In DOJ’s challenge to Texas’ anti-abortion law, The judge has just temporarily enjoined the law which means that, at least until the defendants can get on appeal to the 5th Circuit, the law and its ban on abortion after 6 weeks are no longer in force. justsecurity.org/wp-content/upl…
The law has a confusing provision that purports to provide 4 years from the time a person has an abortion for vigilantes to file suit & to apply to procedures while the law is temporarily enjoined. That provision seems questionable, but that's SB8 in a nutshell.
Tx has appealed to the 5th Circuit, noting the case is "related to" Whole Women's Health, the earlier challenge to SB8 where the 5th stripped Judge Pitman's ability to consider the request for an injunction & setting up the SCOTUS ruling that let SB8 go into effect
In its shadow docket ruling, SCOTUS says "this order is not based on any conclusion about the constitutionality of Tx’s law & in no way limits other procedurally proper challenges." Judge Pitman held DOJ's challenge is procedurally proper. Now we see what the 5th & SCOTUS say.
Judge Pitman recognizes, unlike other courts, that Tx deliberately circumvents judicial review: Tx "draft[ed] the law..to preclude a review of the constitutionality of the statute by federal courts who have responsibility to safeguard the very rights the statute likely violates"
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Anyone who’s studied our founding, hopefully all of us, understands how essential this principle, enshrined in the 1st Amendment, is. We must reject the imposition of Christian or other religious beliefs as vigorously as fearmongers have reacted to even a hint of other practices.
Remember Roy Moore? He was always worried about the imposition of Sharia law (even though it wasn’t actually being imposed). politifact.com/factchecks/201…
The 5th Circuit, which kept the trial court from considering Texas' abortion leading to the SCOTUS ruling issued an opinion: SB 8 emphatically precludes enforcement by any state, local, or agency officials. The defendant officials..are not amenable to suit ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/2…
Am I the only one who finds it ironic that the 5th Circuit stayed the district court from acting in order to protect the defendants (judge, court official, person who wants to sue under SB8), without any concern for the women whose Constitutional rights it denied?
Impact of this: The 5th Circuit is expediting the cases, it will hear it on its next argument docket to decide whether there can be further proceedings in the district court or whether, as it implies, none of these defendants are proper defendants to sue msnbc.com/opinion/texas-…
1/ The win in @NAACP_LDF’s Florida challenge to a law that blocked exercise if 1st amendment rights show how Texas abortion case should have worked - the district judge should have been able to hold a hearing to determine if the statute was such a clear violation of rights that
2/ it should be blocked from going into effect to preserve the status quo while litigation continued. NAACP won that motion-bad law blocked. In Texas, the 5th Circuit Court took the case away from the trial court before their could be a ruling or even an evidentiary hearing.
3/ Texas’ law got to SCOTUS as an emergency appeal to keep the law from going into effect. Instead of blocking it to protect the clear right Roe establishes while litigation was ongoing, SCOTUS let the law go into effect, denying Texas women their rights. msnbc.com/opinion/texas-…
1/ When the AG & Solicitor General at DOJ sign off on a challenge to a state statute, they are very careful to ensure their theories are both legally valid (not a time to throw spaghetti on the wall to see what sticks & also to avoid doing harm to other rights. Case in point,...
2/when we challenged Alabama’s immigration law in 2011 we focused on developing challenges to specific parts of the law that were legally objectionable (not just a blanket demand that the law be expunged). Being smart meant we couldn't challenge everything justice.gov/opa/pr/departm…
3/ We also had to consider whether issues we raised could damage other important rights. For instance, we considered whether our case gave the court the chance to rescind Plyler v. Doe, which guaranteed a right to K-12 education to all children, not just citizens. Big focus.
Abortion & the right to control one’s own body once galvanized a generation of women & it will happen again. But my heart breaks for the girls & women who will suffer along the way.
And while this may be a bad, hot take in a moment of anger that the courts failed us, it feels like there’s now a bounty on women’s heads, just like there used to be on escaped slaves.
I acknowledge that it’s a bad take in the sense that there is no comparison to slavery. But the bounty provision is particularly alarming in what it says about who has control over women’s lives. So no offense meant here.
A victim tweeted: “Had the FBI done their job I never would have been put in the position of having to relinquish every shred of privacy to stop the abuse and coverup” washingtonpost.com/national-secur…
I’m not even out of the executive summary, but already incensed. Nasser kept working, including at a HS, b/c FBI Indianapolis failed to take action or even report the allegations to local law enforcement. Here’s a link to the IG report: washingtonpost.com/context/fbi-in…
New victims were abused between the time US Gymnastics reported Nasser to the FBI & Michigan State opened its investigation after a new victim came forward. Other victims continued to be abused. FBI in Michigan learned about it in the newspaper. context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/def…