Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is voicing dissent after the top court ruled in favor of a woman on death row for murdering her husband.
In a shock ruling this week, the court ordered a review of the trial of Brenda Andrew, finding her right to due process was likely violated by prosecutors' focus on her sex life.
An Oklahoma jury convicted Andrew for the November 2001 murder of her husband and sentenced her to death. Andrew's lawyers claim that she was unfairly characterized as a promiscuous woman in front of the jury, but appeals courts at the state and federal level upheld her conviction.
In its unsigned opinion, the Supreme Court ordered a review of the case, finding lower courts improperly analyzed Andrew's due process claim.
"Among other things, the prosecution elicited testimony about Andrew’s sexual partners reaching back two decades; about the outfits she wore to dinner or during grocery runs; about the underwear she packed for vacation; and about how often she had sex in her car," they wrote.
The prosecution later conceded much of its evidence was "irrelevant," the Supreme Court said, but Thomas - joined by Neil Gorsuch - sharply disagreed with that description. Sex and marriage were unavoidable issues during the trial, Thomas said, noting the defense portrayed Andrew as a "good mother."
"In presenting evidence to the contrary, the State was simply rebutting a point that Andrew had placed in issue, as it clearly is entitled to do," Thomas wrote.
Additionally, Thomas said, the state produced "overwhelming evidence" that Andrew conspired to kill her husband with his life insurance agent, Jim Pavatt, with whom she was having an affair. Pavatt was separately found guilty of the murder and sentenced to death.
Andrew's husband, Rob, was shot dead in his estranged wife's garage after she asked for help lighting her furnace.
"Police discovered substantial evidence linking Andrew and Pavatt to the murder. Rob owned a 16-gauge shotgun, but had told friends that Andrew refused to let him take it with him when he moved out," Thomas wrote.
"Rather than attend her husband’s funeral, Andrew traveled with Pavatt and her children to Mexico. She apparently had no plans to return," Thomas added.
A state appeals court found much, but not all, of the sexual evidence "probative" and "highly relevant," Thomas noted. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals decided the introduction of irrelevant evidence was harmless, given the "overwhelming" proof of guilt.
A divided panel of the 10th Circuit also upheld the conviction. One judge dissented, arguing prosectors portrayed Andrew as a "modern Jezebel," removing "any realistic chance that the jury would seriously consider her version of events.”
The Supreme Court's ruling kicks the case back to the 10th Circuit to decide if "the trial court's mistaken admission of irrelevant evidence was so 'unduly prejudicial' as to render her trial 'fundamentally unfair.'"
The Supreme Court rejected a request to hear a Republican-backed case out of Montana concerning election law.
The dispute concerns the scope that state legislatures have to set the rules of federal elections. Montana's Republican legislature passed a pair of election integrity laws that were blocked by the state's left-leaning Supreme Court.
In their request to the U.S. Supreme Court, Montana Republicans said the case is an ideal vehicle for resolving unanswered questions about the court's 2023 precedent Moore v. Harper.
In that case, the Supreme Court largely rejected the so-called independent legislature theory, which holds that state legislatures have exclusive power to make the rules of elections. While the Supreme Court found that judicial review is permissible by state courts, they noted that courts do not have "free rein."
Montana's Republicans argue the state's Supreme Court is exercising free rein and stepping on the legislature's power to set election law.
"In short, the Montana Supreme Court has assumed a de facto new role as the final and exclusive arbiter of all federal election legislation in Montana. This Court’s review is urgently needed,” Montana wrote.
Montana's Supreme Court has interpreted the state's constitution in a liberal fashion, recently ruling there is a right to be protected from greenhouse gases. Montana's Republican Secretary of State, Christi Jacobsen, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold a pair of election laws that the Montana Supreme Court struck down 5-2.
The state's top court found that the laws - which banned same-day voter registration and paid, third-party ballot harvesting - violated the right to vote under the state constitution. Montana's Democrats are fighting to block those laws, which they say would disenfranchise some voters.
“The court’s analysis was based on the ample trial record in this case and firmly grounded in existing Montana law. There was nothing extraordinary or inappropriate about it,” the Democrats wrote in court filings.
Moore v. Harper arose from a dispute over North Carolina's congressional districts after the 2020 census. The state's Supreme Court ruled the map was an unlawful partisan gerrymander favoring Republicans.
The case garnered significant attention, with President Barack Obama praising the United States Supreme Court's 6-3 decision as “a resounding rejection of the far-right theory that has been peddled by election deniers and extremists seeking to undermine our democracy.”
Montana's petition was backed by National Republican Senatorial Committee, 15 other Republican state attorneys general and the America First Legal Foundation. The Supreme Court rejected the case without explanation.
President Trump has reassigned career Justice Department agents, including one high-ranking official who pushed for the shocking FBI raid of Mar-A-Lago.
At least 15 high-ranking DOJ officials have been reassigned to less influential positions, the Washington Post reported. The shuffle is part of Trump's promised overhaul of the DOJ and his effort to end the weaponization of government.
The officials were reassigned, rather than fired, to work around legal protections for career employees, the Post reported. These individuals could decide to resign rather than accept being moved to less desirable posts.
The reassignments reflect Trump's desire to shift the DOJ's focus away from politics and toward national priorities, like immigration enforcement.
As an example of that, Deputy Assistant Attorney General George Toscas was moved to Trump's newly created Office of Sanctuary Cities Enforcement. Toscas, a veteran of the DOJ's national security division, played a crucial role in orchestrating the FBI's controversial raid of Trump's home in 2022.
At the time, there was initial disagreement between the FBI and DOJ about whether a raid was justified. Toscas chewed out FBI officials who supported a voluntary search, telling them he did not "give a damn about the optics" of raiding a former president's home.
"You and your leadership seem to have gone from cautious to fearful,” Toscas reportedly wrote in an email to the former head of the FBI Washington Field Office, Steven D’Antuono.
Toscas also told D'Antuono that he was “way out of line on substance and form" for opposing the raid.
Months after his home was searched, Trump - who was a candidate for the presidency at the time - was charged by the Biden Justice Department with improperly retaining classified documents. The case was eventually withdrawn by prosecutor Jack Smith after Trump's re-election win in the fall.
For Trump and many Americans, the raid of Mar-A-Lago exemplifies the overreach and weaponization of the Biden Justice Department. The raid has even elicited some pointed criticism from Trump's normally reticent wife Melania Trump, who called it a "warning to all Americans."
Trump's nominee to lead the Justice Department, Pam Bondi, is a longtime Trump loyalist and former Florida attorney general who has echoed his criticism of government weaponization.
In one of his boldest moves since reclaiming the presidency, Trump pardoned nearly all of the 1,500 January 6th defendants, effectively ending the largest DOJ probe in history with one stroke.
Meanwhile, Trump's Justice Department has warned that state and local officials could face prosecution if they refuse to carry out Trump's immigration orders.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
One of the more controversial pardons unleashed by Joe Biden on his way out the door of the White House was for Anthony Fauci, the former federal health official.
He reportedly was involved in the origins of COVID-19 to the extent of allowing American funding of the dangerous gain-of-function research in China, and then he demanded that Americans submit to the COVID-19 shots that were created in response to the pandemic that killed millions around the globe.
Those shots themselves have now been confirmed as carrying side effects that could be fatal.
And don't forget the masking and social separation demands.
He once boastfully proclaimed that he is the "science" on the questions of COVID.
WND reported that Fauci promptly expressed his appreciation for the pardon but proclaimed his innocence.
"I really truly appreciate the action President Biden has taken today on my behalf. Let me be perfectly clear, Jon, I have committed no crime, you know that, and there are no possible grounds for any allegation or threat of criminal investigation or prosecution of me," he claimed.
Fauci said he is grateful because the threats and possibility of a politically motivated prosecution "creates immeasurable and intolerable distress on me and my family."
Social media immediately responded with confirmation that people will think Fauci did something wrong, no matter his protestations.
And now a statement from the group called Children's Health Defense said the investigations – and even possible charges – will happen no matter the pardon.
Mary Holland, the organization's chief, explained, "This is another way that the Biden administration is trying to put a shadow over the incoming administration to preserve its own power and to undermine anything that a new administration might do. What we know is that Tony Fauci lied throughout COVID."
She continued that the pardon "is in no way going to stop congressional investigations, and it will not necessarily stop other federal investigations or charges related to other things like taxes, and it won't stop state prosecutions or possibly other prosecutions by other countries."
In fact, Biden's pardon protects Fauci from federal charges over events that have happened.
Holland noted her organization welcomes congressional review of Fauci's actions, especially a commitment by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, "to investigate the government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the role played by Anthony Fauci."
"It's entirely appropriate to investigate Dr. Fauci and his role. One of the things that's positive here is that because he has been preemptively pardoned, he will not be able to assert a 5th Amendment protection in Congress when he is going to be investigated. There's no question that Senator Rand Paul, in particular, has every intention of going forward to investigate this man."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A movement to declare elephants "persons" and give them rights to habeas corpus legal actions has proven to be a step too far even for the leftists on the Colorado Supreme Court, who just months ago had attempted to remove President Donald Trump from the state's 2024 primary election ballot.
That move was overturned promptly by the U.S. Supreme Court and now it remains to be seen whether the justices' new position, regarding an organization claiming to represent the best interests of Kimba, Lucky, Missy, LouLou and Jambo, African elephants at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs, is upheld.
Courthouse News has reported on the case brought by the Nonhuman Rights Project, which demanded that the courts expand the definition of "persons" to include the elephants.
The state's high court rejected the attempt, concluding that the Colorado habeas statute applies to people and not animals, "no matter how cognitively, psychologically, or socially sophisticated they may be."
Justice Maria Berkenkotter wrote for the court that "because an elephant is not a person, the elephants here do not have standing to bring a habeas corpus claim," the report explained.
The NRP had demanded in a habeas petition in 2023 that the elephants be freed from the confines of the zoo and be moved to a "sanctuary."
After all, the petition argued, they are highly intelligent and autonomous.
The case earlier was dismissed by the El Paso County district court.
The NRP then appealed the state Supreme Court, which now has said the historical importance of habeas is that it's been important to challenge "various forms of unjust detention," the report noted.
However, that same history doesn't apply to animals.
Berkentrotter confirmed Colorado's habeas law doesn't define "person," but it is defined elsewhere in state law to include an individual, corporation, estate, government or other legal entity.
Berkentrotter said if animals are to be included among "persons," that would be a redefinition for the state's General Assembly to make explicit.
The opinion noted that no Colorado court, or court anywhere else in the U.S., has determined a "nonhuman species" to qualify for "personhood."
The NRP said the decision was an injustice, and it will continue fighting the "notion" that it finds in an "entrenched status quo."
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear appeals from fossil fuel companies seeking to block lawsuits blaming them for climate change, The Energy Mix reported. This means municipalities may demand billions of dollars in damages from oil and gas producers.
Honolulu, Hawaii, is one of several municipalities trying to bilk these companies out of large sums of money as restitution for causing climate change. It named BP, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Shell, and Sunoco as plaintiffs.
Ben Sullivan, the chief resilience officer for the city, claimed it would shield "taxpayers and communities from the immense costs and consequences of the climate crisis caused by the defendants’ misconduct." The state allowed the lawsuit to proceed while the companies being sued insisted that it should be adjudicated in federal court.
Similar lawsuits have been brought in places like New Jersey, California, and Colorado to indemnify them for natural disasters. The legal filings claim that severe storms, wildfires, and rising sea levels can be traced back to fossil fuel usage.
The movement to punish gas and oil companies for the fallout from storms and natural disasters is gaining momentum. Honolulu argued that it had standing at the state level, likely aware that cases at the federal level had already been dismissed.
"Deceptive commercial practices fall squarely within the core interests and historic powers of the states," attorneys for the city wrote. This is a dangerous game they're playing with the fossil fuel industry, which is a vital part of America's economy.
"The stakes in this case could not be higher," attorneys for the gas and oil companies wrote in court documents. They contend that such lawsuits "present a serious threat to one of the nation’s most vital industries."
The center-right think tank American Enterprise Institute warned that Honolulu will "make themselves the nation’s energy regulators" if the lawsuit is allowed to proceed. "I hope that the Court will hear the issue someday, for the sake of constitutional accountability and the public interest," Adam White, a senior fellow at AEI, contends.
Meanwhile, some positive movement for the fossil fuel industry came after the New York State Supreme Court rejected a similar New York City case. Justice Anar Patel found that the city "failed to prove that Exxon Mobil, Shell and BP misled New Yorkers about the climate impacts of fossil fuels."
Republicans were outraged that former President Joe Biden's administration was committed to the radical environmental agenda that encourages action like lawsuits. Although the legal climate will be slow to change, it's clear that the political tide is turning for the GOP.
President Donald Trump is far friendlier to oil and natural gas, including repeating his "drill, baby, drill" pledge. On Monday, Trump followed through with that promise on his first day in office, Fox News reported.
Trump signed several executive orders meant to combat inflation, including for increased drilling. "I will direct all members of my cabinet to marshal the vast powers at their disposal to defeat what was record inflation and rapidly bring down costs and prices," Trump said.
"The inflation crisis was caused by massive overspending and escalating energy prices. That is why today I will also declare a national energy emergency. We will drill, baby, drill. America will be a manufacturing nation once again, and we have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have. The largest amount of oil and gas of any country on earth," Trump said.
These lawsuits are based on the premise that climate change is happening and that it is directly tied to the fossil fuel industry. They must be rejected for lack of evidence, but in the meantime, Trump's commitment to energy independence and support for fossil fuel production will go a long way to keeping the industry afloat.
The Supreme Court of Wisconsin has rejected a lawsuit demanding information about people deemed incompetent to vote.
The Wisconsin Voter Alliance wants access to data on those voters to ensure the state's registration list is accurate. The group is suing Walworth County and a dozen other counties throughout the state.
The Supreme Court did not reach the merits of the case, which was rejected on procedural grounds, raising the chance it could return.
Wisconsin's top court rejected WVA's case on technical grounds, finding a lower appeals court wrongly leapfrogged the case. One appeals court based in the state's liberal capital, Madison, rejected the lawsuit, while another, in Waukesha, overturned the Madison court and ruled in favor.
When an appeals court disagrees with a previous appeals court ruling, it has "two options," neither of which were taken here, the Supreme Court said.
"It may certify the appeal to this court and explain why it believes the prior opinion is wrong. Or it may decide the appeal, adhering to the prior
opinion, and explain why it believes the prior opinion is wrong," liberal justice Janet Protasiewicz wrote.
The Supreme Court must reject the Waukesha court's ruling, otherwise "litigants would feel encouraged to litigate issues ‘multiple times in the four districts.’”
“Why not?” Protasiewicz wrote. “Like the Alliance, if they lose in one district they might win in another.”
The court's opinion was joined by conservative Brian Hagedorn. The court's other two conservatives, Rebecca Bradley and Annette Ziegler, dissented. They said the court should intervene and "resolve weighty matters of privacy, open access to public information and election integrity.”
"Although both parties urged the court to resolve the substantive issue, the majority dodges it and chooses to scold the court of appeals instead," they said.
The Wisconsin Voter Alliance is fighting for guardianship records in order to cross reference the information with the database maintained by state election officials.
"In the 2022 election our data revealed approximately 16,000 adjudicated incompetent people who had lost voting privileges actually voted," the organization's website says.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court flipped to the left in 2023 after an expensive and contentious election. The court has continued to draw headlines over heated internal disputes between the new liberal majority and the conservatives.
The court overturned a ban on ballot drop boxes ahead of the 2024 election. President Trump won Wisconsin, a swing state, in November by about 29,000 votes.
Iran's regime was rocked by a successful assassination attempt that took out two judges on the Supreme Court.
The assailant entered the court in Tehran Saturday morning and killed Ali Razini and Mohammad Moghiseh. The motive of the shooting is unclear, but the victims were both high-ranking clerics in the country's repressive, theocratic regime.
The assailant was said to have shot himself dead as police were in pursuit. He did not have a case before the court, according to the judiciary's media center.
Reports on the attack are murky. One account said the assailant was a court staffer, while the court's own Judiciary Media Center described him as an outside infiltrator.
"This morning, an armed infiltrator at the Supreme Court carried out a premeditated assassination targeting two brave and experienced judges renowned for their fight against crimes against national security, espionage, and terrorism," the Judiciary Media Center said.
"As a result of this terrorist act, two dedicated and revolutionary judges—steadfast in their defense of public security—were killed."
Additional suspects "were identified, summoned or arrested and investigations of them have begun," Asghar Jahangir, a spokesman for Iran’s judiciary, told state media.
The assassinations are a rare example of targeted violence against Iran's clerical elite, who have governed the country with an iron fist for decades.
Both of the victims in the attack are high-profile judges known for cracking down on the Iranian opposition. In particular, both men are said to have played a role in the 1988 mass execution of political dissidents in the group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK.
In a 2017 interview, Rezini justified the "death commissions" as necessary to secure Iran after the conclusion of the brutal Iran-Iraq war, in which MEK sided with Iran's western neighbor.
“Our friends and I who are among the 20 judges in the country, we did our best to ensure the security of that time and the years after and from then, we guaranteed that the hypocrites (the MEK) could never become powerful in this country,” he reportedly said.
Razini survived a previous assassination attempt in 1999 and Mogheiseh was sanctioned in 2019 by the first Trump administration for his role in cracking down on dissent.
“He is notorious for sentencing scores of journalists and internet users to lengthy prison terms,” the U.S. Treasury said at the time.
Iran is expected to face more pressure with the return of President Trump, who pursued a hardline policy against Tehran during his first term.
The Iranian regime has been rocked by occasional large protests from citizens dissatisfied with the status quo.
The most recent wave of demonstrations, in 2022-2023, led to a government crackdown in which hundreds were killed.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Joe Biden, just hours before his presidency ends, announced presidential pardons for a long list of those whose antics contributed to the Democrats' lawfare against President Trump.
Included in the bunch was Anthony Fauci, the former federal health official who declared, during the COVID-19 China virus pandemic, that he WAS the "science."
And he promptly expressed his appreciation for the pardon but proclaimed his innocence.
"I really truly appreciate the action President Biden has taken today on my behalf. Let me be perfectly clear, Jon, I have committed no crime, you know that, and there are no possible grounds for any allegation or threat of criminal investigation or prosecution of me," he claimed.
Fauci said he is grateful because the threats and possibility of a politically motivated prosecution "creates immeasurable and intolerable distress on me and my family."
And while the technicalities all undoubtedly were followed in the pardons, the public perception is going to end up being that there probably was something there.
In fact, the fact-check system for online comments, which is the response from the community, noted that a historic federal court ruling, from the Supreme Court, found that accepting a pardon carries "the imputation of guilt and acceptances of a confession of it."
That was why several of the prison inmates named among the earlier thousands of Biden pardons to criminals, murderers and drug dealers said they did not want the pardons: Because they would influence their pending appeals.
The community response explained that the Supreme Court technically ruled that accepting a pardon does not have a legal impact on guilt or no guilt, and does not bind the recipient to admitting guilt in other circumstances.
"While legally it does not require an admission of guilt, public perception might differ," those community responses explained. "Some might interpret the acceptance of a pardon as an acknowledgment of wrongdoing, but this is more a matter of public opinion than legal fact."
Biden signed pardons for Fauci, Gen. Mark Milley and the entire J6 Select Committee.
The Gateway Pundit explained, "Fauci's policies destroyed millions of lives, bankrupted thousands of businesses, and unnecessarily killed millions around the world. Liz Cheney, who is currently under investigation by the U.S. House of Representatives, knowingly lied about January 6 and President Trump's actions that day."
And, it explained, "General Milley was one of the architects of the worst American foreign policy blunder in history. His response to his own ineptness was to focus on the woke military agenda. Milley also was making promises with China to warn them about any possible U.S. attack."
The report called Biden's latest pardons, "a final act of defiance against the American people."
Biden, whose party launched multiple lawfare attacks against Trump, including wild claims in Georgia that he participated in an organized crime campaign and defrauded companies whose officials said they liked doing business with Trump and wanted to do more, in his proclamation admitted that those he was pardoning could have been "investigated or prosecuted" and they could ultimately have been "exonerated."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Joe Biden, when he took office on President Donald Trump's departure in 2021, said he wouldn't use pardons like Trump.
Trump did, in fact, pardon a couple of dozen people, mostly during his last few days in office.
They included Stephen Bannon, Dinesh D'Souza and Joseph Arpaio, all longtime supporters.
The rest ranged from fraud cases to conspiracy to obstruction to bank robbery to illegal voting.
At the time, Biden was asked in an interview whether Trump's use of "preemptive pardons" concerned him.
"It concerns me in terms of it uh, what kind of precedent it sets and how the rest of the world looks as us as a nation of laws and, uh, injustice," he said. "Um. You're not going to see in our administration that kind of approach to pardons."
However, his intentions fell by the wayside in the real world, much like his repeated promises to Americans that he would not pardon his son, Hunter, of the gun charges on which he was convicted, or the tax charges to which he pleaded guilty.
He did.
And he pardoned a long list of other supporters, such as Anthony Fauci, the members of the J6 investigation commission, virtually all of his family members – James Biden, Frank Biden, Valerie Biden Owns, John Owens and Sara Biden – who may have been caught up the long list of Biden family schemes, Gen. Mark Milley.
He also commuted the life sentence of Leonard Peltier, in jail for nearly five decades for the 1970s killings of two FBI agents.
Earlier, in multiple orders, he also had pardoned or commuted the sentences of thousands of federal inmates, including several dozen convicted killers who were awaiting the death penalty.
Biden, justifying his actions, said, "I believe in the rule of law, and I am optimistic that the strength of our legal institutions will ultimately prevail over politics. But these are exceptional circumstances, and I cannot in good conscience do nothing."