Here are the highlights for July:
* On July 5, AFLC Co-Founder and Senior Counsel David Yerushalmi appeared before the U.S. magistrate judge in the highly publicized federal lawsuit Doe v. Mast, arguing that the U.S. government could not continue to participate in the lawsuit as a “nominal Defendant” in coordination with Plaintiffs and not produce documents or be required to participate in discovery.
AFLC’s position at the hearing and in the court filings was that the government either had to exit the lawsuit and cease trying to improperly tilt the scales of justice or be prepared to have to disclose its nefarious ties to the Plaintiffs and their Gitmo Bar counsel.
This dispute involves a young Marine assisting an infant child recovered off the battlefield by Army Rangers during a mission to take out a nest of East Turkistan Islamic Party (ETIP), Al Qaeda foreign fighters in Afghanistan in September 2019.
Two of the foreign fighters were the parents of this little girl. The father was killed in the firefight engaging the Rangers; the mother blew herself up with a suicide pack while holding her months-old baby girl.
Miraculously, the baby survived but was seriously injured.
The Marine and his wife were granted custody of this child, and now that custody is being challenged by those who do not want a Muslim child to be raised by Christians.
We are representing the Marine’s brother, who is embroiled in this legal battle because he assisted his brother with obtaining legal custody of the child.
You can read more about this intriguing case here.
* On July 7, we filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York against Letitia James, the New York Attorney General, for unlawfully targeting and defaming peaceful pro-lifers in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and New York law.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of two Michigan residents, Monica Miller and Suzanne Abdalla, who are associated with Red Rose Rescue.
Red Rose Rescue is a peaceful pro-life organization that seeks to protect women and unborn babies from the violence and harm of abortion.
During a press conference to announce the filing of a civil lawsuit against Red Rose Rescue and several pro-lifers, Attorney General James falsely labelled those who associate with Red Rose Rescue as “terrorists” and falsely claimed that Red Rose Rescue is a “terrorist group.” The civil lawsuit made no allegation of terrorism as there are no facts to support such a claim of criminality.
* On July 11, we filed a motion to stay discovery in the Doe v. Mast case pending the outcome of the state court proceedings. The adoption proceedings of Baby Doe by Marine officer Joshua Mast and his wife are being challenged in state court by an Afghani couple claiming, along with the Taliban, that the orphaned baby of foreign fighters who died in an Army Ranger attack on a hostile compound is actually Afghani and should be returned to Afghanistan.
The state courts had issued orders of custody, interim adoption, and final adoption to the Masts. The Afghani couple, fully in line with the Taliban’s position, and the Gitmo Bar U.S. lawyers representing them, are challenging those orders.
The outcome of the state court case will determine whether the federal lawsuit of Doe v. Mast has any merit.
Our motion papers simply point out that the state court decision should have priority.
* On July 12, the court in Doe v. Mast (see above) issued its order requiring the U.S. government to either withdraw from the case or produce documents and otherwise participate in discovery. Not surprisingly, on August 1, the government withdrew from the case.
* On July 13 and 20, we filed six appellate briefs in the Oakland County Circuit Court on behalf of six Red Rose Rescuers, who are appealing their convictions arising out of a rescue they conducted at an abortion center in Southfield, Michigan in April 2022.
The briefs raise numerous constitutional issues and an appeal of the lower court’s denial of the rescuers’ request for jury instructions on the defense of others and necessity.
* On July 19, AFLC Co-Founder and Senior Counsel Robert Muise argued an important religious liberty case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
In this case, we are representing Catholic Healthcare International (CHI) and its president who are being denied the use of CHI’s property for religious worship.
CHI is trying to develop the property into a prayer campus that will include prayer trails, religious displays, including the Stations of the Cross, and a modest 95-seat adoration chapel.
The rural, 40-acre property is located in Genoa Township, Michigan, and the lawsuit alleges that the Township is violating CHI’s rights protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the Michigan Constitution, and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), a federal statute that protects the right to use private property for religious exercise.
The appeal involved a request for a preliminary injunction to allow CHI to use its property for religious purposes while the case proceeds below.
* Also on July 19, we filed a petition for writ of certiorari in our federal civil rights class action lawsuit against President Biden and Twitter, which alleges that Twitter censored speech critical of the administration’s COVID-19 vaccination policy on behalf of the Biden administration in violation of the First Amendment.
After Dr. Colleen Huber posted a “tweet” on her Twitter account from a well-known Israeli newspaper reporting on findings of mortality rates relating to the COVID-19 vaccinations used in Israel, Twitter permanently suspended Dr. Huber, a well-respected and licensed naturopathic medical doctor in Arizona, for purportedly violating Twitter’s COVID-19 Policy.
As the facts set forth in the complaint demonstrate, Twitter was in reality enforcing the Biden administration’s policy to silence anyone critical of COVID-19 vaccinations. Given the recent publication of the Twitter files outlining the White House-Twitter cozy censorship “partnership,” the fact of an illegal conspiracy between the Biden administration and Twitter for Twitter to censor speech critical of the COVID vaccine policies on behalf of the government should surprise no one.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, sitting in Twitter’s backyard, dismissed (not surprisingly) the lawsuit by ignoring the compelling evidence of a conspiracy between the Biden administration and Twitter.
Contrary to the lower court’s ruling, our lawsuit sets forth material facts, which the court was required to accept as true at this stage of the litigation, clearly demonstrating the existence of the Biden/Twitter conspiracy to censor speech critical of the new and experimental COVID vaccinations (including the speech of Dr. Colleen Huber).
We appealed the erroneous ruling to the Ninth Circuit. As is typically the case, the appeal was assigned to a three-judge panel. Our panel consisted of two Ninth Circuit judges appointed by President Obama and a district court judge appointed by President Clinton sitting by designation.
We should not have to tell you how they decided the case. Treating the case as a mere nuisance, the panel issued a short terse opinion that they designated not to be published in the official reports of federal cases—better to be buried.
The Ninth Circuit rejected our petition for rehearing. Thus, our petition to ask SCOTUS to take up the case. As we pointed out in our petition:
This case presents a constitutional challenge that asks how far may the government go utilizing private actors to censor speech of which the government disapproves. In contemporary times, this question takes on enormous consequences for liberty in general, political freedom in particular, and free speech most particularly. Large social media platforms and their concentration of economic power are relatively new to the law. Their unique ability to control the social and political messaging of public sentiment through hidden algorithms and even outright censorship has become a battleground for those in different and even adversarial political camps.
Thank you for your prayers and financial support. We couldn’t do what we do without them!