Tag: judges

US judge blocks Trump threat to jail Gaza justice advocates

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from imposing fines and prison sentences on US human rights advocates for sharing evidence with the International Criminal Court (ICC) or working with Palestinian human rights groups targeted by US sanctions.

In a 30-page ruling on 13 October, Judge Jesse Furman of the Southern District of New York granted a preliminary injunction protecting Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), the Taxpayer Alliance Against Genocide (TAAG) and two TAAG members from penalties for their human rights advocacy.

The decision comes three months after the organizations sued the Trump administration, arguing that sanctions aimed at shielding US and Israeli officials from prosecution for war crimes and crimes against humanity violate Americans’ constitutional rights.

Under the sanctions, individuals could face up to 20 years in prison and $1 million in fines for providing prohibited services to sanctioned individuals or organizations.

Furman found that the sanctions likely violate the First Amendment because they restrict speech based on its content and cannot survive the demanding constitutional test applied to such restrictions.

DAWN called the ruling “a landmark victory for free speech.”

Omar Shakir, the Washington-based human rights group’s executive director, said the ruling had “put the brakes in a major way” on the administration’s “efforts to shield from justice the Israeli officials who have perpetrated a genocide and their US backers.”

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It Happened YET AGAIN

A two-year-old girl is fighting for her life after being stabbed multiple times in the face by a complete stranger while sitting in a stroller at a Providence school bus stop. The attacker had previously been accused of stabbing two other children, but was repeatedly found incompetent to stand trial before simply being released back into the community.

Police say the attack was unprovoked. The man did not know the mother or child. Months earlier, a doctor had assessed that he was “not likely to imperil the peace and safety of the community or himself at this time.” A judge accepted the recommendation and allowed him to remain free on outpatient treatment.

What kind of justice system lets a mental guy who previously stabbed two kids walk around freely?

The latest incident occurred in broad daylight Wednesday near Broad Street and Public Street in Providence, Rhode Island. The mother, 26, was waiting with her two-year-old daughter for the child’s siblings to arrive on a school bus. Nelson Blanco, 46, approached them. The mother moved across the street, but Blanco followed, insulted her, and then attacked, according to Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez.

Perez said Blanco stabbed the girl in the face multiple times and stabbed the mother in the shoulder. The attack was “unprovoked,” and the victims did not know the suspect.

Bystanders intervened. Witness Jesse Alice Palmer, a nursing assistant, said the toddler stopped breathing and that she and another woman performed CPR until emergency responders arrived. The girl remains in critical condition at Hasbro Children’s Hospital. The mother was treated and released.

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Newsom Tried to Police Federal Agents, but the Ninth Circuit Said No

Governor Gavin Newsom wanted California to dictate how federal officers identify themselves while enforcing federal law. On Wednesday, the Ninth Circuit delivered an unmistakable answer: the governor’s authority stops well short of directing federal law enforcement operations. Three appellate judges ordered a lower court to block the key identification requirement in Newsom’s No Vigilantes Act.

The October 14 decision goes beyond an ordinary finding that the Justice Department might eventually win. Writing for the panel, Judge Mark Bennett said the federal government was “certain to succeed” on its constitutional claim. California had tried to regulate officers working under federal authority, and the Supremacy Clause stood in its way.

Newsom signed Senate Bill 805 in September 2025 as part of his fight against President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement policies. Section 10 required officers working without uniforms to display their agency and either a name or badge number while performing specified enforcement duties. The provision expressly included federal officers. 

A willful, knowing violation could bring a misdemeanor prosecution under California law.

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Biden-Appointed Judge Orders State Dept. to Open Diversity Visa Lottery

A federal judge has ordered the State Department to open registration for the 2027 diversity visa lottery.

U.S. District Judge Jinsook Ohta, a Biden appointee who immigrated from South Korea at age six, granted the preliminary injunction Wednesday, directing Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the department to run the green card lottery on a court-set timeline. The order came in a lawsuit brought by a Southern California immigration firm.

The department has to announce the registration period this week, open a 30-day window for electronic entries by Oct. 18, and notify selected applicants by Nov. 19. After that, it must process and award the visas until the 2027 allotment runs out or the fiscal year ends next September.

The diversity visa program, better known as the green card lottery, hands out up to 50,000 immigrant visas a year to people from countries that send few immigrants to the United States. Congress created it in 1990.

The ruling is a turnaround for Ohta. Weeks earlier, the judge denied an emergency bid from the same firm to force the program open, and questioned whether she had the power to do it at all.

“You’re asking me to demand that the government restart this program,” Ohta said from the bench at that hearing.

The suit was filed in July by Red Eagle Law, which sued Rubio over the department’s failure to open 2027 registration. The firm argued the inaction was “arbitrary, capricious, and not in accordance with law,” and said it had lost clients because much of its practice involves lottery applicants.

Government lawyers countered that the firm had waited too long and that the statutory deadline to run the program had already passed, leaving the court no lawful way to order it reopened. The firm called the failure a “de facto cancellation.”

The lottery has been in limbo since December, when Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem paused it after the Brown University shooter was found to have entered the country through the program in 2017. The State Department resumed issuing diversity visas in August under a separate court order, and a second federal judge in Northern California has found the department delayed processing in a related case.

The order drew a run of dismissive replies under Josh Gerstein’s X post, where commenters questioned whether a judge can direct the executive branch to run an administrative program, while others seized on the name of the judge who did.

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Missouri Judge LOCKS UP Two Children in Juvenile Detention After They Refuse to Go with Their Mother — Federal Appeals Court Strips His Immunity Defense: “Judges Do Not Do Double Duty as Jailers”

A Missouri judge who ordered two children locked inside juvenile detention cells because they refused to leave a courthouse with their mother has been dealt a humiliating defeat in federal court.

On Tuesday, October 13, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled against Missouri Circuit Judge Eric Eighmy, concluding that his outrageous handling of a family custody dispute violated the children’s clearly established constitutional rights.

The decision, written by Circuit Judge David Stras, upheld a jury’s $10,000 damages award to the children, along with a staggering $326,637.22 in attorney fees and costs.

And the reason for the children’s detention? They simply refused to leave with their mother following a custody hearing.

The parents and their attorneys reached a temporary agreement allowing the children to stay with their mother. However, Kadan and Brooklyn Rockett, who advanced to the semifinals of America’s Got Talent in 2016 with their jaw-dropping magic act and have appeared in Hollywood films, wanted to remain with their father to avoid disrupting their budding entertainment careers.

They were never parties to the case and never entered the courtroom. After the hearing, they argued with their mother in the courthouse hallway.

Judge Eighmy, according to the lawsuit and later findings, removed his robe, intervened, lectured the children on the “evils of Hollywood,” and grew frustrated when they stood firm.

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Biden Judge Orders Immediate Halt to Trump Ads After Trump Says He’ll Pay for Them Himself

A Biden-appointed judge has ruled that the Trump Administration must cease the production and airing of government-funded advertisements ahead of the midterms. 

In other words, Trump can no longer promote the United States of America or his administration in government-funded ads.

The Department of Homeland Security told the court last night that there were “no plans” to air additional ads, while asking the judge to reject the request by progressive groups for an emergency order to block the ads.

Still, U.S. District Judge Jennifer Rochon ordered the Trump Administration to stop using DHS funds to create or disseminate the ads and to cancel any upcoming ad slots for a two-week duration as court proceedings continue.

The ads, which came under fire last week, feature Trump’s statements about draining the swamp, ridding the government of Communists, and liberating America “from these villains once and for all.” The White House has described the campaign as “educational and unapologetically patriotic” public service announcements, aimed at “reminding Americans to love their country and understand what makes it worth defending, at home, at our borders, and abroad.”

“This is the final battle. With you at my side. We will demolish the deep state. We will expel the war mongers from our government. We will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the Communists, Marxists, and Fascists. We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country. We will rout the fake news media, and we will liberate America from these villains once and for all,” Trump says in one of the ads.

At the end of the ad, a disclaimer reads: “Paid for by the U.S. Government.”

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Biden-Appointed Activist Judge Sparkle Sooknanan Blocks Trump DOJ’s Nationwide Voter Roll Cleanup Effort — Even in States That Voluntarily Cooperated

A Biden-appointed federal judge has once again stepped in to shield dirty voter rolls from federal scrutiny, striking down the Justice Department’s nationwide effort to collect registration records and identify suspected non-U.S. citizens on the rolls.

U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, who was born in Trinidad and Tobago, ruled that the Department of Justice overstepped its bounds by demanding unredacted voter registration lists and cross-referencing them using federal databases.

According to the 78-page ruling, the DOJ began requesting complete, unredacted statewide voter registration lists (including names, dates of birth, addresses, and driver’s license or partial Social Security numbers) from 49 states and the District of Columbia starting in May 2025. At least 18 states fully cooperated.

The department then shared the data with DHS for runs through the expanded Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system and urged states to remove voters flagged as potentially ineligible.

The Justice Department maintained that its actions were authorized by federal laws governing voter registration and election administration.

Sooknanan rejected that argument.

Sooknanan concluded that the Justice Department’s policy violated the Privacy Act and the Paperwork Reduction Act, exceeded the agency’s statutory authority, and was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act.

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Feral Youth Leaves Man’s INTESTINES Hanging Out; Judge Lets Him Walk The SAME DAY

A 19-year-old charged with stabbing a man in Pittsburgh’s Garfield neighborhood, so badly that officers found the victim’s intestines protruding, was released the same day on a promise to come back to court. 

He did not have to post a dime. Eight days later he was the prime suspect in yet another stabbing, this one at an East Liberty bus station, and he is now charged with attempted homicide.

District Judge Dan Butler signed the non-monetary bond. Pittsburgh Police Chief Jason Lando, expressed disbelief that the suspect was walking free. This all occurred in Democrat-run Allegheny County.

On September 23, police were called to the 5000 block of Penn Avenue after a fight that began on a bus. WPXI reported that officers arrived to a man whose intestines were hanging out of his body. Delvin Dobbins, 19, was chased a short distance, tased, and found with a bloodied knife. He was charged with aggravated assault. The victim was hospitalized in serious condition and survived.

Chief Lando addressed the case the next morning on local radio.

“I remember in the police report it said when the officers arrived on scene the man’s intestines were protruding,” Lando said. “The officers immediately began rendering aid to prevent him from bleeding out.”

Incredibly, Butler released Dobbins on a non-monetary bond that same day. No cash. A signature and a date. Sources told WPXI’s 11 Investigates that Butler should not have done it. The Fifth Judicial District, which oversees Allegheny County magistrates, declined to comment.

Lando said he assumed the suspect was still locked up.

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Clinton-Appointed Judge Sides with Illegal Aliens Against Trump’s Civil Immigration Fines

A federal judge appointed by former President Bill Clinton sided with illegal aliens who were fined by President Donald Trump’s administration for civil immigration violations.

For more than a year, the Trump administration has used civil immigration fines to incentivize illegal aliens to self-deport from the United States. As of July of this year, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has levied more than $84 billion in fines against about 103,000 illegal aliens in the United States.

This week, Judge George A. O’Toole, appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts by Clinton, sided with a pair of illegal aliens the Trump administration fined, claiming that DHS violated federal law when issuing its final rule that permitted the use of the fines.

“The plaintiffs here face assessment and possible collection of enormous fines well beyond their capacity to pay,” O’Toole wrote of the two plaintiffs:

Maria L., a nail technician on a variable salary, was issued a significant fine in the hundreds of thousands. A victim of political violence in her home country, she reports that the fine has affected her health, increased her anxiety, caused depression, and led to her missing work for a month. [Emphasis added]

Nancy M. was fined over 1.8 million dollars. She is a laborer working over sixty hours a week with two jobs, and she reports feeling serious anxiety affecting her ability to sleep, eat, and live a normal life. Given the amount of the fines, the plaintiffs face the possibility of garnishment of wages and bank accounts, seized assets such as vehicles and homes, IRS reports, federal collections suits, and adverse future admissibility determinations. [Emphasis added]

O’Toole granted the motion to stay that was sought by the plaintiffs in the case, preventing the Trump administration from collecting such fines on illegal aliens.

Trump administration officials previously told Breitbart News that the fines are critical to getting illegal aliens to self-deport from the United States.

The case is Maria L. v. Noem, No. 1:25-cv-13471 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

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Military Judge Throws Out Confessions of Fourth Defendant in 9/11 Case

A military judge on Wednesday tossed out the confessions of a fourth defendant in the government’s 9/11 case.

3,000 Americans were killed in the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the Twin Towers in New York, the Pentagon, and a downed plane in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Walid bin Attash is accused of helping train two of the hijackers.

“Tell the judge that I am very proud for my part in the Planes Operation,” Walid bin Attash said to federal agents on January 24, 2007 — the first day of the interrogations, according to The New York Times.

The judge, Lt. Col Michael Schrama, ruled that bin Attash’s previous confessions to the CIA were coerced and therefore not admissible.

This is the latest blow to the federal government.

The New York Times reported:

The judge in the Sept. 11 case on Wednesday excluded the last disputed confessions of a prisoner accused of conspiring in the attacks, once again denying prosecutors evidence they had defended for years as crucial to the case.

The statements were obtained through a program designed by Bush administration lawyers in 2007 because the defendants’ previous statements to the C.I.A. were considered coerced and could not be used against them.

But for the fifth time, a military judge found that confessions obtained by federal agents on so-called clean teams were not admissible.

Lt. Col. Michael Schrama, the judge, ruled that the agents failed to notify Walid bin Attash that what the C.I.A. extracted from him from 2003 to 2006 in forced interrogations could not be used against him. The judge also found that when F.B.I. agents brought treats to their interrogation room to gain Mr. bin Attash’s cooperation they were copying a technique sometimes used by the C.I.A. to keep a prisoner confessing.

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