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My name is Jim Santel.
I am, as always, on this weekend slot, your host for the next
hour and the hour after that as well.
We're going to be talking as we always do about the rule of law, about the administration of justice, about government functions and activities.
And yes, indeed, our syllabus, our agenda for this weekend, both this hour and next hour is full of stories, events, circumstances, news that animate our broadcast this weekend.
Delighted as always, honored as always to
know that you have selected to spend some time this weekend in conversation with me talking about these various issues.
As always, you can be in direct conversation with me and my producer.
by calling 855-752-4842.
That number once again is 855-752-4842.
You can be a part of our discussion of all of these rule of law, justice, and government issues this broadcast and always.
You can also drop us a comment, drop us a question and inquiry about anything on our syllabus by going into the civic media chat line and communicating with us in that.
We concluded the last weekend's presentation, our discussion, our broadcast with you by talking about these unsung headlines that animate the ways in which the attack upon the rule of law and the diminution of justice delivery in our nation is having some collateral consequences when it comes to the relationships between judges and the justices of the Supreme Court.
Relationships between litigating prosecutors of the Department of Justice and those same judges, typically in district courts, and even between the people and the Department of Justice as well.
We have talked a lot on this broadcast about the big picture stories in all of those areas.
We're focusing, as we began to do at the end of last broadcast, on some of these collateral consequences.
typically seen in the media, not visited a lot in conversation, but nonetheless indicating the ways in which most regrettably, catastrophically, the basic relationships and ties and understandings and policies and mechanisms through which justice work are falling apart.
I'm going to talk more about those, again, judges and justices, the courts and assistant United States attorneys, the people in the Department of Justice, all of those things.
We're going to revisit this because many of you reached out to me in the last week or so with greater interest in these three concepts that we began to introduce at the end of our broadcast last weekend, including things like the presumption of regularity.
that has attended those relationships between prosecutors and assistant United States attorneys and judges.
This thing called departmentalism, which is now getting greater sway.
It's sort of a subcategory of other issues that we have talked about.
We'll talk about that more in connection with the people's relationship with their government generally, departmentalization.
And also we're going to talk about something else that's percolating up called malicious compliance.
This has to do again with the judges, their relationship with the federal.
members of our Supreme Court.
And again, just more cases this past week animating what is called malicious compliance.
We'll talk about all of those things near the top of our hour here on this broadcast.
We've got a lot of other stories to mention as well.
Lots and lots of appeals court decisions this week.
At least four of them handing victories to the administration in the areas of foreign aid and social security access
transgender care, and even matters related to contempt.
All of those coming out of various circuit courts around the country.
We've got four other cases coming out of district courts, trial courts around the country, also federal courts having to do with DEI in schools, having to do with domestic violence funding, having to do with the funding for a democracy promotion agency, and yes, indeed, also having to do with the things that that head of the schools in Oklahoma is
attempting to do in terms of bringing religion back into schools for district courts also making major decisions in those areas just this past week.
We're also going to begin at the course of our second hour to talk about.
the incoming docket of the United States Supreme Court.
It's just about seven weeks before the United States Supreme Court begins its 2025-2026 term.
We're going to begin in this broadcast to highlight some of the cases.
They're significant.
Some of the cases that are going to be on the docket of the Supreme Court in this term.
And in a couple of broadcasts down the road, we're also going to begin to talk about some of the major cases on the docket of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
That will
be in future broadcasts as well.
But we're going to begin.
We're going to begin before we get to those issues related to judges and courts and prosecutors and the people in the Department of Justice, revisiting all those issues, those concepts involving departmentalism and the presumption of regularity and malicious compliance before we get to that.
Because so many of you have inquired and asked for more information about those kinds of things.
We're going to begin with some late breaking news coming out of Washington.
DC.
It is all rule of law related.
It's all justice related is government related.
And yes, indeed, it has to do with the president's recent decision to bring into the District of Columbia federal forces.
to nationalize and federalize the forces that are there and bring in also other members of the federal military into the District of Columbia as a way of, as the president has said, addressing, addressing what he feels, what he believes apparently is an out of control criminal situation.
We know that the predicates for that decision are not real.
We know that he is presenting us with facts that are simply belied.
Yes, indeed.
his own Department of Justice, just a few blocks from the White House.
What does the Department of Justice say about the level of crime and criminality in our nation's capital?
You have heard this, this statistic a lot.
It comes not from the District of Columbia, not from some independent source, but from the federal government itself, from Donald Trump's Justice Department, one that he has plainly taken over through Pam Bondi and others at that institution.
The Department of Justice
has confirmed that in the District of Columbia.
in recent times, specifically over the past several years, there's actually been a 30% drop in virtually all kinds of crime across the board in our nation's capital.
Does crime exist?
Sure it does.
It exists in every major city, but it is important as we begin with these two major stories coming out of the District of Columbia just yesterday and in previous days to underscore the notion that this entire initiative, moving, moving federal troops,
onto the streets, setting up checkpoints for people to be stopped as they go to work, as they come back to their homes.
All of that predicated upon not just a misrepresentation, but no foundation at all.
Nothing to support the president's statements that, indeed, crime is out of control and he is there to clean it up.
Nothing also to support that homelessness, which we'll also get to, is a matter.
Is it a concern?
Absolutely.
But a matter for disaster intervention?
No.
And we'll talk about something the president has recently done in the area of homelessness.
And yes, indeed, once again, the ways in which the United States Supreme Court has effectively invited
the president to do through his nationalized troops, through his federalized troops, through the federal military to move, move homeless people into other locations.
We don't know where they're going to go.
That also a product of what the Supreme Court.
John Roberts and other members of the Supreme Court did.
Just last term, we'll talk about a case called Grants Pass, you may recall it, having to do with the capacity of municipalities, government generally, to move on homeless people under the Eighth Amendment.
There's a lot going on in Washington, D.C.
Let's talk first about the basic authority, putting aside the factual lack of evidence to support what the president is doing.
Let's talk about the legality of what he is attempting
to do late this past week.
The President of the United States of America announced that as a part of his takeover of Washington, D.C.
and of law enforcement there, he is now appointing or was going to appoint the DEA head, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
It does seem that every single legitimate and in place leader of an agency or a cabinet officer in Washington
picking up additional duties and responsibilities as the president identifies more responsibilities for them to take up.
And here's another one, the head of the DEA in Washington, DC.
She responsible, of course, for administering DEA offices, cooperating with other law enforcement agencies, developing cases typically involving drugs, obviously, but also presenting those to the litigating, the prosecuting attorneys of the Department of Justice around the nation.
United States attorneys, the litigating prosecutors at Maine Justice.
Now, now, according to the president, also becoming the police chief, the head of law enforcement in the District of Columbia.
And the president announces this again as a part of his belief, his statement that the present law enforcement, the present police chief there, duly placed in that position by the mayor of the...
District of Columbia that she is not doing her job.
And for that reason, that person has to be displaced and replaced by the DEA head.
What happens just late this past week?
Well, we know the District of Columbia
through the Attorney General of the District of Columbia.
Yes, indeed.
There's a District of Columbia Attorney General.
His name is Brian Schwalb, S-C-H-W-A-L-B.
What does he do?
He looks at this and he says, you know what?
What the President is doing here.
Yes, he's got great authorities when it comes to the District of Columbia because of its unique municipal but also federal seat of government.
An awful lot of mixed and intertwined responsibilities there.
The Attorney General
that the President of the United States of America, the federal government, does have authority when it comes to many things related to enforcement inside the District of Columbia.
But the Attorney General also says that the President has gone too far in basically replacing the police chief with the DEA chief and files a lawsuit.
Files a lawsuit basically alleging that this takeover of the police chief position violates the basic separation of power
the clauses of the Constitution requiring the president to faithfully execute the laws.
And what are those laws that, according to the Attorney General, the president has not, in fact, followed?
That includes the Home Rule Act, the Home Rule Act that, again, establishes the relationship between the District of Columbia and the federal government, says that the president has violated that, has gone too far.
And indeed, just late Friday.
late this past week, a judge.
Her name is Ana Reyes.
We have talked a lot about her before.
She has been in the news a lot before.
Ana Reyes has a hearing and it is on an emergency petition from the Attorney General saying.
Court, judge, stop this from happening.
It's in violation of the law.
The president in this area has gone too far violating the Home Rule Act, violating separation of powers, violating the very ways in which the Congress has set up the District of Columbia, and while Ana Reyes
expressed concerns about the allegations and the positions of the administration in defending what the president has done here.
In the end, she didn't make a determination.
What she said was she wants the parties to go back as they often should do.
And again, as we have talked repeatedly, a settlement is always better than some sort of court-imposed order.
She asked him to go back and talk with each other, to meet with each other, to try to negotiate a
resolution of this constitutional crisis happening in Washington, D.C.
When we come back, I'll tell you what happened in the wake of that just this past week.
They're in Washington, D.C.
And I'm going to talk about the homeless community there as well.
All of that coming up on Amicus, a lot of you.
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My name is Jim Santel and yes this is Amicus a law review our weekly weekend review of all things rule of law related and justice related and government related we are beginning in that context to talk about what's going on in Washington DC including the president's attempt to take over not just the streets with checkpoints and the presence there of the military the military as opposed to domestic staff and domestic law enforcement but also in that connection his recent
in the district of Columbia.
That prompts the attorney general of the District of Columbia to file a lawsuit.
He goes into federal court right there down the street and he gets assigned to judge Ana Reyes.
Ana Reyes, we have talked about her before.
She is the judge who in previous cases
over that case involving the challenge to the Trump administration ban on transgender troops.
She is the one who initially and continues to say that the ban there inside the Department of Defense is unconstitutional, cannot be supported.
Stunningly, this is one of those cases where the Supreme Court, without explanation on its emergency shadow docket, overturns Judge Reyes without any explanation and says, yes, go ahead and do.
during the course of that proceedings was Judge Reyes, who excoriated Department of Justice attorneys for misrepresenting the government's actions in court, something we're going to get back to when it comes to the presumption of regularity and the relationship between courts and prosecutors.
We'll get back to that.
Judge Reyes has a hearing late this past week, and she presides over arguments in favor of the governments, the president's takeover of law enforcement.
by placing the DEA chief in charge of the police force and against it, brought by the attorney general as the District of Columbia becomes more and more animated in its opposition to what the president has doing.
And Judge Reyes in the end says, I'm not going to decide today.
I want you to talk with each other.
And sure enough, encouraging the parties to talk.
After that, the administration blinks.
late Friday, the administration says it will not pursue the president's efforts to put the DEA chief, the federal law enforcement authority with many, many responsibilities, not just there in the District of Columbia, but across the nation for the enforcement of our drug laws across the board, not assuming that responsibility.
Why?
Because the administration, through the Department of Justice, says we'll back off.
We won't do that.
We won't pursue that.
Effectively, this is a win for the District of Columbia saying, you've got to follow the law, Mr. President.
It is a violation of the Home Rule Act that once again establishes the limits of the federal government's authority.
The president, basically, by virtue of blinking, concedes that he does not have that authority.
And so while the presence of military inside the District of Columbia, replacing or at least
augmenting, if you will, in some way, the domestic police force, while that continues, the head of that will not be replaced.
by a federal authority underscores the larger issue here, which we have talked about before as well, which is the impropriety generally of bringing military forces with a dramatically different purpose.
You know what that's all about.
The military does what?
I saw this when I was in Iraq for two years.
The military wages war.
It is the most destructive thing plainly that one nation can do with respect to other nations, other entities.
Are there just wars?
Absolutely there are.
We know them in our own nation's history, but we know that the military function with respect to
actions to enforcing the policies and practices of administration is dramatically different.
It is destruction.
It is killing.
It is doing those things that bring a community, a society to its knees, dramatically different from what domestic law enforcement in our nation is designed to do.
And that is why this entire effort, in addition to being
baseless factually is so disturbing.
What is law enforcement in our nation do?
When I was in Iraq, when we were attempting to reestablish law enforcement there, not military, but law enforcement, it is to provide service to the people of Iraq when we were there.
And also to continue to do that, of course, as we've done for 250 years in this nation, it is a service industry.
It is serving and keeping people in domestic areas, in commercial areas, their homes, their
their businesses, their communities, their schools, safe and secure.
That is a dramatically different role, a different assignment than what the military does.
I suspect that that was what animated a lot of what Judge Reyes was saying to the parties on Friday afternoon, telling them that she is concerned about what she's saying and encouraging them to negotiate, to try to figure out some resolution of this indeed.
they apparently have with respect to at least this particular aspect.
There's another thing that's going on in Washington, DC, and that is with respect to the homeless camps that are there.
It's unclear.
It's exactly how widespread or effective the raids are, but it's very clear that a federal operation started late this past week, and it is targeting, no doubt, the homeless population in various locations around the District of Columbia.
I suspect many, if not all of you, have visited Washington, D.C.
There are major encampments, undeniably, like any major city in America.
Are there homeless issues?
Absolutely.
In Washington, D.C., there are homeless people throughout the district.
of Columbia, including in places like Washington Circle and Foggy Bottom, places like Washington Square, the Martin Luther King Memorial Library, where homeless people often spend the night in the areas just outside that library.
And it appears that late this past week as a part of the president's attempt to address this issue that he sees as homelessness and rampant criminality, you've got federal officers and federal agents.
presumably in concert with law enforcement there, moving these folks out.
And while that is also troubling, it also raises another issue about where this authority comes from.
And I would offer to you that once again, we can look to the Supreme Court in terms of giving the president and giving other municipalities authorities to do things.
When we come back, we'll talk about a case called Grants Pass and what John Roberts did last year.
that is now seeing its incarnation in these days in Washington DC when it comes to the management and yes indeed the administration of law enforcement with respect to the homeless population in our nation's capital.
All that coming up on Amicus.
A lot of you.
This is Amicus.
A lot of you.
My name is Jim Santel.
As always, Max, my producer and I are inviting you to be part of our conversation by calling us at 855-752-4842.
That number, once again, is 855-752-4842.
You can also drop a comment into our chat line.
We are talking about the District of Columbia and these actions by the president, in particular, to try to replace the police chief there with his own federal official.
the DEA had a move that was not successful, withdrawn effectively when the judge, the federal judge, basically bulked at this and said, unlikely you're going to be successful in doing this, so that does not happen.
Indeed, we appreciate Mark commenting about this specific situation.
Mark writes, with what's going on in the District of Columbia, I wonder what some of the founders would have thought about the then proposed District of Columbia.
Mark notes that in Madison's Federalist 43,
the writers of that state that citizens should retain their rights and would have a voice in their district's civil administration did not appear to think that it would be the president's personal fiefdom to do as he pleased.
Mark, appreciate that comment, that observation from history, also animating plainly a lot of the argument, the disagreement even in court about what's going on in the District of Columbia.
Again, the administration blinking effectively and not
with Pam Bondi's effort to try to replace the police chief there with a federal law enforcement person, not happening, even as issues continue to be at the top of our nation's attention.
Among the things that's happening there, of course, much related to the president's...
takeover of the District of Columbia are moves against the homeless camps that are present throughout the District of Columbia as they are present throughout every major city in America.
Those include places like Washington Circle in Foggy Bottom, other places like Washington Square, the Martin Luther King Library, other spots around the District of Columbia.
And one of the things that
Listeners should understand is that even this authority comes in the wake.
It's all related to what the Supreme Court did last term comes in the wake of this major decision by the Supreme Court called Grants Pass.
Remember this?
This was the situation where a city.
in the western part of our nation was seeking permission and was indeed enforcing ordinances to move homeless people off of public lands and properties.
Not a matter that was without controversy.
And indeed, reasonable people came forward and said that there should be some ability for the community
to organize and provide alternative housing.
What the Supreme Court says in the end again, the majority of the Supreme Court is that it is not under the Eighth Amendment, cruel and unusual punishment to pack people up, to move them to other sites.
And for that reason, Grants Pass stands for the law of our land, that the forced movement of homeless people from the places where they are living, admittedly in our cities, without clear paths forward, that that is constitutional.
Sonia Sotomayor picks up on this, as you may recall, and says, they've got to live somewhere.
They have a right, a constitutional right, a civil right to live somewhere.
And she, as do people, who are opposed to what Grants Pass was...
and what the case says, says, you know, you can do this.
Yes, indeed, we've got to address this problem, but you've got to find some reasonable alternatives.
You've got to find mechanisms to ensure that human beings, residents, citizens of our nation who happen to be homeless have alternatives.
beyond just being moved off and even even find ordinance violations for doing justice.
And that's why this issue remains so very controversial.
It also gives strength and puts wind in the sails of the president's efforts now to move the population of homeless people in Washington DC to other sites.
It is significant that in terms of this all important alternative option, that is what we do with these populations,
The deputy mayor for health and human services, his name is Wayne Turnage in the District of Columbia, says, you know, we're willing to cooperate with the federal government in doing all this.
We can finish the encampment part of this process in a week or so, he says.
But, but the federal protocol for doing this is again, very different, very different, he said, from what the District of Columbia was planning to do.
He said that the city does not.
does not conduct encampment closures at night, but he said the city is in a support role will connect with homeless people and try to provide them with services, try to collect their belongings and clean up after the clearing.
The commissioner here says we've never before had the FBI federal government involved in what has been a municipal effort.
He recognizes that there is a challenge here that needs to be addressed.
He says that we are attempting to find alternative housing.
He says it's never been a federal operation.
It's always been district government.
We will do what we can to help them and by them he means members of our homeless population.
A backhanded way of saying the federal government coming in and moving them out are not helping them.
He nonetheless as a part of his municipal assignment as the deputy mayor for health and human services saying we'll do what the federal government will not do to try to find some places for those people in Washington DC now moving from their locations to other spots unknown.
As a result of the president's attempt to, as he says, clean up Washington D.C.
in circumstances that once again, at least with respect to crime, are not supported.
It is significant that in that category, that same category, much more broadly, on July 24th, just a few weeks ago,
The president, very much in mind of homeless populations, issued another one of these executive orders.
It was called Ending Crime and Disorder on America's Streets.
How exactly was that going to be accomplished?
Well, the executive order contemplates shifting homeless individuals into long-term institutional settings for what the executive order describes as humane treatment
though through the use of civil commitment, though once again how that gets accomplished not entirely clear.
This notion of institutionalizing people
variously with mental illnesses with other life challenges is again not without a huge amount of controversy and the president's executive order that plainly has reverberations with what's going on in Washington DC right now but also raises issues about yes indeed we do need to provide humane treatment civil civil commitment again that suggests mental illness hospitalization institutionalization and lack of clarity about how that would be done
in Washington in other places around the country.
And all of this, once again, coming out arguably of that Grants Pass decision, but also reminiscent of something else that the Supreme Court decided many, many, many years ago.
It's a case called Olmsted, and it was decided admittedly under a different rubric under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
That's the act the federal legislation signed by George Bush that enforces basic civil rights for Americans with disabilities.
Olmsted, Olmsted,
The Supreme Court case that comes along and says, under the ADA, under the Americans with Disabilities Act,
people who have been institutionalized with mental illnesses and other psychiatric challenges should in fact have the opportunity and should not, should not in fact be immediately institutionalized, basically incarcerated when there are alternatives in the community.
When there are other mechanisms for addressing the mental illnesses that these folks, these fellow citizens and residents of our community are facing, Olmsted says that under the ADA they should
not be institutionalized, they should be a part of our communities and doesn't that make sense?
That is the law in America that was decided by a majority of the Supreme Court.
And so one wonders allowed when the president speaks about civil commitment and institutionalization of people who have mental illnesses, including those who are among our homeless community, all of this plainly tied together.
One wonders whether the president is running afoul now, not only of the
Home Rule Act with respect to the District of Columbia, but also Olmsted, this major decision affirming the civil rights, the human rights of American citizens.
There's a lot going on there.
It is a lot, as we often say, and it's all coming out of very recent rule of law news happening right there in our nation's capital.
As always you can be a part of our discussion by calling max or me at 855-752-4842 that number once again 855-752-4842 many of you after our broadcast last weekend and as we introduced the fraying challenges not just around the corners around the edges but the Fraying challenges of things that are happening to the rule of law and our basic systems of constitutional checks and balances the things not
seen in headlines, those beginning to show themselves as well, coming in the nature of federal district court judges, engaging in what is being called malicious, malicious compliance, an interesting, almost humorous phrase.
It wasn't so serious, malicious compliance.
These are judges who, yes, indeed, are arguably complying with the letter.
The words, if you will, of the Supreme Court statements,
But doing things that plainly they feel are in the interests of justice.
We began talking about those last week.
We'll go back and revisit some of those.
Many of them under headlines out there from various legitimate news organizations.
One, for example, The New York Times saying someone is defying the Supreme Court, but it isn't Donald Trump.
Other headlines talking about the outright defiance using that word.
of the lower federal district court judges.
And we have talked a lot about them.
We'll talk more about them in our second hour, some new cases coming off the dockets of federal trial court judges saying to this president, and in one case saying to a state official, you can't do that.
It's unconstitutional, can't do it under our constitutional system, can't do it by virtue of the way that the Congress has set up the institutional arrangements for agencies to do their jobs.
And many
judges now finding ways to interpret the statements or the non-statements of the Supreme Court and do what they feel as they apply the law to the facts and the facts to the law, what they feel the Constitution commands.
We have talked in the past about perhaps the most notorious of these when the Supreme Court
in one of the cases that did not involve its emergency docket found that there are no more national injunctions, no more universal injunctions, but specifically said that we're not deciding the issue of birthright citizenship.
Yes, indeed, back in the news just this past week.
And so we've got a number of judges, three district court judges, we've talked about them before, one appeals court judge saying, all right, all right, we won't have a national injunction, but Supreme Court, you have said that one of
things that we can do is certify a class of people.
And these judges, the lower court judges, using the language of the Supreme Court have said, all right, Amy Coney Barrett, we're going to certify the class of newly born children who would be detrimentally affected by the issuance of, by the president of his executive order in January, effective in February, that would rob citizenship from them under the 14th Amendment.
So you've got at least three judges,
of them out there, including an appeals court that's saying we're going to invoke the very language Supreme Court that you have told us we can invoke and we're going to do what you fail to do.
Now that may not be malicious and it may be compliance in some sense, but it certainly is as many people have observed a creative way of enforcing the 14th Amendment and judges more and more finding the ways of doing, doing just that.
We know that in addition to the birthright citizenship, there have been
other cases out there where lower district courts have likewise done the same kind of thing.
Let's talk again, remind you about some of those, some of them we know well, some of them are unknown to us, but they all reflect this sense that we are not going to necessarily follow the exact letter of the law issued by the Supreme Court, which is a concern.
And when we come back, we'll tell you more, we'll tell you more about a number of those judges out there, including one just this
last week, who once again, arguably with a small d, defying the Supreme Court, doing things that the court feels is appropriate, that is a district court, but undisturbedly consistent with the Supreme Court, that coming up as Amica Solaraview continues.
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My name Jim Santel.
We're talking about the collateral consequences of the constitutional crisis that we have been in plainly since the middle of March of this year, the continuing challenges inside the courts, inside the relationship between courts and prosecutors.
inside and even exterior to the relationship of the people of the United States of America with our courts in general, and including, of course, the District, the Department of Justice there in the District of Columbia and in other places.
Let's talk about one of those ways in which a federal district court, among others, engaging in what some people are calling this malicious compliance.
What is the concept here?
Well, it brings to mind, once again, those two words that seem
be a bit of an oxymoron, right?
I'm complying but I'm doing it maliciously, right?
You're actually technically doing what you're supposed to do.
but in a way that actually thwarts the goals of the powers that be.
That's how it's sometimes being described these days.
It reminds and awful us a lot of us of what you might call uncivil disobedience, getting in the way, but using perfectly lawful tools to do just that, fascinating and concerning candidly, regardless of the underlying substance that we've got federal district court judges so committed to the rule of law and doing what's right that they're engaging in this kind of behavior.
What is yet another example of that?
You've got a district court judge named Yang Zhuang, J-O-U-N.
And Judge Zhuang has issued an order, actually a couple of orders that are very interesting when it comes to the judge's ongoing battle with the Trump's unlawful assault on the education department.
In May, Zhuang issued a preliminary injunction.
Barring the White House from basically bringing the Department of Education to its knees by firing Literally more than a thousand thousands of employees there stopping the Department of Education in many of its key functions Judge John basically saying you can't do that That's not how it works the Congress has the right and the capacity to establish this department You cannot bring it to its knees and here's the point in the wake of that as you all well know we've talked about this.
What is the
Supreme Court do it, enters an order, unsigned, no indication of reasons.
This is its shadow dock and says, no, we're going to overturn the lower court.
President, the White House can go ahead and fire all these people inside the Department of Education.
Interestingly, interestingly, Judge Drowne comes back and issues a different injunction in a related case that specifically does what?
It bars the government now from dismantling the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights and protects the employees from termination in that area.
So again, the judge comes back and says, all right,
I don't know what the Supreme Court is saying because they haven't said anything, but I'm going to issue another injunction stopping you from firing people inside the Office for Civil Rights.
After the Supreme Court set aside that first injunction, the Justice Department asked Judge Drown to halt his second injunction as well.
And after that, the judge, the District Court Judge, said, no.
I'm not doing that.
He refuses to do what Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice are telling or asking him to do.
He writes that the court's unreasoned stay order issued on its emergency docket does not make or signal any change in controlling law.
Let me say that aloud again.
What Judge Brown says is that the failure of the Supreme Court to tell us exactly the reason why they're overturning his order is unreasoned stay.
issued on the emergency docket does not make or signal any change in controlling law.
So Judge Drowne says, I see no reason to undo my own injunction.
And that is where the case remains.
Now, needless to say that the Department of Justice not happy with this, but it is yet another example, arguably, depending on how you interpret this, of defiance with a D ball or capital.
Maybe, maybe this notion of
Uncivil disobedience by our judiciary may be even malicious compliance with what the Supreme Court is telling judges to do.
We know that there are other situations like that out there.
You have responded in many ways to much of this.
We talked about Judge Gia Kab.
She blocked the Trump administration from using a process known as expedited removal.
And what does that do?
It quickly removes illegal immigrants from the country.
And it is an administrative process.
It's legal.
You can do that.
The order that Judge Cobb entered, at least for the time, dramatically curtailed the president's efforts to carry out his deportation agendas.
You can well imagine.
Expedited removal no longer a process.
In a public statement after the Judge, Judge Cobb does that, the White House says that the judge is defying a previous Supreme Court ruling.
Judge Cobb, the White House says, is flagrantly ignoring the United States Supreme Court that upheld expedited removals of illegal aliens by a 7-2 majority.
That's according to the Homeland Security Department.
The ruling according to the White House is lawless and it won't stand.
Another instance of a lower court judge saying, I'm going to do what the law commands and not what the Supreme Court is telling us the law is without giving us explanation.
for why it may be different.
We've talked a lot about Judge Brian Murphy.
He's in Massachusetts.
He issued this preliminary injunction in April against the transfer of those deportable illegal migrants here.
The criminals, who again are deportable, should be deported, but based upon the failure to give them what due process with respect to the.
countries of their origin where we send them the judge enters an order saying you can't do that and The the Supreme Court once again overturns that overturns that without giving direction without explaining why the the judge that is Judge Murphy comes back and says his order remains in effect He cites the dissent from the Supreme Court from the dissent in the Supreme Court from Justice Sonia Sotomayor and
The Trump administration once again describes Judge Brian Murphy's conduct, just like Judge Cobb's conduct in another setting as unprecedented defiance of the Supreme Court's authority.
And again, taking strong objection to what the lower court is doing just there.
When we come back in our second hour, a little bit more on judges and this notion of malicious compliance, of uncivil disobedience, and then also what's going on inside court
and prosecutors and what's going on with respect to the public and the reputation of the Department of Justice, all of that in our second hour here on Amicus Law Review.
This is Amicus Law Review.
My name is Jim Santel.
This is the second hour of our broadcast talking, as we always do, about the rule of law, the administration of justice, the aspiration for justice in America and beyond, and government function wedded into all of that.
time talking about these very interesting trends.
Many of them have names.
We're talking about those here in our broadcast.
The conduct of judges, district court judges who are taking the language or the non-language of our Supreme Court and interpreting in ways that probably is not exactly what the Supreme Court majority intended.
Variously being called malicious compliance, maybe uncivil disobedience.
We've got a number of these circumstances, including just in recent weeks going
How about Michael Simon?
He is a judge in the district of Oregon.
He rules in July that the Department of Homeland Security cannot, cannot, forbidden from engaging in these wide scale parole status terminations for migrants.
In other words, a way of taking this particular population, bringing them into a system and terminating their parole status, which keeps them here.
The judge at the time cites some lower court decisions that prohibited
similar actions, but he fails to mention interestingly that the Supreme Court stayed those decisions over a month ago.
And that, of course, also raising this issue about judges in the lower courts doing what they feel strongly is the rule of law compelled by justice, even if the Supreme Court has articulated, or again, not articulated in the case of the shadow docket, instruction on what to do.
It is also significant that in May, the Supreme Court quashed some orders from another federal district court that had blocked President Trump's dismissal of two members from the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board.
You recall these cases.
It has to do once again with the creation by the Congress of independent agencies and the president's attempt.
Successfully, to get rid of people on the commissions, robbing them of a quorum so they can't do business, he's got no authority to do that under the commissions issued by the Congress, enacted by the Congress.
The ruling found that the federal government was likely to prevail due to substantial executive power exercised by those federal agencies, gave the president, if you will, the capacity, the capacity to do these firings.
What happens?
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal
chooses not chooses not says no we're not going to stay we're not going to suspend a lower court order that enjoins presidential removal of members from the Consumer Product Safety Commission a nearly similar agency
They decide not to do that.
You can't reconcile those two actions.
Ultimately, the Supreme Court in July grants this day citing the previous order.
And so once again, you've got there coming out of that particular, the Fourth Circuit, a situation where the appeals court, looking at prior decisions of the Supreme Court, again in the shadow docket, no description, no explanation, doing what it feels it's right, only to have to go back to the Supreme Court.
Court once again and compel the Supreme Court to give more definition to what it has not given before.
All of this, of course, prompting the administration to talk about, once again, active judges, activist judges, judges who have no power, all those kinds of things, none of which is true, none of which is consistent with our system of justice in America.
But it underscores once again what is happening, what is happening in the midst of our present constitutional challenge.
These basic structures begin to fray.
These basic structures that say we do in fact comply with precedent.
We do in fact comply with things told to us by a superior courts.
What happens when those superior courts, when the Supreme Court doesn't give direction?
And the lower courts are therefore obliged to make the determinations based upon their own judgments, only to find out later on that the Supreme Court had a different view in mind.
It is a lot once again, and it is going on inside the federal judiciary these days.
many instances of that around the country in many, many different places around the country in states like the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Northern California, Maryland, and others around the nation in which we live.
What else is going on?
What else is fraying the basic structures and policies by which the rule of law is administered?
This one we began to talk about as well.
At the end of our last broadcast, many of you called or sent me notes.
talking about this thing called the presumption of regularity, the presumption of regularity.
We like regularity generally.
There's a presumption this one that attends the relationship, at least it has in the past, between prosecutors who are appearing in front of federal judges, many of them for things like search warrants, for applications for criminal complaints, other things that require the imprimatur, the review, the approval of federal district court judges,
in virtually all of those situations, and yes indeed, in formal proceedings in courts.
When the judges look at prosecutors, government officials who've taken an oath of office to say, Judge, I will be a straight shooter.
I will tell you what the facts are.
I will not lie to you.
I will tell you what they are, even if they're not helpful to my particular case, to the government's position.
That's called the presumption of regularity.
And for all of my time in the Department of Justice and the time of virtue, all of my colleagues nationwide, whether in Eastern Wisconsin, Western Wisconsin, the District of Columbia,
name your district across the nation.
The assistant United States attorneys enjoyed, not a benefit of the doubt, it wasn't that, but this notion that if you're called upon by a federal district court judge to answer a question, the judge could rely upon that with regularity.
They've long enjoyed that professional benefit when they appear in court.
The judges, yes, tend to take them at their word and assume they're telling the truth.
Not a benefit of the doubt, but assumption
that the Department of Justice will not lie.
The traditional bonds of trust are beginning to fray, and that presumption of regularity goes well beyond the judge's blunt words about the ways in which government attorneys are acting.
We've talked a lot about that, words like egregious behavior, brazen lies, lawless statements to describe various actions and statements, representations of government attorneys, and those actions, once again,
cause problems inside not only the relationship between the government attorneys and the courts, but also the very administration of justice, government's credibility.
government's credibility now being frayed as well.
For instance, for instance, they've used some examples of this as well.
An order was unsealed in Federal District Court in Washington.
This is once again the District of Columbia by Judge Zia Faroukwi, F-A-R-U-Q-U-I.
And at the time that she unseals this particular order, she basically admonishes the prosecutors after they tried to convince her that, or convince him rather, that all he needed to do was just to
to them.
Just believe what we're saying and you don't need anything more beyond that.
And that was of course in response and in support of their request to keep sealed some search warrant information in a relatively ordinary criminal case.
Judge Furukwi says this.
He says, blind deference to the government in these days, that is no longer a thing, he says.
Trust that has been earned over generations has been lost in recent weeks.
Goes on to say that Justice Department lawyers under this administration have done much to destroy the confidence normally afforded them in court.
The judge goes on to note that the government has fired prosecutors who worked on the president's two criminal prosecutions.
They've attacked the charges brought against rioters who strum the Capitol on January 6th, and they've described that as a witch hunt.
We know that those prosecutors also to a person all dismissed no longer in the ploy employee of the Department of Justice.
It goes on to say they violated judicial orders in cases stemming from deportation policies and from his efforts to freeze federal grants.
All of that we have talked about.
Judge Verwikwi goes on to say, these norms being broken must have consequences.
High deference is out, trust but verify is in.
Where do we hear that last?
Well, it's heard a lot, but Ronald Reagan talked about that and in connection with what?
The nation's relationship with.
the Soviet Union, right?
Trust but verify is in.
High deference is out.
We've seen that also in the bench from Judge Zinnis, Paula Zinnis.
She is in Maryland.
She is the judge who's presiding over the Abrego Garcia case.
We have talked a lot about this as well.
She has been quite literally, judicially appropriate, but furious with respect to the representations, non-representations made by government attorneys in her courtroom.
refusing to answer questions, noting that they're basically not providing her with the information in response to direct questions, and therefore causing the judge to lose her patience with the Department of Justice.
She says they failed to give her a straight answer about what the administration planned to do with Mr. Abraigo Garcia after he was brought back to this country from El Salvador.
She said, this has been the process, government attorneys, from day one.
have taken the presumption of regularity.
She says it out loud.
The presumption of regularity and you destroyed it.
You have destroyed it in my view.
In a sweeping opinion in April, you'll call this as well, Judge Dale Ho, Federal District Court in Manhattan, Southern District of New York, rejected the false reasons presented by the Department of Justice.
What in connection with that effort ultimately successful to dismiss the federal corruption charges against the present mayor of New York, Eric Adams?
Judge Ho, again, ultimately feels appropriately obliged to dismiss it, does it with prejudice.
So the government can't bring the case again, which is not what the government want.
But along the way, he says it appeared that officials appearing in front of him, including from the Southern District of New York, had used their power in a quid pro quo, he said with Adams, to get him to support Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.
And the judge goes on to talk once again about the diminution of the trust
that he has previously had in the reasons for the government asking for what it does.
He says, everything here smacks of a bargain.
Dismissal of the indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions, not a part of the rule of law and it goes on.
A federal judge on Long Island refused just last month to take the department's word when it comes to the prosecutors asking her to dismiss an indictment against a leader of a violent street gang there, the MS-13
and instead of simply accepting the government's assertion the case against this particular defendant had to be dismissed has to go away because it raised some national security concerns the judge she has a name also here's her name is Joan Azreck AZ RACK she orders the government to tell her more about the reasons why she's no longer simply relying upon the government to justify
her action.
When we come back, we'll talk more about that.
And then ultimately, the compromise in the regularity between the people of the United States and the Department of Justice, all that coming up on Amicus, a law review.
This is Amicus, a law review.
My name is Jim Santel.
We are spending some time appropriately talking about the collateral consequences of all sorts of things.
This cocktail, if you will, of the president.
routinely issuing executive orders that are unconstitutional, contrary to what the Congress has done, contrary to our Constitution.
We've got in that mix a Supreme Court that is variously permitting him.
sometimes not, but often permitting him to go ahead and do these things and not describing the reasons why they're doing that, not giving the lower court's direction on all that, and then you've got the lower district court judges doing what they do, which is making decisions necessarily on the cases in front of them, the trials before them, and having to guess in some cases about what the Supreme Court means and doesn't mean.
All of it, all of it should be hugely troubling.
This mix of judges internal to our judicial system, not engaging in the normal respect for precedent that should happen, but doing it in the context of a situation that's also completely unprecedented, where you've got a Supreme Court that is issuing orders without explanation in its shadow docket, responding to a president that plainly is doing things that are unconstitutional.
All of it is bad.
All of it is a reflection of...
the constitutional crisis in which we are engaged right now, including this diminution of the relationship between government attorneys who are appearing in front of those very same judges and the decisions of many of them no longer to trust the things that your government attorneys saying, that too a part of this mix that should cause great concern for everyone, regardless of your political viewpoint, regardless of your views on the substance of the case
that they're being decided.
I was talking right before the break about Joan Azreck.
She orders the government to tell her more about the national security concerns that animate a case dismissal.
She's saying that's just not enough anymore.
And she's saying that this notion of presumption of regularity where otherwise I would have relied upon you no longer holds.
I'll give you one more.
Judge Andrew Widerhorn, W-I-E-D-E-R-H-O-R-N.
He is a judge.
I'm sorry, he is a defendant who is appearing in front of a judge.
And in that particular case, the judge, whose name is Gary Klausner, K-L-A-U-S-N-E-R, said in an order that judges should grant considerable deference to prosecutors seeking to dismiss charges, but still even acknowledging that insisted on an explanation for the dismissal on Friday.
What is the point of all that?
Judges are not only, as we know, the players in the legal system who have traditionally provided some deference, some support, some reliance upon what the Department of Justice has said more and more routinely as a part of the diminution of this overall problem in America, rule of law.
They're distrusting your Department of Justice lawyers.
And the other aspect of this, we're getting some reporting out of Los Angeles that indeed one of the other bastions that keeps us
So all in place, federal grand juries.
We haven't talked a lot about them.
We can't because their processes are private and they're not a part of the regular release of information under Rule 6E.
As we've said repeatedly on this broadcast, can't disclose what they're doing.
We don't know about their actions until if ever they issue grand jury indictments, charging individuals upon finding a probable cause.
in an almost unheard of move.
Some federal grand juries in Los Angeles have reportedly been refusing to indict many defendants when prosecutors have sought to charge in connection with these immigration protests.
And the situation once again underscores how courts and prosecutors and grand juries and people who are responsible for doing what they're supposed to do
Don't need necessarily to work in concert, but need to work in compliance and respect with respect to each other, jurors, witnesses, all those folks, if they believe that the Justice Department is acting honestly.
If grand jurors
If federal district court judges reviewing applications for search warrants and for motions to dismiss indictments, no longer trust the Department of Justice.
That sense of regularity, that sense of credibility is no longer there.
The credibility crisis, as it is being called, grows and it deepens.
When the government loses credibility,
It plainly results in collateral consequences, the reactions of other players in the system, including, yes indeed, arguably, maybe, grandeurs out there who no longer may be relying upon the statements made, we're not certain about that, but certainly judges now coming out overtly and saying from the bench in the public domain that federal
prosecutors are no longer to be trusted.
All of this, all of this, none of this good, none of this, something that should be embraced, all of that, a reason for a profound concern.
In this time, 2025, as we try to address these colossal, very important issues,
about our nation.
We always appreciate tremendously.
Callers and Joe, we appreciate you're being a part of our broadcast this weekend here on Amicus.
Glad to have you with
us.
Thank you, Jim.
A great explanations as always.
I'm interested in you were talking about the world of the Justice Department and prosecutors.
I'm interested in taking this situation down to ordinary citizens and I'm going to give you an example and I'd love to hear your reaction is to this.
There's some audio and video floating around social media of these troops.
talking to a guy who's sitting on his citizen of Washington DC, who's sitting on his stoop, smoking either a cigarette or a joint doesn't even matter.
I think dope is legal in DC.
But they're talking to him and they say, do you know that this is an emergency has been cited in the city of DC?
And the man on his stupid citizen says, nope, not heard of that.
And then they're talking to him and saying, well, you really ought to be careful.
What you should do is go into your house if you're going to smoke or you're going to have alcohol.
And I'm listening to it and thinking, did the Fourth Amendment suddenly go out the window?
Where does this guy get any legal?
push to say, you have to go sit inside your house, particularly because in DC, it's
And it is hot there.
And Joe, we have to go to a break right now.
I'm going to take the answer to your question and your very good question right after we come back after this break.
Thank you so much for raising this issue.
Stay on the line and we'll talk with you more right after this as Amica Salaravu continues.
This is Amica Salaravu.
We are talking in these segments of our second hour.
All about the diminution in the rule of law, the ways in which our systems normally operate.
the behaviors, the conduct of judges, of prosecutors, all of it.
All of it prompting great concern, should prompt great concern by all Americans as these traditional systems begin to fall apart.
Right before the break, we were chatting with Joe.
Joe, I think you're still on the line.
You were telling us about this confrontation or maybe just a conversation between somebody sitting on the stoop of their house in DC, approached presumably by somebody in the United States military and talking about
the place or location where the person should be smoking or doing other things.
Tell us more about your particular reporting there or your particular question, Joe.
The question is this on an individual basis.
This man, a person comes up looking very government like he's strapped to the max military and says, you really should go inside your house and smoke or drink.
Okay.
On what law?
What possible law is he allowed to tell me where I can smoke and drink when I'm on my own property?
I mean, I understood the Fourth Amendment is your home is your castle, and your castle should include your front yard and your stoop.
Those are all your choices.
If you're not making a disruption in your neighborhood, having some large, long, you know, raucous party or, you know, screaming obscenities or something like that, if you're just sitting there quietly,
Who are they to say you should go inside your house?
I mean, it'd be one thing if there's, you know...
criminal running through the neighborhood.
And even then you should have the choice to say, no, it's my choice to sit on the stoop.
And I think this stuff is interesting, Jim, because it's this granular stuff that's going to push a lot of things.
For example, if you're sitting on your stoop, do you have the right to take your phone up to your and start shooting video of the cops doing something in the street?
Or can they, excuse me, these military people doing something in the street?
Do they have the right under this banner of emergency
to run up to you and say, what you just shot is mine.
It's this kind of stuff that I find fascinating as we go forward because it's going to be where that bono contention starts up, where does the forthcoming start?
Under emergency rules, what can these people say that they can do?
And how is this being communicated to ordinary citizens if there is a change?
I presume that I can sit in my stoop and have a beverage and that nobody can tell me you should go in the house.
So I'd love to hear your reaction to it.
Thanks
A lot, great, Joe.
Lots, lots to unpack.
And most importantly there, I would say these are the reasons why this presence of military force here are causing all these problems.
Some basic responses.
And again, we could, Joe, you and I could spend hours talking about this.
You're absolutely right.
The Fourth Amendment does
provide again fundamental privacy that's the basic place that's the basic locus in which you've got privacy under the Constitution James Madison wrote about that that's the reason why you are free from unreasonable searches and seizures
overcome only if there's proof of criminality, right?
There's a finding by a federal magistrate judge, or district court judge.
You're doing something criminal, then indeed a search warrant can be issued, and agents, federal or state, can go in.
Privacy, maybe, again, on your property, on your property generally, also within that general umbrella.
If in fact you're doing something that goes beyond that privacy realm, if you will, then the situation be,
It made me come a little less clear what you've described is certainly not that.
I also wonder allowed why it is that the particular federal agent, presumably military person is engaging in this particular conversation.
This is not criminality.
This is not what the president has identified as the problem.
And beyond that, some basic rules for protesting and for being out there generally.
Do you have a right when you're on private property, your own property to control your own?
First Amendment opportunities and rights.
Absolutely.
Can you film things?
Can you record things?
You bet you can.
You can actually do that, Joe, in public parks and walking down sidewalks.
All of that is protected.
Agents, officers of law enforcement come up to you and ask you to stop doing that.
You have a right under the First Amendment to do that both on your private property and generally if you engage in criminal conduct in that setting.
in another setting, yes indeed, then the analysis becomes different.
And that's one of those situations where the First Amendment does have conditions, right?
You can't do everything that might jeopardize the safety and security of the society, of the community, of the place that you are, but you do have those basic First Amendment rights.
These kinds of things, Joe, that you're describing here will continue to happen.
And it is the problem, going back to my first point, about what happens when you bring in military forces
who are not there, not designed to do what, provide for the safety and security of that very person who is sitting on the stoop, they can engage in conversation.
Sure, that's what local police do in a way that's remedial, that serves a greater interest.
That's not the function of military.
And that's my greater concern about all this.
Joe's spectacular question is always, again, lots to unpack.
They'll continue to report on that, continue to monitor those kinds of things happening.
When we bring together this
a bad mix between military, they've got a function, it's not on the streets of America, and domestic law enforcement.
They also have a function, it is on the streets of America.
Appreciate that so very much.
And Joe, your comment also at the start raises the other issue, which is the relationship of America to law enforcement, including the Department of Justice.
Your example underscores my other point, which I will be brief in making, and that is the
compromise in that relationship the trust that should exist between the people and the Department of Justice and yes indeed federal officers generally.
There is this growing application of a concept that is out there and it is called it is called departmentalism.
departmentalism.
It's kind of a broad category that supersedes and has, as an umbrella, the concept of this unitary executive theory.
And it's also compromising, if you will, the trust of Americans in a Department of Justice.
And in government generally, what does departmentalism say?
It basically, it's a concept.
It's out there, but improperly applied.
It also further compromises our sense of reliability.
for our government institution says that each branch of the government, each branch of the government, the executive branch, which includes the Department of Justice, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch, has the authority.
the independent authority to interpret the Constitution when fulfilling their own duties, not bound by the interpretations of other branches.
And of course, that contrasts dramatically with what our Supreme Court has said way back in Marbury versus Madison, which is the Supreme Court is decidedly the entity that tells us what the laws we know that this president has also said that I am the law.
He has issued an executive order saying that if there's any agency
inside the cabinet circle or beyond that articulates a view of the law that's different from mine it is not the law of the nation this notion of departmentalism which is taking hold now as well again a further aspect a further of this notion of a unitary executive who is responsible for articulating the law across the board
It is a theory that is out there, but it is contrary to our basic systems of checks and balances.
And I would offer here as we talk about the ways in which our government is losing a reputation status that is always enjoyed, admittedly.
imperfectly, admittedly, incompletely with the American public.
This is yet another situation where people look to the Department of Justice and see their saying and doing things that are not consistent with the rule of law, thwarting what federal district court judges are saying, doing things, name calling about other agency, about other government entities like members of Congress, and indeed federal
judges as well, all of that, all of that claiming that the executive branch has the exclusive authority to describe what the law is.
that also sends the wrong message to America and further prompts people to look at the Department of Justice, to look at the administration, to look at any entity that would embrace that theory and say government is no longer to be trusted.
That's the reason why we need desperately to restore these fundamental notions about how government works, checks and balances in which judges and the legislature, and yes, the executive branch as well, independent agencies all have the roles to play.
They can
fight, they can disagree, and they ultimately get resolved in courts, maybe by legislative actions, sometimes by executive orders.
But when we don't follow those basic principles and something like departmentalism takes hold, our system begins to falter.
Let's talk in the remaining portions of this segment.
Let's do some rule of law snapshots, which we haven't done a lot of just to indicate what's going on out there at the appellate court level and the district court level as well.
These are going to be snapshots and indeed in recent days and weeks the administration has gotten an awful lot of appellate opinions from the appeals courts of this nation that support what it is doing.
Let's talk about three or four of those and appeals court
channel, this is the DC circuit by a two to one vote, cleared the way just this past week for the administration to continue to refuse to continue refusing to spend billions of dollars in foreign aid.
We know this as a part of the president's executive order, finding that aid organizations that had sued to recover those monies that were withheld as a result of the executive order, lacked the legal right to bring that challenge.
the DC Court of Appeals said that under the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, only the Government Accountability Office, you know that as the GAO, serving as Congress's independent watchdog, could challenge the President's efforts to withhold that foreign aid funding.
Undeniably, a success, a victory for the administration.
Let's go out to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, a two to one vote again, three judge panel there, granting, granting the access to data,
stored at the Treasury Department by the Musk team.
You'll call well that these teams had come to the Treasury Department and other departments and sought secure information.
decision of the Fourth Circuit citing a Supreme Court order in June again.
Here we go once again.
This is an emergency order entered by the Supreme Court in June granting, granting the Musk team analyst sweeping access to other data stored at the Social Security Administration.
The Fourth Circuit cites that unsigned, undescribed opinion for the notion that the same team can have data access stored at the Treasury Department, also the Education Department, the Office of Personal Management, and they cite the Supreme Court's unsigned
undescribed order in June involving that social security data.
That coming out of the Fourth Circuit.
You've got an appeals court.
You've got an appeals court.
This one is in St.
Louis.
An eight to two decision, again, based upon the Supreme Court's decision in Scrimetti, remember that case?
This is not.
This is not its emergency docket.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday upholding an Arkansas law, a legislative enactment there, barring doctors from providing
and gender-affirming care, including puberty blockers and hormones and surgery to transgender minors.
That was exactly what was at play in that Scrumetti case.
The Supreme Court, by a split majority, said, yes, indeed, legislatures can do that.
Basically, the Supreme Court's saying, we can't wrestle with this, so you will.
The eight to do decision by the St.
Louis-based Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals
overturns a lower court ruling, follows the Supreme Court holding that the states can in fact ban, ban this kind of health care that coming out of the eighth circuit just this past week.
And ultimately, we've also got another case coming out of the DC Court of Appeals.
It has to do, it has to do with the authority of a lower district court judge and his efforts to enforce the law.
When we come back, I'll tell you about that.
I'll tell you about some district court decisions.
And then we're going to initiate in the final moments of our omnibus agenda here, our next sweep.
into the upcoming Supreme Court agenda.
I'll tell you about a couple cases already on the docket of our highest court as our broadcast continues.
This is Amica Salar review.
My name is Jim Santel.
We're doing some rule of law snapshots, which we do from time to time, talking right now about the appeals courts, four of them in particular, just in recent days, granting the administration's positions and acknowledging them and providing some judgments in favor of the White House in areas of transgender care for you.
youth, data access by the Trump and Musk team, and also the decision by the president to withhold billions of dollars in aid, the appeals courts affirming the capacity and the ability of the administration to do all of those kinds of things.
Interesting.
Another case also coming out of the D.C.
Court of Appeals judges a...
three judge panel, two of them saying that the decision by Judge James Bosberg that had found the administration contempt for their positions in connection with the deportation of those 238.
individuals, immigrants, and deportees to El Salvador, that the judge's decision to find the government in contempt for failure to provide information, respond to questions, could not stand.
The appeals court disagreeing with the lower court judge, one of the judges saying that the judges, the lower court judge's order was too vague to be followed, another one saying that Bosberg lacked the jurisdiction to rule on deportations.
After the Supreme Court had ruled that the detained immigrants
had to sue in the states where they were rather than in Washington, DC.
You've got an appeals court there overturning the decision by Judge Bosberg finding the administration in contempt.
Lots of things going on at the appeals court.
And again, identifying here the process of judges.
Applying the rule of law, applying law to facts and facts to law, even if you may agree with these decisions, you may not agree with them, and that includes what some of the district court judges have also done.
You've got a judge, her name is Stephanie Gallagher.
She is in district court in Maryland.
We have seen her from her before, some of the decisions coming from her bench.
She deals a fairly significant setback.
To the president's education agenda, she declares just this past week the administration can't
not move forward with its plans to cut off funding, stop funding from schools and colleges with diversity and equity programs.
This had to do with the letters sent by administration to states in April, asking them to certify that schoolers did not practice what the administration had called illegal DEI.
diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Strongly worded ruling from Judge Gallagher.
She said that the administration had not followed proper administrative procedures.
Its plan was unconstitutional, she says, in part because it risks constraining educators' free speech rights in the classroom.
That from a district court judge dealing a blow, a judgment not in the direction of the administration.
You've got another judge.
His name is William Smith.
Rhode Island.
And he says that the Trump administration cannot graft on to the Violence Against Women Act some fresh new conditions that would apply to the application of that law.
funding in particular, distributed by the Department of Justice's Office of Violence Against Women.
The judge basically saying that you cannot graft on additional obligations, additional things that restrict the capacity of that law to be pursued.
The judge in particular is saying that the plaintiffs, a coalition of groups that were attacking restrictions on VAWA, concluding that the fresh requirements imposed by the Trump administration, in his words,
could result in the disruption of services for victims of domestic and sexual violence.
That also happening.
Another judge, another judge, basically with respect to an entity called the National Endowment for Democracy, basically saying that the government, the administration cannot restrict funds to that group.
part of, again, an effort through the Musk team and also some previous executive orders of the president to restrict funding for these kinds of educational groups.
The judge in that particular case, whose name is Dabney Friedrich, he says the defendants have likely unlawfully frozen the endowments funding.
He says that cannot hold.
And then you also have another judge, a federal judge not.
with respect to the White House, but with respect to that somewhat embattled education chief in Oklahoma.
saying that the complaint that that that particular superintendent has brought to stop the actions of a group that is advocating for positions against him.
In other words, he has brought a lawsuit trying to stop them from being in opposition to them.
The judge there in that particular case, his name is John Heil, he says that complaint of the Oklahoma school
Superintendent cannot stand cannot violate the First Amendment advocacy rights of a group just because they oppose your attempts to do things inside the school dismisses the law school and says that this is a bare assertion of powers that are protected and and and are in fact afforded and guaranteed
under the First Amendment.
Lots of district court judges there also entering orders, granting various injunctive orders and requests for injunctive relief.
We know the Supreme Court is also reconvening this term, this coming October.
And among the many cases that it's going to have on its docket, just to introduce this in this segment and to continue with this in next segment, among the cases,
Get a load of the great variety of cases, transgender sports participation, campaign finance issues, gay conversion therapy issues, crisis pregnancy centers, the Rastafarian inmate having to do with the cutting of his hair when he is in prison, a death row inmate case, the Louisiana electoral districts, that's a big case coming out of the Voting Rights Act.
There are cases related to a piracy verdict.
There's another case.
involving Chevron and Exxon coastal pollution and a case involving a pipeline dispute all of those before the Supreme Court coming up in its term in next broadcast we'll tell you more about some of those 10 major cases identified very quickly here so you've got a sense of what's coming up before our High Court and also talk about other matters that may be coming for appeals to our United States Supreme Court all of that coming
up on future broadcasts of Amicus Allora View.
For now, I thank you for joining me this weekend.
Have a good weekend, everybody.
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