Tag: judges

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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Biden Judge Says President Trump Cannot End Protected Status for Thousands of Ethiopians

A federal judge on Wednesday said President Trump cannot end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for thousands of Ethiopians.

In 2022, the Biden Regime allowed more than 5,000 Ethiopians to enter the US and live here with special protections.

Their TPS status was extended again in April 2024 and expired on February 13, 2026.

Upon taking office again in January 2025, President Trump immediately revoked the Biden-era ‘Temporary Protected Status’ and ordered the DHS to ensure that the TPS designations were limited.

On Wednesday US District Judge Brian Murphy, a Biden appointee, said President Trump violated the process by revoking the protections.

Judge Murphy postponed the effective date of the termination of Ethiopia’s TPS designation.

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Federal Judge Rejects Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan’s Bid to Toss Out Jury’s Guilty Verdict on Charges for Helping Illegal Alien Evade ICE

A federal judge on Monday rejected Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan’s bid to toss out a jury’s guilty verdict on charges for helping an illegal alien evade ICE agents.

US District Judge Lynn Adelman, a Clinton appointee, denied Hannah Dugan’s motions.

In December, Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan was found guilty of obstruction for helping an illegal alien evade ICE agents.

Dugan was acquitted of count 1 – the misdemeanor but she was found guilty on count 2 – the felony obstruction.

She is facing five years in prison.

Last April, a federal grand jury indicted Hannah Dugan for helping an illegal alien evade ICE agents.

According to the FBI, Dugan became angry when she found out that ICE agents were waiting outside of her courtroom last week to arrest Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, an illegal alien involved in a domestic abuse case she was overseeing. She allegedly directed Flores-Ruiz to exit the courthouse through a private jury door to evade arrest.

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Minnesota Judge Hands Somali Fraudster Just 6 Months After $500K Theft in Child Food Scam

A fraudster in the massive “Feeding Our Future” scandal has received just six months in jail after stealing nearly half a million dollars in taxpayer money meant for children.

Zamzam Jama was sentenced to six months behind bars and ordered to repay $491,000 for her role in the scheme.

The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel, who was somehow appointed by President Trump back in 2018, one day after a co-conspirator received only a one-year term.

Brasel has previously ruled in favor of mail-in voting and counting ballots days or even weeks after an election has concluded. Mail-in ballots are the most common method that Democrats use to cheat.

The case involves one of the largest fraud operations in recent U.S. history.

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US federal judges increasingly turn to AI – study

Over half of US federal judges (60%) are using at least one AI tool in their judicial work, a recent Northwestern University study suggests. The research is based on responses from 112 federal judges, drawn from a random sample of 502 federal bankruptcy, magistrate, district court, and appellate court officials.

The use of AI in courtrooms has recently drawn attention for fabricated citations and other errors that have undermined confidence in some filings. The survey published earlier this week shows that these tools are now being adopted not just by lawyers, but also by federal judges.

The survey found that 60% of judges use AI at least occasionally for tasks such as reviewing documents, conducting legal research, and drafting or editing documents. Around 22% use it daily or weekly. Legal research was the most common (30%), followed by reviewing documents (16%).

Around one in three judges said they permit or encourage AI in their chambers, while 20% formally prohibit it. More than 45% reported that they have not received AI training from the court administration.

While judges acknowledge the risks of AI, experts warn that its unreliability could undermine judicial authority.

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Trump Administration Illegally Ended Parole for Immigrants Who Used Biden-Era App: Judge

The Trump administration failed to follow proper procedure when it terminated temporary protection for hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, a federal judge said on March 31.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary can terminate parole, the temporary protection, but must only do so after finding that “the purposes of such parole … have been served,” according to federal law.

The Biden administration granted parole for more than 900,000 illegal immigrants in 2025, according to lawyers for some of the immigrants. Government officials ended the parole in 2025 after the DHS secretary found the purposes of the parole had been served.

But officials provided no documentation of that determination, meaning that the DHS did not adhere to the law and agency rules, U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs said on March 31.

“Accordingly, the parole terminations exceeded the agency’s statutory authority and contradicted the procedures set forth in its own regulations,” she said in a 25-page ruling.

Burroughs vacated an April 2025 email sent by officials to some foreign nationals who had been granted parole, telling them, “It is time for you to leave the United States” and “please depart the United States immediately.”

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