Courts in Chaos: Guilty Pleas, Supreme Court Showdowns, and Tax Tiffs

This is Amicus, a lot of you.

My name is Jim Santel.

I am your host in this broadcast, this podcast, coming to the auspices of civic media.

Once again, delighted and honored that you're choosing to spend some time

in discovery with me, exploration with me of those major news stories in the areas of the rule of law, the administration of justice, and the operation of government.

This installment of Amicus a law review, no exception, no departure from that typical agenda.

We're going to be returning as a matter of fact to our normal agenda, which is to focus a lot on courts and things going on in the tribunals of our nation, most often federal courts, but this time also at least one state court

as well.

We're gonna do some very recent news across the board in a number of different courts, a number of different judges who are active in the area of the rule of law.

Let's begin right off the top of our broadcast today by talking about some of the major news breaking late this past week.

And that is Luigi Mangione.

the individual who is charged with the murder of Brian Thompson, who is the United Health Care Chief Executive way back in December of 2024, charged in both state court in New York and also federal court for that violent.

murder and it is significant that just late this past week on Friday.

Luigi and Giovanni went into a federal district court, the one of the two places where those charges are pending and pled guilty.

to the federal offenses.

Now, you may recall well, based upon some of our prior discussions here on this broadcast, this podcast, that in the past, the federal government was seeking the death penalty with respect to Mr. Mangione.

And in the end, the judge ruled that that request was inappropriate and that the charge, that is a charge of domestic terrorism, did not support an application for the death penalty.

And so that was taken off the table.

And I suspect that that had a lot to do with the plea earlier this day on Friday of Mr. Mangione and the acceptance of that plea by the federal district court judge.

As a result of that now in the federal court, of course, the judge is going to be scheduling a sentencing hearing that will come up in a few months from now.

And in between now and then, as we have often discussed, what will happen is that the court will order what's called a pre-sentence report.

And that will include not only a specific description about the kinds of things that would have been presented at the trial of this matter in federal court.

Again, charges that focus principally on stalking, unless the murder, which is the state charge, more on federal stalking.

And beyond the specific facts of the case that support this particular prosecution and the entry of the guilty plea today,

The judge will also get the benefit of a further investigation that includes a lot of information about who Mr. Mangione is, his education, his economics, his background, his social status in the world from which he comes, all kinds of things that are important for any judge to know when it comes to deciding on his particular fate.

And so that will be coming up in the wake of his plea earlier.

today that is in the federal district court, sensing scheduled in particular for December 18th of this year.

He's telling the judge today, Margaret Garnett, that he did research about the investor conference at which his victim, Brian Thompson, was attending.

He said he shot Thompson with a gun.

He printed using a 3D printer.

All of those kinds of things significant when it comes to the judge imposing

under the sentencing guidelines and appropriate sentence for Mr. Mangione.

And while that is significant, of course, the state case is still pending.

And that's the case in which he is charged with second degree murder.

Again, the federal case, the stalking charge in the state tribunal charged with second degree murder carries a sentence of 25 years to life imprisonment.

And there, Mr. Mangione is pleaded not guilty.

He's scheduled to go to trial next month.

Now, interestingly, the plea that was entered

again, just earlier today when we're recording this complicate somewhat the state case again, because of the fact that you've got two parallel prosecutions.

One does not preclude the other.

And yes, indeed, you can charge both in federal and state courts cases that are predicated upon the same basic

Factual Foundation.

But while, again, murder cases typically prosecute in the state courts, federal prosecutors have said that Mr. Mangione had crossed state lines to stalk and ultimately kill a Thompson, which gave them the jurisdiction to prosecute him in that federal forum.

The impact of the federal plea now upon the state case is going to be the subject of a lot of litigation there in the state court, and in particular,

After the hearing in which Mr. Mangione pled guilty, his lawyers filed a motion in state court.

to dismiss that state court case on double jeopardy grounds, which again, generally, generally bars someone from being tried twice for the same offense.

And there are many exceptions to that.

And I suspect that the judge is going to be looking at this particular case and determining whether or not really the double jeopardy clause applies or does not.

The district attorney's office, as you all know, led by Alvin Bragg, we've talked about him a lot on this broadcast, said that the case will go ahead.

and that Mr. Thompson's family, while the prosecution and federal court is coming to an end, will continue their interest, will continue to be vindicated in the state court proceeding.

The statement by the Manhattan DA was just this, while federal sentencing is pending, prepare to litigate the defense motions.

So the defense motions attacking now the continued prosecution in the state court.

The Manhattan DA's office remains committed to seeking justice for Mr. Thompson and his family.

And of course, an exception to that United States Constitution protection against double jeopardy allows these federal and state governments to prosecute for the same conduct because they're considered separate sovereigns.

That's the theory on which the state will now push back on this request to dismiss the state case.

And those are independent sovereigns

independent of each other.

And indeed, in New York, there are some other stronger protections that basically say that double jeopardy comes into play when a prior prosecution for the same conduct ends in a conviction by guilty plea or resolution at trial.

Now, all of that, all of that's going to be thrown into the mix in front of the state court judge as this motion in the state court is adjudicated in the times ahead.

And while it's not clear exactly what's going to happen, you're highly likely that the state court judge is going to take note of the federal prosecution and the plea today of guilty, the adjudication there and the impact that it has.

on the future state prosecution.

Significant once again with respect to the fact that at least one of these cases now resolved in the federal court with respect to Luigi Mangione and a murder to which he effectively admitted today in federal court even while he is maintaining that he is not guilty with respect to the state court prosecution against him.

Fascinating legal issues, fascinating factual issues as well.

That, of course, in the federal court in the southern district of New York in Manhattan.

Let's go back to Washington DC and talk about the Supreme Court as we often do on this broadcast, this podcast.

We know that the Supreme Court is already beginning to populate its docket for the coming 2026.

20 27 term with a great number of cases.

It's up to about 25 right now by my count.

And they're beginning now to announce when the arguments on some of those cases are going to be scheduled just earlier today.

Once again, in anticipation of the beginning of those oral arguments, Supreme Court announced that on November 3rd.

The November 3rd also, also election day in America, significant date in our history.

It's going to be a hearing or a argument in a major case, a religious case that asks whether a Colorado, Colorado state, the Colorado authorities can force and compel Catholic preschools to enroll children of same sex couples in order for them to receive public funds, state funds.

Let me say that again.

The question in this case is whether or not the state of Colorado under its own laws can compel Catholic preschools to enroll children of same-sex couples to receive public funds.

as a part of their continuing association with the public schools.

The justices, again, had previous announced that they're going to hear the case.

Now we've got a date, the oral argument, a date of November 3rd.

On Tuesday, the court released its November argument calendar, and it set the stage, of course, for this and other cases to be heard.

This is just the latest.

And as you certainly recognize, a great number of First Amendment challenges to Colorado's

LGBTQIA protections that have been for the Supreme Court in recent years.

Now, among those, among those laws that are the subject of a lot of the Supreme Court review, Colorado requires that schools provide an equal opportunity to enroll.

That's the language in the state statute, regardless of sexual orientation.

And you've got to do that in order to receive universal preschool funding.

The Catholic parishes there in the state of Colorado, parents and the archdiocese of Denver, they maintain, they contend that they're being forced compelled to choose between maintaining their views in opposition to same-sex marriage and accepting public funds.

This dispute, again, between those two competing views,

provides an opportunity, as you know, for the court to consider narrowing, narrowing a 1990 ruling in a case called Employment Division versus Smith.

And that particular case, it's been the law ever since then, that enables laws that burn religious exercise as long as they're general, and they're generally applicable, that they're neutral in their application.

That's the case called Employment

Division versus Smith.

It's been around for a long period of time since 1990.

This may be the case in which the Supreme Court, after doing some saber rattling about the continued legitimacy of that Division versus Smith case, this may be the case in which they may be inclined to overrule.

As you know, they have not been disinclined to do so.

They've been much inclined to do that in appropriate circumstances.

And once again, this is a religious matter.

The Supreme Court has for many decades now, including recent terms, been fascinated, much interested in cases involving religious liberties.

Here, of course, separation of church and state, a basic First Amendment principle.

The question is whether or not it applies there in the state of Colorado, plainly has application beyond Colorado to other places around the country, including arguably Wisconsin.

other places where this same conflict does indeed and could indeed be confronted.

Again, Supreme Court is scheduling that oral argument for November 3rd Election Day on a major religious case.

They're doing that, identifying that date just today as they go about.

their work.

The Supreme Court is also just this past week, but on the receiving end of yes, more of these applications for emergency review, emergency consideration by this administration.

We have spent a lot of time on this broadcast, this podcast, talking about the so-called shadow docket and the great

Great concerns about the courts continued invocation of it at levels that have not previously been seen.

We talked a lot about the fact that during the course of the 16 years of the Obama administration and Bush administration is combined.

There are whopping eight of these applications made, and the Supreme Court granted only four of them.

Those numbers have increased dramatically.

And now this term of the Trump administration continuing the trend in the first term of the Trump administration, great numbers of these applications in which the Solicitor General of the United States of America, the U.S.

Department of Justice, seeking emergency review to overturn the decisions of lower courts.

with respect to something that the lower courts have done to prevent the president, to prevent the White House from going ahead with what is done.

And you may recall from a lot of our discussions, these range wide and far.

And the Supreme Court, not with complete unanimity, but often with great frequency, has granted the applications of the administration basically to suspend, at least while the underlying litigation is going on, to suspend the interim judgments of the lower courts to prevent it.

the administration going ahead with many of its executive orders.

And so the Supreme Court just this past week confronted with more of those applications, two in particular, in very different areas.

And we've talked about both of these before.

Now we've got even more of these Supreme Court applications for emergency review filed by the U.S.

Department of Justice, the administration, again, seeking this immediate urgent review.

based upon its view that the lower courts have done something that needs to be reversed.

And again, not without its controversy.

We have talked before about the fact that a Massachusetts judge

and her name is Indira Talwani, a U.S.

District Court judge in Massachusetts, had previously told the administration that it could not proceed with its executive order when it comes to certain mail-in ballot decisions and directives issued by the president in particular.

The section of the

the executive order that was entered by the president back in March was first overturned by a judge, Talewany, a number of weeks ago.

And she said that the president has no authority to do this.

She decided principally upon a procedural ground and said that he could not go ahead with his plans and very broadly contemplated that between the Department of Homeland Security and the US Postal Service,

there would be attempts to identify people, and in particular voters, citizens who might not otherwise be entitled to vote by mail.

And so that's the purpose of these executive orders.

The judge in Massachusetts, again, enjoining much of that previously, and now in a subsequent order,

doing more of the same a second order coming out from her, prompting, prompting the U.S.

Department of Justice again to seek the Supreme Court.

to act promptly, as the solicitor general said, on the president's bid to implement his mail ballot order.

The section of the president's order says the proposed rulemaking must include certain requirements for the design of envelopes.

These mail-in envelopes have to be used by state and local officials to enable voting by mail, including specific markings and unique bar codes for all of those.

And that's the part of the most recent order that Judge Talewani

has enjoyed.

She said the government has made little effort to defend the merits of the president's order here.

She said the government therefore is lacking any support for the assertion that the preliminary injunction in joining the postal service from implementing Section 3 will harm the public.

She says nothing, nothing here of any great consequence that would harm the public by stopping this from happening.

And she says indeed if Section 3 is unlawful, as the court has determined,

No harm will ensue from the issuance of Injunctive Relief.

Again, this is the second time that Judge Talwani in Massachusetts has delivered to the President and the White House a loss when it comes to what he wants to do, when it comes to mail-in ballots universally across the entire nation.

So what has happened?

Once again, the Solicitor General has gone to the Supreme Court again just earlier today on

as the week was finishing up here, and asking the Supreme Court to tell the lower courts, and yes indeed, the first secret court of appeals has upheld what Judge Talwani has done.

And so asking the government is the Supreme Court to overturn basically what those lower courts have said the president cannot do, doing it once again on an emergency basis.

the Chief Justice obviously is going to be looking at this as will the other justices of the Supreme Court.

Along the way, John Sauer, again, the person on behalf of whom the President speaks in the Supreme Court, says it's critical that those justices act promptly on this pending request.

John Sauer, the Solicitor General, says the district court's erroneous orders in these matters with respect to the

President's orders here will effectively run out the clock on the government's ability to implement these executive orders for federal elections in November.

Yes, they're coming up very soon, thereby causing irreparable harm, according to the Justice Department, to the federal government, to the public, and to election integrity generally.

The administration now, again, continuing to seek review by the Supreme Court, not yet decided.

The anticipation is that the court will either take that on and issue an order or perhaps will deny any review of that.

We'll see what happens, but that major move by the administration just late this past week.

in deciding to go back to the Supreme Court to ask that they on an emergency basis, even while the underlying litigation in the lower courts continues, asking that the Supreme Court stop that and permit the government and the administration in particular to go ahead with its implementation of this mail-in ballot order.

So that's number one.

That's one of those that the Solicitor General has filed.

Earlier, earlier, the Supreme Court also got another one of these, and that is yet another application for review in the emergency docket.

The Trump administration asking the Supreme Court, again, a completely different case, different kind of circumstance here, to bless, to basically condone the continued construction of the president's White House ballroom to replace what he has done, this demolished East Wing.

As you know well, that's a planned 90,000 square foot ballroom.

It's been mired in litigation ever since the president tore down the East Wing back in October of last year.

And this, of course, is part of his plan to dramatically remake the White House campus, which we have seen proposals far and wide.

The courts have let Donald Trump continue building even while questioning the project's legality.

And a lot of them, a lot of them are saying that the authority is not there.

this particular request for intervention by the nation's highest court, again, coming from the Solicitor General, is effectively contesting an appeals court decision on August 7th that the president most likely exceeded his authority by moving ahead with his privately financed project without approval from the Congress.

Again, the appeals court, like the lower court, saying the president doesn't have the authority to go ahead with this, only Congress can do this.

The case, obviously, once again, posing a test of the limits of executive authority, as we've seen here and in other circumstances.

And we know, as I said earlier, that the Supreme Court has granted many of these, but not all of them.

And many of them are core to the president's agenda.

Here, we've got construction.

And in a two-to-one ruling that is now effectively in front of the Supreme Court, again, on this emergency docket, this emergency application seeking over

of review and overruling of the U.S.

Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said that the Constitution gives Congress and not the President the responsibility to decide when proposed changes to the White House may move ahead.

That's what the Appeals Court has said.

That plainly is what the President disagrees with, and that is what the President wants overturned.

The Appeals Court going on to say Congress has not ceded unfettered authority

to the executive branch to dramatically redesign, reshape, and reconstruct the White House, the people's house to fit a particular president's desires.

The appeals court paused its ruling for about two weeks to give Donald Trump the president the authority to seek that petition, and indeed, along with the other matter involving his executive order on mail-in ballots.

Those two now file late this week before the Supreme Court.

In this building case, the East Wing case, the new ballroom case, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which is a nonprofit chartered by Congress to safeguard the America's buildings, the historical buildings around D.C.

and other places.

They're the ones who sued to try to stop the construction of that ballroom, asserting once again the president had overstepped when it commenced his authority in violation of federal law.

The president's team most recently in arguing these cases to the lower courts had shifted its view previously Focusing on the need for a ballroom now focusing more to the sprawling underground military complex That the president says they're actually building a necessary part.

He says To improve White House security that case now again before the Supreme Court perhaps

Perhaps if they decide to review it in some way, even on its emergency docket, the president's seeking an immediate order from the Supreme Court, telling those lower courts that they cannot stop him from going ahead with the construction.

Construction has been going on, but again, maybe the Supreme Court weighs in in one direction or another, gives more clarity to this continuing litigation about the authority of the president to act both respect to buildings and also.

About elections all that going on just late this past week before the United States Supreme Court Let's go to one of the appeals court in America and that's the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals this also goes to a question of Donald Trump's use of a particular law upon which he's preceded

with respect to his immigration policies for nearly a quarter of a year.

So here are even more than that.

The American Civil Liberties Union has been waiting for some opportunity to get an answer to the legal question about one of the basic pillars that's in front of the Trump administration's

immigration agenda.

And that question that they have been asking in litigation, challenging his immigration policies, is can the president use something called the Enemy Aliens Act?

We've talked about that a lot on this broadcast.

Can he use that Enemy Aliens Act as an 18th century wartime law to summarily deport people accused of belonging to a Venezuelan street gang?

Can he use that 18th century law to do what he has been doing recently?

In September, you may recall, as we have reported on earlier, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals in New Orleans provided a response, and they rejected Donald Trump's use of the law, the Alien Enemies Act, after finding that the American homeland was not under invasion by the gang.

The gang is called Tren de Argua.

They found that in you invoking the language of the statute this again enemies alien act the government had not established that it's the country is under invasion and for that reason the law the law does not apply on Thursday on Thursday However, the full court which had been mulling this question ever since that is the three judge panel went up to them the full court of appeals made an unusual decision

And that decision was to dismiss the case outright because of what amounted to, many people would call this a legal technicality.

In other words, we had the three judge panels saying, no, Mr. President, you don't have the authority to do this.

We're not in an invasion type setting.

Goes up to the entire panel of the appeals court and the judges, all of them together rule that because the government had already expelled,

had already basically deported three of these Venezuelan men, believing them to be a part of this gang, who filed the original lawsuit, challenging this through the so-called traditional immigration methods, that there are no longer any plaintiffs.

There's nobody around anymore to prosecute this case, so no longer a case to decide.

And that comes as a surprise to many people who anticipated, once again,

that the larger issue that the American Civil Liberties Union has been asking about for this long period of time, this legal question about one of these basic pillars of the Trump administration's immigration policies, whether or not the Alien Enemies Act applies and can be used, does not definitively get decided.

Again, we've got this lower court, this three judge panel saying no, it does not, but the larger Court of Appeals, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals,

says we're not deciding this.

And it is undeniably a surprise to many people.

The case has been a bit messy to say the least, even baffling along the way.

And it brings to an end, at least for now, this long-running, multi-pronged battle about whether or not the law applies here.

The ACLU and the Justice Department have been waiting, have been waiting for the Fifth Circuit to decide all this.

And at least for now, at least for now, this particular matter will not be resolved.

The case involving the Alien Enemies Act used only a handful of times.

It was passed way back in 1798.

1798 reaches way back to March of 2025.

You recall on this broadcast, we were on the air on March of 2025 when.

Donald Trump issued a broad proclamation saying that he has the authority to round up and remove members of hostile nations and particularly these gangs in times of declared war or during an invasion or a predatory incursion of the United States of America.

Use that language.

Those terms of the law to justify his getting rid of about two dozen Venezuelan men accused of being a part of this trend at the Aragua.

which, again, Donald Trump claimed had invaded the country through the process of illegal immigration.

He went on to say at the time that the members of the gang were not mere criminals, but were actually working in coordination with the hostile government of Venezuela, which at that time, as you know, was led by Nicolas Maduro, who is the former president, who is now in American custody, and he's facing drug charges after the president ordered the invasion of that country.

the apprehension of Maduro and his spouse and Maduro now again in federal custody awaiting the prosecution charges against him.

It is a lot involving Venezuela and it goes back again to March of 2025.

Several lower courts including this three judge panel of the Fifth Circuit had rejected the president's assertions outright and had told them that immigration

It needs to proceed, if at all, on something other than the invocation of this law.

And the court in particular said, a country's encouraging its residents and citizens to enter this country illegally is not the modern day equivalent of sending an armed, organized force to occupy, to disrupt or otherwise harm the United States.

That's what Judge Leslie Southwick wrote.

for the majority at the time.

There's no finding that this mass immigration was an armed organized force or forces.

That's the core finding of the three judge panel.

The fifth circuit again, sitting on Bonk, ENB, ANC, the entire group of them.

Again, one of the most conservative panels, one of the most conservative appeals courts.

Looking at all this, taking its time to determine whether or not that three judge panel's decision should be affirmed or not, the Fifth Circuit finding that it should simply dismiss the case because the principal plaintiffs here have been deported, no one to pursue this at all, no plaintiffs in the case.

And based upon that, the case is tossed out.

Given the lack of any name petitioners, the court said to whom we could grant relief in this appeal.

And given that this case has never and does not now feature any class, we conclude that the appeal is now moot.

And for that reason, the case is now ordered.

It's unclear if this will come back in some other way.

Arguably other plaintiffs could come forward.

Other people, aggrieved by the president's immigration policies, aggrieved arguably by his invocation of the Enemy Aliens Act.

And so we may not have heard the last of this.

It may well be that the United States Supreme Court at some point will weigh in on this.

But at least for now, as a result of this surprise decision, coming as a surprise to many people,

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissing it outright, stopping the litigation from going forward on the basis that the plaintiffs aren't around anymore, are not here anymore to pursue their case.

That happening in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, again, we've talked about the Supreme Court, we've talked about now an appeals court.

Let's talk about a federal district court, again, like the court in Massachusetts, this one, again, in Massachusetts, but a different judge.

This is Judge Richard Stearns, S-T-E-A-R-N-S.

We've also spoken about him as we have about the judge in Massachusetts, Indira Talwani, who issued those orders stopping the president on his male ballot executive orders.

This is Judge Richard Stearns, same court, different judge, a federal judge there, that is his name, dismissed the Trump administration's anti-Semitism lawsuit against Harvard University.

that the administration had previously prosecuted in that court.

Undeniably, a major loss to this administration and at the government's efforts, the administration's efforts, a big loss, dealing a blow to the efforts to compel the school, Harvard University, to make a deal.

with respect to other policies and practices there.

The lawsuit, the lawsuit brought again by the Department of Justice, by the Attorney General, by litigators there at Maine Justice, part of a broader campaign to force the universities there and as he has done in other venues to comply with a great variety of government demands on issues

including, as you know well, its handling of anti-Semitism and race in admissions.

That race issue, of course, the subject of a major Supreme Court case of a couple of terms ago.

Richard Stearns, once again, District of Massachusetts, granting the request, the motion, presented by the Lawyers for Harvard University to throw the case out.

And he says that the anti-Semitic incidents

Cited by the government, cited by the Department of Justice, in that lawsuit in March, were, according to Judge Stearns, too isolated and episodic to show that Harvard is breaking the law.

In its lawsuit filed this past spring, the current administration that accused the university in a number of different ways of turning what the administration said was a blind eye to anti-Semitism and discrimination against Jews and Israelis.

The administration said that Harvard had allowed anti-Israeli factions and protesters to violate school rules with impunity after the war in Gaza began in 2023.

The administration in particular, here's your legal dose today, accused Harvard of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

That's a

provision of the law that bans discrimination in programs that receive federal money.

And that's the rub.

That's the reason why this being brought against Harvard.

That's why it's so important.

The lawsuit, again, brought by the administration, said that Jewish and Israeli students had been subject to hostility, harassment, and intimidation during a time when students were holding pro-Palestinian protests.

The university, on the other hand, had argued in its opposing brief that Harvard had for several years engaged in sustained institution-wide efforts to identify and address anti-Semitism on campus.

Judge Stern is siding with Harvard in its ruling, noting that the Trump administration's lawsuit focused mostly on incidents during the 2023 and 2024 school year.

The anti-Semitic incidents cited by the administration do not support a plausible inference that any institutionalized noncompliance with Title VI persists at Harvard to this day.

That's what the judge wrote.

And very likely, very likely that this will, of course, will be appealed.

to the First Circuit, but again, for now, for now that lawsuit, a loss for the federal government, for the administration, the dismissal of this anti-Semitism case against Harvard, a win for Harvard.

We'll see what the appeals court does.

in that particular matter.

And finally, finally, let's get back to New York City and Manhattan in particular.

Let's go to a state court judge.

We've been talking much about federal courts, the highest level appeals courts and district courts.

Let's talk about a judge of the state Supreme Court.

That's the trial court.

That's the way they describe trial courts in New York, a trial court on Staten Island.

granting a temporary restraining order, preventing for a moment the Mayor Mondani's administration from going ahead with the rollout of what is arguably a very contentious, a disputed tax on second homes, a tax on second homes of identified wealthy New Yorkers.

And the judge, Wayne Ozzie, he is of the State Supreme Court.

He sits on Staten Island right there in New York City.

Granted, this order was requested by a group of homeowners who sued the city last week, saying that the rollout was being mishandled.

The decision, of course, by Judge Ozzie there, the state court judge, deals this major blow to Mayor Mamdani as he was seeking to put in place this tax on the second homes of wealthy New Yorkers.

It was proposed initially by Governor Kathy Hochel, backed by Mamdani.

The measure was lauded by the mayor's supporters as a way to deliver on his campaign promise.

You may recall well that he said he was going to tax the rich.

The tax was supposed to generate about $500 million annually for the city, which faces a budget gap as it often has done.

The judge on Monday was not asked to rule on the legality of the tax itself, but his order plainly throws something of a wrench into this process generally.

And the lawyer representing the plaintiffs in this case, those who were

opposed to this tax, said the decision vindicates the rights of hundreds of thousands of New York homeowners who are subjected to a process they never should have been a part of in the first place.

A spokesman for the mayor, the city hall said the city was confident that this surcharge, this attempt to tax the rich and the city's ability to implement it fairly and effectively, ultimately will be vindicated.

That's the position of the mayor.

Counsel for the Center of the New York City and the State Law at New York Law School said that this setback probably will not last long.

There's a huge amount of money involved, the importance of the issue.

A lot of people there saying it's likely that the appellate court will review this relatively swiftly.

And the issue is again before an appeals court.

may prompt it again to reverse this temporary restraining order.

Any tax collection effort of this sort is obviously very complicated and again will be the subject of an awful lot of careful review by the appeals court.

The tax itself was levied as a surcharge on an annual property tax bill.

It applies to condos and co-ops that are used as second homes.

and they have a market value as determined by the finance department there in New York of at least $1 million.

It also applies, that is the law, the tax here, to one, two, and three family homes with a market value of more than $5 million.

The rollout last month caused a certain amount of confusion.

You may have read about this, seen this in the news.

Some owners after the Department of Finance posted a data sheet

To its website, listing homes that may be subject to charge, the data set contained about one million properties, including addresses and homeowners' names, prompting outcries from them that the mayor was trying to shame the wealthy.

Again, what's coming out of the court, the state court, at least as of now, Judge Wayne Ozzie, the state Supreme Court, Staten Island, he is preventing the mayor from going ahead.

almost certainly going to go to an appeals court, and important again, not only because of the importance of this major issue for tax purposes, the wealthy people, obviously in New York, those who own lots and lots of property, and also related to this larger issue about the role of government when it comes to addressing this idea of taxing the rich, the tax once again has become something of a

a symbol of Mondami's approach to running city.

It appeals to those who put him in office, who supported the idea of using city government to create more economic equity and to celebrate the introduction of this new tax.

Mondami had posted a video on social media outside a building.

where a billionaire financier purchased a penthouse for $238 million in 2019, at least for now, at least for now, a judge saying he can't go ahead with this, granting the request of those multimillionaires to stop this from happening, an appeals court going to take this up, going to review this, very complex, very important, obviously, to New Yorkers and to government.

generally when it comes to understanding what is going on there in the city of New York.

All of that, federal courts, state courts, appeals courts going on as we consider the rule of law in America generally.

We're going to take up other cases coming in and out of the courts in the United States of America.

Even here in the state of Wisconsin, we're going to review some things that the Supreme Court in our own state has been doing in recent times.

All of that will be taken up in our future broadcasts, our future podcasts here on Amicus, the Law Review.

I appreciate so much the time you have spent with me in this broadcast and look forward to exploring with you those additional cases, those additional decisions, and the processes by which they become law in America in our future broadcasts.

Thanks, everybody.

Have a good weekend and a good week.

Take care.

This is Amicus, a lot of you.

My name is Jim Santel.

I am your host in this broadcast, this podcast, coming to the auspices of civic media.

Once again, delighted and honored that you're choosing to spend some time

in discovery with me, exploration with me of those major news stories in the areas of the rule of law, the administration of justice, and the operation of government.

This installment of Amicus a Law Review, no exception, no departure from that typical agenda.

We're going to be returning as a matter of fact to our normal agenda, which is to focus a lot on courts and things going on in the tribunals of our nation, most often federal courts, but this time also at least one state court

as well.

We're going to do of some very recent news across the courts, a number of different judge in the area of the rule of law.

off the top of our broadcast some of the major news break

the individual who is charged with the murder of Brian Thompson, who is the United Health Care Chief Executive way back in December of 2024, charged in both state court in New York and also federal court for that violent.

a murder.

And it is signif this past week on frida went into a federal

to the federal offenses.

Now, you may recall well, based upon some of our prior discussions here on this broadcast, this podcast, that in the past, the federal government was seeking the death penalty with respect to Mr. Mangione.

And in the end, the judge ruled that that request was inappropriate and that the charge, that is a charge of domestic terrorism, did not support an application for the death penalty.

And so that was taken off the table.

And I suspect that that had a lot to do with the plea earlier this day on Friday of Mr. Mangione and the acceptance of that plea by the federal district court judge.

As a result of that now in the federal court, of course, the judge is going to be scheduling a sentencing hearing that will come up in a few months from now.

And in between now and then, as we have often discussed, what will happen is that the court will order what's called a pre-sentence report.

And that will include not only a specific description about the kinds of things that would have been presented at the trial of this matter in federal court.

Again, charges that focus principally on stalking, unless the murder, which is the state charge, more on federal stalking.

And beyond the specific facts of the case that support this particular prosecution and the entry of the guilty plea today, the judge will also get the benefit of a further investigation that includes a lot of information about who Mr. Mangione is, his education, his economics, his background, his social status in the world from which he comes, all kinds of things that are important for any judge to know.

when it comes to deciding on his particular fate.

And so that will be coming up in the wake of his plea earlier today that is in the federal district court, sentencing scheduled in particular for December 18th of this year.

He's telling the judge today, Margaret Garnett.

that he did research about the investor conference at which his victim, Brian Thompson, was attending.

He said he shot Thompson with a gun.

He printed using a 3D printer.

All of those kinds of things significant when it comes to the judge imposing

under the sentencing guidelines and appropriate sentence for Mr. Mangione.

And while that is significant, of course, the state case is still pending.

And that's the case in which he is charged with second degree murder.

Again, the federal case, the stalking charge in the state tribunal charged with second degree murder carries a sentence of 25 years to life imprisonment.

And there, Mr. Mangione is pleaded not guilty.

He's scheduled to go to trial next month.

Now, interestingly, the plea that was entered

again, just earlier today when we're recording this complicate somewhat the state case again, because of the fact that you've got two parallel prosecutions.

One does not preclude the other.

And yes, indeed, you can charge both in federal and state courts cases that are predicated upon the same basic

Factual Foundation.

But while, again, murder cases typically prosecute in state courts, federal prosecutors have said that Mr. Mangione had crossed state lines to stalk and ultimately kill Thompson, which gave them the jurisdiction to prosecute him in that federal forum.

The impact of the federal plea now upon the state case is going to be the subject of a lot of litigation there in the state court, and in particular,

After the hearing in which Mr. Mangione pled guilty, his lawyers filed a motion in state court.

to dismiss that state court case on double jeopardy grounds, which again, generally, generally bars someone from being tried twice for the same offense.

And there are many exceptions to that.

And I suspect that the judge is going to be looking at this particular case and determining whether or not really the double jeopardy clause applies or does not.

The district attorney's office, as you all know, led by Alvin Bragg.

We've talked about him a lot on this broadcast.

said that the case will go ahead and that Mr. Thompson's family, while the prosecution and federal court is coming to an end, will continue their interest, will continue to be vindicated in the state court proceeding.

The statement by the Manhattan DA was just this, while federal sentencing is pending, prepare to litigate the defense motions.

So the defense motions attacking now the continued prosecution in the state court.

The Manhattan DA's office remains committed to seeking justice for Mr. Thompson and his family.

And of course, an exception to that United States Constitution protection against double jeopardy allows these federal and state governments to prosecute for the same conduct because they're considered separate sovereigns.

That's the theory on which the state will now push back on this request to dismiss the state case.

And those are independent sovereigns

independent of each other.

And indeed, in New York, there are some other stronger protections that basically say that double jeopardy comes into play when a prior prosecution for the same conduct ends in a conviction by guilty plea or resolution at trial.

Now, all of that, all of that's going to be thrown into the mix in front of the state court judge as this motion in the state court is adjudicated in the times ahead.

And while it's not clear exactly what's going to happen, you're highly likely that the state court judge is going to take note of the federal prosecution and the plea today of guilty, the adjudication there and the impact that it has.

on the future state prosecution.

Significant once again with respect to the fact that at least one of these cases now resolved in the federal court with respect to Luigi Mangione and a murder to which he effectively admitted today in federal court even while he is maintaining that he is not guilty with respect to the state court prosecution against him.

Fascinating legal issues, fascinating factual issues as well.

That of course any federal court in the southern district of New York in Manhattan Let's go back to Washington DC and talk about the Supreme Court as we often do on this broadcast this podcast We know that the Supreme Court is already beginning to populate its docket for the coming 2026

2027 term with a great number of cases.

It's up to about 25 right now by my count.

And they're beginning now to announce when the arguments on some of those cases are going to be scheduled.

Just earlier today, once again, in anticipation of the beginning of those oral arguments, the Supreme Court announced that on November 3rd

The November 3rd also, also election day in America, significant date in our history.

It's going to be hearing oral argument in a major case, a religious case that asks whether a Colorado, Colorado state, the Colorado authorities can force and compel Catholic preschools to enroll children of same sex couples in order for them to receive public funds, state funds.

Let me say that again.

The question in this case is whether or not the state of Colorado under its own laws can compel Catholic preschools to enroll children of same-sex couples to receive public funds as a part of their continuing association with.

the public schools.

The justices, again, had previous announced that they're going to hear the case.

Now we've got a date, the oral argument, a date of November 3rd.

On Tuesday, the court released its November argument calendar, and it set the stage, of course, for this and other cases to be heard.

This is just the latest, and as you certainly recognize, a great number of First Amendment challenges to Colorado's LGBTQIA protections.

that have been for the S in recent years.

Now, am those laws that are the subject of the Supreme Court Rev requires that schools prov opportunity to enroll.

Th state statute, regardl orientation.

And you've got to to receive universal preschool

The Catholic parishes there in the state of Colorado, parents and the archdiocese of Denver, they maintain, they contend that they're being forced compelled to choose between maintaining their views in opposition to same-sex marriage and accepting public funds.

This dispute, again, between those two competing views,

provides an opportunity, as you know, for the court to consider narrowing, narrowing a 1990 ruling in a case called Employment Division versus Smith.

And that particular case, it's been the law ever since then, that enables laws that burn religious exercise as long as they're general, and they're generally applicable, that they're neutral in their application.

That's the case called Employment

Division versus Smith.

It's been around for a long period of time since 1990.

This may be the case in which the Supreme Court, after doing some saber rattling about the continued legitimacy of that Division versus Smith case, this may be the case in which they may be inclined to overrule.

As you know, they have not been disinclined to do so.

They've been much inclined to do that in appropriate circumstances.

And once again, this is a religious matter.

The Supreme Court has for many decades now, including recent terms, been fascinated, much interested in cases involving religious liberties.

Here, of course, separation of church and state, a basic First Amendment principle.

The question is whether or not it applies there in the state of Colorado.

Plainly has application beyond Colorado to other places around the country, including arguably Wisconsin.

other places where this same conflict does indeed and could indeed be confronted.

Again, Supreme Court is scheduling that oral argument for November 3rd Election Day on a major religious case.

They're doing that, identifying that date just today as they go about their work.

The Supreme Court is also just this past week, but on the receiving end of yes, more of these applications for emergency review, emergency consideration,

by this administration.

We have spent a lot of time on this broadcast, this podcast, talking about the so-called shadow docket and the great, great concerns about the court's continued invocation of it at levels that have not previously been seen.

We talked a lot about the fact that during the course of the 16 years of the Obama administration and Bush administration is combined

There are whopping eight of these applications made, and the Supreme Court granted only four of them.

Those numbers have increased dramatically.

And now this term of the Trump administration continuing the trend in the first term of the Trump administration, great numbers of these applications in which the Solicitor General of the United States of America, the U.S.

Department of Justice, seeking emergency review to overturn the decisions of lower courts.

with respect to something that the lower courts have done to prevent the president, to prevent the White House from going ahead with what is done.

And you may recall from a lot of our discussions, these range wide and far.

And the Supreme Court, not with complete unanimity, but often with great frequency, has granted the applications of the administration

basically to suspend, at least while the underlying litigation is going on, to suspend the interim judgments of the lower courts to prevent it.

the administration going ahead with many of its executive orders.

And so the Supreme Court just this past week confronted with more of those applications, two in particular, in very different areas.

And we've talked about both of these before.

Now we've got even more of these Supreme Court applications for emergency review filed by the U.S.

Department of Justice, the administration, again, seeking this immediate urgent review.

based upon its view that the lower courts have done something that needs to be reversed.

And again, not without its controversy.

We have talked before about the fact that a Massachusetts judge

and her name is Indira Talwani, a U.S.

District Court judge in Massachusetts, had previously told the administration that it could not proceed with its executive order when it comes to certain mail-in ballot decisions and directives issued by the president in particular.

The section of the

the executive order that was entered by the president back in March, was first overturned by a judge, Talewany, a number of weeks ago.

And she said that the president has no authority to do this.

She decided principally upon a procedural ground and said that he could not go ahead with his plans and very broadly contemplated that between the Department of Homeland Security and the US Postal Service,

there would be attempts to identify people, and in particular voters, citizens who might not otherwise be entitled to vote by mail.

And so that's the purpose of these executive orders.

The judge in Massachusetts, again, enjoining much of that previously, and now in a subsequent order,

doing more of the same, a second order coming out from her prompting, prompting the U.S.

Department of Justice again to seek the Supreme Court.

to act promptly, as the solicitor general said, on the president's bid to implement his mail ballot order.

The section of the president's order says the proposed rulemaking must include certain requirements for the design of envelopes.

These mail-in envelopes have to be used by state and local officials to enable voting by mail, including specific markings and unique bar codes for all of those.

And that's the part of the most recent order that Judge Talewani

has enjoyed.

She said the government has made little effort to defend the merits of the president's order here.

She said the government therefore is lacking any support for the assertion that the preliminary injunction in joining the postal service from implementing Section 3 will harm the public.

She says nothing, nothing here of any great consequence that would harm the public by stopping this from happening.

And she says indeed if Section 3 is unlawful, as the court has determined,

No harm will ensue from the issuance of injunctive relief.

Again, this is the second time that Judge Tewani in Massachusetts has delivered to the president and the White House a loss when it comes to what he wants to do, when it comes to mail-in ballots universally across the entire nation.

So what has happened?

Once again, the Solicitor General has gone to the Supreme Court again just earlier today on

as the week was finishing up here, and asking the Supreme Court to tell the lower courts, and yes indeed, the First Secret Court of Appeals has upheld what Judge Talwani has done.

And so asking the government is the Supreme Court to overturn basically what those lower courts have said the president cannot do, doing it once again on an emergency basis.

The Chief Justice, obviously, is going to be looking at this as will the other justices of the Supreme Court.

Along the way, John Sauer, again, the person on behalf of whom the president speaks in the Supreme Court, says it's critical that those justices act promptly on this pending request.

John Sauer, the Solicitor General, says the district court's erroneous orders in these matters with respect to the president's orders here will effectively run out the clock on the government's

ability to implement these executive orders for federal elections in November.

Yes, they're coming up very soon, thereby causing irreparable harm, according to the Justice Department, to the federal government, to the public, and to election integrity generally.

The post of the administration now, again, continuing to seek review by the Supreme Court, not yet decided.

The anticipation is that the court will either

Take that on and issue an order or perhaps we'll deny any review of that.

We'll see what happens.

But that made your move by the administration just late this past week in deciding to go back to the Supreme Court to ask that they on an emergency basis, even while the underlying litigation in the lower courts continues, asking that the Supreme Court stop that and permit the government and the administration in particular to go ahead with its implementation of this mail-in.

ballot order.

So that's number one.

That's one of those that the Solicitor General has filed.

Earlier, earlier, the Supreme Court also got another one of these, and that is get another application for review in the emergency docket.

The Trump administration asking the Supreme Court, again, a completely different case, different kind of circumstance here to bless, to basically condone

the continued construction of the president's White House ballroom to replace what he has done, this demolished East Wing.

As you know well, that's a planned 90,000 square foot ballroom.

It's been mired in litigation ever since the president tore down the East Wing back in October of last year.

And this, of course, is part of his plan to dramatically remake the White House campus, which we have seen proposals far and wide.

The courts have let Donald Trump continue building even while

questioning the project's legality.

And a lot of them, a lot of them are saying that the authority is not there.

This particular request for intervention by the nation's highest court, again, coming from the Solicitor General, is effectively contesting an appeals court decision on August 7th, that the president, most likely, exceeded his authority.

by moving ahead with his privately financed project without approval from the Congress.

Again, the appeals court, like the lower court, saying the president doesn't have the authority to go ahead with this.

Only Congress can do this.

The case, obviously, once again, posing a test of the limits of executive authority, as we've seen.

here and in other circumstances.

And we know, as I said earlier, that the Supreme Court has granted many of these, but not all of them.

And many of them are court to the President's agenda.

Here, we've got construction.

And in a two-to-one ruling that is now effectively in front of the Supreme Court, again, on this emergency docket, this emergency application seeking over review and overruling of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit,

said that the Constitution gives Congress and not the President the responsibility to decide when proposed changes to the White House may move ahead.

That's what the Appeals Court has said.

That plainly is what the President disagrees with, and that is what the President wants overturned.

The Appeals Court going on to say Congress has not ceded unfettered authority to the executive branch to dramatically redesign

reshape and reconstruct the White House, the people's house to fit a particular president's desires.

The appeals court paused its ruling for about two weeks to give Donald Trump the president the authority to seek that petition and indeed along with the other matter involving his executive order on mail-in ballots.

Those two now file late this week before the Supreme Court.

In this building case, the East Wing case, the new ballroom case, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which is a nonprofit chartered by Congress to safeguard the America's buildings, the historical buildings around D.C.

and other places.

They're the ones who sued to try to stop the construction of that ballroom, asserting once again the president had overstepped when it commenced his authority in violation of federal law.

The president's team most recently in arguing these cases to the lower courts had shifted its view previously, focusing on the need for a ballroom, now focusing more to the sprawling underground military complex that the president says they're actually building a necessary part, he says, to improve White House security.

That case now, again, before the Supreme Court, perhaps,

Perhaps if they decide to review it in some way, even on its emergency docket, the president's seeking an immediate order from the Supreme Court, telling those lower courts that they cannot stop him from going ahead with the construction.

Construction has been going on, but again, maybe the Supreme Court weighs in in one direction or another gives more clarity to this continuing litigation about the authority of the president to act, both respect to buildings and also.

About elections all that going on just late this past week before the United States Supreme Court Let's go to one of the appeals court in America and that's the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals this also goes to a question of Donald Trump's use of a particular law upon which he's preceded

with respect to his immigration policies for nearly a quarter of a year, so here even more than that.

The American Civil Liberties Union has been waiting for some opportunity to get an answer to the legal question about one of the basic pillars that's in front of the Trump administration's

immigration agenda.

And that question that they have been asking in litigation, challenging his immigration policies, is can the president use something called the Enemy Aliens Act?

We've talked about that a lot on this broadcast.

Can he use that Enemy Aliens Act as an 18th century wartime law to summarily deport people accused of belonging to a Venezuelan street gang?

Can he use that 18th century law to do what he has been doing recently?

In September, you may recall, as we have reported on earlier, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals in New Orleans provided a response, and they rejected Donald Trump's use of the law, the Alien Enemies Act, after finding that the American homeland was not under invasion by the gang.

The gang is called Tren de Argua.

They found that in you invoking the language of the statute this again enemies alien act the government had not established that it's the country is under invasion and for that reason the law the law does not apply on Thursday on Thursday However, the full court which had been mulling this question ever since that is the three-judge panel went up to them the full court of appeals made an unusual decision

And that decision was to dismiss the case outright because of what amounted to many people would call this illegal technicality.

In other words, we had the three judge panels saying, no, Mr. President, you don't have the authority to do this.

We're not in an invasion type setting.

It goes up to the entire panel of the appeals court and the judges, all of them together, ruled that because the government had already expelled

had already basically deported three of these Venezuelan men, believing them to be a part of this gang, who filed the original lawsuit, challenging this through the so-called traditional immigration methods, that there are no longer any plaintiffs.

There's nobody around anymore to prosecute this case, so no longer a case to decide.

And that comes as a surprise to many people who anticipated, once again,

that the larger issue that the American Civil Liberties Union has been asking about for this long period of time, this legal question about one of these basic pillars of the Trump administration's immigration policies, whether or not the Alien Enemies Act applies and can be used, does not definitively get decided.

Again, we've got this lower court, this three judge panel saying, no, it does not, but the larger Court of Appeals, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals,

says we're not deciding this.

And it is undeniably a surprise to many people.

The case has been a bit messy to say the least, even baffling along the way.

And it brings to an end, at least for now, this long-running, multi-pronged battle about whether or not the law applies here.

The ACLU and the Justice Department have been waiting, have been waiting for the Fifth Circuit to decide all this.

And at least for now, at least for now, this particular matter will not be resolved.

The case involving the Alien Enemies Act used only a handful of times.

It was passed way back in 1798.

1798 reaches way back to March of 2025.

You will recall on this broadcast, we were on the air on March of 2025 when...