North Carolina as of today has implemented a draconian law that makes it more difficult for people to be released pretrial. It eliminates entirely pretrial release with a written notice to appear, which is, quite frankly, the most retrograde thing I've seen. nccriminallaw.sog.unc.edu/2025/11/04/i...

Creating a military conflict with Venezuela gives this administration a legal "hook" to invoke the Alien Enemies Act. In other words, the foreign war is being manufactured in order to facilitate court deference for its domestic mass deportation policy. It's a Stephen Miller Special.

You know Thanksgiving weekend is getting a bit intense when the wife pursues you from the kitchen as you attempt to eat the last piece of chocolate cream pie, and to complete the task you have to barricade yourself in your office. 😎

From my Cato colleagues in February: "We find that all immigrants consumed 21 percent less welfare and entitlement benefits than native-born Americans on a per capita basis... Noncitizens were 7.3 percent of the population and consumed just 3.5 percent of all welfare and entitlement benefits."

From my colleague @foxmike90.bsky.social: "Now is not the time for federal judges to be removing ICE skeptics from jury selection... [the] community’s informed distrust of the government’s actions is not a bias to be purged."

BREAKING: Comey case dismissed without prejudice. Halligan invalidly appointed, judge rules. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

"When those in power can pressure private actors to silence disfavored voices without consequence, expression is stifled and people self-censor." Yet the Second Circuit upheld qualified immunity for a New York official who violated the First Amendment this way. Cato amicus brief seeks cert review

Citizens & immigrants whose rights are trashed by state sponsored #ICE terror squads deserve legal redress. Legal loopholes & insane court-created police violence shields like #qualifiedimmunity make it nearly impossible. My colleague @foxmike90.bsky.social has the fix. www.cato.org/blog/what-go...

"Olson, a senior fellow... [said GOP tactical bungling] led to the court ruling that Republicans had likely created a map that ran afoul of the Constitution’s ban on racial gerrymandering. “'Very often the unintended consequences take years to manifest,' he said. 'Seldom do they take only weeks.'"

Abolish #qualifiedimmunity NOW.

Useful overview of why ICE and Border Patrol agents cannot in fact legally do whatever they want (and quotes me at the end).

"Assessing whether a police officer’s use of force was reasonable under the circumstances is precisely the type of judgment call the Framers tasked jurors to make." Cato amicus brief urges Fifth Circuit to vacate panel decision against family in police shooting case [Matt Cavedon]

Cato podcast with @scottlincicome.bsky.social and Brett Skorup on the tariffs case at the Supreme Court. "They explore how the case could reshape executive authority, revive dormant constitutional doctrines, and determine whether Congress or the White House truly controls U.S. trade policy."

This case underscores how SCOTUS made it impossible to hold immigration cops accountable for the abuses you see in all those videos. A federal task force cop manufactured evidence to put an innocent woman behind bars for two years. Because of SCOTUS-conferred immunity, the case never got to a jury.

An excellent piece on why juries are foundational to our system & why prosecutors do their utmost to keep thinking, feeling jurors out of the courtroom.

From my Cato colleague @foxmike90.bsky.social: judges in protest cases have excused jurors who admit they don't trust ICE or have strong feelings against it. But those are legitimate positions, and a jury lacking them isn't representative of the local community ("vicinage") the Constitution demands.

From my colleague @foxmike90.bsky.social.

The latest from my colleague @foxmike90.bsky.social on the stakes in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case.

A federal judge in Chicago has found that ICE conducted numerous illegal warrantless arrests in Illinois and nearby states in defiance of a 2022 consent decree. It also prepared post hoc arrest rationales after the fact based on details agents "did not know at the time they made the arrests". /1

Holy hell. DHS just openly stated that its agents use “reasonable suspicion” to make ARRESTS. This is blatantly unconstitutional. The Supreme Court is clear that you need probable cause to arrest someone, as opposed to stop them to ask them a question or two. This is huge b/c…

Three cheers for the Constitution's right to a jury: a federal jury in Los Angeles "took just over an hour to acquit [Brayan] Ramos-Brito of a misdemeanor assault count" in an ICE-scuffle case hinging heavily on the testimony of border sector chief Gregory Bovino, now doing raids in Chicago.

Yet another piece on the role of juries: www.ocregister.com/2025/10/02/r...

From my colleague @foxmike90.bsky.social: The Framers saw citizen juries as a bulwark against tyranny, and D.C. juries could do much to curb Jeanine Pirro’s penchant for pressing doubtful charges in politically charged cases.

From my colleague Matthew Cavedon: under the Constitution, it's up to states (and not, as he seems to think, Donald Trump) to decide to what extent to rely on cash bail. Either way, improved pretrial supervision can offer an option better tailored to the rights of defendants and needs of the public.

Some preliminary thoughts on Trump's new executive order "Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence," which declares a law enforcement crackdown on some ill-specified blend of action and speech by his political adversaries, on grounds that they encourage and abet violence. /1

Critics including Elon Musk have assailed my @cato.org colleague Alex Nowrasteh's study finding that most politically motivated terrorist killings in the U.S. since 1975 have been done by persons on the right. Alex responds to the critics here and explains his methods and classifications.

The Supreme Court’s ruling in Barnes v. Felix was counted as a major win for police accountability. By the time the Fifth Circuit was done with the case, though, the Barnes family’s hopes were dashed, writes my colleague @foxmike90.bsky.social

My tribute to my friend @rethinkintel.bsky.social

The Constitution protects both the right to keep and bear arms and the right to travel. Massachusetts nonetheless prosecutes out-of-staters who drive in MA with a gun in their trunk, even though they never used it in MA. Cato urges certiorari of Mass. top court ruling upholding that [Matt Cavedon]

Supreme Court will hear our case challenging Trump's massive IEEPA tariffs, along with 2 related cases. I hope SCOTUS, like lower courts, will recognize President doesn't have monarchical power to impose taxes in form of tariffs! See link for details: reason.com/volokh/2025/...

Fifth Circuit correctly rejects Trump admin's arguments for vast discretionary authority under the Alien Enemies Act. @ilyasomin.bsky.social says Judge Oldham's 130-page (!) dissent is a "herculean" effort that just goes to "underscore the radical and dangerous nature of the government’s position."

We cannot have a country where the rights of one person matter more than the rights of another, simply because they were born in a different country or are the descendants of someone who was. www.cato.org/blog/freedom...

cc: @radleybalko.bsky.social @foxmike90.bsky.social @thebulwark.com @andycraig.bsky.social @aaronrosspowell.com @liberalcurrents.com @theunpopulist.net @walterolson.bsky.social @thereloadteam.bsky.social @gunownerfoundation.bsky.social @apnews.com @reuters.com @politico.com

The Sixth Amendment prescribes that "all" criminal prosecutions be tried by jury, yet the Supreme Court has chosen to make "petty offenses" an exception, even when they bring jail time, and even if stacked. Observe the results in Pirro's prosecution of the recent D.C. flag burning case.

cc: @radleybalko.bsky.social @davidjbier.bsky.social @reason.com @thenation.com @motherjones.com @theintercept.com @huffpost.com @kenwhite.bsky.social @chrishudsonjr.bsky.social @foxmike90.bsky.social @jvl.bsky.social @thebulwark.com @propublica.org @texasobserver.org @texastribune.org @apnews.com

This is 82-year-old pilot Ken Jouppi. Alaska seized his $95,000 plane—and has spent *13 years* trying to keep it forever. Why? Because a passenger once brought a 6-pack of beer on his flight. Now he has one last hope. A thread.

“The Happiest Place On Earth” is a trademarked phrase of the Disney company. Otherwise I might be tempted to use it to describe Cato today after the appeals court struck down the tariffs. @cato.org

Trump prosecutors in L.A. and D.C. have been striking out before grand juries in politically charged cases. That's encouraging, says my colleague @foxmike90.bsky.social

More FAKE assaults

My colleague @foxmike90.bsky.social on Trump's BS no cash bail EO. www.cato.org/blog/price-f...

Historically, criminal defendants could only be held for short periods of time as needed to effectuate trial. www.cato.org/blog/price-f...

Manhattan Institute analyst argues in the New York Post that when critics call for ICE agents to wear badges and not masks, it is because we *want them to be afraid for their personal safety,* not because, say, we want them to be legally accountable and not terrify innocents. Utterly contemptible.

The way to end this? Just shut it down.

New ICE recruitment ad just dropped via Jesse Welles

Here we have the Department of Homeland Security—the agency allegedly responsible for protecting the U.S. from terrorism—rounding up delivery bikes outside of my office in Dupont Circle. What a fabulous waste of taxpayer dollars.