{"id":2601104,"date":"2026-05-11T08:45:58","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T12:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/5th-circuit-judge-shows-how-to-rule-with-reason-over-politics\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T08:48:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T12:48:39","slug":"5th-circuit-judge-shows-how-to-rule-with-reason-over-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/5th-circuit-judge-shows-how-to-rule-with-reason-over-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"5th Circuit Judge Shows How To Rule With Reason Over Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2F5th-circuit-judge-shows-how-to-rule-with-reason-over-politics%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2601104&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Stuart Kyle Duncan, a Fifth Circuit judge, is highlighted for two recent opinions presented as models of careful legal reasoning. In *Louisiana v. FDA*, he upheld a stay of an FDA rule that would allow mifepristone for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/texas-dem-leads-charge-against-bidens-mail-order-abortion-regs\/\" title=\"... Dem Leads Charge Against Biden\u2019s ...-Order Abortion Regs\">mail-order abortions<\/a> without an in-person physician visit, emphasizing that the FDA had admitted it did not adequately study the safety of remote dispensing. He argues courts must check executive overreach rather than rubber-stamp agency decisions.<\/p>\n<p>The article also praises Duncan\u2019s *en banc* ruling in Texas S.B.10, which upheld displaying the Ten Commandments in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/chicago-mayor-orders-teachers-back-into-classrooms-union-vows-to-call-a-strike\/\" title=\"Chicago Mayor Orders Teachers Back Into Classrooms, Union Vows To Call A Strike\">public school classrooms<\/a>, concluding that such a passive display does not amount to an unconstitutional establishment of religion. the piece frames both decisions as protecting religious freedom, state sovereignty, and constitutional limits on federal power, and notes Duncan\u2019s background and prior public criticism before reaffirming the quality and consistency of his jurisprudence.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The federal courts have never been busier, and the quality of judicial reasoning has never mattered more. At stake in courtrooms across the country are the fundamental rights Americans hold most dear, such as religious freedom, the sovereignty of states, and the accountability of a federal government that too often overreaches. Circuit Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals understands that role clearly. Two recent opinions \u2014 one checking the hasty work of the FDA in approving mail-order abortions, and another affirming the benign posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools \u2014 illustrate why he deserves attention. <\/p>\n<p>Duncan authored the 5th Circuit\u00a0panel\u2019s May 1 opinion in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ca5.uscourts.gov\/opinions\/pub\/26\/26-30203-CV0.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Louisiana v. FDA<\/em><\/a>, granting Louisiana\u2019s request to stay the FDA\u2019s 2023 rule allowing mifepristone to be prescribed online and mailed to patients without an in-person physician visit. The opinion is a model of clear-eyed legal analysis. Duncan\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0reach for politics or rhetoric. He\u00a0applied\u00a0the law. <\/p>\n<p>On May 4, the Supreme Court issued a procedural pause on the case (the pause expires Monday), and they ought to find that it is a model of principled, careful legal reasoning that deserves close attention. <\/p>\n<p>The core of his reasoning is difficult to dispute: The FDA itself had conceded that it\u00a0failed to\u00a0adequately study the safety of remote mifepristone dispensing before approving it. The agency was still in the middle of a remedial safety review and\u00a0couldn\u2019t specify when that review would be finished. Against that backdrop, Duncan wrote: \u201cThe public interest is not served by perpetuating a medical practice whose safety the agency admits was inadequately studied.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>That sentence captures something essential about the judicial role: Courts exist to check the executive branch, not rubber-stamp it. When an agency rushes a politically charged rule out the door \u2014 as the Biden administration plainly did in response to the Supreme Court\u2019s decision in <em>Dobbs<\/em> \u2014 federal judges must say so, as Duncan did. <\/p>\n<p>He also addressed the sovereignty interests at stake with clarity. Louisiana had documented how the FDA\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >telehealth rule enabled illegal abortions<\/a> under state law and generated Medicaid costs for complications caused by remotely prescribed mifepristone. Duncan recognized these as legal injuries to a sovereign state, not abstract policy grievances. \u201cDanco\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/abortion-drug-makers-admit-they-care-about-money-not-women\/\" title=\"Abortion Drug Makers Admit They Care About Money, Not Women\">potential financial losses pale<\/a> beside Louisiana\u2019s sovereign interest in its laws protecting the unborn and the public\u2019s interest in not exposing women to unsafe medical procedures,\u201d he wrote. <\/p>\n<p>Let us also be plain about what was actually at stake.\u00a0The idea of a telehealth DIY abortion involving pills dropped in the mail, with no physician present, and no follow-up care guaranteed, should shock the conscience of any decent person. That a federal agency embraced this as sound medical policy, under pressure from abortion advocates who called it progress, makes Duncan\u2019s careful and courageous application of the law\u00a0all the more\u00a0significant. <\/p>\n<p>Just 10 days earlier, Duncan authored the <em>en\u00a0banc<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ca5.uscourts.gov\/opinions\/pub\/25\/25-50695-CV0.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><u>opinion<\/u><\/a> upholding Texas S.B. 10, which requires public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments. Writing for a 9-8 majority, he concluded that such a passive display does not amount to a\u00a0government\u00a0establishment of religion. \u201cS.B. 10\u00a0looks nothing\u00a0like a historical religious establishment,\u201d he wrote. \u201cIt does not tell\u00a0churches or synagogues\u00a0or mosques what to believe or how to worship or whom to employ as priests, rabbis, or imams. It punishes no one who rejects the Ten Commandments, no matter the reason. It levies no taxes to support any clergy. It does not co-opt churches to perform civic functions.\u201d  <\/p>\n<p>Religious freedom, properly understood, does not require scrubbing every trace of faith from public life. Duncan said so plainly. That zealous secularists rushed to the courthouse to prevent children from glimpsing the words \u201cthou shalt not kill\u201d on a classroom wall says\u00a0rather more\u00a0about their own overreach than any constitutional infirmity in the law. That case, too, is\u00a0almost certainly\u00a0headed to the Supreme Court. And, once again, Duncan\u2019s reasoning will be there waiting, a steady and well-researched foundation for the justices to build upon.<\/p>\n<p>Taken together, these are well-reasoned decisions that value life and liberty \u2014 guarantees that are not partisan ones but the foundation of our rights as Americans. They reflect a judge who understands that the law exists to protect citizens from the overreach of government, to preserve the freedoms that define this nation, and to keep faith with the constitutional order that makes those freedoms possible. <\/p>\n<p>It is worth recalling that in 2023, Duncan was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/struggle-session-at-stanford-law-school-federalist-society-kyle-duncan-circuit-court-judge-steinbach-4f8da19e\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">shouted down<\/a> by a group of students at Stanford Law School when he came to speak. He returned to his courtroom and kept respecting truth and the rule of law through his opinions \u2014 which is, after all, exactly what a judge is supposed to do. <\/p>\n<p>Judge Duncan was appointed to the 5th Circuit during the first Trump administration, confirmed in 2018. He is one example of the kind of judge Americans should celebrate: those who are faithful to the law, gifted in insight and intellect, and humble in the position they hold. That combination of seriousness, consistency, and quiet resolve is the standard Americans should demand from every federal judge and the standard by which future Supreme Court nominees ought to be measured.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Andrea Picciotti-Bayer is director of the Conscience Project. She is a mother of 10, a Stanford-educated lawyer, and appears frequently in Catholic and secular media to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/yes-its-constitutional-for-the-government-to-promote-christianity\/\" title=\"Yes, It&#039;s Constitutional For The Government To Promote Christianity\">discuss religious freedom controversies<\/a> and to lend her legal expertise when discussing judicial matters.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Federal courts are busier than ever; judicial reasoning matters most<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1859,"featured_media":2601105,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Copy-of-Untitled-95.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546,33651],"tags":[66561,46920,36218,40362],"class_list":["post-2601104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist","category-the-western-journal","tag-appellate-courts","tag-judicial-ethics","tag-legal-analysis","tag-rule-of-law"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Copy-of-Untitled-95.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2601104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1859"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2601104"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2601104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2601108,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2601104\/revisions\/2601108"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2601105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2601104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2601104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2601104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}