Here are the highlights for November:
* On November 5, we filed a reply brief in support of our petition for a writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court in our lawsuit against New York Attorney General Letitia James.
We are asking the Court to take up our case filed on behalf of two members of Red Rose Rescue, a pro-life group, against James.
During a press conference convened by the New York Attorney General to announce the filing of a civil lawsuit against Red Rose Rescue and several of its members, the Attorney General declared that the organization was a “terrorist group” and that those associated with the organization were “terrorists.”
There were no allegations of terrorism in the civil lawsuit, and neither Red Rose Rescue nor anyone associated with the organization has ever been charged with the crime of terrorism nor any other violent felony.
The Attorney General’s appellation was designed to malign Red Rose Rescue and its associates in the eyes of the public and to reduce the effectiveness of their First Amendment activities.
You can read more about the case here.
The case is set for conference by the Supreme Court on December 8.
* On November 9, we filed a motion for immediate consideration of our previously filed application for leave to appeal the ruling of the Kent County Circuit Court.
In this ruling, the County Circuit Court denied our motion to dismiss the patently frivolous lawsuit filed by 3 Biden electors against the 16 so-called “fake” Trump electors in the 2020 general election.
We are representing 4 of the Trump electors in this lawsuit.
The case is docketed now in the Michigan Court of Appeals. Several other electors have also filed similar applications.
* On November 13, we filed our joint discovery plain in the Hess v. Oakland County case, in which we are defending Andrew Hess against the politicized prosecution launched against him by Karen McDonald, the Oakland County Prosecutor who is running to be the Democratic nominee for Michigan Attorney General.
McDonald is pursuing a 20-year felony charge against Hess for making an off-hand political comment in a near-empty lobby outside of the presence of any election official during a contentious election recount held in the county in December 2023.
We filed this federal lawsuit to halt this unlawful prosecution.
To that end, we also have an appeal pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in which we are seeking a preliminary injunction to halt this prosecution. You can read our opening brief here.
The district court held a scheduling conference on November 20.
* Discovery has commenced in our religious land use lawsuit against Genoa Township, Michigan, which we filed on behalf of Catholic Healthcare International, Inc. (CHI) and its president.
At issue is the Township’s denial of CHI’s request to develop a prayer campus and modest adoration chapel on its wooded 40-acre property in the Township.
The lawsuit alleges a violation of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), a federal law that prohibits religious discrimination when making land use decisions.
The court recently denied our motion for partial summary judgment (it took the court over 22 months to issue an 11-page order), concluding that additional facts were needed. The court also granted the Township’s motion for discovery.
On November 10, we served the Township with document production requests and interrogatories.
Also on November 10, the court issued an order referring all discovery disputes to a “special master” selected by the court. (The “special master” was a former judge from the same court). This would require the parties to pay the “special master” at a rate of $850 per hour to essentially serve as the judge for discovery matters. On November 13, we promptly filed a motion to revoke the order as it was issued by the court improperly and it places an undue financial burden on the case.
The court has yet to respond to our motion to revoke. Indeed, we also have pending with the court since September 30, a motion for reconsideration, setting forth arguments demonstrating that the court was wrong when it denied our motion for partial summary judgment.
In that motion, we also asked the court, in the alternative, to certify the question to the Sixth Circuit as to what constitutes a substantial burden under RLUIPA (the Sixth Circuit had previously granted CHI a preliminary injunction, finding that CHI had established a substantial burden, but the district court disregarded this decision in its ruling).
And we also have pending with the court since September 30, a motion for a protective order as the Township has demonstrated that it intends to use discovery to delay the final resolution of this case and to impose as many burdens and costs on CHI as possible.
You can read more about this case here.
* On November 10, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia held a hearing on the Afghan couple’s efforts, via their Gitmo Bar lawyers, to pierce the attorney-client privilege of our client and his brother.
By way of reminder, in February of this year, the Virginia Supreme Court heard arguments in the “Baby Doe” case. During the disastrous last days of the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, a foreign jihadist couple fought Army Rangers in a deadly battle that left the couple’s new-born baby badly wounded and orphaned on the battlefield.
This little girl, named in lawsuits and media variously as Baby Doe, Baby L, and Sparrow, was adopted by Major Joshua and Stephanie Mast, a young Marine couple, and brought to the U.S. for medical care and to be introduced to her new loving family.
For years now, the Gitmo Bar, lawyers from major international law firms who love to represent jihadists and other enemies of the U.S. to prove their progressive bona fides, have been litigating in Virginia state courts and in federal court on behalf of an Afghan couple, who have absolutely no family or other ties to this now happy five-year old child, to undo the adoption and rip her from her loving family.
You can read about this case here.
AFLC represents attorney Richard Mast, the brother of Joshua and the one who represented Major Mast and his wife during the Virginia state adoption proceedings. Richard has also been dragged into this litigation by the Gitmo lawyers for the assistance he provided his brother with the adoption.
The Afghan couple’s effort to gain access to the privileged attorney-client communications is a desperate attempt to come up with something insofar as their case is quickly dissolving. The magistrate judge did not grant their request but did agree to an in camera (judge only) inspection to see if there was some reason to pierce the attorney-client privilege. That in camera inspection is underway as we write this update.
* On November 20, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho ruled that the federal civil rights lawsuit we filed against the City of Moscow, Idaho and several of its officials may proceed.
We are representing Nathan Wilson and his two sons in this case, in which the City has selectively enforced its laws against them based on their religious beliefs and their affiliation with Christ Church, a local and conservative Christian community.
In his ruling, the judge denied the City’s motion to dismiss the gravamen of the claims, including the Wilsons’ claims that the City’s ordinance that was applied against them is unconstitutional and that the City’s selective enforcement of the law violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
You can read more about that case here.
* On November 25, we filed a motion to amend our complaint in the Los Angles homeless case. Our lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Police Department is a putative class action in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on behalf of a substantial LA property owner and manager.
The lawsuit alleges that the City’s shuffling of the homeless onto or near private property effectively destroys the value of the property and amounts to a violation of the Takings Clause of the U.S. Constitution, a de facto condemnation under the California Constitution, and creates public nuisances.
We filed this motion to amend the complaint to include the actual property-owning entities to replace Adom Ratner-Stauber, who served as the property manager. This move avoids motions by the City of Los Angeles and LAPD seeking to delay the litigation.
We have many other important cases at various stages of litigation. You can read more about our work on our website.
Thank you for your prayers and financial support. We couldn’t do what we do without them!