New from me in @theatlantic.com : Trump is learning that although it's easy to convict people in a social media rant, in the courtroom things are a bit more complicated. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

BREAKING: Judge rules Lindsey Halligan's appointment was not valid, thus, she had no authority to present the James Comey or Letitia James indictments and the indictments are dismissed without prejudice.

The Trump administration cannot expand rapid deportations, a 2-1 panel of the D.C. Circuit ruled reut.rs/49y5vR3

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This is unfortunate. Three states — OH, ND, and NE — require judicial supermajorities to strike down statutes. I don’t get it. Allowing a state to enforce a law, despite a state supreme court majority deeming it unconstitutional, does not promote respect for law.

In the latest episode of @dividedargument.bsky.social argument, they discuss the perennial issue of the first-time SCOTUS advocate, and what obligations you have as the non-SCOTUS bumpkin to your client to tell them a member of the SCOTUS bar is volunteering to argue /1

Especially for the 1Ls out there, preparing for their 1st set of law school exams, I wrote this post back in 2007 about how to get a good grade on a law school issue spotter. The post, "Bad Answers, Good Answers, and Terrific Answers," is available here: volokh.com/posts/116838...

If the outcome is in the job description, then the job isn't "judge."

They misidentified the intern. The judge told them they had misidentified the intern. But instead of double checking, they took that as an affront to their authority. So they surrounded the judge's car and threatened to smash the windows to get to the intern. They had misidentified the intern.

In a weird way, SCOTUS's apparent unwillingness to allow district court *legal* rulings to stand in Trump cases might be pushing those courts to let fly with adverse *credibility* findings that they otherwise might have withheld as a courtesy.

This is a thread detailing a series of incidents where federal Judge Ellis rules that Gregory Bovino and his agents lied or misrepresented what was happening on the streets of Chicago. In this one, she says body cam footage suggests they brake checked to cause accidents

"Bovino appeared evasive over the three days of his deposition, either providing 'cute' responses to Plaintiffs’ counsel’s questions or outright lying."

In the next Knives Out film Benoit Blanc once again encounters an unsavory group that is hiding serious wrongdoing, but this time he tricks them into supporting legislation requiring the DOJ to release the underlying files.

Incredible—according to @talkingpointsmemo.com, Judge Nachmanoff in the Comey case found a DC Circuit opinion almost directly on point that seems to prohibit what Halligan did with the indictment all the way back in 1969! talkingpointsmemo.com/news/due-to-...

Criminal practitioners don’t astonish easily. This is astonishing.

This shouldn't be a controversial position.

At today's Comey hearing, Michael Dreeben argued: "This has to stop. ... A message needs to be sent to the Executive Branch. You cannot allow the president to take advantage of the authority of the EB to use as a cudgel to damage [and intimidate] political opponents."

This case should be thrown out, but the DOJ can perhaps claim privilege about whether an internal memo made a particular recommendation. However, if there was in fact a memo recommending against charging Comey, any *evidence* it cited as support might have to be disclosed as Brady material.

In @thebulwark.com pushing back on the "unreviewability" trend we're seeing among judges & others on executive authority when it comes to the military & foreign policy. Extreme cases aside, the courts play a vital role in military & FP questions. www.thebulwark.com/p/military-a...

NEW: In 2024, Tierra Walker was sick and getting sicker. She was also pregnant. She knew abortion was illegal in Texas, but thought there was an exception for women like her, whose health was at risk. Doctors told her there was no emergency. Then she died. www.propublica.org/article/texa...

I think Trump's Law & Order messaging, including on immigration, has maybe possibly been a *teensy* bit undermined by his consistent pardoning, covering up, and downplaying of serious crimes.

No tape, no testimony @segalmr.bsky.social

NEW: In light of widespread allegations of civil rights violations arising from Trump's immigration crackdown, Democrats are renewing efforts to pass legislation to hold federal agents individually accountable: www.nbcnews.com/politics/con...

"But when the Trump Administration reframed its request as a demand to redistrict congressional seats based on their racial makeup, Texas lawmakers immediately jumped on board." — Trump appointee Jeffrey V. Brown, writing for a 3-judge panel storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Here is the federal district court's 2–1 ruling, authored by a very conservative Trump appointee, striking down Texas' new Republican gerrymander on the grounds that it unlawfully discriminates against racial minorities. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

11th Cir., in an unpublished order, holds that Trump's defamation lawsuit against CNN for its coverage of his election lies is meritless. media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/unp...

Something I find truly remarkable is that educated people who read newspapers felt totally comfortable writing down all their disgusting ideas in plain text emails to Jeffrey Epstein. My friends and I, meanwhile, use Signal with disappearing messages on to make poop jokes. We are not the same.

NEW: Judge dismisses the Trump Admin's challenge to NY's Protect Our Courts Act, a law prohibiting immigration arrests at NY's courthouses! This is an important response to those who say states can't hold ICE officers accountable to the law. www.courtlistener.com/docket/70522...

This is like when Jason Segel’s character in Forgetting Sarah Marshall doesn’t realize his Dracula musical is a comedy

well sure, with the benfit of hindsight, maybe it was wrong to tell the grand jury it was Opposite Day

Everyone's missing potentially the most interesting thing about this order, which is the judge's finding that Halligan may have returned an indictment that was never presented to the jury

I complain about prosecutors every day, but this is legitimately beyond the scope not only of ordinary prosecutorial behavior, but of ordinary prosecutorial misconduct

There have been at least 154 cases in which federal district courts have issued preliminary relief against a Trump administration policy. Those rulings have come from 121 *different* judges appointed by seven presidents (including 15 appointed by Trump) sitting in 29 district courts in 10 circuits:

Absolutely no way to read this and not conclude that the Department of Justice has been deeply corrupted. And this is from a time when career lawyers were in place, pushing back against illegality. With firings and resignations, the politicization will just get worse. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

As federal agents roam residential neighborhoods and the Dept of Justice devolves into a political weapon, I'm sure glad SCOTUS has spent years developing doctrines designed to rein in the... legislative branch.

There is a whole new category of criminal defense motion coming, in which the defendants argue that Trump's directive to investigate only Democrats violates the free association clause of the First Amendment.

If you do one Trump-assisting felony the next one’s free?

DOJ has been abandoning a truly incredible share of the criminal cases it filed in D.C. this year. Today, it asked a judge to dismiss yet another, this one involving a man charged with illegally possessing a gun "in light of legal and evidentiary issues."

Beyond the obvious partisanship, seems like one possible purpose of this maneuver is to create an “ongoing investigation” to serve as an excuse for keeping documents under wraps.

Given what we’ve seen on America’s streets, it’s worth repeating what the court says here: Needlessly pointing a firearm at someone can violate the Fourth Amendment, even if the officer never pulls the trigger.

can’t wait to tell my students in the middle of class, “hold on—gotta email the chancellor before I can answer your question“

Grade inflation is a multifaceted issue but it seems like one facet is an increased reliance on student satisfaction surveys, including in deciding whether adjuncts will be invited back to teach again.

Washington. New Mexico. San Francisco. Los Angeles. Maine. Oregon. Massachusetts. Just a few of the places where the legal system is breaking because public/private defenders have stopped taking new cases because of their unethical workloads. A national crisis that few are paying attention to.

Jesus Christ, I would have been fired into the sun by the US Attorney if I pulled this shit

how I came to be in the Epstein files

NEW: @propublica.org investigated the Chicago apartment raid where kids were zip-tied and citizens detained for hours. They find: - NONE of the arrested were criminally charged - NO evidence the building was "filled with TdA terrorists." - ZERO legitimate reason for DHS to rappel from a Blackhawk.

Is this the kind of sacred decision making SCOTUS had in mind when it wrote Trump v United States?

It seems like some people have sought to escape accountability not by declining to engage in misconduct, or even by declining to write about it, but instead by being incapable of writing about it in complete sentences.

Had the same reaction. Did I miss something where everyone rich and famous sends emails that are incomprehensible gibberish?

The co-directors of the State Supreme Court Initiative (Matt and Julie) are two of the smartest and loveliest people I know. Please encourage good candidates you know to apply! You might even get to come visit me in Kansas . . . 👀