This is amicus a law review and my name is Jim Santel I am your host on this broadcast of civic media both this hour and next hour as well as we take on Analyze discuss reviews some of the most important stories news items of these recent days in the areas of government and the aspiration for justice in America
and beyond.
Delighted, honored to have you join me this weekend for our weekly weekend review of all of that.
Encouraging also to be a part of our discussion.
That number here at Civic Media is 855-752-4842.
The number once again, 855-752-4842 along with my terrific producer Max.
Always delighted, always honored, always pleased to have you be participants in our discussion of these very important issues that do indeed affect our lives and our livelihoods here in Wisconsin throughout the United States of America and worldwide.
This weekend's Syllabus, much, much the like as it has been in past broadcasts.
We're going to spend a lot of time once again talking about injunctions, these things that the federal district courts principally, sometimes the appellate courts as well, when it comes to review.
are imposing with respect to many, not all, but many of the decisions these executive orders being made by our president recently in a wide variety of areas.
We're going to talk about a couple of additional injunctions issued just this past week under our broad heading of injunction function.
That is the function of federal courts determining whether or not the action should be stopped, prevented, or in some ways permitted to go ahead and talk about cases involved.
legal aid and also some public health grants that were the subjects of a couple of those all important decisions of federal district court judges just this past week and then again under our broad file our broad category of injunction function going to necessarily return to that issue involving the Venezuelan immigrants
some major developments in that story of just this past week.
We know where that has been, including at the trial court level, the appellate court level, the United States Supreme Court deciding whether to weigh in on some of those procedural and substantive issues, even as we get together this weekend, two other things happening in district courts that also affect those Venezuelans.
And that is that Judge Bosberg, the lawyer,
Judge, who is responsible for presiding over the case, entertained arguments.
entertained an attempt to try to get information from the Department of Justice just this past week, Thursday, on what exactly happened three weeks ago this weekend when those planes took those immigrants from the United States off to El Salvador.
We'll talk in detail inside the injunction function file about Judge Boasberg's legitimate concern, his frustration with your Department of Justice when it comes to providing or not providing information.
And the reason why that is so significant as we will discuss it may well be the first time.
That in connection with all of these executive orders a federal district court judge is sufficiently dismayed sufficiently Disappointed sufficiently angry candidly that the Trump administration may not be complying with his orders that he may be inclined to issue a contempt citation That also opening the door as we have talked before about the possibility The option depending upon how we describe it that we may well be in a constitutional
crisis.
We'll talk about what Judge Bosberg did and did not do this past week, and then we'll also talk about another judge.
Her name is Paula Zinnis, and she, she, independent of but related to what Judge Bosberg has done this past week, she is ordering, she is ordering the return of one of those
100-200 Venezuelans from El Salvador territory.
We'll talk about exactly what Judge Zinnis has done in connection with that.
Then we're also gonna spend some time, a little bit of time, since we're chatting about talking about TROs and injunctions.
We'll talk about a footnote to the election of just this past Tuesday here in the state of Wisconsin.
A circuit court judge issuing a scathing order with respect to our attorney general about the inadequacy, the failures in the pleading that was filed in front of him, and also went on to review by the appellate court and by the Supreme Court in the state.
Wisconsin talking about the problems in the pleadings presented by our attorney general asking for injunctive relief with respect to what all those efforts by Donald Trump basically to purchase as some people have said the election obviously not successful interesting order because it does comment as we have talked about before about the standards for issuing injunctive relief here we have got a
state court judge telling our attorney general that he came woefully short of meeting those obligations, the standards, even pleading them properly.
We'll talk all about that.
We also have a little bit of rule of law international aspects to our broadcast this weekend.
They come out of South Korea.
You know what that's all about.
And they also come out of France.
And you may know what that's all about too.
Having to do with top leaders in South Korea, the president.
facing impeachment and now affirmed by the highest court there in France.
Marie Le Plante, one of the major leading contenders for the presidency, indicted of and charged and convicted just this past week.
of embezzlement no longer able to run for office in that country.
We'll talk about those international rule of law matters very briefly and then in our second hour, second hour returning as we often do to the United States Supreme Court, including in part some of its work on these injunctions.
We'll talk about a decision by the Supreme Court with respect to grants being given to teachers to educate.
What did they do just this past week?
We'll talk about what the Supreme Court is
doing in connection with this birthright citizenship issue under the 14th Amendment, some activity there in both of those.
And then, and then we'll turn to some of its mainstream work as well, major decision justice past week, permitting a trucker to sue, to sue under a Rico premise, a Rico cause of action.
Also seeing in that case a major decision by the Supreme Court seeing the emergence of Amy Coney Barrett once again from inside the conservative side of the bench taking her own path.
As we have talked about before, that case will dispense some time talking about it.
And then necessarily, as we teased last week and the week before, we need to talk about some of these recent oral arguments.
There have been no less than eight of them in the past couple of weeks, eight different oral arguments.
Again, all of them accessible to you.
If you happen to be in Washington, DC, you can actually stand in line and see them live.
They are not playing the on television, but they're also broadcast through the auspices of the Chief Justice.
through the Supreme Court.
You can listen to them live if you're not in Washington, D.C.
and you can also hear them after they're recorded.
You can go online even as late as now and hear the justices sparring with, talking with, arguing with the attorneys for various parties who appear in front of them.
We're gonna be talking about almost all of the eight cases, but identifying in particular a couple having to do with the Voting Rights Act, having to do with religion once again in America.
on the docket of the Supreme Court and then another thing called the non-delegation doctrine.
Supreme Court in recent years, as we know well, has been very much inclined to take long-standing traditional principles and practices, doctrines by which they decide cases and throw them out.
And so the question in one of these cases involving the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, in part whether or not the non-delegation doctrine sounds like something a lawyer would love, whether that doctrine, that doctrine remains in place or should be discarded.
We'll chat about that as well as we go in our second hour.
reviewing all things related to the United States Supreme Court.
But let us begin again by reminding you that you can be a part of this discussion this hour and next by calling in and also by texting in, dropping something in the chat line at 855-752-4842.
Let us get, let us get to those recent injunctions, injunction function here on Amicus, a lot of you, a couple of them playing the many more, many more on the
of courts around the country.
We're going to be talking about.
Attempting as best we can in the midst of all of these things to provide you with some of the information about some of the most important ones that are out there, but you will plainly identify many others that happen every week.
Now federal judges federal judges around the country district court judges principally in some instances, as we've seen appellate court judges also taking those cases up district court judges reviewing and determining whether or not temporary restraining order should be entered.
should there after be imposed.
And ultimately, although we haven't seen that yet because these cases are too new, whether or not the courts should enter permanent injunctions.
That is, as we've talked, the tripartite analysis, the scheme by which our federal judges and indeed our state judges address requests for injunctive relief.
a process, a set of standards that also applies to this sparring that's going on right now between our attorney general and a circuit court judge right here in Wisconsin about whether or not those standards were met in Josh Call's recent submissions to our Wisconsin court in advance of the Tuesday election and the voting at that time.
Let's begin, however, with a couple of cases coming out of two different district courts, one in California and one in the
district of.
Rhode Island's begin with the federal judge in California.
The judge's name is Aracile Martinez Olguin, and she is in San Francisco.
That's the Ninth Circuit, but she is there in the trial court.
And she ordered the Trump administration to temporarily restore legal aid, legal aid to tens of thousands of migrant children who are in the United States without a parent or guardian.
The Trump administration shutting that program down.
The administration on March 21 terminated a contract with something called the Acacia Center for Justice.
That center had provided legal services for unaccompanied migrant children under 18.
plainly plainly use here through a network of a various elaborate legal aid groups that subcontract with the center the upshot of all that is providing legal assistance to minors who are here unaccompanied by a parent or guardian 11 subcontractor groups had sued under this saying that about 26,000 children 26,000 children with the risk of losing their attorneys
The Acacia Center itself was not a plaintiff.
The groups, however, argued that the government, the Trump administration, had an obligation under a 2008 anti-trafficking law.
to provide these very vulnerable children these use with legal counsel.
And again, Judge Aracila Martinez, old Gwynn of San Francisco, granted the temporary restraining order late Tuesday saying you can't do this.
She wrote that advocates raised legitimate concerns about whether the administration had violated the law, warranting her decision to reestablish it there in California as we come back more about what that judge did and what another judge did in Rhode Island.
Just this past week, in connection with injunctive relief being granted to parties here in the United States of America, all of that here on Amicus, a lot of you.
This is Amicus, a law review.
My name is Jim Santel.
Thank you for joining Max and me for our discussion this weekend, beginning this hour talking all about injunctive relief once again, as we do now regularly.
This is the third broadcast in a row in which we have talked about these activities, these actions by federal district court judges, sometimes appellate court judges as well.
finding in many, not all, but many instances that the president, the administration has overstretched and overreached when it comes to restricting or doing other things under the laws, under the constitution of our country.
The latest one, Judge Martinez, all going of San Francisco.
She's a district court judge there in the Ninth Circuit.
She is finding that indeed, indeed,
At least preliminarily, it appears that the administration has violated the law that provided for migrant children having representation here in the United States of America.
The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 created some special protections for migrant children who cannot navigate to goers what is a very complicated immigration system that includes representation by attorneys provided representation under that law.
judge this past week saying, no, Mr. President, you can't suspend that.
That violates the rights of our youth who are there.
That, for what it's worth, it's the third legal setback in less than a week for the Trump administration.
On Friday, a federal judge in Boston said people with final deportation orders must have a meaningful opportunity, was the judge's language, to argue against being sent to a country other than their own.
That's somewhat related to the next issue we'll get to, which is what's going on with those Venezuelans, but it's separate from that because it applies generally to all of these people who might be deported under this administration.
On Monday as well, another federal judge in San Francisco put on hold some plans and protections for
hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan, including 350,000 of them, whose legal status was scheduled to expire.
in just a few days.
All of that going on in various federal district courts around the country, plainly, plainly opposed by the Trump administration, opposed by your Department of Justice, who's arguing against the entry of these injunctive orders in these various courts.
Let's talk about yet another one.
This one is on Thursday, late this past week.
This is Judge Mary McElroy, M-C-L-E-L-R-O-Y.
She's in the district court of Rhode Island.
Again, another
federal trial court judge, she is barring the Department of Health and Human Services from doing what?
From terminating a great variety of public health funds, some allocations made by the Congress that had been sent to allocated to the states, to the states as the Congress can do again through the agency during the COVID-19 pandemic.
She found that the move had left those states stranded.
and unable to provide some critical health services states depending upon those monies that have been committed to be spent for them.
the judge ruling from the bench, which is a way of saying she did not issue an order, at least not immediately in written form, almost certainly will down the road, but ruling from the bench said that a coalition of states had demonstrated to her satisfaction early on in this process, again, a part of that temporary restraining order process, that these cuts that the Trump administration had imposed basically upended and disturbed the public health infrastructure
of the states that was counting on these monies, jeopardizing everything she said from childhood vaccination programs to opioid addiction treatments almost overnight.
The lawsuit filed by 23 states in the District of Columbia, pushing back against the Trump administration's decision last week to cancel about 11 billion, 11 billion dollars in these public health grants.
The Trump administration
Justifying that on the basis that they were no longer necessary, saying the government's pandemic emergency declaration had expired two years ago.
This is old news.
No longer need to do any of that.
during a hearing, the hearing before Judge McElroy on Thursday, Sarah Rice, who is a lawyer from Rhode Island, the Attorney General's office there in particular, she's a public servant, a civil servant.
She basically ticked through what the, she described as the many consequences of this problem presented by the termination of these $11 billion in public health grants.
A list of crises about different states documenting more than 4,000 pages of exhibits that were filed along with the lawsuit.
In Minnesota, for example, she said that 170 state employees, including epidemiologists and research scientists, had been laid off just this past week as funding was halted.
12% of the state's healthcare workers expected to ultimately lose their job.
12% of the entire state's healthcare workers in Minnesota terminate.
in Rhode Island, she said officials, they're preparing to basically shut down shutter vaccination clinics, California, because the large population there, public health officials, similarly grappling with this loss of about $2 billion, two with a B, in federal grant money, officials had counted on that money for child vaccine programs.
rural health services in regions far from hospitals.
All this, she said, has a dramatic impact upon the health and welfare of the country during the hearing.
Judge McElroy again, entertaining all of this and entertaining arguments in opposition to the entry of a TRO.
Zeroed in on these grants from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
It's a branch of the Health and Human Services Department that provided funding to states to help support the treatment for
alcohol use disorders and other addictions.
She noted, for example, that these grants and others that are similar like them, and she talked a lot about them from the bench, cannot be summarily canceled without the states being given some adequate notice that this is going to happen.
Tell me in advance that you're going to withdraw these funds.
Also need provide the opportunity to appeal those decisions.
The attorney arguing earlier that the indiscriminate cancellation of these grants meant that people in addiction treatment programs who required immediate hospitalization, for example, medication, all of that had been put at what she described as extreme risk.
within about 30 minutes.
After the presentation here, Judge McElroy decided to grant an emergency restraining order.
She cited specifically this voluminous list of harms the states had recorded, and their extremely strong likelihood of success on the merits.
Success on the merits.
She ordered both sides to return for again, a preliminary injunction hearing the second step as soon as April 16th.
Meantime, she said, I don't see how I can deny the temporary restraining order
on the record that is now before the court.
Those two things, more things happening in the federal district courts in connection with the function of our district courts to enter these.
to do so.
And again, as we have talked before, as we have talked before, what's going on is that in each of these instances at all layers of the analysis, the judges, whether you're a federal district court judge or your state district court judge, they're not simply saying, gee, I'm going to impose this injunction without evidence.
There's got to be some.
preliminary showing.
It's not the full evidentiary showing with witnesses and documents, although here, again, in connection with the matter pending in Rhode Island, plainly a huge amount of information about the consequences of suspending these public health grants.
But judges nonetheless do have an obligation to determine whether or not
Two, three, four standards have been met, whether to determine an injunction should be issued or not.
We've talked about these before.
Let's recite them once again, just once again to give us all a sense of the due process, the natural way in which these petitions, these challenges are processed.
And to push back on those, including frankly our Attorney General and our President who say that these judges are doing these things without power, that they should be impeached and do other things, we're going to talk once again about the standards by which these injunctive orders are, or in some instances, not entered in the federal and yes indeed in a state court right here in Wisconsin when we return here on Amicus, a law review.
This is amicus a lot of you my name Jim Santel Thank you for once again joining me this weekend for our review initially Focusing as we necessarily must these days upon injunctions in our federal courts They do in fact affect people as those two injunctions we talked about before the first break second break here
They affect us dramatically in areas big and small, public health grants, representation, all kinds of things.
We're gonna get to the Venezuelan immigrants in addition in just a minute along the way.
We were necessarily doing some civics, some law school stuff here on our broadcast as we talked a couple of weeks ago.
The standards by which judges look at all of this are defined.
Courts have said this for many, many years.
You've gotta show first of all that there will be what's called irreparable harm.
You have to show the
The party is seeking the injunction, asking that something be stopped or started has to show in some way that they'll suffer some harm that cannot be adequately compensated by money.
If you can, in fact, provide money after the fact, probably there is reputable harm.
You've got to show irreparable harm, unless you stop it right now, judge, you'll never be able to go back, cannot restore the way things were.
That's irreparable harm.
Second, you've got to show some likelihood of success on the merits.
This is not a requirement that the challenging party come in and say, here is the legal analysis for all of this, here's the facts, the law.
You're not trying the case, but you've got to make some preliminary showing, some indication to the presiding judge that you've got a reasonable probability of success when it gets to the under
that you will win in the end.
You've got some judgment factors on your side that's called likelihood of success.
Couple of other things, those are the two big ones.
Other things related to that, a balance of what are called equities, considering again harms, determining whether or not the potential harm to both the party seeking the injunction and also the party, the other folks opposing that against whom the injunction would be sought.
What do the harms look like if I do or do not impose this injunction?
What do those look like?
I've got to balance them in some way.
Got to weigh the competing interests of those parties.
That's called balancing the equities.
And finally, public interest, makes some sense too, right?
All this done in the public domain.
In many cases, the court will also take a look and say, gee, there's a potential impact of the injunction or not entering the injunction on the public interest.
We see that a lot in virtue all of the
these injunctive cases that we've been talking about here on Amicus, including those today.
Legal representation for use, that's huge.
There is a tremendous public interest in that.
And also, of course, 11 billion with a B dollars in public health grants to the states is difficult to imagine a public interest any greater than that could be.
And so likely that, at least with respect to these preliminary reviews, the judges are not having a huge amount of difficulty
finding that these four standards, once again, irreparable harm, some likelihood of success on the merits, some balancing of those harms, of the equities, if you will, and finally, some sense of public interest, virtually finding that all of those have been met.
With the exception, with the exception of what happened in Wisconsin just this past week,
In advance of the election, we know well that our Attorney General, Josh Call, ran into court and he was attempting to prevent Elon Musk from handing out those $1 million checks to those people who voted in the spring election.
his position that is the position of our attorney general was that that was illegal bribery that was electioneering of a nature that of nature that's criminal under our wisconsin law and so he through his office petitioned the state court the circuit court to to stop he wanted an injunction against that activity very different of course from what the president united states of america is doing this having to do with the conduct of people involved in the voting in the election right here in the state of wisconsin we know what
happened there as things played out Saturday, Sunday into Monday as well that with the initial judge, actually Susan Crawford was the candidate.
She appropriately recused herself as did the other judges in the Dane County Circuit Court.
Eventually went to a Columbia court judge and that judge took this case on, found fairly summarily.
We'll get back to that, that there wasn't a sufficient showing.
by the attorney general of an entitlement to an injunctive relief against Elon Musk.
So he summarily.
denied that and we get more information now about why it is that the judge on those pleadings looked at this and said this is woefully inadequate.
You have not even established on a pleading basis a predicate for entering the injunctive relief that you're seeking.
Case went up to the court of appeals likewise refused to enter the injunction went up to the Supreme Court and likewise our Supreme Court although we don't have quite as much visibility on the appellate process here likewise turned the Attorney General turned the state of Wisconsin
down and we now have in the wake of that, in the wake of the election, the wake of that dust up just in advance of Elon Musk handing out those $1 million checks, we've got a formal judge, a formal order entered by Judge Andrew Voight.
He is in Columbia County.
He is an elected Wisconsin circuit court judge who again responded to this petition.
He's slamming the filing by our attorney general.
He described it as woefully deficient considering
the nature of the order that was sought, he actually accused our attorney general of making false representations about how it was handled by the court.
in his filing with the 4th District Court of Appeals, again, appealing Judge Voight's decision not to enter an injunctive relief.
Our Attorney General wrote that Voight refused to hear the motion for a temporary restraining order prior to the Musk rally on Sunday in Green Bay.
Voight responds to even that representation of the Court of Appeals and says that's not accurate.
He says, in an order that he issued on Tuesday, that he had determined that Department of Justice and Josh Call was not entitled to the order, barring Musk from handing out those awards to those who had voted because the agency, and this is the language of the court, hadn't met the basic legal standards, the requirements for that relief, and the pleadings were so deficient.
that he, the Attorney General, was not entitled to a hearing.
Again, he invokes that four-step test we just talked about and said that calls filing displayed total ignorance of at least two of the elements required, including one focusing upon the harms that are shown.
Josh Kahl responds, and he defends his agency.
He says he's proud of the extraordinary effort that we, our team, put into the case.
He says the Department of Justice takes seriously its role in protecting free and fair elections.
So the DOJ team on this case took rapid action, submitting filings on a highly compressed time frame in this matter that sought to help protect the integrity of the recent election.
Well, according to the judge,
those that expedited rapid action also resulted in a presentation, at least in writing, that was woefully inadequate, not even describing these basic four tenets, these basic standards.
And you, of course, yourself can take a look at them.
They're online.
You can take a look at the documents that were filed.
The trial court judge is saying, I did take a look at them.
I did review all of them.
He also said that during that process, that the very process of doing just that overburdened and required some overtime costs for those in the Dane and Columbia counties, originally filed after the close of business a week ago in Dane County, then in Columbia County, said multiple courts.
have been chasing around, forced to invest a substantial portion of a weekend reviewing materials and conducting legal research.
All of that, the judge puts in his order saying, this is the what you did as a result of the filing of this case.
And then most significantly saying, pleading itself.
woefully, legally insufficient, not even warranting a further consideration, which we're seeing in these other cases when judges do in fact address the four standards.
fascinating instruction here about civics about law school about the way that our system works here in wisconsin throughout the country and significant for all of us to understand the role that judges play in assessing the legitimacy even preliminarily of these requests for injunctive relief sparring going on undeniably between the circuit court judge and the attorney general about whether or not that pleading was adequate or not the judge saying no the attorney general saying we were
in the last couple of weeks.
We're going to have to do that quickly, putting it together.
All of that.
All of that, of course, a part of our review in junction function.
The function of courts as they review all of this.
That includes necessarily.
The issue that we return to now for a third week in a row, and that is this Venezuelan case because it continues to be the focus of an awful lot of attention in America, including some things that happened just late this past week.
You recall
entertaining the first of several hearings on this movement by our Attorney General, by the Secretary of Homeland Security, moving, moving many, many, 100, 100, 200 Venezuelan immigrants out of this nation on the basis that they are members of a gang, they're violent, they are enemies of our nation, of the enemy's alien enemy's nation statute.
As a result of that,
They were placed on planes and taken from the United States and transported to El Salvador, where they remain.
All of them remain to this day in a maximum security prison.
Judge James Bosberg, the district court judge in the District of Columbia.
You recall this well.
We've talked a lot about this.
He has been
all over the news in this because of what he has been attempting to determine, which is whether or not when he said three weeks ago, stop those planes, do not send them on, keep them on the ground.
Why?
Because first of all, I'm not entirely certain that you're invoking the law properly.
And second, second, I want to figure out exactly who these people are.
I want to give them some due process under that law.
I want to make certain that under the law, they are entitled to tell me or another judge who they
are, the basis upon which they're being removed, all of that being given to them if he had his druthers.
And yes, indeed, that's what he wanted to do.
What happened, of course, is that the planes either were in the air or took off maybe after he entered that order to ground them.
And as a result of that, for the past several weeks, for the past several weeks, the judge has been trying to determine the timing on all of this.
Did you wove overtly and intentionally violate my order and send those planes on, even after I told you government, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, keep them grounded, or were they in the air?
We were already too late.
Give me the timing on all that.
He's insisted that that information be forthcoming.
He's had to hear it.
the Department of Justice has refused to give that to him repeatedly.
And in addition, the Department of Justice has invoked what are called, of course, the state secrets privilege, which basically is the proposition that somehow the provision of this information to the judge and the public domain would compromise our national security, our national security in ways that, again, I think as Judge Boseberg and others scratching their heads as well, all of that happening, of course,
in the first couple of weeks.
In addition to that, we know as well, we reported on this last week, that Judge Bosberg's decisions, the injunctive order he entered, whether it was followed or not, another issue, his finding as well, that the law may not have been properly followed in any event, not properly invoked in the first place, all of that, all of that then goes up to the Court of Appeals.
And we know as well that the Court of Appeals likewise, likewise, takes a look at this Alien Enemies Act.
that's meant to preserve our national security and safety and says we're doubtful that that is properly applied.
But beyond that, Judge Patricia Millett, as we talked about last week, said, there's not even a gossamer thread of due process in all this.
So she and another judge and a three judge panel, they support what Judge Boesberg has done.
They say, yes, you've got it just right.
Again, reviewing all of this in a very preliminary way, it's expedited.
The government, your department of justice, my department of justice takes this up.
up to the Supreme Court.
And right now, the Supreme Court is determining whether they're going to review all of this.
They've solicited briefs, and they're presumably going to have a review of those briefs in the coming days to determine whether or not the Supreme Court will be looking at this issue related to the applicability of the Alien Enemies Act and the due process, and maybe even the other issue that brings us back to Judge Boasberg, which is, what about the timing on all this?
What about the timing of the planes taking off when we come back?
We'll tell you what Judge Boesberg said, did not say his very legitimate frustration with the government, with Pam Bondi, with the Department of Justice, with the government, in not providing him with the information that he has been seeking for three weeks now, when Amicus, a lot of you, continues.
My name is Jim Santel.
This is Amicus, a law review on the broadcast stations of civic media spending all of our first hour in our weekend broadcast talking once again about injunction state injunction or a non injunction here in the state of Wisconsin prior to our Tuesday election.
Lots of other temporary restraining orders being entered around the country.
And Judge James Bosberg, dealing with whether or not your government, the United States Department of Justice, knowingly purposely violated the injunctive order that he entered that was appealed by the appeals court, whether or not Pam Bondi and the representatives of hers before him purposely decided not to abide by what Judge Bosberg had said in keeping those planes on the ground that were transporting 100, 200.
Venezuelan immigrants from this nation to El Salvador.
This past Thursday, this past Thursday, a significant rule of law then, because notwithstanding all of these other cases where the judges have been concerned about compliance by the administration when it comes to following up what they're saying, you gotta follow what the judges are saying.
If you don't do that, that's called contempt.
None of them, none of them up to this point has found the government.
or anyone inside government in contempt and failure to follow overtly what the judges are ordering.
But Judge Williams, James Bosberg, coming very close to doing that, suggesting on Thursday of this past week that he may indeed find Donald Trump, the elected president of the United States of America,
The appointed Attorney General of the United States of America, the Department of Justice, other people involved in this may find them in contempt for maybe possibly violating his court order.
entered three weeks ago, blocking the use of this 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport those suspected Venezuelan gang members.
How does this get set up?
Well, again, the judge, Judge Boseberg, he is the chief judge of the district court there.
He has another hearing.
Even while this petition is pending in front of the Supreme Court, he says, I'm going to get to the
bottom of this along the way.
He talks about the sketchy, sketchy.
That's his word.
Responses being given by the Department of Justice to him about what exactly happened here.
And you can tell as you will find, as you will learn here, he is incredibly frustrated with the failure of the government representative there, the lawyer, to give him straight answers to the questions that he wants answers to.
We've got Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign, ENSI GN.
That's not a low-level assistant United States attorney.
That is a significant litigation lawyer attorney inside the Department of Justice, inside a department that is now standing in front of a judge who's already unhappy about the fact that the department, the Department of Homeland Security and Justice may indeed have violated his order.
The judge pressing Drew Ensign, the attorney during the hearing.
About who?
Who in the Trump administration was involved in ordering the deportation flights to El Salvador?
Carrying again 100, 200, maybe 250 immigrants.
in mid-March.
And whether the government ignored his verbal order, the judge's clear statement from the bench for the planes to be turned around or kept even on the tarmac.
So here's how this begins.
Judge Boseberg says, you, directing this to the attorney, you maintain that the government was in full compliance with the court's order on March 15, correct?
And when Ensign responded that he believed the Trump administration did comply with the judge's order, the judge shot back this.
He said, it seems to me there's a fair likelihood, and this is what's gone on in the headlines, this fair likelihood language, that that is not correct.
He says, in fact, that the government acted in bad faith throughout that day.
Strong words, strong basis upon which this entire hearing begins during the course of that hearing.
He said that is the judge.
It is likely to wait until early next week to determine whether or not the White House, Donald Trump, Pam Bondi, others inside the administration are indeed in contempt of court for having ignored that order.
But he says along the way a number of things that indicate he is very much on the road to doing just that.
He delay a final decision after he spent about an hour in a remarkable, stunning interrogation of the department attorney.
The hearing once again going on in the District of Columbia.
It comes in the wake of the judge's announcement that he wants to get to the bottom of this and whether or not the administration has violated his order.
The judge grilled ensign about a subject that was potentially even more sensitive.
Who in the administration knew about his order when it was handed down?
And who, if anybody?
Where are these people?
Who gave instructions for the planes transporting those migrants to El Salvador not?
to turn around.
Who did this?
Tell me, Mr. Ensign.
Well, again, the deputy assistant attorney general there stumbles a little bit and says he's trying to respond to the judge's inquiry.
He repeatedly said that he either did not know the answers to these questions, which is stunning in terms of failure to prepare perhaps for this hearing, asserting that the information was protected by the attorney-client privilege.
Yet another privilege that we haven't heard about before, Judge Bosberg, again,
to get to the bottom of this highly skeptic list is the hearing ended again.
He opened up the possibility.
He's going to summon people in.
If he doesn't get the answers he wants and needs, he's going to summon people in to give him the answers, presumably put them on the stand, swear them to tell the truth, and determine from their testimony whether or not they were in fact in violation of his order.
Again, this goes on for a long period of time.
The transcript itself is stunningly shocking because of the lack of preparation or maybe this is the product of preparation and the instruction given to the Deputy Assistant Attorney General, this high-level litigator was
provide the judge with no information, because as we all know, the information the judge is asking for is known.
It is knowable.
There are people in the government who know exactly when the planes left.
They know exactly who was on that plane, or they should know.
They know when it was in the air, when it landed, all those kinds of things.
These are not difficult questions to ask and get answers to under pressure.
Attorney Anson acknowledged that after the judge had issued his initial order, stopping the flights in mid-March, he, that is Anson, did send an email.
An email.
to officials at the State Department, also at the Department of Homeland Security.
He admitted that he had alerted, as he described them, several low-level Justice Department officials about the ruling.
He apparently let some low-level people inside Pam Bondi's Department of Justice know that the judge has just told you keep those planes on the ground or return them if they are in the air.
He said, stunningly, that he could not recall if anyone had told, if he had told anyone else at the department, especially those in some higher office.
Well, this is the kind of thing that, again, given the notoriety, given the significance of this, immediately after a judge enters an order of this sort, you are on the phone, you are sending text messages promptly to your immediate supervisors and to the highest levels, telling them what has been done.
In our second hour, we're going to begin not only by taking some of your comments and calls about all of this, but also finishing up on this very tumultuous hearing in front of Judge Bosberg.
Rule of law in America, just this past week.
Uncomfortable, ugly, but important to due process in the United States.
Stay with us for more of Amicus, a lot of you.
This is our second hour of our broadcast here on the stations of Civic Media.
getting to phone callers, getting to textures in just a moment or so, everyone appropriately animated, not only about the government action, not providing any new process to these 100, 200, perhaps 250 Venezuelans transported three weeks ago from our property, our real estate, our land, to that high security prison in El Salvador, now the subject of review in part by the Supreme Court, by an appeals court, and yes, by Judge James Bosberg, who's the district
court judge in the District of Columbia, entertaining argument, entertaining and credulous statements by the Deputy Assistant Attorney General, his name is Ensign, about who knew about my order and who complied or didn't comply with it.
Ensign is saying he can't recall if he had told anybody else in the department, especially those in higher office about the judge's order.
That in itself is hugely troubling.
It gets worse this past Thursday in this
in front of Judge Bosberg.
Ensign said he had no idea who would allow the planes of migrants to continue on their way to El Salvador.
And that, of course, did provoke an incredulous response from Judge Bosberg, as indeed it should.
Judge Bosberg asks, who made the decision either not to tell the pilots anything or to let them keep going?
And Ensign replies, your honor, I don't know that.
And the judge responds, you're standing here telling me you have no idea who made the decision to not bring the planes back.
And Ensign said that was the case.
I do not know those operational details.
Ensign says to a federal district court judge who is getting increasingly inclined to hold somebody in contempt and this information blockage is not helping along the way.
The judge says, if I find probable cause,
that's opening the door to a finding of contempt for contempt, will the government want an opportunity to purge that contempt?
In other words,
Do you wanna bring them back and maybe attempt somehow to provide them with the due process?
They somehow need?
He asks again, who did you tell about the oral order once we were on the phone?
When the hearing's done, who did you tell about the hearing?
Who wasn't in the line of communication?
And asked specifically about names.
He wants names.
He wants to know who the potential contemnors.
There's a new word for you, the people who might be in contempt of his order.
Who are those people?
If, in fact, I do enter an order finding the administration contempt, I want to identify specific individuals who made the decision not to follow up on my direct order that those planes not leave or they be turned around.
I want to know the names.
And, of course, he did not get them this past Thursday, promising instead that he's going to review all this and issue some kind of order sometime soon.
Maybe, maybe commanding that people.
Come in and testify in front of him since plain the ensign isn't giving him the information he wants He is determined as he said to get to the bottom of this sketchy thing his word not mine Coming from your government.
It is incredible and the reason why it is incredible beyond just the contempt aspect of it is because it is the first time among the tens
Approaching even 150, 200 cases now pending in federal district court judges threatened in other situations, but never this close.
to finding the Trump administration in contempt of a judicial order and opening up, opening up as we have talked before, the prospect that we are now finally, finally inside a true constitutional crisis where one branch of government, namely the executive branch through Prambandhi and through your Department of Justice is looking at another branch and saying no.
We are not going to do that.
We're not going to do what we are obliged to do under our Constitution.
We've decided not to follow what you're directing us to undertake.
That, that is a crisis.
And that is a crisis in the very structure by which our government has worked for 238 years.
It is supported, if you will, by the initial statements of our Borders Eye.
Again, this fellow named Tom Homan, who said what?
He said, I don't care what the judges think.
Well, about a week after that, he walked some of that back, tried to put that in context, but not effectively, didn't refute it completely.
I don't care what the judges think.
that's a representative of the White House.
That's the borders are saying, we don't care what the federal judiciary thinks.
We're going to go ahead, he said.
We're moving forward.
We don't care what anybody says to prohibit us from doing what we want to do.
Pam Bondi also talking about the power of judges and suggesting that this unelected singular judge does not have the power to do what he and presumably others are doing.
Donald Trump himself calling for the impeachment of Judge Posberg.
And also name-calling, as he often does, calling him a lunatic, other names that I'm not gonna repeat on this broadcast, all of that suggesting we don't care what federal judges say.
And again, what is the standard here?
What is the civics point to learn from all of this?
Can we object to?
Can we say I do not agree with the decisions of courts?
Absolutely.
That's what we do all the time.
The Supreme Court appeals courts.
federal courts, district courts, state courts, municipal courts, village courts can issue decisions all the time.
And under the First Amendment, it is the glory of our nation that we can in fact stand up and say, I am in disagreement with what judge this judge has done.
And here are the reasons why I feel differently.
The remedy, as the Chief Justice has been obliged to say, is to appeal that to a higher court.
We don't attack.
We don't say that judge has no power.
We don't engage in name calling.
We don't suggest that their very legitimacy is questionable, that they've got no power.
And that's what our Attorney General is doing.
That's the line that she has crossed and the White House has crossed.
And perhaps now making good on that crossing the line is also going to say,
We don't care.
We're not doing what you have said.
They may already have said that by virtue of these planes being in the air, not returning, maybe taking off even after the judge entered the order in the first place.
The judge is committed to getting to the bottom of this.
We'll see what the coming week brings in all of this, including his finding.
about whether it was contempt.
We've got callers, we've got textures on this, we appreciate that very much.
Mark, from Prairie du Sac, asking appropriately, could A.G.
Pam Bondi be detained by the judge's own court officers for being in contempt?
And the question is, once again, the judges, if you're finding that a person or a group of people are in criminal contempt, you've done something in the presence of the court, and it's in violation of a direct order, yes indeed, one of the sanctions is detention.
It is a custodial detention.
You can also impose fines, you can impose some litigation sanctions, all kinds of things.
Detention is a possibility.
And the question is, did Pam Bondi know about this?
Did the deputy attorney general know about this?
Who knew about this?
Did somebody at some point say, we don't care what the judge has said, go ahead, get those Venezuelans out of our airspace.
And that's what the judge is trying to figure out.
on to say, as an example, transportation overseas, he says denial of a trial, all of that claiming now that we ship to Al Salvador, these immigrants, and now that the nation's prisoners and property are there, we can't get any of them back.
In that context, one other important news item coming out of not only Mark's comments, but also your understanding too, we've got another federal judge, her name is Paul Zinnis, XINIS.
She has entered an
in the federal court in Maryland.
She has identified this Maryland man who was inadvertently deported to El Salvador last month.
Despite the court order, in a brief ruling on Friday, Judge Zinnis said that federal officials had acted without legal basis.
When they arrested the man, his name is Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia.
Put him on a plane, no due process.
And as a result, he's now in this Salvatore in prison.
The decision by George Zinnis, which came again during a hearing in federal court, again telling the administration, you've got to bring him back.
Bring him back.
to this country because of the error you have made in court filings and in court in front of Judge Zinnis, the department lawyer admitted that Mr. Abrego Garcia should not have been deported, was a mistake, told the judge that he had been frustrated, that is the lawyer frustrated that this entire matter has landed on his desk trying to get some answers about all of this.
He said that he appeared, he was asking for 24 hours, he said to persuade
his client, his client, the Trump administration.
This is the government lawyer to begin the process of bringing Mr. Abrego Garcia from the prison back to America.
Good to listen to their lawyers, Judge Zinnis told him.
Judge Zinnis also said this.
She said, in the court of law, when someone is accused of membership in a violent and predatory organization, it comes in the form of an indictment, a complaint to criminal proceeding, a robust process, the judge said, so we can address the facts.
Judge Zinnis says condemning the government, once again, directing that Mr. Abrego Garcia be returned forthwith.
She said, I haven't yet heard that.
from the government.
Indeed, she did not.
Dale, you've been waiting on the line for a while.
Delighted to have you with me this weekend as we talk about this matter involving the Venezuelans and other due process issues.
Thanks for joining me.
Yeah.
Thank you, Jim.
Love your soul.
The Trump administration arresting and deporting these supposed, supposed gang members from the US to El Salvador without giving them due process.
is one of the steps to becoming an authoritarian government.
El Salvador is now Trump's Siberia.
I think all these El Salvador deportees should be brought back and given due process.
I do not trust the Trump administration with anything of any type.
Trump and his administration would say they are all confirmed gang members and I would not believe any part of that.
Another step towards authoritarianism is when there is peaceful protest, and then having law enforcement or the military shoot protesters in the knees, as Trump wanted to do in his first administration.
With respect to civic media, if there is ever anything being ordained by God, it would be civic media, not Donald Trump.
Thank you, thank you, civic media and Jim.
Your thoughts,
Dale, thank you so much for the call.
And again, I second all of that.
One of the issues that you've identified so well, Dale, is what do you do now, right?
This judge, Judge Sinis, has said, OK, we know that at least one of the 250 or 200 or 100, whatever the number is, we know that one of them is improperly there.
United States citizen, his wife, his children, also citizens, asking desperately that the government get him back here.
The judge now ordering that that
happen.
So we've got to go back.
We've got to go back to El Salvador, find him in the prison, bring him back here, and to Dale, your very good, important point.
Given the fact that we now have a district court judge, we've got a circuit court judge, we'd like to think that if the Supreme Court takes this on, they likewise would say under the Alien Enemies Act, yeah, you got to have due process.
The government has effectively acknowledged that already.
To your point, Dale, bring them all back.
Bring them all back and afford them the due process that's a part of our nation, a part of this law, and a part of our tradition in administering justice.
Dale, I appreciate so much the comment, the observation about where we're moving in this country as we continue here on Amicus, Allah review.
This is Amicus, a lot of you.
My name Jim Santel.
Thank you for joining Max and me once again for our discussion This broadcast necessarily focusing a lot on the due process that is or is not afforded people in America understanding once again Here's that significant law school point that legal point that every American needs to know that for 238 years
The protections of the Constitution do process, equal protection.
All the other things we think and hold so dear in our nation don't apply just to citizens.
They do apply to citizens, but they apply to anybody who's here, and that means it includes people who may be here illegally.
That is the brilliance of our Constitution.
and that has been the law of our land and that is why regardless of what one may think about what these deportees have or have not done, that's the point.
We don't know.
We don't know what they did.
It may well be that the Alien Act that is being invoked here is properly applied.
It may be that many of them do in fact qualify as enemies of our nation and should be deported and can be deported if indeed a judge finds that this is an invasion that we are in a state of
war right now all of that all of that can still happen no one is making any determinations yet about the the position of these hundreds of people deported again without due process we are in fact we are in fact moving toward that point of judges as Dale just articulated so well saying bring them back
to afford what every American, American broadly understood, is afforded in our land.
Bring them back.
And again, Dale's other important point, which is implicit in what Joach Boseberg is heading to, even as we speak about his conduct.
Are we heading toward that authoritarian time, that authoritarian government that says we don't care what the judges are saying?
We're not going to return this singular individual if someone comes back and says that Zinnis is the person who should indeed, the judge Zinnis is the one calling for that person to be returned.
We're not in any way, in any way commenting about the ultimate decision here.
We are in fact embracing the notion that
Judge Zinnis has directed this person to be returned and making that happen.
That's what it's all about.
As the Supreme Court also wrestles with the ways in which this case may devolve and may evolve, they've got to decide whether or not they're satisfied with the process being granted by the appeals court, by the district court.
It has been explicit, it has been extensive.
Frankly, there's no reason for the Supreme Court to enter into this, but we'll see what they do along the way as well.
The significance, the big takeaway on all of this as it has been in the past is if indeed we're heading toward
contempt are we also heading toward a constitutional crisis?
Where my Attorney General, my Department of Justice, our President is saying we don't care what another branch of government is doing.
That's the concern.
That's the profound concern that Dale has articulated.
That's the concern that I also present to you here again on this broadcast.
The Supreme Court doing other things, they're busy while we're talking about all of these other things, including the economic woes that the world is now facing as a result of the tariffs being imposed by our president.
Supreme Court also doing a lot of things very active out there, including some things when it comes to specific...
injunctions being entered, right?
We talked before about the district court judges and their actions, the things that they have done just in the past week.
The Supreme Court also involved in this to some way as well.
The Supreme Court just this past week on Friday let the Trump administration temporarily suspend $65 million in teacher training grants.
that the government contends would promote diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
That's undeniably an early victory for the administration.
As a part of this, the court order coming out on Friday was unsigned.
It's typical of these emergency applications.
And the decision five to four.
Five to four allowing the Trump administration once again to suspend about 65 million dollars in teacher training grants What do those do they help place teachers in poor and rural areas the Trump administration?
Suspending those Attempting to move in an opposite direction the decision five to four five conservatives just as Amy Coney Barrett Neil Gorsuch Clarence Thomas and Milito Brett Kavanaugh in the majority and interestingly the three so-called
liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan and Katanji Brown Jackson joined by Chief Justice John Roberts.
They're dissenting, those four dissenting, the order coming in response to one of a series of emergency requests by the Trump administration asking
the Supreme Court to intervene and overturn to reverse a lower court ruling that would have temporarily blocked parts of the Trump agenda when it comes to these training programs for teachers.
The grants that issues, what do they do?
They help teachers in poor and rural areas once again.
They're aimed at recruiting a diverse workforce that reflects the communities that they serve.
And inside the Department of Justice, the grant recipients
are then entitled to do recruitment and provide support for new teachers, specifically those who are going to be teaching, instructing our youth in poor and rural areas throughout the nation.
The programs, if in fact they are suspended, as many are saying now, the programs would fail to serve the best interests of the United States,
and those people who are attacking them, saying that the programs somehow fail to take in account factors other than merit, fairness, and excellence.
excellence and promote waste and fraud.
A common mantra that the Trump administration used in trying to shut down other programs, here again, attacking what they've identified inside this appropriate program for its diversity, equity, and inclusion components.
Eight states, including California and New York, have sued to stop the cuts.
A judge in the federal district in Massachusetts, his name is Myeong Jong.
He previously temporarily ordered the grants to be remain available.
And now the Supreme Court has said no, the grants can in fact be suspended, at least temporarily, while the matter goes ahead in the lower courts.
That happening just late this past week at the United States Supreme Court.
Another injunction that has been much in the news these days, also now making it back into the Supreme Court.
This one, you know it well.
It's one of the first ones under the 14th Amendment.
that attempt, that completely meritless attempt by our president to suspend birthright citizenship established by the 14th Amendment in the wake of the passage of the 14th Amendment, the Civil Rights Amendment, and we know that on Friday
the immigrant groups and leaders of about 22 states pushed back sharply by filing with the Supreme Court on Friday a petition, a memorandum, a statement, a brief, pushing back on the Trump administration's request that the Supreme Court lift that temporary ban on the president's order to end a birthright citizenship.
Lots of negatives there.
What they're basically is going on is
President Trump has gone to the Supreme Court and said overturn those lower courts that are objecting to my interpretation of the 14th Amendment.
And we've got 22 states who are saying no, no, the traditional interpretation is accurate.
It's right.
And they are now responding.
to the effort of the Trump administration to keep his view in place.
The filings actually come in a trio of emergency applications after all this was percolating up in February and March when the government asked the justices to step in and block.
to lift the block rather on the lower courts on his first day in office.
Once again, you recall well, President Trump declared that citizenship would be denied to babies who do not have at least one parent who is a U.S.
citizen and therefore changing according to the President dramatically, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
Supreme Court, getting more briefing on that issue pending in front of it just this past week.
When we come back, we'll talk about a major decision issued by the Supreme Court and then also
Also, the recent oral arguments before the highest court of our land, as Amicus Allah Review continues.
This is Amicus, a lot of you.
My name is Jim Santel.
Thank you for once again joining Max and me for our discussion this weekend, spending a lot of time talking about injunctive relief in our nation, spending a lot of time rightly so on the United States Supreme Court because it is now also getting involved in these injunctive orders being entered nationwide.
by district courts, sometimes affirmed by appellate courts as well.
We talked already about these grants to teachers, the birthright citizenship issue we've got.
parties submitting pleadings, opposing what the president wants, which is a lifting of the ban on his interpretation of the 14th Amendment.
That's also there.
We talked previously about the fact that now we've got a petition by the Department of Justice, your Department of Justice, by Pam Bondi, asking that the Supreme Court intervene in this Venezuelan case as well.
Tell Judge Bosberg
He's got to get off this case.
Tell judges of the appeals court that they're wrong when it comes to the insistence on due process.
The United States government is seeking review by the Supreme Court to stop all that from going on.
The Supreme Court right now considering whether or not to accept that case and review more of that.
Supreme Court not able to get out from under the implications and the effects of what our president is doing in all of these ways.
And indeed, it's doing that while it's also entertaining oral argument.
We know well what oral argument is.
We've talked a lot about it on this broadcast.
This is the opportunity
pre-decisional.
Before we get this flurry of decisions, probably in May, especially in June, we will spend a lot of time on this broadcast talking about the remaining cases for a decision.
coming out of the Supreme Court.
We'll talk about the nature of those cases as they are issued by the Supreme Court and we'll begin not only to talk about some of the oral arguments of this week, this past week and the previous week in this broadcast and a future broadcast, but let's talk about one of those cases that was in fact decided.
There are 64 cases of all of the cases in the state and
principally the federal system in America.
The Supreme Court up to now has decided to grant certiorari.
That is, it's fancy way of saying that we'll take these cases on in 64 matters and they have issued opinions in about 20 of them already.
So about 40 of them left for decision.
One of them issued just this past week and it involves the capacity of an individual to sue.
Supreme Court just on Wednesday.
This is a ruling of five to four decision, also interesting by virtue of who the four are.
Supreme Court finding on Wednesday that a truck driver, a truck driver who is fired for failing a drug test after using a product that failed to adequately describe what it was all about.
It was falsely advertised by its producer, its promoter to be free of what?
Of THC.
The truck driver took the drug based upon his belief that that was an accurate representation.
In fact, later on he determines that indeed it does have THC.
He is fired because it shows up in his system.
And the question is, can he sue that manufacturer under a federal racketeering law?
It is an interesting question, not only for federal racketeering law reasons, but also because of the right that all of us have at least petition in court for the redress of our grievances.
A particular truck driver's name is Douglas Horn, H-O-R-N.
It gives his name to the case as well.
It also affirms the capacity of individuals to get before the Supreme Court on issues that are important.
The other reason that this is so important is because it also heralds the emergence, once again, of, yes, that's right, Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
A five to four decision just on Wednesday of this past week, the court sided with Douglas Horn.
and said that the driver does in fact have this right to pursue his cause of action, his civil claim against the manufacturer of this drug, of this substance that inappropriately was advertised as not having any of any THC.
Indeed, it did.
He uses it, he tests positive, he loses his job as a result of that.
It's an affirmation as well, making it easier probably for litigants, for plaintiffs to sue companies
under this federal racketeering statute, RICO.
It was initially, originally, of course, initiated and passed to address organized crime.
Justice Barrett, again, writing that the product's manufacturer, a company called Medical Marijuana, was fighting a battle with that plain language of the racketeering law.
She says, that is a battle that cannot win.
She's talking about the manufacturer of this product.
And indeed,
The case turned on a fairly narrow question.
Again, whether Horne could satisfy the requirement imposed by the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, that's RICO, to show that he had been injured in his business or property.
Business or property, that's what the Supreme Court was wrestling with, Justice Barrett.
Again, joined in the majority with the court's three liberal justices, along with Justice Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, they filed a dissent, as did Brett Kavanaugh, who was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Sam Alito.
Justice Barrett once again joined the majority with the three courts liberal justices.
So in other words, we've got another instance again where Justice Barrett, Justice Barrett becoming a voice on the Supreme Court, writing the majority decision, siding with, siding with the petitioner here, Douglas Horn.
He sued under Rico again initially attended to focus on organized crime The phrase business or property has been the subject of a lot of litigation the past questions whether excludes suits for personal injuries He suffered allegedly hear the personal injury of losing his job And we know that a federal trial court dismissed the lawsuit saying that Horn's injury was totally personal court appeals for the second circuit disagreed
They said that the phrase business or property focuses on the nature of the harm not the source of it And so they supported it as does now a majority of the Supreme Court in a case written a decision written by Amy Coney buried just this past week Supreme Court also as I said entertaining lots and lots of oral arguments.
Let's talk about some of those that appeared in front of the court
adjust this past week.
There are four in particular.
We're going to talk about two in some detail.
KCM Rivers versus Guerrero has to do with habeas corpus petitions and the exhaustion requirement.
The petitioning the pleading requirements is imposed upon prisoners under a semi-called section 2244, which is the basic federal habeas corpus statute Rivers versus Guerrera will talk more about that when that decision comes out Here is perhaps the biggest case one of two argued before the Supreme Court it comes right from Wisconsin our home state here Supreme Court on Monday on Monday in a case called Catholic Charities Bureau versus Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review
Commission on Monday seemed pretty much ready, reading the tea leaves from the oral argument here to rule that a Catholic charity here in the state of Wisconsin was entitled, indeed entitled, to a tax exemption that had been denied by the state of Wisconsin.
Our authorities here
on the grounds that its activities, the group's activities, the things that it was doing, were not primarily religious.
And as a result, as a result, the tax exemption that the group otherwise would have gotten the charity not granted by the state of Wisconsin.
This Wisconsin Supreme Court had previously ruled that the group's activities were primarily charitable and secular.
and according to our Supreme Court that it did not attempt to imbue program participants with the Catholic faith.
And for those reasons, our Wisconsin Supreme Court found that the group should be denied the exception.
And even as it was accepting the charity's contention that its services, again, according to the charity, were, quote, based on gospel values and the principles of the Catholic social teachings, those distinctions, however, were plainly troublesome for many members of the Supreme Court.
Elena Kagan and trying to figure out whether Wisconsin Supreme Court got this right.
And remember once again, one of the bases upon which you can get in front of the Supreme Court, the federal Supreme Court is a decision in your unfavorable to you, if you will, from a state court.
So we're appealing here a state court decision from Wisconsin to the federal Supreme Court.
We've got Elena Kagan sing on Monday.
Some religions proselytize.
Other religions don't.
She says, why are we treating some religions better than others based on that element of religious doctrine?
That a part of the oral argument coming out on Monday.
Neil Gorsuch weighs in.
He echoes the same sort of point.
He says, isn't it a fundamental premise of our First Amendment?
that the state shouldn't be picking and choosing between religions.
He added, doesn't it entangle the state tremendously when it has to go into a soup kitchen, send an inspector in to see how much prayer is going on?
He's being perhaps a little bit facetious there, but underscoring the point about the analysis undertaken by an inspector.
Sam Alito asked the lawyer for the state of Wisconsin what the charity would have to do at a minimum to qualify for the exemption.
Lawyer for the State of Wisconsin said one possibility was saying the Lord's Prayer when the charity provides the soup.
Well, the answer does not appear to justify or to satisfy many of the justices here.
Amy Coney Barrett once again.
She says that some religions again do not proselytize invoking what Justice Elena Kagan had said earlier.
She said, as I understand it, she said, for example, Judaism does not have that as a part of its religion.
She goes on to say, so does that mean that Judaism is completely disqualified from getting an exemption when they're running these sorts of organizations?
And again, exchanges back and forth.
The case itself is the first of three religious cases involving, yes, indeed, the establishment clause in the First Amendment, the exercise clause, the free exercise clause that we've talked about a lot on this broadcast.
It's back again, determining, again, as this just as...
indicated whether there are too many entanglements between government and religion.
What should the analysis be?
We know that the Chief Justice has been articulating more and more a standard that asks whether or not religion is being prejudiced, whether there's discrimination against prejudice.
But we know also that this is one of a number of cases coming up to the Supreme Court, three of them in particular.
And it may turn out to be the easiest of three.
for the justices.
The Supreme Court, which has been very receptive, as we know, to arguments from religious groups, is going to hear arguments in this month later on, and whether a Catholic charter school in Oklahoma
passes constitutional muster, and then another case, yet a third case, about whether parents in Maryland have a religious right to withdraw their children from classes that include some sexual themes.
Lots of religion cases, faith cases, free exercise cases, establishment cases on the docket of the Supreme Court, that is by intention.
Again, four members of the Supreme Court have got to agree to hear a case.
Five of them got a decided majority.
This case, again, Catholic Charities Bureau versus Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission, concerning this Wisconsin law that exempts religious groups from state unemployment taxes.
As long as they are, again, according to the law, operated primarily for religious purposes, that's the question.
That's the question that the Supreme Court of Wisconsin has answered.
That's the question that the federal Supreme Court has now undertaken to answer.
We've got along the way, Justice Barrett again, opposing some important questions.
She said, if we had to articulate a test to distinguish religion from non-religion, she asked,
Can you concisely tell me what that test would be when lawyers responded?
The overall thing is that there is something transcended or supernatural that you are feeling obligated by.
The majority of the justices seemed inclined to treat the central question in the case as fairly simple and straightforward.
There is no dispute.
Judge Gorsuch said that Catholic charities exist primarily for religious purposes.
There's no dispute about the sincerity of their religious belief indicating that the justices, the justices, may in fact be leaning toward this Catholic charity and may in fact be overturning our Wisconsin Supreme Court and the decisions made by our state.
in this case, we'll see exactly what they do when that decision is issued, presumably sometime in the next couple of months.
Supreme Court also looking at other cases just this past week as well.
Those include a case called FULL versus Palestinian Liberation Organization, an important case having to do with something called the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act.
The question is whether or not the processes under that law violate the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment has to do with a consent provision and whether or not it runs afoul of the Fifth Amendment.
That case fold also entertained this past week.
And then we have a case involving Planned Parenthood.
This is Medina versus Planned Parenthood South Atlantic.
The Supreme Court weighing whether states can cut off Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood.
The organization, of course, has long been the center of the debate over abortion.
And when we come back, I'll tell you more about exactly what was at stake in the oral argument of this past week in that case.
Medina vs. Planned Parenthood, and give you some idea about how the Supreme Court may resolve that action when Amicus, a lot of you, continues.
This is Amica, so long of you.
My name is Jim Santel.
We're talking about some of the oral arguments just this past week in front of the United States Supreme Court and reading some tea leaves in some instances, talking about a case called Medina versus Planned Parenthood of South Atlantic, South Carolina.
South Carolina Planned Parenthood South Atlantic operates two health centers and they provide some medical services including contraception, cancerous screenings and some other forms of treatment.
A Medicaid beneficiary there received care at Planned Parenthood and planned to continue her care there but in July of 2018 the South Carolina governor issued an executive order directing the Department of Health and Human Services to terminate
abortion clinics from the Medicaid program.
Again, Medicaid established way back in 1965.
Again, as you know well, provides medical assistance to needy individuals and some other forms of healthcare support.
As a result, the Department of Health and Human Services informed Planned Parenthood that it was no longer qualified to provide services to Medicaid beneficiaries.
They are terminated.
Terminated as their enrollment in those agreements.
The district court in this case initially granted
planted a preliminary injunction, there we go again, blocking South Carolina from terminating Planned Parenthood, and the Fourth Circuit.
The Fourth Circuit, after multiple appeals and a previous remand, again held that Medicaid beneficiaries can sue to enforce their right to choose their provider, and that's what this case is really about, the question before the Supreme Court whether or not under Medicaid, the provision that allows patients to choose any qualified provider
unambiguously clearly provides the ability of the patient to choose that provider or can the state step in and say, nope, we can prohibit you from getting services.
at the provider of your choice.
Lots of language out there as well began interpreting the particular Medicaid language.
The government, the state there is saying the people in the state do not want their tax money to go to that organization.
Healthcare advocates on the other side say the effects of this case transcend abortion.
The legal question at issue is whether Medicaid patients, they say, can sue over their legal right to choose their own qualified provider.
cancer society other public health groups say in court papers things submitted again as amicus briefs to the court that the only real way that patients can assert those rights is through these lawsuits losing that ability the American Cancer Society says to go to court would hurt their access especially in rural areas
All of that before the Supreme Court just this past week, we know what the Supreme Court has ruled in the past.
It still has the same majority when it comes to these kinds of privacy issues.
If it's viewed as a Medicaid issue narrowly and focusing upon this qualified provider language, you might get one result because it does have implications far beyond issues related to privacy and abortion.
But if it is tagged with...
Exclusively, an abortion-focused reproductive rights highly likely the Supreme Court would go in an opposite direction and more narrowly interpret that language under Medicaid.
It is significant, of course, because the Supreme Court taking up a Medicaid case at a very time when down
Pennsylvania Avenue at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue the White House and over off the mall the Department of Health and Human Services under the direction of our secretary there addressing Medicaid cuts across the nation.
Those also of course the subject of injunctive petitions and challenges in our courts.
These things, they are not easy.
They're complicated and they're in courts, high courts like the Supreme Court, lower courts like appeals courts as well.
We know too, we know too that even before this past week, the Supreme Court involved in other.
cases involving important issues.
Here's one involving the Voting Rights Act in particular.
It's Louisiana versus Calais.
It's actually a couple of different cases.
A majority of the Supreme Court in the week before last appeared ready to allow Louisiana, the state of Louisiana, the subject of prior litigation as well, to continue to use a congressional voting map that included two majority black districts in the state.
Lots of litigation about this kind of issue.
The question before the court again in this oral argument of a couple weeks ago, did Louisiana lawmakers improperly rely on race when they drafted the map?
Or was this purely a political decision?
The reason why that's important is because the Supreme Court has said that when it comes to political gerrymandering, we're not going to have anything to do with that.
That's not within our purview.
Racial gerrymandering, that's different.
And so using a new map to hold elections in 2024, Louisiana, at the direction of a federal court,
elected, not only created a second majority black district, but indeed elected a second black Democrat.
And that was the first time in a decade that Democrats have held two congressional seats in the state.
Of course this particular litigation is also important generally for the Voting Rights Act broadly.
When lawmakers adopted a map that included only
one majority black district long before all this came about but in the wake of the 2020 census the Louisiana State Conference of the NAACP the power coalition for equality and others sued
in court.
And they argued that the Voting Rights Act at the time required that the state draw two majority black districts so that voters in those communities would have had the chance to elect politicians of their choice.
And a federal district court judge, as I just said, found the black voters in Louisiana
often supported the same candidate, but were consistently outvoted, outvoted by this white voting bloc, and directed, once again, that lawmakers redraw lines, so there are two, two majority black districts there.
And what is the rub?
How does this get back to the Supreme Court then?
The answer is the lawmakers eventually drew that map with two majority black districts.
And another lawsuit follows.
This time the challenge comes from who they identify as a group of non-African-American voters who now argue that what the legislature has done in drawing these two lines, creating a map that violated the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause,
with a, as they describe it, a sinuous and jagged second majority black district based on racial stereotypes.
And if you look at the litigation documents, if you'll pull this case up, it is the case of Robinson versus Calais, Louisiana versus Calais, you will see this very serpentine type second majority black district designed by the legislatures to capture those voters previously disenfranchised.
And you've got the Solicitor General,
telling the Supreme Court a couple of weeks ago, we would rather not be here, he says, is adamant that politics, not race.
commanded that this map be drawn in the way that it is, but you've got Neil Gorsuch complaining about this very snake-like district that's now there.
Supreme Court going to decide down the road who's right, who's wrong under the Voting Rights Act and also under the Constitution of the United States of America, voting in America back in front of the Supreme Court.
Next week, more on the Supreme Court, more on injunctions, all of that as we address the delivery of justice here in the United States and beyond.
Have a good weekend.