DC Circuit denies the motion for an emergency stay in the Boasberg case 2-1, with a brief order and 92 pages of concurrences (one by Henderson, one by Millett) and a dissent (Walker).
I'm going to scan through the opinions and select out key parts. 🧵
1st up Henderson: The idea that the President's call is unreviewable is wrong.
"Questions of interpretation and constitutionality—the heartland of the judicial ken—are subject to judicial review."
Henerson: Under the statute, "invasion" is a limited concept.
Invasion means a military invasion.
Millett: The district court is handling this carefully, and there is no authority or reason to intervene at this early emergency stage.
Millett: "Judicial review has always been available to noncitizens detained or removed under the AEA."
Millett: The district court merely ordered the government to maintain custody; it wasn't telling them to turn a plane around.
Millett: "The judiciary, not the Executive, has the ultimate constitutional responsibility and capacity for saying what statutes and statutory terms mean." See Loper Bright.
Millett: "the government is mistaken about the extent of unilateral Executive authority under the Constitution."
Millett: "The government’s removal scheme denies Plaintiffs even a gossamer thread of due process."
Walker, dissenting: This case should have been filed in Texas, not DC.
Walker: There's a right to judicial review here, but the proper lawsuit is a habeas petition.
A habeas petition has to be filed in the district of confinement, which here is in Texas, not DC.
Walker, dissenting: The government has shown irreparable harm by the district court's order.
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Magistrate judge in the 5th Circuit, asked to sign off on warrants for routine "tower dumps," declines to do, writing an opinion concluding that all tower dumps are likewise unconstitutional in light of the 5th Circuit's recent geofencing opinion. 🧵
#N storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Other courts have broadly ruled that tower dumps are not searches at all. I think this is wrong, as it's based on the erroneous mosaic theory. I explain why that's wrong in my new book. So I don't have a problem with the search holding, holding that a search will occur.
As for the idea that a warrant can't be used in this setting, I think it's bananas. But then it's based on the 5th Circuit's bananas geofence warrant ruling, so hey, if bananas is Fifth Circuit law, you're going to get a lot of bananas.
The Acting US Attorney of the SDNY resigned today, and she sent this letter yesterday to the Attorney General explaining why she refused to drop the charges against NYC's mayor. Read the whole thing, but the last two pages are in the screenshots. static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/d…
The Deputy AG replies— among other things, putting all the AUSAs who were "principally responsible" for the Adams prosecution on administrative leave and referring them to OPR. nytimes.com/interactive/20…
Also, the SDNY is taken off the case, which is given to main Justice so the motion wanted will be filed.
Sorry if this is nitpicky, but headline writers, it's maybe worth noting: Smith's report argues that the evidence would have been *legally sufficient* to convict. It does not claim, as your headlines say, that a jury *would have convicted.* Smith is a lawyer, not a soothsayer.
et tu, WSJ? Sheesh.
ABC News is getting this headline right, at least.
A favorite in my collection: an original copy of William Lloyd Garrison's abolitionist newspaper, "The Liberator," from December 14, 1849. (Quick thread)
"The Liberator" was an abolitionist newspaper published on a weekly basis from 1831 to 1865. You can read about it here. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Liber…
The 1st page of the issue I have has some fascinating stories, such as this report of an argument in the Court of Common Pleas about a case trying to end school desegregation in Boston.
Classic @IJ case, and I'm a big fan of the result from a policy perspective. Constitutionally, though, this seems off to me (with the usual apologies for thinking that the Constitution does not enact my personal policy preferences).
#N ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/2…
If the State thinks that you can't practice veterinary medicine effectively without inspecting the animal in person, that may be a dumb judgment. But at least to me—admittedly a non-expert in this area—it doesn't sound intuitively like it's primarily a regulation of speech.
As I understand the opinion, the CA5 focuses on the fact that this particular veterinarian violated the physical-inspection requirement by putting his advice in writing—specifically, emails. And that's speech, the court says.
I now have Gorsuch's book. On Aaron Swartz, he gives a remarkably one-sided view of the facts. Swartz "connected his computer to MIT's network," the book says, and "he began downloading articles from JSTOR." /1
The book then quotes his attorney as saying that what Swartz downloaded "wasn't worth anything! It was a bunch, of like, the 1942 edition of the Journal of Botany!" /2
The book then talks about how prosecutors charged him based on that, an obvious overreach for such minor conduct. Downloading a worthless botany article!