Supreme Court Drama: Takings, Post Office, and Deportation Dilemmas

Welcome to Amicus, a law review with Jim Santel, Civic Media's weekly review and discussion of some of the most significant new stories in the areas of law, government, courts, and the aspiration for justice.

And now, here's your host, Jim Santel.

This is Amicus, a law review on these broadcast stations of Civic Media once again.

My producer Max and I are delighted that you have chosen to spend some portion of your weekend hours in exposition, in exploration of the major issues, the major news events of recent days in the areas of rule of law, the administration of justice, and the operation of your government.

As always, as always, that is the focus.

That is the mission of our weekly weekend broadcast.

We take our name, Amicus, Ami, meaning both

friend and also from the Latin invented for the courts, meaning amicus, a law review, conveying the sense that we are a friend of the court, but most importantly, a friend of the community, hoping to provide you with some information, some insight, some perspective on those major issues.

This weekend we are broadcasting in a pre-recorded state, which means that we're not going to be taking any phone calls, any of your specific comments, which means that I need to tell all of our listeners to take notes on those things, those questions, those comments.

those perspectives that regrettably I cannot take during the course of the next couple of hours in this weekend, but we're live again next weekend.

And so encourage you to renew those interests, those questions and bring those to our attention in our next broadcast.

This weekend, we as always have a broad, ambitious, but achievable agenda.

And that includes necessarily the courts of America as we often focus on on this broadcast.

We're going to begin

with a little bit of history coming out of the United States Supreme Court.

a recent anniversary, having to do with the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution, and then we're going to become a contemporary focus broadcast, having to do with what the Supreme Court has done just this past week.

And that includes some major oral arguments, one in particular.

I'm going to talk about something called the Takings Clause, and we'll review generally the kinds of things the Supreme Court has been entertaining argument on three different days this past week.

I'll tell you.

a bit about some of those and focus on one of them, one of them in particular called Pung versus Isabella.

And then, and then we're going to spend some time talking about two other decisions of just this past week, one of them having to do with the US Postal Service, the other one having to do with

testimony and conferring with your attorney during the course of a criminal trial.

Interesting cases, not necessarily on the headlines of our major print and otherwise broadcast media in America, but underscoring the notion that the Supreme Court, among the 60 or so cases that it has on this docket,

also entertains a lot of issues and resolves a lot of matters that are important not only to individual, particular litigants, but also to the conduct of business in America.

That's our theme when we focus on the Supreme Court in this first hour of our weekend broadcast, inviting you once again to take notes and

subscribe to the paper your questions about anything that we talk about in those areas.

Second hour we're going to be spending some time talking about the lower federal courts and in particular as we often do the federal district courts, the trial courts across our nation.

We'll talk about what a judge has done once again in Minneapolis.

We'll talk about what a judge has done in South Florida.

You'll recognize her name from the recent and far past and they're also going

to talk about what another judge has done in connection with deportations in America.

Those three things happening just this past week coming out of our federal district courts, and then necessarily we get back to the Department of Justice again, and we're going to be reviewing some of the things that the Supreme Court has not only been commenting on, but the Department of Justice has been engaging in when it comes to lawsuits, lawsuits around the nation.

the Department of Justice announcing justice past week, yet another lawsuit against an academic institution.

This is the University of California.

We'll talk about what internal to the Department of Justice, the Attorney General and others are saying about some of those Jeffrey Epstein documents and what that means for the rule of law.

And then we're also going to talk about other matters, again, from the past, that relate to issues that are important to the administration of justice.

What happened to an individual who threatened a judge who was involved in one of those lawsuits overseeing one of the criminal prosecutions of Donald Trump?

We'll talk about as well another major search and seizure.

happening in California.

We'll talk about the predicates for that, all of those things coming out of the operations, the conduct of what's called main justice in Washington DC, all of them important to understanding the rule of law, the administration of justice, and the operation of government in 2026, currently and beyond.

Let us begin our discussion or exposition with a bit of history, which we sometimes do when it comes to understanding

the present decision-making authorities and processes of the United States Supreme Court.

Here's an amendment we haven't talked a lot about in this broadcast.

It's the 11th Amendment was ratified in 1795.

It says this, the judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States

by citizens of another state, by citizens or subjects of any foreign state.

There's a lot of words there.

Basically, what it is saying is it's a limit on the judicial power of the federal judiciary.

It's in our constitution, cannot entertain any lawsuits that are brought by citizens of another state against citizens or subjects of a different state.

And the significance of the Eleventh Amendment is that it's the only amendment, the only amendment in our nation's history, in our Constitution that was passed in response to a decision of the Supreme Court.

Way back in 1793, this month we're observing the 233rd anniversary of a major Supreme Court case.

called Chisholm versus Georgia.

In that case, the United States Supreme Court, again, before the 11th Amendment, allowed a citizen from one state to sue another state in federal court.

One citizen of one state sues another state in federal court.

By four to one decision, again, at that time, the Supreme Court, five members of the Supreme Court,

Spurred Congress had prompted the Congress to pass and the states to ratify the 11th Amendment again a couple of years later 1795 basically overturning overturning the decision of the Supreme Court in Chisholm versus Georgia and finding again eliminating that there was a possibility of one citizen suing another state in the federal courts a significant overturning of a decision

by the people of the United States of America through the Congress, presidential execution, and then endorsement by the requisite number of states, the first time in our nation's history, the only time in our nation's history to this time that an official decision of the United States Supreme Court was overturned by a constitutional amendment.

Many other circumstances, of course, and we've talked a lot about this on the broadcast, where a legislative action

is either proposed or enacted.

It is signed into law by the president, passed by both houses of Congress, overturning and finding some new way of addressing a finding of the court of unconstitutionality or illegality.

Right now we know in the Congress of the United States Supreme Court, there are many such pieces of legislation that are pending.

with respect to campaign finance laws, especially with respect to voting rights prohibitions that have been enacted by effectively the decisions of the Supreme Court.

Those are pending and those would be legislative changes, but this is a constitutional amendment passed again by the Congress and endorsed by the requisite number of states.

Way back, way back in 1795 to overturn chism versus Georgia has never happened since that time.

We know that the United States Supreme Court has been very busy this past week as well as it was way back in the 18th century.

Entertaining this past week, several different oral arguments among the 60 or so cases pending before it.

I'm going to tell you about one of those cases in particular called Pung vs. Isabella County, Michigan.

But before I get to that, I want to identify very briefly some of the other matters before the Supreme Court.

Again, oral arguments, not final decisions, but oral arguments before your Supreme Court just this past week.

In a case called Havana Docks Corporation, question about the defendant trafficking and property that was confiscated by the Cuban government.

A second case also

involving Cuba called Exxon Mobile Corporation versus Corporation CYMEX, and it has to do with something called the Helms-Burton Act and Cuban Instrumentalities, so two cases involving the foreign nation of Cuba.

On Tuesday, on Tuesday, a case called Enbridge Energy versus Nestle, that case involves something called removal procedures.

You probably recall some of this in connection with the president's attempt, remove cases from state court to federal court.

This particular case under section 1446 again is a question about excusing some procedural time limits for removing cases from state to federal court and then we have on Wednesday a major oral argument in this case called Pung versus Isabella County, Michigan Here's the way the Supreme Court described the question before it this past Wednesday, and it's a lot

The question reads this way, whether taking and selling a home to satisfy a debt to the government and keeping the surplus value as a windfall violates the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment when the compensation is based on the artificially depressed

auction sale price rather than the property's fair market value.

That is a lot.

That's a lot to take in.

And I'm going to describe here a little bit more about the factual predicates that bring Isabella County and Pung's estate into the federal courts, and in particular, the United States Supreme Court.

How does this case get there?

Isabella County confiscated the Pung estate's private home.

for approximately $2,200.

Keep that amount in mind in taxes and fees that were overdue, but it turns out they were actually never owed, which complicates the matter even further.

The lower courts use the artificially depressed auction sale price that happens after the foreclosure

rather than the property's fair market value as the starting point for its damages calculation.

So what happens in this case is the lower court, the sixth circuit appeals court, and others hold at the fair market value.

taken is not what is owed to begin to fulfill the constitutional compensatory obligation imposed by the Fifth Amendment, and that defies this court's precedence.

And if it's not taken within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment, it is otherwise an excessive fine under the Eighth Amendment.

by imposing a punishment by pilfering far more than the government ever needed to satisfy the small debt.

In other words, what you've got going on here is a foreclosure of property and the government reaps a significant windfall in the overall taking under and sale of this property.

Far, far in excess of the amount of taxes and fees, $2,200.

The question is whether or not the government gets to keep the difference.

The question whether taking and selling a home to satisfy a debt to the government and keeping that surplus value as a windfall, whether that violates the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment when the compensation is based on a depressed auction sale price.

Interesting, complicated real estate, but important obviously,

to real estate and foreclosure procedures in the future.

When we come back, we'll tell you about some decisions of the Supreme Court on amicus, a lot of you.

My name is Jim Santel, and this is Amicus, a law review on the broadcast stations of Civic Media.

We are talking all about the Supreme Court and then into our second hour about other federal courts in the United States of America, and then also talking about some actions, some major actions by your Department of Justice just this past week.

We have just spent most of our first segment talking about these oral arguments in cases that may not hit.

the headlines, but are nonetheless important not only for the litigants involved, but also establishing a lot related to procedure.

understanding about how the law works.

There are more oral arguments coming up next week, three cases in particular, seven more beyond that in the month of March.

So it is a busy time.

The Supreme Court has also just announced some other oral arguments well into the month of April.

And then they're going to be pretty much concluding with oral arguments.

This is beginning the time period then when they begin to issue some major decisions in some of these major cases that

that have been the subjects of their oral arguments.

Let's talk about two of them that, again, have not grabbed headlines but underscore the breadth and the nature of the kinds of things your Supreme Court is wrestling with on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis.

Let's begin.

with the United States Postal Service and the Supreme Court holding that the post office can't be sued over intentionally misdelivered mail.

Sounds counterintuitive, but let's talk about how this case comes before the United States Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court case is called Conan.

And it emerges from a conflict between a landlord and poster workers in a place called Eulis, E-U-L-L-E-S-S, Texas.

The landlord, whose name is Conan, spent years apparently fighting to have a male and male belonging to her tenants delivered to a shared mailbox among them.

But the postal workers, following regulations and practices, regularly held that mail at the post office or actually returned it to the sender, did not use that shared mailbox.

And they were contending that Conan had not met the identification requirements for all addresses.

And so did this thing where they intentionally did not deliver the mail based upon the arrangement the landlord wanted.

Conan sues the U.S.

Postal Service to postal workers in particular and the United States government for, among other things, inflection of emotional distress and business interference.

And she argues, she argues, here is the important backstory on this case, that she was actually a victim of racial discrimination.

And the mail delivery drama had made it more difficult for her to find and keep tenants of her property, a lot going on here once again.

The Supreme Court, however, addressed only her claims against the United States Postal Service.

and the government generally and something called the federal tort claims act which we have talked about before that is a law that outlines the circumstances under which the federal government can in fact be sued for damages you know that regularly sovereign immunity prevents that from happening the f t c a or the federal

Tort Claims Act gives you some limited circumstances in which you can sue.

And specifically here, the justices were asked to resolve a disagreement between the federal courts of appeals over the scope of that law, the scope of the Federal Tort Claims Act, postal exception.

That postal exception protects the government from suits, as the law says, arising out of the loss or miscarriage or negligent transmission of letters or postal matters.

That's the carve-out of the federal tort claims act.

Since you can't sue for those kinds of things, the government contended that the postal exception

bars, Conan's claims here because of that language in the statute, because intentional non-delivery of mail is a form of loss or miscarriage.

Conan, the petitioner, the plaintiff in this case, argued otherwise, arguing that the postal exception doesn't cover intentional acts, things that are purposefully done.

On Tuesday of this past week, the United States Supreme Court sided with the government.

and held that the intentional failure to deliver the mail falls within the FTCA's postal exception.

The ordinary meanings of both miscarriage and loss point the court to this conclusion.

Clarence Thomas writing for the majority this, he says, because a miscarriage includes any failure of mail to arrive properly, a person experiences a miscarriage of mail when his mail is delivered to his neighbor, held at the post office,

or return to the sender, regardless of why it happened.

That's Clarence Thomas writing for the majority, in this case, a five to four majority.

Similarly, he went on to say, when Congress enacted the FTCA, the loss of mail ordinarily meant a deprivation of mail, regardless of how the deprivation was brought about.

Now, significantly, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissenting opinion.

She was joined in that by, again, an interesting group of justice

is joined by Justice Elena Kagan and Neil Gorsuch and Kitangi Brown Jackson.

They argue that the majority opinion provided the U.S.

Postal Service far more protection, whole lot more protection from lawsuits than the Congress had ever intended.

The Justices writing, it is not the role of the judiciary to supplant the choice Congress made because it would have chosen differently.

That's the dissenting opinion.

The majority opinion written by Clarence Thomas also briefly described the scope of the U.S.

Postal Service work, which is always interesting to look at.

The U.S.

Postal Service for a long time went to my clients when I served as the Civil Division Chief in two different districts in the United States.

The Supreme Court noting the postal exception was designed to ensure that the government would not force and be forced to confront an endless stream of lawsuits.

over inevitable mail delivery issues.

So the Supreme Court writes in 2024, for instance, the postal services more than 600,000 employees delivered more than 112 billion with a B pieces of mail over 300 million a day to more than 165 million delivery points.

Unsurprisingly, given this volume, not all mail arrives properly and on time.

That's what the Supreme Court has told us about the United States Postal Service.

And again, returning to Sonia Sotomayor and the dissenting opinion, she rejects the majority's interpretation of loss and miscarriage and would find in the opposite direction.

When we come back, I'll tell you more about that case and a case involving a criminal prosecution when Amicus, a law review, continues.

This is Amicus Alvario.

My name is Jim Santel, reviewing the actions, the activities of the United States Supreme Court just this past week, a number of oral arguments, and then a number of decisions as well issued by the Supreme Court among the 60 or so on its docket in this, the 2025, 2026 term, including this decision, postal service versus Conan, in which the Supreme Court sides in favor.

of the United States government, the United States Postal Service, and says, you're out of luck when it comes to suing for the intentional misdelivery or retention of mail.

In this particular case, there is a dispute, six to four, among, five to four rather, among the Supreme Court, about the interpretation of the Federal Tort Claims Act, this kind of wonky exception for postal matters.

And Sonia Sotomayor concluding her dissent, her disagreement with

the majority by challenging majority majority's characterization of what was at stake in this case again.

the majority noting the huge numbers of pieces of mail that are delivered every single day in America.

Sonia Sotomayor again on behalf of the dissenters writes, contrary to the majority's suggestion otherwise, adhering to the text Congress enacted would not flood the government or courts with frivolous lawsuits.

And even if ruling for Conan today would mean more suits against the government,

from mail-related intentional torts tomorrow, that would not provide the court with authority to change the text that Congress enacted.

So you've got a battle here of interpretation of legislation enacted by the Congress.

Resolved by a fairly narrow five to four majority in favor of the government in favor of the US Postal Service something to keep in mind when it comes to Anyone who's thinking about suing the United States Postal Service for misdelivery Intention or otherwise federal tort claims act the Supreme Court rules provides a nearly complete bar to those kinds of lawsuits That is legislatively enacted.

That's what the Congress said the case once again postal service versus

Conan, moving to an entirely different kind of case.

This one called Villarreal versus Texas.

And this is a case involving a federal prosecution of a defendant, David Villarreal.

He's on trial for murder and it culminates in his own trial testimony.

This case, Villarreal versus Texas.

The testimony was interrupted by a 24-hour overnight recess.

In other words, Villarreal is on the stand.

And there's a recess while the court adjourns for the day and then returns the following day.

And during the course of proceedings at the end of that first day there, during which the trial judge was presiding over the case, the judge instructs Villarreal's attorneys not to manage his testimony.

Now, what does that mean?

Well, basically it means that when a witness is on the stand,

Even during breaks, especially during the course of a regular break, a regular trial day, it is inappropriate for the attorneys to be engaging in discussion with the witnesses on the stand.

Because why?

Because you don't want the lawyers in any way telling the witnesses how their testimony is going, how it should be conducted, what may be coming next.

coaching them basically during the course of the day.

Here, here, you've got a trial that's interrupted because the end of the day proceedings have come, and the judge says, I don't want the attorneys to manage the testimony of this witness.

He's coming back on the stand the following morning, but the judge did clarify that Villarreal was not prohibited from talking to his attorneys, and he recognized that Villarreal's constitutional right to confer about certain kinds of talk.

topics, maybe including sentencing issues, that cannot be violated.

Villarreal resumed his testimony 24 hours later and was subsequently convicted of murder.

And on appeal, the Court of Appeals concluded that the order was a permissible exercise of the trial court's discretion that is kind of dividing things in half, saying, I don't want you coaching, I don't want you managing his testimony, but you can in fact engage in other matters that go to the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.

and the Supreme Court, in this case, finds, just this past week, that this qualified, conferral order that prohibits only discussion of the defendant's testimony for its own sake during a mid-testimony overnight recess, permissively, it's okay to do this, balances the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to counsel against the burden of offering unaltered trial testimony, and so there's no constitutional violation.

In other words,

balancing this notion that a defendant always has a right to representation, a six-minute right to counsel.

But you also don't want to upset this basic rule about managing or coaching testimony during the course of the trial.

And the Supreme Court, during the course of its exposition of this case, says this, says the Sixth Amendment guarantees as fundamental a criminal defendant's right to consult with counsel.

When a defendant takes the witness stand, however, he assumes the position of a

witness with its attendant criticisms and burdens.

That's the Supreme Court citing a number of cases for that proposition.

Supreme Court goes on to say these include the inability to receive advice from counsel aimed at influencing the testimony in light of the testimony already given.

That's the kind of counseling or encouraging certain kinds of testimony that is generally prohibited.

They make reference to a case called Jeter's, G-E-D-E-R-S.

In that case, the court held that a judge may not entirely prevent a testifying defendant from conferring with his lawyer during an overnight recess, reasoning that a defendant differs from a normal witness because he has matters

other than his own testimony to discuss, such as tactical decisions, strategies, and the significance of the day's events.

The court also invokes another case called Perry v. Leake, L-E-E-K-E, and in that case, the court held that a judge may prevent a testifying defendant from conferring with his lawyer during a brief daytime recess

Because there is a virtual certainty that any conversation during that recess would relate to the ongoing testimony.

And the defendant does not have a protected Sixth Amendment right to discuss ongoing testimony with the lawyer.

So a lot of this having to do with the timing of the recess.

and balancing again the access of a defendant who is on trial now testifying to talk with his lawyers about strategic things the significance of the day's events as opposed to things that go to the very content

of his or her testimony.

The court spends a lot of time, the Supreme Court does, in its opinion of just this past week, drawing the line between Jeter's and Perry and noting that it's not just temporal, but it's also content-based.

The court says a testifying defendant has a constitutional right to consult about matters such as the availability of other witnesses,

But where no testimonial topics are involved, the Sixth Amendment provides no constitutional right to consultation during breaks in testimony.

The trial judge's order here, the Supreme Court said, prohibited Villarreal's lawyers from managing his ongoing testimony in the language of the trial judge.

And the Supreme Court finds that that order promissively balanced this truth-seeking function of the trial against the defendant's rights to discuss protected topics with his lawyers.

Things like, for example, trial strategy, whether to consider a guilty plea,

and some factual information crucial to tactical decisions court goes on to say a court cannot prohibit a defendant from obtaining his attorney's advice on whether and why he should consider a guilty plea even if the why includes the impact of ongoing testimony on the trial's prospect but it may the supreme court said

like the court here, prohibit discussion of testimony that falls into that particular category.

An interesting procedural case, but an interesting case that underscores the importance of Sixth Amendment right to counsel, that's a constitutional right, and how it is invoked, how it is applied in the middle of a trial, in the middle of a murder trial.

involving highest stakes possible, and the importance of getting it just right, the Supreme Court in Villarreal finding that the trial court did in fact get it right by sort of cutting things in half.

Again, Justice Jackson delivering the opinion of the court.

Chief Justice Robert concurs in that, Alito Sotomayor, Kagan, Kavanaugh and Barrett also joined in that.

Justice Alito files a concurring opinion and Justice Thomas files an opinion concurring the judgment in which Gorsuch also joins.

You've got basically all members of the Supreme Court agreeing with the lower court judge here that you can in fact impose some restrictions without violating the language and the intent.

of the United States Supreme Court.

Underscoring once again, Villarreal versus Texas, Postal Service versus Conan, two of the several cases decided by the Supreme Court just this past week, things that are important to our republic.

The reason why courts and the appeals courts, the lower courts, are so critical to our process.

I should note that the Supreme Court also decided this past week a case involving geo-group versus menical.

It had to do with an immunity defense.

And also a case called Haines Celestial Group having to do with an erroneous dismissal of a case based upon some jurisdictional defects.

And of course, all of that, all of that, those cases that, again,

are not probably on the tip of your tongue, all of that coming in the wake of one of the most important cases of the previous week.

And that is, of course, learning resources versus Trump.

That's the tariffs case we talked about at great length last broadcast, finding that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not, does not authorize the president to impose tariffs in the way he has done.

So you get this combination week to week.

of Supreme Court decisions, some of which are huge, both economically and legally, others which are no less important, but affect things that are probably less on the minds of all Americans as we look at our United States Supreme Court.

A great diversity of cases coming out of our Supreme Court.

Again, 60 of them pending, and we are about to enter that period of time.

March, April, and especially May, when on a more regular basis our United States Supreme Court is going to be issuing some of these major decisions in a number of different areas that we have talked about in the past.

And that of course includes things like executive power, those attempts to fire the members of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Trade Commission, that big case involving birthright citizenship.

under the 14th Amendment.

Lots of cases involving the 2nd Amendment involving guns on private lands and gun possession.

the prohibitions with respect to gun possession and ownership when you are addicted to drugs.

LGBT rights also on the major decision docket of the Supreme Court, having to do with transgender women playing in women's sports, conversion therapy, and whether or not that can be prohibited by states.

Lots of other cases in the election and voting area.

We've got those major challenges to the Voting Rights Act coming out of Louisiana and that case called Calais having to do with line drawing.

Mail-in ballots, the prospect of counting ballots that have come in through the mail, properly issued by the voting authorities, properly returned by the voter, but counted after Election Day.

What are the rules about that?

Can states permit

voting to be, votes to be counted after the election day itself.

What about campaign finance and the interplay between parties, political parties and individual candidates?

And then we've got an entirely broad view of other kinds of cases involving everything from the conditions under which states can impose the death penalty.

Got cases involving religious rights, free speech, the environment, and of course immigration.

Lots of those cases coming up.

A lot of things to animate our docket in the coming weeks and months.

When we come back after this next break, we're gonna spend some time talking about other federal courts, one of them in Minneapolis.

one of them in other places in around the country involving South Florida, a court case coming out of that case, and other matters important to the federal judiciary here on Amicus, Allah revealed.

you

Amicus, a lot of you.

My name is Jim Santel.

I'm your host for this, the final segment of our first hour.

And then as we go into our next hour, we're going to be continuing our focus on federal courts to begin now.

We've been talking mostly about the United States Supreme Court, these major oral arguments of the past and the near future, and also some of the decisions that are now coming out of the Supreme Court.

as we enter that time period when the Supreme Court issues these major decisions.

Let's go back and visit what the federal trial courts have been doing in three different jurisdictions around the country.

We'll begin by returning, returning to Minneapolis.

You may recall that just recently reported on this case before Judge Laura Provenzino.

She is a federal district court judge.

She is in Minneapolis.

and she took the extraordinary step previously of holding a government lawyer in contempt of court.

You may recall, we covered this, we talked about this, and she blasted, she blasted the government, the Justice Department for failing to abide by her directions.

Specifically, the judge, Laura Provenzino, held an army lawyer who was assigned to the Justice Department in civil contempt.

She ordered the lawyer, who is Matthew Isharah,

to pay $500 per day until something happened.

That's the nature of a contempt proceeding until the government returned identification documents to a fellow named Roberto Soto Jimenez, who was released by ICE in Texas without his ID last week, despite a court order requiring him to be flown back to Minnesota with his personal property.

When the court found out that with respect to Mr. Jimenez that the

Department of Justice had not done what the court directed.

The court, again, Judge Provenzino found that the lawyer representing the government would be held in contempt, and eventually the government got the message.

The government quickly gave back the man's documents, prompting Judge Provenzino to lift the contempt finding later in that week.

She said that no fines would be issued against Ishihara, who is the lawyer representing the government,

and who was temporarily assigned there to assist the Justice Department throughout its cases there in the federal court.

But the nine-page order in which the court lifted that contempt proceeding included an awful lot of criticism of the federal government.

Once again, these actions being taken or not taken by the government

and the court finding that this was not just an isolated incident.

Judge Provenzino said Ishehara had, quote, taken no action to ensure compliance with the court's order, notwithstanding the fact that it was his responsibility to communicate the court's order to ICE to effectuate the defendant's law for release.

That's what the judge wrote.

She cited Ishehara's comments at the hearing, where he acknowledged that he didn't immediately send the court's release order to ICE

and didn't get back to the lawyer for Mr. Jimenez when asked for help in transporting him to Minnesota and returning his IDs.

Lots of inaction there by the U.S.

Department of Justice, and that's what the court commented on.

the government of course, maintenance overwhelmed by the sheer number of requests to release detainees, which are known of course as habeas corpus petitions.

We have talked about this before and the number of these petitions being filed now, landing in the federal courts there in the district of Minnesota.

The judge recognizes that as have other judges, but she rejects the defense that the government is overwhelmed and therefore should be excused from complying with court orders.

The judge instead writing that

administrative burden has never been a reason to sacrifice the constitutional and statutory rights of individuals.

She also said importantly that the government has offered that excuse to this court again and again and again.

And then she goes on and writes in a parenthetical and to other judges in this district.

again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, to excuse its oversights and disobedience of court orders in immigration habeas cases.

The agains are all a part of the district court judges express opinion here, conveying plainly her greatest satisfaction or dismay at what the Department of Justice is not doing in connection with this, the judge saying that she has been patient.

with the U.S.

Attorney's Office in the past, but she says at this point, the refrain of understaffing and too many cases has worn out its welcome.

This is what the judge is writing, particularly when it comes at the expense of individual rights.

The judge goes on to say, this court would never allow a private attorney or a litigant to rely on an I'm too busy excuse to justify disobedience of a court order.

The government she finds is no different and that is certainly the case.

The judge argued that it has become plainfully clear over the past several months that the attorneys working on immigration habeas cases lack the basic resources and in some cases training necessary to comply with judicial orders.

The judge continues she's not done again even as she rescues her contempt finding.

She says the issue has real consequences on real human beings.

And in Mr. Jimenez's case, after he was released in Texas, without his IDs during the previous week, he stayed in a shelter there for a night until his lawyer could arrange for a flight back to Minnesota, where he has lived with his permanent resident wife since 2018.

That's the kind of real consequences that the judge was talking about in finding, again, that the contempt citation should be lifted, but,

commenting nonetheless upon the incapacity, maybe even the inability of the Department of Justice to follow what are basic directives of the federal courts, a theme we have talked about a lot on this broadcast.

Jed Provenzino goes on to say, going forward, she expects the government lawyers who become aware that an order might be violated to inform the court promptly.

She said she would look forward to those and would look favorably.

She would even probably grant those requests, those submissions, and avoid holding lawyers in the future in contempt.

Simply tell me, she says, if indeed you're going to have problems complying with my order, what the court will not tolerate, she said, is what happened here.

Disobedience and radio silence from the government.

That coming from the judge in Minneapolis, once again bemoating.

the conduct of your Department of Justice appearing in front of her and other judges.

When we come back, we'll talk about other judges in the Federal District Courts in America here on Amicus, a

law review.

Civic Media's weekly review and discussion of some of the most significant news stories in the areas of law, government, courts, and the aspiration for justice.

And now, here's your host, Jim Santel.

This is the second hour of Amicus a Law Review.

My name is Jim Santel, your host throughout this second hour.

Again, we are pre-recording this particular broadcast of Amicus a Law Review, so unfortunately,

cannot take in the next hour your questions, your comments, your perspectives, your scratching your head inquiries, but I'm asking you to write those down, record those so that we can take those questions.

I'll entertain those next weekend when we're once again back live on the broadcast stations of Civic Media.

We have spent the first hour talking a lot about the United States Supreme Court, some significant, if not headline grabbing oral arguments before the United States Supreme Court, and then also some decisions that are beginning to come out

in issues that are important to the litigation of claims throughout the United States of America.

We are now turning to the lower courts and in particular a number of federal district court judges around the nation who have just this past week issued other rulings in all sorts of areas that also affect the rule of law, the administration of justice and

the operation of government let's begin with once again the issue of immigration this particular issue coming out of the district of massachusetts even as many of those immigration cases involving

Our immigrant population and deportation policies and practices of this administration have been coming out of Minneapolis.

This one comes out of the federal district court from the district of Massachusetts.

And the judge we have heard from before, his name is Brian Murphy.

He issues a what 81 page ruling.

finding that the Trump administration's third country deportations are unlawful.

We've talked about this before.

What does this all mean?

Basically, it's a repudiation.

of a key Homeland Security Department policy that policy or member of sending immigrants to countries where they have no ties, no relations with anyone there, no family, simply deporting them and sending them to countries with which they're completely unfamiliar.

The judge paused his ruling that found that practices unlawful

until the government can appeal that to the First Circuit Court of Appeals.

But let's get back to what Judge Brian Murphy said at the beginning and at the end of his order of justice past week.

He's in Boston and once again, what is his core finding?

He finds that the White House's policy.

This is also, of course, Homeland Security, supported by the Department of Justice, of summarily deporting immigrants to so-called third countries that our nations are other than their countries of origin, that that's unlawful.

That is unconstitutional.

That's without due process.

He wrote that the government, in situations where, again, deportation is appropriate, but now the question is where do the deportees end up, wrote that government must first try to deport detained immigrants

to their home countries, their countries of origin, or to countries designated by an immigration judge when the immigrants were ordered removed from the country.

So in other words, you've got to give them some due process, some involvement in this process about identifying the country to which they may be deported.

After that process, immigration detainees must be given meaningful notice, that's the due process, before being deported to another country.

to allow them the opportunity to raise any fears that they might have that they may be persecuted or tortured there.

Let's go back and think about that again once again announcing to the particular immigrant deportees the plan of the government to deport them and giving them notice of that.

and an opportunity to dispute that, to say, no, I'm going to be persecuted, I'm going to be harmed, if in fact you send me to that third country with which I have no, no real tie.

That's what the judge said you've got to do.

And again, we're not talking about a finding of deportation, we're talking about the place to which the deportees would be sent.

The judge, as I indicated, has decided to suspend his own order for a couple of weeks to give the government some time to seek an appeal.

And even though that appeal will almost certainly be taken by the government, this nonetheless is a repudiation of one of this administration's most aggressive deportation policies.

We've talked about this a lot before.

And the policy is one.

which we've seen in which the immigrants are flown to distant places, again, to which they have no ties at all, no background.

They did not come from these countries, including places like Rwanda and Ghana and Aswatini.

A report released early this month by Senate Democrats claimed that the administration has spent about $32 million, $32 million in taxpayer funds to persuade third countries to accept roughly 300 deportees.

This is, of course, this entire process has become a very high-profile component of President Trump's border effort to depict migrants as barbaric criminals who should be dealt with harshly and persuade migrants to self-deport and to leave the country voluntarily.

And we know that some migrants have been doing that.

And the lawyer for the immigrants in this particular case, again, before Judge Murphy said this,

This that is the judge orders the judge's order preventing the government from doing what it wants to do here She said this is a forceful statement from the court that the administration has been violating the law.

She said the district court continues again to support what the Constitution what due process compels a lawyer for the Justice Department Obviously indicating this will be appealed says just the opposite.

She says the district court continues to ignore clear law

The ruling does not apply to migrants whom the government is seeking to deport using this expedited removal authority.

Again, that process allows the quick removal of migrants who cannot prove upon their arrest that they have been in the United States for longer than two years.

It does not specifically apply to that particular provision.

Once again, underscoring how complicated this is and all these different packages, all these different policies and procedures that are applying to these issues of deportations.

The case

And all these cases basically have already reached the Supreme Court in the past.

You may recall we've talked about these.

Eight deportees with criminal records were held for days on a U.S.

military base in Djibouti.

Remember this?

After Judge Murphy last year ordered that they remain in U.S.

custody, the Trump administration then filed an emergency application.

This is the shadow docket to the Supreme Court.

And the Supreme Court then allowed the men to be handed over to the government of South Sudan.

The Supreme Court cited an earlier ruling that paused an order from Judge Murphy that required the government to give those detainees an opportunity to object to their removal and raise the fears of persecution or torture.

And that of course is exactly what Judge Murphy has identified as the basis for his opinion.

We have in some ways visited this already.

However,

The Supreme Court's ruling in July, of course, because it's part of the shadow docket, amounted to only temporary guidance while the case continued to be litigated.

This is what we talked about so often.

This is why the shadow docket, the emergency application docket, is so problematic.

The justices did not offer and did not issue a final judgment about whether they believe that policy is legal and that

That is what Judge Murphy has now done.

And so the government will certainly appeal this to the U.S.

Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, which is often ruled against Donald Trump and the administration.

And this case could then return once again on the docket of the Supreme Court to finally decide the substantive issue.

Still, in internal guidance from July, the Homeland Security Department cited the Supreme Court's emergency order and said that if the government had received credible diplomatic assurances from the government receiving these deportees, that they would not be persecuted or tortured.

They were not required to offer detainees a chance to challenge that removal.

That internal policy issued by Homeland Security plainly inconsistent with what Judge Murphy has now struck down, he recounted a series of incidents where the government, again, using the same language we've heard so often,

before repeatedly violated or tempted to violate his order that detainees be given additional due process before being shipped off to third countries.

One of those, which was the flight to Djibouti, took place after the detainees were given less than 24 hours notice.

The judge characterized that event as flagrant and a willful violation of his order that detainees have a chance to challenge their deportations.

In this recent ruling, Judge Murphy noted that during a hearing in this case, he had asked an administration lawyer, an administration lawyer, that's the government, that's the U.S.

Department of Justice, if the government's position was that it was fine.

to send detained migrants to a third country, as long as the department doesn't already know that there's something standing there waiting to shoot, that there's someone there waiting to apprehend them and expose them to the very threat of violence that is the concern.

The administration lawyer, the Department of Justice lawyer, responded that it was, that that policy was okay, and the judge responded, it is not fine.

Nor is it legal once again a major decision coming out of a federal district court judge his name once again Brian Murphy He's in the district of Massachusetts 81 pages 81 pages of his finding that the Trump administration's long-standing policy of sending Deported immigrants to countries not of their origin without giving them due processes meaningful notice about where they're going and meaningful opportunity to object to that absent doing that

Their deportations are illegal and unconstitutional, headed certainly to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and then probably to the Supreme Court as well before all of this is done.

That coming out of the Federal District Court of Massachusetts.

Let's head south.

Let's go to the Federal District Court in South Florida and revisit things we have also heard about coming out of a branch of that court.

In particular, rulings of Judge Eileen Cannon, you may recall well, you certainly will recall well, that Judge Eileen Cannon was the federal district court judge to whom, by presumably random distribution, she got both civil cases and criminal cases involving allegations that our current president

at the time of his departure after his first term, had taken with him and retained certain classified documents and other materials of national security importance.

And two things happened in the wake of that.

One of them is that eventually, a fellow named Jack Smith, you may recall him, he's been in the news again recently, he, through the grand jury process, presented an indictment of then private citizen Donald Trump for violating the law.

and finding that he had engaged in a violation of federal law that prohibits the taking and the retention of those kinds of documents, that case was assigned to Judge Eileen Cannon.

She had a number of proceedings in that case, having to do with national security issues as it goes to trial, other pretrial matters, and eventually she was the judge who found that basically sweeping aside all of those substantive issues that Jack Smith was not properly appointed.

a position that was suggested by Clarence Thomas in another opinion, but not at all supported by any other trial court, appellate court, even the Supreme Court had that had previously addressed this issue.

Nonetheless, even as Jack Smith was taking that decision up to the 11th Circuit, the administration's changed, Donald Trump was elected, re-elected to the Presidencies, and the U.S.

Department of Justice

From my perspective prematurely dismiss the case on the basis that you cannot under Department of Justice policy pursue a prosecution against a sitting president.

And so the criminal case pending before Judge Eileen Cannon was brought to a quick halt by virtue of dismissal even after the appeal to the 11th Circuit.

You may recall there was another thing that happened along the way and that is that Eileen Cannon also addressed a civil attempt

to stop the prosecution and stop the investigation.

When we come back, I'll tell you why Judge Eileen Cannon is back in the news, having made yet another determination on that documents case coming out of South Florida as our broadcast continues after this.

This is Anacos, a law review on the broadcast stations of Civic Media, talking in this hour, reviewing in this hour, most sorts of things coming out of our federal trial courts, district courts out of Minneapolis, district court out of Massachusetts, and now also talking about the decision of Eileen Cannon.

She is a federal district court judge in South Florida.

And she is the one who presided over all of those cases.

A civil case.

I tend to stop the investigation and prosecution of Donald Trump for his allegedly unlawful retention and perhaps even use of classified and other national security documents.

And also then finding that Jack Smith was not with authority in the first place to do any of that.

All of that resolved basically by the election of November of.

2024, which placed Donald Trump back in the White House, resulting in the termination of all of that.

And you might think, well, gee, why is Eileen Cannon back in the news then?

And the event is because, of course, before he left, and even as he was concluding all of this, Jack Smith wrote a report on the classified documents case.

after, again, the president left the White House in 2021.

That report plainly is a summary of what would have been presented in this trial had it gone ahead in front of Judge Eileen Cannon.

And so you may recall well that this second volume

the first volume having to do with the 2020 election, which we'll talk about in just a moment.

The second volume has never been released.

This is the volume once again that chronicles, it provides all the information, the witness testimony, the documentary support for the allegations against Donald Trump.

The first report

The first report having to do with the allegations that Donald Trump had sought to overturn the 2020 election after the 2024 election, that report about election interference

often described as volume one of his work was released to the public in January of 2025.

You may recall as well that Jack Smith has testified about that.

That is the attempts again in the wake of the 2020 election to overturn the results of that.

And all of that, again, apart pretty much of the public domain, that already in the public domain by virtue of that testimony and the release of the report.

This is the second report having to do with these confidential materials, the classified documents.

And Judge Cannon, Judge Cannon, in the wake of all of that has in front of her a motion to prevent the release of Jack Smith's special counsel report

on Donald Trump's mishandling of those documents.

And the judge, again, just this past week, has now permanently barred the Justice Department from releasing that report to that second report by Special Counsel Jack Smith that details, again, his mishandlings of those classified documents after he left the White House in 2021.

Volume two, according to all reports,

details just that, his prosecution of Donald Trump on charges of illegally retaining those highly sensitive classified documents from his first stint in the White House.

And then conspiring with his co-defendants, remember these names?

Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira, those two also named as co-conspirators in that, all of them at charge with obstructing the government's repeated efforts to get the material back.

Again, last month, Jack Smith had testified in front of Congress about many aspects of the election interference prosecution, but he specifically declined to talk about, except in the most general terms, the specifics of this second prosecution not able to discuss his findings

because this matter was still pending in front of Judge Cannon.

Judge Cannon, who has repeatedly in recent times received lavish praise from the president, as you know, and as she has temporarily blocked the release of the report as to Donald Trump.

The order on Monday, the order on Monday coming from Judge Eileen Cannon, after a lot of litigation about this, preventing the government from releasing this report.

is also a result of a lot of litigation there.

It is likely, however, unlikely to be the last word on this matter.

There are two watchdog groups.

They're called the American Oversight and the Knight K&I GHT First Amendment Institute.

Both of those groups have been trying for months.

They've been among the litigants to force the release of this report to the second report,

on the classified documents.

They're the ones who filed these requests to the federal appeals court that sits over Judge Cannon, and they're the ones who are plainly going to be appealing this through litigation at that appellate level.

Now, as we go forward on all of this, an awful lot of focus once again on Judge Cannon, who as I indicated historically has stopped the prosecution of these cases against the

Private citizen Donald Trump, and now the current president Donald Trump, here once again, barring the release of this report until another court, a higher court, will either affirm that decision or overturn it as this gets appealed by, among others, these watchdog groups, the Knight K&I GHT First Amendment Institute, and American Oversight, among others.

The judge also has done some other things in connection with this specific decision to prohibit the government from producing the report.

She also ordered that rather she rejected a request by Nauta and the Olivera that the government destroy all copies report.

She denied that request, but she rejected an offer to have all remaining copies

Um of that destroyed as they had requested But in an unusual perhaps unsurprising move the justice department weighed in on this issue last month and she agreed with Donald Trump and and telling judge cannon through more the report should remain sealed so

She's denying some of this.

She is also indicating that the report should remain under lock and P. And again, all of that in the wake of a lot of litigation coming out of South Florida.

When we come back, a footnote to all of that from recent times as Amica Salaro view

continues.

I'm

Jim Santel and this is Amicus.

A lot of you were talking in this second hour of our broadcast about some significant decisions made by federal district court judges just this past week.

Many of them revisiting things we've talked a lot about.

in the past involving contempt citations coming out of Minneapolis as to the Department of Justice, involving the notion, the policy, the practice of deporting immigrants to countries not of their origin.

And also, also now this decision by a federal district court judge, her name is Eileen Cannon, granting, granting the request of the administration and of the president in particular to prevent.

the release of volume two of Jack Smith's reports having to do with Donald Trump's alleged mishandling of documents.

She specifically denied the request of two of his co-defendants to destroy all of those reports.

So presumably they're still there in the annals and the records of the Department of Justice because this matter is certainly going up to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has routinely reversed Judge Cannon.

in a number of different areas, including that major civil case in which they basically said she should not be involved at all.

More of that coming out of Florida, coming out of the 11th Circuit.

But again, the saga with related to these seemingly old prosecutions now of the president coming back into the news, into the rule of law news of our nation, Donald Trump's alleged mishandling of documents.

And there's a footnote to that as well.

that is also related to that and that is having to do with the FBI itself.

Reporting, reporting late this past week that about 10 FBI employees, some of them veteran special agents being dismissed this past week for their work on that same investigation.

That investigation involving Donald Trump's retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

And the firings, apparently a part reporting by the New York Times and others, that they're part of a rolling barrage of these firings aimed at people who worked on the two federal prosecutions of Donald Trump, the one, of course, being the insurrection case, about which we made reference, and then the second one involving the documents that he retained and brought with him to Mar-a-Lago, arguably, to other places as well.

the director of the FBI, Cash Patel, apparently telling some news media that as part of the document's inquiry, the bureau had subpoenaed phone metadata for himself and for the current White House chief of staff, and that in part is a part of the reason for some of these dismissals.

The requests for phone records are...

plainly very common and complex criminal investigations.

They establish all sorts of things that are important.

They provide timelines.

They provide proof of communication.

And it is unclear from these recent reports whether or not that is the specific focus of these firings.

But nonetheless, the timing of them suggests that these firings are related to alleged

procedural problems related to the actions of these special agents.

At least the notion that because these agents were pursuing avenues, pursuing investigations related to this investigation, they're now targeted and are now being fired.

The FBI has a special association.

They're called the FBI Agents Association.

It's a professional group representing employees, and they denounce these dismissals in a statement.

They describe them as an unlawful termination that violates the due process rights of those who risk their lives to protect our country.

All of that, all of that, again, happening.

Lack of clarity right now about whether or not these particular firings were premised upon, particular problems in the conduct

by these FBI employees, it is certainly significant that each one of them worked on the investigation of the present president when he was a private citizen involving the documents in Mar-a-Lago.

Plainly, those FBI employees like many others who are fired before them will take these firings up to the next administrative level for review.

Again, yet another matter that continues to animate our focus

with respect to the present presidents prior prosecutions and litigation.

A lot going on inside the Department of Justice, a lot of things happening as we have talked in great detail.

The Justice Department just this past week in connection with another major matter that is in the major headlines,

Virtually on a daily basis, including Justice Best past week, has announced that it is in fact going to look into whether it had improperly withheld documents from the Jeffrey Epstein files after a number of news outlets, many news organizations reported that something was missing, some materials missing from the documents that had been released specifically

They identified some uncorroborated accusations made by a woman against Donald Trump that were not among those released to the public.

And as a result of those, there's an announcement coming out of the U.S.

Department of Justice that they're going to go back and take a look and determine whether or not the disclosures improperly withheld reports of that kind of thing.

These news reports saying that a massive tranche of records

released by the Department of Justice, we know about that, did not include some summaries of some interviews that the FBI had apparently conducted with an unidentified woman, she is not identified by name, who apparently came forward after Epstein's 2019 arrest, that was his most recent federal criminal prosecution, and she claimed apparently to have been sexually assaulted by both Trump

and Epstein when she was a minor in the 1980s.

And so as a result of that reporting, the Department of Justice now saying it's going to go back and determine whether or not there were some non-disclosures that were improperly withheld.

from public disclosure and that those should have been released.

The Department of Justice saying in particular several individuals and news outlets have recently flagged files related to documents produced to Ghislaine Maxwell in discovery of her criminal case that they claim appear to be missing.

As with all documents that have been flagged by the public, the department is currently reviewing files within that category of this production.

Elaine Maxle, of course, continues to be serving a 20-year sentence.

She is the individual who was deposed by the deputy attorney general.

You may remember that.

His name, Todd Blanche.

in that fairly embarrassing deposition that interview with her of many months ago.

The Department of Justice, again, Justice Past Week, saying that if it finds that any document was improperly withheld and is responsive to the law that provides mandates, the file's release, the department will, of course, publish it consistent with the law.

And so that comes out of the Department of Justice that, again, continues to stumble.

And that is a diplomatic way of saying, not only are they mishandling the release of these, disclosing information plainly about the identities and even the victimization of many of the survivors.

of this horrific conduct, but also failing to disclose the actual perpetrators along the way, prompting an awful lot of not only pushback, but continued claims that the Department of Justice needs to go back and do a better job to clean up the mess that it has made in doing all of this.

That going on just this past week, inside of the agency that is responsible for promoting the rule of law, for following legislation, in this case requiring, with great detail,

the disclosure of information without the identification of victim survivors, but with information that tells us who did what.

And again, the United States Department of Justice, just like members of its staff, are fighting themselves on receiving ends of huge criticism.

contempt citations by federal judges for failing to do what its job is.

Here we see once again inside the Department of Justice a failure to do what the law requires.

That also coming out of the Department of Justice just this past week.

Let's talk about something else the Department of Justice has produced just this past week and that is yet another lawsuit.

Another lawsuit involving an administration

of one of our major universities.

The Department of Justice suing the University of California over claims of antisemitism.

The White House and the Department of Justice in particular, accusing a Los Angeles campus of the University of California of antisemitism that compromised the civil rights of its Jewish employees.

This particular lawsuit, which again, as you well appreciate and understand, follows many other engagements and other lawsuits involving many other universities around our nation, files about seven months after the Justice Department sought a range of policy concessions and about $1 billion from the university itself.

This lawsuit representing, again, a very dramatic escalation in this dispute between the White House

the administration, and the University of California.

The University of California, of course, is one of the nation's largest and most prestigious public university systems in our nation.

This is an 81-page lawsuit.

It is filed in the Federal District Court in Los Angeles, and it accuses the UCLA's administration of having, according to the language of this complaint, turned a blind eye to, and it sometimes facilitated, grossly anti-Semitic acts

and systemically ignored cries for help from its own terrified Jewish and Israeli employees.

And so the litigation now goes forward.

A representative of UCLA.

condemned bigotry, and said the university has taken concrete and significant steps to strengthen campus safety, to enforce policies and combat antisemitism in a systemic and sustained manner.

She went on to say, we stand firmly by the decisive actions we have taken to combat antisemitism on campus in all of its forms, and we will vigorously, she said, defend our efforts and our unwavering commitment

to providing a safe and inclusive environment for all members of our community.

Now, we know that the University of California has 10 campuses throughout the state.

It has been one of Donald Trump's particular targets.

You may recall that last year in a sharp break from Justice Department norms, civil rights lawyers were given a list of colleges to investigate, including the University of California.

Again, not premised upon indications that they had violated.

civil law in some way, but identifying them and attempting to find violations in the first instances.

The inquiry apparently goes on and has resulted now in this particular lawsuit.

The UCLA previously in July had settled the federal lawsuit involving Jewish students who said they had been discriminated against.

And the Justice Department sent the school a notice that accused it of having been deliberately indifferent to the hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli students.

After that, after that settlement of that previous federal lawsuit, the Trump administration, the Department of Justice had proposed a settlement that included a $1 billion fine.

And Donald Trump spoke about that very publicly.

The Justice Department also demanded $172 million in claims

for to fund, to support people and give them funds who had experienced anti-Semitism and policy changes that according to the claims of the administration would bring UCLA closer into ideological alignment with the White House.

The lawsuit that was filed this past week focused on the civil rights of UCLA employees

and cited complaints of particular discrimination filed by a professor in the nursing school and a cardiologist.

Both had told the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which is the agency that reviews these kinds of things as a predicate for them to file their lawsuit, that they had been subject to a hostile work environment.

The government's present lawsuit did not make a specific financial demand, unlike the previous demand back in the summertime.

But it did propose awarding damages to aggrieved Jewish and Israeli UCLA employees as well as the two particular identified employees.

And we come back.

A couple more things about things going on in the rule of law in America as Amicus, a lot of you, continues.

This is Amicus Alarm Review.

My name is Jim Santel.

This is our last segment, a couple of rule of law snapshots, as we often do, at the conclusion of our broadcast.

In many ways, bringing together, tied together many things we've talked about in the past, federal courts, the involvement of criminal defendants, and actions by the U.S.

Department of Justice involving searches and seizures.

Let's talk about a couple of those cases in particular.

A U.S.

Capitol insurrectionist.

Her name is Abigail Jo Shry.

We've talked about her before, who was sentenced to serve 27 months in prison for threatening a federal judge who oversaw an election interference case.

That's the major case we've already talked about involving the January 6th events, a major case presided over by a federal judge who she has threatened.

Again, the defendant in this case, Abigail Jo Shry, sentenced to serve 27 months for threatening the federal judge who was residing over that election interference case.

She has failed to report to prison to start her sentence.

And the reporting in this indicates that she had made some arrangements to do so and has failed to show up.

Shrai pleaded guilty in November of 2024 to a federal charge in Texas, you may remember this, to threatening by a phone message to U.S.

District Judge Tanya Chutkin.

Remember her, Tanya Chutkin?

She once again, the federal district court judge presiding over that January 6th insurrection case.

I'm not going to read on the air the specific things that she said in those voicemail messages, basically calling the judge stupid.

other invectives, other epithets that are inappropriate for any conduct, including threatening a federal judge.

That is a violation of the federal law.

She maintained during the course of the litigation, the prosecution of her, that she thought that that was protected by the First Amendment.

Let us be very clear, it is not.

threats to individuals, especially threats of violence, which she made.

She said in particular that the judge would be targeted personally, publicly, your family.

You are in our sights.

We want to kill you.

That kind of language, not protected by the First Amendment.

The defendant Abigail Joe Shry then sentenced to 27 months for threatening to kill Judge Chutkin for her oversight of that lawsuit.

She has failed to show up.

and the U.S.

Marshals and the prison officials waiting for her to show up.

She plainly is now a fugitive.

from justice, more on that plainly, presumably as Defendants Try ultimately is apprehended and brought into our corrections system.

And finally, finally, this coming out of California, FBI agents raiding by virtue, presumably of a search warrant authorized by a federal judge, the headquarters of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

one of the largest school districts in the nation, also the home of the superintendent.

This happening in the middle portion of our week, this apparently related to an investigation into a $6 million deal between the nation's second largest school system and what's being reported as a failed artificial intelligence setup.

Federal officials confirming that the agency had in fact executed a series of search warrants at the school district, the headquarters there,

And at the home of the superintendent himself, his name is Alberto Carvalho, and again, all of this coming out of the reports from the Department of Justice, the actual accompanying affidavits that, as you know, support the issuance by a federal district court judge of a search warrant, those have not been released yet.

So we do not know exactly the basis for that.

But a related FBI search at a home in Florida, again, another different type of search, appears to be linked in some way to these Los Angeles raids.

There, a tech startup that has secured a contract with the school district for an AI chatbot before the company filed for bankruptcy in 2024.

That the subject of investigation, both in Florida, maybe in Los Angeles as well.

And there may be some connection as a result of all of that.

The superintendent himself, Carvalho, did not respond to any comment on all this.

Neither did a spokesman for the superintendent or the administration of the school district itself.

The early morning raids had happened there at the building in downtown Los Angeles that serve as the headquarters of the school district.

Again, presumably removing documents, other information related to some connection, some connection between what the school district was doing and a $6 million deal, some sort of arrangement between a failed artificial intelligence setup, some startup there, and perhaps as well some connection to a related Florida investigation.

The Justice Department last week also joined a federal lawsuit alleging that a long-standing desegregation program at Los Angeles Unified School District discriminated against white students.

The superintendent there had clashed with the federal authorities there over immigration enforcement efforts at school sites.

So this particular criminal enforcement, that is this search and seizure,

at these particular locations, focusing upon the school district and the superintendent, are in the wake of that federal civil lawsuit between basically the same kinds of entities.

You may recall as well that last year, Homeland Security agents were turned away from a couple of Los Angeles elementary schools where they said they were conducting welfare checks on undocumented students

and the superintendent again, Mr. Carvalho, condemn those actions at a news conference and again, underscoring the continuing animosity that has continued to animate this relationship between the school district, the superintendent, and the Department of Justice.

For what it's worth, and it is worth noting,

that Mr. Cavalho came to Los Angeles in 2022.

He spent about 14 years of leading the public school system in Miami, and under his leadership, the Los Angeles Unified School District demonstrated improvements in test scores, greater participation in advanced placement courses, all of that coming out of Los Angeles.

more of that plainly in the future.

And we will be back next week live here on Amicus Law Review, taking your questions, your comments about any of these stories, and additional events in the areas of rule of law, administration of justice, and government operation.

All that here on the broadcast stations of Civic Media.

Have a good weekend, everybody.