti-Trump, anti-MAGA leftist.

On June 9, 2026, police and firefighters responded to a burning cross in Chicago’s Grant Park.

The incident prompted immediate backlash, and one local church offered a $10,000 reward to help make an arrest, and local officials were quick to blame the incident on racism and ‘white supremacists.’

Block Club Chicago reports that Rev. Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina Church, who offered the reward,  noted, “Racism has always been a part of America’s DNA, and this week it has raised its head boldly and loudly,” Pfleger said in a statement.

“This bold rise of racism must be condemned by every race, faith community, and Chicagoan as was done with the swastika and treated as a hate crime.”

As it turns out, however, the cross-burner is an Asian man, Merlin Lu, 21, a University of Illinois Chicago senior, who burned the cross, adorned with a MAGA hat, to protest President Trump and MAGA.

Lu allegedly told police that “The greatest threat to the American people is [President] Trump, [Jeffrey] Epstein, their billionaire pedophile friends, and their MAGA Christian nationalist base.”

Now, the same Merlin Lu,  has been released back onto the streets by a Cook County judge after facing serious felony charges for torching a cross with a MAGA hat tied on top.

On Thursday, Lu appeared in Cook County court. Despite the gravity of the charges, multiple felonies targeting a protected class and using fire to intimidate, the judge refused to detain him. Lu was released pending trial (next court date June 22).

The judge’s tough-talking condition? Lu is prohibited from possessing fire-starting materials like wood or kerosene. That’s it.

Not held without bond. Not monitored aggressively. Just “don’t buy wood or kerosene,” as if this unhinged individual who openly frames Trump supporters and Christians as existential threats alongside pedophile billionaires will suddenly become harmless without kindling.

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Trump-Appointed Judge Orders ICE to Release Hamas-Linked Milwaukee Mosque President Salah Sarsour Despite Terror Convictions and Immigration Fraud Allegations

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the immediate release of Salah Sarsour, the president of Wisconsin’s largest mosque. Sarsour had been locked up by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who flagged him as a serious foreign policy and national security threat.

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, ICE arrested Salah Sarsour, president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee (Wisconsin’s largest mosque) and board member of the pro-Palestinian group American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), on March 30.

DHS labeled him a terrorist. He was convicted by an Israeli military court of throwing a Molotov cocktail at Israeli forces and later attempting to possess weapons and ammunition. He allegedly lied on his U.S. immigration forms to secure a green card under President Bill Clinton.

Sarsour also raised funds for the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), the Hamas front group convicted of funneling over $12 million to terrorists. An FBI memo from 2001 listed him as a Hamas fundraiser in the U.S. through HLF. His brother Imad was similarly flagged.

Now a federal judge has set him free.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge James Patrick Hanlon, nominated to the bench by President Trump in 2018, ordered ICE to immediately release Sarsour from the Indiana county jail where he was being held, according to CNN.

Hanlon ruled that Sarsour raised a “substantial” claim he was targeted for speaking out in favor of Palestinian rights. The judge said ICE and DHS failed to provide enough evidence to refute allegations of retaliation for protected speech or explain why Sarsour suddenly became a national security threat after more than three decades as a legal permanent resident.

“The mere invocation of foreign relations concerns does not automatically trump First Amendment rights,” Hanlon wrote in the decision, according to CNN.

Sarsour was released within hours. He returned to Milwaukee, where supporters greeted him as he headed back to the Islamic Society of Milwaukee.

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Judge Allows DOJ to Release 70 Hours of Audiotapes of Biden’s Conversations with Ghostwriter

Judge Friedrich stayed her own order pending appeal and gave the DC Circuit Court of Appeals three weeks to make a decision on whether the DOJ can release Biden’s audiotapes.

A federal judge on Friday cleared the way for the Justice Department to release recordings of Biden’s conversations with his ghostwriter to the Oversight Project.

US District Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, said the redactions were sufficient.

Biden’s lawyers immediately requested an injunction pending appeal.

The Oversight Project previously filed a FOIA lawsuit requesting records from Special Counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into Biden.

Last month, it was reported that the DOJ was preparing to release damning audio of Biden’s interview with former Special Counsel Robert Hur. The Department is also going to release 2017 audio recordings of conversations with his ghostwriter in which he disclosed classified information.

Biden previously asserted executive privilege over the audio recordings related to then-Special Counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into his stolen classified documents scandal.

Then-US Attorney General Merrick Garland classified the audio tapes of Biden’s interview with Hur as “Top Secret” and locked it way in a SCIF.

The Oversight Project vowed to obtain and release Biden’s audio recordings of his conversation with his ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer.

The Oversight Project celebrated the win on Friday.

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Former Judge’s ICE Obstruction Conviction Upheld

A federal judge in Milwaukee refused Tuesday to throw out former Wisconsin Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan’s felony obstruction conviction, clearing the way to sentencing in a case that became an early flash point in the Trump administration’s courthouse immigration arrests.

U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman denied Dugan’s motion for reconsideration in a 32-page order, ruling that her conduct on April 18, 2025, when she led Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a Mexican national, out a private jury door while federal immigration agents waited in the corridor, obstructed a “pending proceeding” within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. Section 1505.

Adelman, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, did not reset a sentencing date.

Dugan’s lawyers had pressed Adelman to reconsider after the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals split 2-1 in April to vacate a conviction in United States v. Hernandez, holding that Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s execution of an already-issued removal order did not count as a “pending proceeding” under the statute.

Dugan’s legal team called Tuesday’s decision “wrong.”

Adelman, however, drew a sharp factual line.

In Hernandez, ICE was finishing the job after another agency had ordered removal.

Here, Adelman wrote that ICE was still investigating, securing probable cause, and seeking to arrest Flores-Ruiz before any removal order had been reinstated.

“This case did not involve some random encounter on the street,” Adelman said in the order. “It was a targeted operation, conducted pursuant to agency procedures, including the issuance of an arrest warrant for a specific person, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz.”

The judge also rejected the defense’s broader claim that ICE arrests are indistinguishable from routine police work.

“Unlike, say, the FBI, ICE can issue its own warrants and adjudicate and effectuate a removal, as it did with Flores-Ruiz, without the involvement of a court,” Adelman wrote. “This makes a difference under section 1505.”

A jury convicted Dugan, 67, on Dec. 19 of the obstruction felony and acquitted her of a misdemeanor concealment charge.

She resigned from the Milwaukee County Circuit Court two weeks later, after nine years on the bench, amid impeachment threats from Republican state lawmakers.

She faces up to five years in prison, though federal guidelines typically call for probation for first-time, nonviolent offenders.

Flores-Ruiz pleaded guilty to illegal reentry and was deported on Nov. 13, 2025.

The case is widely expected to reach the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after sentencing.

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Alabama Probate Judge Suspended After 120-Page Complaint Accuses Her of Delaying Hearings to Walk Dogs, Making Racist Comments About White Staff, and Worse

An Alabama probate judge has been suspended following a massive 120-page complaint that accuses her of serious judicial misconduct, including delaying critical hearings for mental health patients so she could walk her dogs, making racist remarks about a white court employee, and ignoring a staff member’s plea to be near her dying sister with cancer.

Jefferson County Probate Judge Yashiba G. Blanchard was suspended on May 21, the same day the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission filed formal charges against her with the Court of the Judiciary.

The complaint details a pattern of abuse of power, docket mismanagement, bias, intimidation, and retaliation that harmed patients, families, and court staff.

One of the allegations involves Blanchard’s handling of involuntary commitment and guardianship cases. The complaint claims she routinely delayed or canceled probable cause hearings, creating a massive backlog.

In one case, hospital staff repeatedly contacted her office begging for a hearing so a patient could be discharged and go home for Thanksgiving with family.

Blanchard allegedly canceled the hearing, forcing the patient to remain hospitalized for an additional two weeks.

An email from hospital staff read, “This patient will now remain hospitalized for an additional two weeks solely due to the lack of timely access to the hearing process. This not only prevents her from being home with her family for Thanksgiving, but it also generates unnecessary hospitalization costs and creates avoidable emotional distress for the patient.”

The complaint states that Blanchard’s failure to promptly handle court business created a disservice to Jefferson County citizens, forcing some to seek services elsewhere.

The complaint also accuses Blanchard of making a racist comment about white chief clerk Amanda Reid.

A staffer was reportedly asked by the judge if they liked Reid.

When the staffer said yes, Blanchard allegedly replied, “Oh, I forgot you all like kissing white ass.”

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‘Grotesque abuse’: Judge orders homeschooling parents to JAIL for failing to teach daughters government ‘gender’ lessons

In a stunning illustration of what happens when politically correct and biased judges, driven by leftist social agendas, are put behind the bench, one jurist has ordered two homeschooling parents to jail for 50 days for failing to teach their daughters the judge’s version of “gender” education.

The parents now have convictions for “intellectual neglect,” issued by the unidentified Brazilian judge, according to a report from ADF International.

The legal team reported the judge issued his wild opinion that was opposite of even recommendations from prosecutors, who listened to witnesses and results of the social and academic development of the girls, both accomplished pianists who speak multiple languages, and then said the parents should be acquitted.

The judge was accepting no evidence, however, and said the parents were “using their daughters as pawns in an ideological struggle, subjecting them to a form of unregulated education, the effectiveness and quality of which lack adequate metrics within the Brazilian legal system, while completely excluding the State’s involvement.”

The report identified the parents as Audato and Ieda Denardi, and their sentences are suspended while they appeal to a higher court.

The judge also ranted against the parents because he thought the girls, ages 11 and 15, didn’t like Brazilian folk music, leading him to assume that they weren’t educated properly in “diversity.”

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Biden Judge Blocks Idaho Law Criminalizing Transgender Bathroom Use

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked Idaho’s law that criminalized transgender bathroom use.

US District Judge Amanda Brailsford, a Biden appointee, issued a preliminary injunction blocking Idaho’s H.B. 752, which banned transgender people from using restrooms that did not match their biological gender.

Idaho’s law, which was set to go into effect on July 1, threatened to jail transgender people for five years if they broke the law.

The ghouls at the ACLU celebrated the judge’s ruling.

“This ruling means trans folks in Idaho can continue participating in public life without the threat of being arrested for using the bathroom,” said Paul Carlos Southwick, ACLU of Idaho Legal Director. “Trans Idahoans have been understandably anxious about the disruption this unconstitutional law would cause in their daily lives. This ruling will relieve that anxiety for our trans friends and neighbors.”

“This decision provides significant protections for transgender people in Idaho from the efforts of state politicians to force them out of public life altogether,” said Barbara Schwabauer, senior staff attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project. “No one should be forced to choose between the threat of arrest for being themselves in public or the threat of harassment and violence for acting the way the state wants them to be. The preliminary injunction is a vital first step as we continue to challenge this gross violation of privacy and fundamental equality until the law is blocked for good.”

“Our Constitution provides critical protections against laws that are unclear and that call on officers to make arbitrary judgments about how to enforce them, especially when the law threatens imprisonment,” said Kell Olson, Counsel with Lambda Legal. “The court recognized that threat in providing relief to plaintiffs today. This ruling will allow transgender people throughout Idaho to find and use a public restroom, without the fear of arrest looming over them, while we continue the longer fight to permanently defeat this discriminatory law in court.”

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Federal Court Strikes Down Landmark Fluoride Ruling on Technicality — ‘Not the Science’

Citing a procedural question, a federal appeals court has vacated a landmark decision that found fluoridated drinking water poses an “unreasonable risk” to children’s health. The court sent the case back to the district judge and ordered him to ignore any scientific evidence uncovered after 2020. Attorney Michael Connett told The Defender the court instructed the judge “to travel back in time to 2020 and make this ruling based on a stale factual record.”

A federal appeals court has vacated a landmark decision that found fluoridated drinking water poses an “unreasonable risk” to children’s health under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did not challenge the substance of the lower court’s findings — that fluoride is toxic to children and ought to be regulated. Instead, the court based its decision on procedural issues related to the lower court’s handling of the litigation.

The case will now go back to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, where District Judge Edward Chen will be required to exclude all scientific evidence that became available after 2020.

Michael Connett, attorney for the plaintiffs, told The Defender the court “instructed Judge Chen to travel back in time to 2020 and make this ruling based on a stale factual record.”

Connett said the directive to ignore years’ worth of evidence on fluoride’s dangers runs counter to the intent of the TSCA — which is to protect hundreds of millions of Americans from substances that are harmful to human health.

The federal appeals court ruling, handed down late Thursday, stemmed from a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) brought by consumer advocacy groups including Food & Water Watch, the Fluoride Action Network (FAN), and Moms Against Fluoridation.

The groups sued after the EPA refused to consider their 2016 citizens’ petition asking the agency to regulate fluoride.

After two bench trials, Chen ruled that fluoride at the federally recommended concentration of 0.7 milligrams/liter (mg/L) posed an “unreasonable risk” to children’s health and ordered the EPA to regulate it accordingly.

However, the 9th Circuit panel said the lower court violated the “party presentation principle” — a legal doctrine requiring courts to act as neutral arbiters rather than taking control of a case’s factual development.

Connett said the decision was “a very expansive and unprecedented application of the party presentation principle.” He said that to date, “this principle has really only been applied to situations where judges raise new legal issues, not where judges use procedural mechanisms to resolve the issues presented.”

Under the TSCA, if the EPA denies a citizen petition, petitioners have the right to sue the agency. The law is unique because it specifies that the court then evaluates whether the chemical in question presents an unreasonable risk to health or the environment in a “de novo” proceeding, during which it evaluates evidence presented by both sides and gives no deference to the agency.

Rather than ruling after the first trial in 2020, Chen put the trial on hold, pending the release of a multiyear government study into fluoride’s neurotoxic effects, so he could base his decision on all available evidence.

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Judge in Karmelo Anthony Case Calls the Murderer a ‘Nice Kid’

Collin County District Judge John Roach defended his decision to bar cameras and livestreaming from Karmelo Anthony’s high-profile murder trial, calling it “an easy decision” made to protect the fairness of the proceedings, but raised many eyebrows when he called the killer a “nice kid.”

In a post-verdict interview with WFAA, Roach described the now-convicted 19-year-old Anthony as “a nice young man who committed a crime and he understands today more than any day before the consequences of committing a crime like he did.”

Anthony was sentenced to 35 years in prison last week for the first-degree murder of 17-year-old Austin Metcalf during a Frisco high school track meet in April 2025.

The stabbing occurred at Kuykendall Stadium in Frisco, Texas, when Anthony, who was on school suspension and not supposed to be at the event, approached the tent area belonging to rival Memorial High School.

Witnesses said Metcalf told Anthony to leave, and a confrontation ensued.

Anthony then pulled out a knife he had brought and stabbed Metcalf in the chest, piercing his heart.

Metcalf died in the arms of his twin brother.

Anthony admitted to the stabbing but claimed self-defense. A jury rejected that claim.

Judge Roach explained his camera ban during the interview.

“Yes, it was an easy decision. I’ll tell you why. My primary goal in every case is to make sure the defendant and the prosecution get a fair trial. Period.”

The judge acknowledged that the decision angered some people but emphasized he was not there to make anyone happy. Roach said he had to balance the media’s right to know what was happening with the need to prevent outside commentary or public pressure from influencing the jury or proceedings.

“I know I made people mad, but I’m not here to make them happy either,” he stated. “As long as I follow the law, I sleep well at night.”

Roach pushed back against suggestions of any personal connection to the Metcalf family, saying he would not have recognized Jeff Metcalf, Austin’s father, before the trial.

He defended the jury’s verdict, noting that jurors were selected in accordance with the law, heard the facts presented in court, and rendered their decision.

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