JAYSON TATUM IS BACK🚨 The 6x NBA All-Star returns to the Celtics lineup tonight against Dallas at 7:00pm/et on ESPN! Today is a good day for basketball.

BREAKING: Boston Celtics All-NBA star Jayson Tatum will play this season and could make his debut on Friday against the Dallas Mavericks – less than 10 months after surgery for a ruptured Achilles tendon.

4th Cir.: it was clearly established law that officer could not punch surrendering arrestee twelve times in the face, causing several fractures and a brain bleed. Immediately after the arrest, officer told his girlfriend he "fucked his face up." No QI. www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/251...

Smith v. Scott is set for conference. The case asks whether officers acted reasonably under the Fourth Amendment by using bodyweight restraint on a potentially armed, resisting suspect, and whether the lower court wrongly denied qualified immunity.

The Ninth Circuit’s reading of the statutory language here, as Judge Graber’s dissent and Judge Fletcher’s statement respecting denial of rehearing en banc pointed out, is nonsensical. The Court should have granted cert.

What a week to be teaching war powers in constitutional law

5th Cir., 9-8, will not rehear en banc a case in which the panel denied QI for officer who shot and killed a man who was fleeing because he had a gun in his hand. Judges Ho and Oldham write dissents from the denial of rehearing en banc. www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub...

NEW: The Supreme Court strikes down President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs. https://to.pbs.org/4kIlmjo

Experts fear the vaccine-preventable virus has regained a foothold and that the U.S. may soon follow Canada in losing the achievement of having eliminated it. https://to.pbs.org/3NunWgA

Academia tests your scheduling skills. Half of my day is spent sending my availability and calendar invites for what I am going to do on other days.

What about 7 cups? Is that overachieving?

When I was practicing, a local attorney would exclusively send messages via fax. They were often just short, scribbled handwritten notes. We kept the fax machine stocked with paper just for her.

Like the sun rising in the east and setting in the west, it is a comfort knowing I can count on a Michigan Law Review rejection.

“Late Friday night, the Fifth Circuit adopted the extreme minority view—that the government can indefinitely detain without bond millions of non-citizens who have been here for generations; who have never committed a crime; and who pose neither a risk of flight nor any threat to public safety.”

In a recent episode of #HistoryInFocus, @danieljstory.bsky.social revisits historian Elizabeth Hinton’s exploration of W.E.B. Du Bois’s 1935 magnum opus Black Reconstruction. We also hear from Eric Foner, Chad Williams, Sue Mobley, and Kendra Field. 🗃️

🚨HOLY CRAP. The Trump admin just took a SLEDGEHAMMER to due process, largely eliminating the Board of Immigration Appeals process and MANDATING DISMISSAL of ALL appeals (which cost $1,000 thanks to OBBBA) filed after tomorrow unless a majority of the BIA votes to hear the case.

Wherein Judge Lawrence VanDyke writes what amounts to a judicial essay decrying Roe v. Wade, nearly four years after it was overruled. Appears he sought en banc review for the sole purpose of writing a statement regarding the denial of review….all while decrying judicial activism.

This is an obvious violation of the Constitution. Precedent should not be required here. Nonsense.

In a police brutality case that drew national attention, Sean Grayson fatally shot the Black woman in her home in 2024 after she had called 911 to investigate a possible prowler.

The civil rights law that has allowed lawsuits against local and state police doesn’t apply to federal agents.

Just another part of the totality of the circumstances for use of force.

Not sure how to feel about this, but I think maybe good?

Seems like a good case for invoking the obvious violation exception to qualified immunity, which I wrote about in 2024 in the Washington Law Review. Requiring parallel precedent here appears unnecessary to show notice of the state of the law.

This is the problem with these injunctive relief requests. Even if the judiciary agrees that ICE is acting unlawfully, can (should) the judiciary be the de facto commander of executive branch law enforcement agencies? Not sure that “don’t violate the Constitution” is permissible relief.

Teaching Powell v. McCormack & US Term Limits v. Thornton in Con Law this week. I thought I might have at least one day that didn’t relate in some way to current events. I was wrong.

The Supreme Court has agreed this term to hear the fewest number of cases since the Civil War. While #SCOTUS's emergency/shadow docket often gets flak for overwhelming the court, some say this term's caseload is part of a bigger, more concerning trend. www.law360.com/articles/243...

Fantastic piece from @stevevladeck.bsky.social & @barryfriedman1.bsky.social on how to hold federal law enforcement accountable. As they note, an even better solution would be for Congress to codify Bivens.

My family in Tennessee assures me that grocery stores are already out of milk and bread.

NEW: For law students and young attorneys, state supreme court clerkships are among the most exciting jobs available, but the application process can be confusing. @jakemazeitis.bsky.social explains which courts regularly hire term law clerks and roughly how many opportunities might be available.

Constitutional Torts: “It Just Happens”

Law and order that exempts law enforcement is not law and order. It’s power without responsibility. Constitutional accountability should not be partisan.

A true Tennessee treasure.

Two significant externalities to the lack of a civil remedy against federal officials: 1) There won't be litigation and discovery showing the extent and depth of the abuses in the immigration crackdown 2) Precedent won't be creating to prevent a repeat of those abuses

Teaching Con Law & Fed Courts this semester, at a moment of upheaval for both. Marbury hits a bit different in 2026. Going to be an interesting semester.

I hear that the Titans have an opening.

Constitutional accountability is a good thing, and it shouldn’t be partisan. Codify Bivens.

Convinced Stranger Things 5 is a bunch of loosely connected scenes barely tethered to the plot. I have no idea what’s happening, and yet I can’t turn it off.

Asking for a friend: does making a rubric count as grading?

Another example of fatal police chases: the Third Circuit recently granted qualified immunity to officers who chased an alleged drug dealer through the streets of Philadelphia, at one point barreling the wrong direction on a one-way street, before the suspect killed a bystander.

Last week, the Eighth Circuit affirmed a grant of qualified immunity to officers who killed Mikel Neil when they used a PIT maneuver to crash his vehicle during a high-speed chase. Officers were pursuing Neil because he failed to stop when they attempted to pull him over for running a red light.

Gov. JB Pritzker signed legislation Tuesday barring civil immigration enforcement from being carried out in courthouses, while giving residents more leeway to sue federal agents over alleged civil rights violations.

JUST IN: Famous 9th Cir Judge Jay Bybee (GWBush) pens 64-page opinion on how Constitution's 'domestic violence' clause may block Trump deployment of National Guard in OR. Judge Eric Tung's (Trump) insulting response: 'A great labor producing a mouse.' Doc: www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

The availability of less-lethal options should not be just a factor in the reasonableness analysis but a key factor. Throwing a rock at an officer is unlawful & warrants force (Taser, etc.)—no dispute. But does it justify deadly force with non-lethal options available? I’m unconvinced.

Finding my calm this morning by thinking about Angels Landing at Zion NP.

What a Constitution Day

The Eight Circuit denied qualified immunity to officers who repeatedly used pressure points on an environmental protester locked in a “sleeping dragon device” and caused the protester to suffer Bell’s Palsy (facial paralysis), tinnitus, and emotional distress.

Found the perfect stick & very proud of it

As a lifelong Titans fan, I know better than to get my hopes up about any QB we draft, but Cam Ward looks really good so far.

News Analysis: So far, the second Trump administration has filed roughly the same number of emergency applications to the Supreme Court as the Biden administration did over four years. But they have fared quite differently.

Beta blockers are no match for the anxiety from watching the Vols try to beat Georgia