Trump Admin SCOTUS cases | SCOTUS blocks AEA deportations

[nycfan]

In Trump Cases, Supreme Court Retreats From Confrontation​

In a series of narrow and technical rulings, the justices have seemed to take pains to avoid a showdown with a president who has challenged the judiciary’s legitimacy.

GIFT LINK —> In Trump Cases, Supreme Court Retreats From Confrontation

“…
But as the first wave of challenges to President Trump’s blitz of executive orders has reached the justices, a very different portrait of the court is emerging. It has issued a series of narrow and legalistic rulings that seem calculated to avoid the larger issues presented by a president rapidly working to expand power and reshape government.

On Monday, the court ruled that Venezuelan migrants who challenged the administration’s plans to send them to a notorious prison in El Salvador had filed their lawsuits in the wrong court, without ruling on the underlying legal issues.

…. Challenges to initiatives from the second Trump administration have yielded five emergency rulings so far.

… In any event, the five orders said very little.

One ruled that a challenge to a trial judge’s order barring the firing of a government watchdog should be “held in abeyance.” Another instructed a judge who had told the administration to restoreforeign aid to “clarify what obligations the government must fulfill.”

A third, allowing the administration to temporarily freeze teacher-training grants, relied on a mélange of laws and doctrines — the Administrative Procedure Act, sovereign immunity, the Tucker Act — to conclude that the challengers had most likely sued in the wrong court.

These were, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in dissent, “ancillary threshold and remedial questions” that ducked the real one: Were the administration’s actions lawful? …”

 

[nycfan]

 

[nycfan]

 

[nycfan]

 

[superrific]

Can't wait to see what bullshit Alito comes up with to justify his vote.

Actually, never mind. I can definitely wait.

 

[rodoheel]

I think the Trump admin is basically hoisted by its own petard here. By claiming that they have no power to bring people back from El Salvador - and refusing to do anything to bring people back even when ordered by courts - they can’t well complain that the courts have to act quickly to block potential constitutional violations before they happen.

The overreaching by the Trump hardliners is really hurting them here. If they had just brought back one guy after the court ordered them to- and if Trump would just say they won’t do this to civilians - they would have had a much better chance of the court allowing them to continue deportations (at least for now). And I suspect that the admin moving the prisoners to a different location to get around an existing injunction really ticked many of the Supreme Court justices off.

 

[altmin]

Can't wait to see what bullshit Alito comes up with to justify his vote.

Actually, never mind. I can definitely wait.

His justification: "FUCK YOU - I do what I want...."

 

[superrific]

The overreaching by the Trump hardliners is really hurting them here. If they had just brought back one guy after the court ordered them to- and if Trump would just say they won’t do this to civilians - they would have had a much better chance of the court allowing them to continue deportations (at least for now). And I suspect that the admin moving the prisoners to a different location to get around an existing injunction really ticked many of the Supreme Court justices off.

Unless the point is a) get a maximalist victory or b) lose sufficiently often to claim the court system is biased and therefore doesn't have to be obeyed.

 

[rodoheel]

Unless the point is a) get a maximalist victory or b) lose sufficiently often to claim the court system is biased and therefore doesn't have to be obeyed.

True. Good luck to them selling the public on the idea that the Supreme Court with four Trump appointees is biased against him. Not that they won’t try.

 

[superrific]

“…One ruled that a challenge to a trial judge’s order barring the firing of a government watchdog should be “held in abeyance.” Another instructed a judge who had told the administration to restoreforeign aid to “clarify what obligations the government must fulfill.”

A third, allowing the administration to temporarily freeze teacher-training grants, relied on a mélange of laws and doctrines — the Administrative Procedure Act, sovereign immunity, the Tucker Act — to conclude that the challengers had most likely sued in the wrong court.

These were, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in dissent, “ancillary threshold and remedial questions” that ducked the real one: Were the administration’s actions lawful? …”

In fairness, these were all emergency docket cases and in some of these cases, the procedural issues were the only questions before the court. In other words, the government was looking for stays.

I doubt Jackson would have dissented if it was 2023. The court often decides ancillary threshold questions, both ways. The difference is that Jackson knows is taking the approach of "we should be assessing these cases all together even if we don't say so." Because she gets it, she knows that all of these cases are really about the same thing. I would do the same thing. But it doesn't play all that well with precedent because . . . well, as with so many issues, the Court has never been called on to decide so much obviously illegal bullshit in such a short time.

 

[nycfan]

Dissent:

 

[lawtig02]

Dissent:

Alito appears to have had quite a change of heart since 2021. Wonder what that’s about?

https://www.npr.org/2021/09/30/1042051134/justice-alito-calls-criticism-of-the-shadow-docket-silly-and-misleading

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito launched a litany of acerbic barbs at critics of the Supreme Court's so-called shadow docket on Thursday.

Noting that the term was coined in a 2015 law review article, Alito said that the term has been adopted by "journalists and some political figures" in order to convey the idea that "something sneaky and dangerous" is going on at the high court when it rules on emergency appeals seeking the court's intervention.

"This picture is very sinister and threatening, but it is also very misleading," he said in a lecture at the University of Notre Dame. "There is nothing, absolutely nothing new about emergency applications."

He added: "The catchy and sinister term 'shadow docket' has been used to portray the court as having been captured by a dangerous cabal that resorts to sneaky and improper methods to get its way. And this portrayal feeds unprecedented efforts to intimidate the court or damage it as an independent institution."

* * *

"It's a silly criticism," Alito said of the notion that the court has issued more emergency rulings in recent years. Addressing some of these numbers, he said "the real complaint of the critics is that we should have granted relief when they think it should have been denied ... and denied relief when they think it should have been granted."

The justice maintained that he had no problem with legitimate criticism, but he contended that most of the criticism of the way the current court handles the shadow docket is politically motivated and that it erroneously "seeks to convey ... that a dangerous cabal is deciding important issues in a novel, secretive, improper way in the middle of the night."

 

[superrific]

Thing is, Alito's dissent is mostly right. But for the previous actions of the president, I think all the justices would agree. This is an actual emergency posture. Here's how he closes:

In sum, literally in the middle of the night, the Court issued unprecedented and legally questionable relief without giving the lower courts a chance to rule, without hearing from the opposing party, within eight hours of receiving the application, with dubious factual support for its order, and without providing any explanation for its order. I refused to join the Court’s order because we had no good reason to think that, under the circumstances, issuing an order at midnight was necessary or appropriate. Both the Executive and the Judiciary have an obligation to follow the law. The Executive must proceed under the terms of our order in Trump v. J. G. G., 604 U. S. ___ (2025)(per curiam), and this Court should follow established procedures.

Which in normal times is correct. But notice the bolded text: Alito is giving the executive the presumption of regularity. He's assuming that the executive has an intent to follow the law, and that the executive wasn't trying to steal away prisoners in the middle of the night. So basically everyone agreed on the merits, and Alito was objecting to the procedure.

I think it's notable that he didn't get either Gorsuch or Kav. Gorsuch in particular would normally join that opinion; he gets off on procedural arguments to dismiss important cases. Kav could also have joined that opinion. That they didn't seems significant: it's maybe a sign that the Supreme Court has actually figured out what's going on and is concerned.

 

[Calheel]

Thing is, Alito's dissent is mostly right. But for the previous actions of the president, I think all the justices would agree. This is an actual emergency posture. Here's how he closes:

In sum, literally in the middle of the night, the Court issued unprecedented and legally questionable relief without giving the lower courts a chance to rule, without hearing from the opposing party, within eight hours of receiving the application, with dubious factual support for its order, and without providing any explanation for its order. I refused to join the Court’s order because we had no good reason to think that, under the circumstances, issuing an order at midnight was necessary or appropriate. Both the Executive and the Judiciary have an obligation to follow the law. The Executive must proceed under the terms of our order in Trump v. J. G. G., 604 U. S. ___ (2025)(per curiam), and this Court should follow established procedures.

Which in normal times is correct. But notice the bolded text: Alito is giving the executive the presumption of regularity. He's assuming that the executive has an intent to follow the law, and that the executive wasn't trying to steal away prisoners in the middle of the night. So basically everyone agreed on the merits, and Alito was objecting to the procedure.

I think it's notable that he didn't get either Gorsuch or Kav. Gorsuch in particular would normally join that opinion; he gets off on procedural arguments to dismiss important cases. Kav could also have joined that opinion. That they didn't seems significant: it's maybe a sign that the Supreme Court has actually figured out what's going on and is concerned.

Is that a Susan Collins' concern or a real concern?

 

[superrific]

Is that a Susan Collins' concern or a real concern?

Well, doesn't the midnight order suggest it's more than Susan Collins level? It might not be where it should be, but I don't think they stayed up until the wee hours of the morning for fun. The question is whether it will continue to order narrow relief or if will see the big picture. The narrow relief has been acceptable so far, if suboptimal. That won't necessarily remain true.

I think also the Supreme Court is backing up the lower courts, which seems important.

 

[nycfan]

Thing is, Alito's dissent is mostly right. But for the previous actions of the president, I think all the justices would agree. This is an actual emergency posture. Here's how he closes:

In sum, literally in the middle of the night, the Court issued unprecedented and legally questionable relief without giving the lower courts a chance to rule, without hearing from the opposing party, within eight hours of receiving the application, with dubious factual support for its order, and without providing any explanation for its order. I refused to join the Court’s order because we had no good reason to think that, under the circumstances, issuing an order at midnight was necessary or appropriate. Both the Executive and the Judiciary have an obligation to follow the law. The Executive must proceed under the terms of our order in Trump v. J. G. G., 604 U. S. ___ (2025)(per curiam), and this Court should follow established procedures.

Which in normal times is correct. But notice the bolded text: Alito is giving the executive the presumption of regularity. He's assuming that the executive has an intent to follow the law, and that the executive wasn't trying to steal away prisoners in the middle of the night. So basically everyone agreed on the merits, and Alito was objecting to the procedure.

I think it's notable that he didn't get either Gorsuch or Kav. Gorsuch in particular would normally join that opinion; he gets off on procedural arguments to dismiss important cases. Kav could also have joined that opinion. That they didn't seems significant: it's maybe a sign that the Supreme Court has actually figured out what's going on and is concerned.

I thought Alito’s dissent was a good indication of how much too far the Trump Administration is pushing the conservatives on SCOTUS.

 

[lawtig02]

I don’t have a conceptual issue with Alito’s dissent, but as he said in 2021, the court has been granting relief like this for decades. Alito’s real concern here is not the process (which can certainly be critiqued). It’s that he didn’t like this particular decision on the merits. Which makes him a hypocrite.