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- Manlobbi
Halls of Shrewd'm / US Policy
No. of Recommendations: 3
The Supremes Ruled 6-3 that district judges lack the power to issue nationwide injunctions on policy. The upshot of the ruling is that
-Any injunctions only cover the parties before the court
-Any injunctions only cover the district the court is in
This is correct. There have been a number of Second Amendment cases that would easily affect every single America but the rulings were always limited to the case participants and only in the district the ruling was made in...this decision brings these immigration and whatever other Hawaii judge things into line with the powers the judiciary is supposed to have.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a884... The Government
argues that the District Courts lacked equitable authority to impose
universal relief and has filed three nearly identical emergency appli
cations seeking partial stays to limit the preliminary injunctions to the
plaintiffs in each case. The applications do not raise—and thus the
Court does not address—the question whether the Executive Order vi
olates the Citizenship Clause or Nationality Act. Instead, the issue
the Court decides is whether, under the Judiciary Act of 1789, federal
courts have equitable authority to issue universal injunctions.The government's lawyers were very clever here.
Universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that
Congress has given to federal courts. The Court grants the Govern
ment’s applications for a partial stay of the injunctions entered below,
but only to the extent that the injunctions are broader than necessary
to provide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue. Pp. 4
26. The key phrase is this:
(e) When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too.
No. of Recommendations: 2
And ACB just obliterates KBJ's dissent:
Rhetoric aside, JUSTICE JACKSON’s position is difficult to pin down. She might be arguing that universal injunctions are appropriate—even required—whenever the defendant is part of the Executive Branch. See, e.g., post, at 3, 10–12, 16–18. If so, her position goes far beyond the mainstream defense of universal injunctions. See, e.g., Frost, 93 N. Y. U. L. Rev., at 1069 (“Nationwide injunctions come with significant costs and should never be the default remedy in cases challenging federal executive action”). As best we can tell, though, her argument is more extreme still, because its logic does not depend on the entry of a universal injunction: JUSTICE JACKSON appears to believe that the reasoning behind any court order demands “universal adherence,” at least where the Executive is concerned. Post, at 2 (dissenting opinion). In her law-declaring vision of the judicial function, a district court’s opinion is not just persuasive, but has the legal force of a judgment. But see Haaland v. Brackeen, 599 U. S. 255, 294 (2023) (“It is a federal court’s judgment, not its opinion, that remedies an injury”). Once a single district court deems executive conduct unlawful, it has stated what the law requires. And the Executive must conform to that view, ceasing its enforcement of the law against anyone, anywhere.17
We will not dwell on JUSTICE JACKSON’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself. We observe only this: JUSTICE JACKSON decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary. ... In other words, it is unecessary to consider whether Congress has constrained the Judiciary; what matters is how the Judiciary may constrain the Executive. JUSTICE JACKSON would do well to heed her own admonition: “[E]veryone, from the President on down, is bound bylaw.” Ibid. That goes for judges too.
Ooof. That's gonna leave a mark.
No. of Recommendations: 3
And ACB just obliterates KBJ's dissent:
Actually, I think ACB has it bass ackwards.
There are 13 circuits of the U.S. courts of appeals. Theoretically, you could have multiple versions of the law in place at the same time, depending on what circuit you’re in. Pure chaos until the SCOTUS (the real imperial Judiciary) gets their act together.
And what if company in 1 circuit sues a company in another circuit and they have different versions of the law in place? Again, more chaos until the imperial judiciary SCOTUS gets it together.
I would very much like to hear albaby’s take on this.
No. of Recommendations: 2
Actually, I think ACB has it bass ackwards.
There are 13 circuits of the U.S. courts of appeals. Theoretically, you could have multiple versions of the law in place at the same time, depending on what circuit you’re in. Pure chaos until the SCOTUS (the real imperial Judiciary) gets their act together.
....which is WHY ACB wrote what she wrote.
There's 1 sole judicial arbiter that is responsible for the entire country: the US Supreme Court. You can't have 13 different district courts all writing contradicting TROs, say.
No. of Recommendations: 4
I would very much like to hear albaby’s take on this.
I haven't had a chance to read the opinion yet, so I've only been able to read some of the quick commentary about it. My impression is that the majority grounded its ruling on their conception of the scope of the Judicial power granted under the Constitution to the Court and the scope of the Judiciary Act of 1789 (which set up the lower courts).
Like the other three branches, the Court (ostensibly) only has the power that has been given it under the Constitution. Unlike the other two branches, the Constitution is very limited in describing what that power is. It's the "Judicial Power." But what is that power? Historically, the Court has understood the Judicial Power as the authority to resolve actual disputes between parties. That's why the Court has such weird (to lay people) requirements about standing - the Court has traditionally understood its role as not being a general interpreter of the law, but as an arbiter of actual cases between two parties that have a real dispute that the Court can actually decide and grant relief in.
So the majority in this decision chose to apply that to the injunction question by saying that the Constitutional power of the Court to order relief is limited to granting relief to the parties that are in front of it. To resolving the case. If the Court finds that Bob is causing damage to Alice by unlawfully doing X to her, the Court has the power to tell Bob to stop doing X to Alice. But even Bob is also doing X to Charlie, Charlie isn't before the Court (in this hypothetical). If getting Bob to stop doing X to Alice offers Alice complete and total resolution of her claim against Bob, then there's no basis for the Court to order Bob to do anything vis-a-vis Charlie. The Court's determination that X was unlawful might carry over to a future Bob-Charlie lawsuit - but the Court lacks power to order relief against Bob's future actions against Charlie in a lawsuit that only features Alice and Bob.
Congress has the power to give the judiciary broader powers than the bare minimum granted by the Constitution, and has done so in the Judiciary Act of 1789, but apparently the majority did not believe that they had granted the additional power necessary here.
I'm going to read the opinion over the weekend, but that's my initial take based on what I've read.
No. of Recommendations: 9
Dope1: ....which is WHY ACB wrote what she wrote.
There's 1 sole judicial arbiter that is responsible for the entire country: the US Supreme Court. You can't have 13 different district courts all writing contradicting TROs, say.
Umm, it seems, rather, that the Supreme Court has made a conscious decision to break the Constitution, transforming it from the law of the land into a piecemeal promise.
So doesn't this now mean that a baby born in New York to undocumented parents is a citizen but one born to undocumented parents in Kentucky is not a citizen?
And while we're musing citizenship and deportation, since Ivana wasn’t an American citizen until 1988 but gave birth to Don Junior in 1977, Ivanka in 1981, and Eric in 1984, shouldn't their birthright citizenship be cancelled and they be deported?
Just askin'.
No. of Recommendations: 1
Woof. Where to start.
Umm, it seems, rather, that the Supreme Court has made a conscious decision to break the Constitution, transforming it from the law of the land into a piecemeal promise.
No. Not at all.
The courts can only
(1) Hear and rule on whatever is in front of them
(2) Issue orders that apply to their districts.
They’re only District Courts. Some judge in Maine can’t tell me what to do in Washington just because he/she feels like it. Especially when I’ve never appeared in their court.
BTW. Welcome to how 2nd Amendment cases have been adjudicated nationwide for decades.
So doesn't this now mean that a baby born in New York to undocumented parents is a citizen but one born to undocumented parents in Kentucky is not a citizen?
It means there’s a fundamental Constitutional question that needs to be arbitrated.
Your example defeats your own argument, by the way. Let’s say
a) The New York judge says the kid is a citizen and writes an order
b) The Kentucky judge says no they’re not
Who wins? ACB just said “You guys don’t get to order stuff nationally”.
And while we're musing citizenship and deportation, since Ivana wasn’t an American citizen until 1988 but gave birth to Don Junior in 1977, Ivanka in 1981, and Eric in 1984, shouldn't their birthright citizenship be cancelled and they be deported?
Given that Ivana is dead and DJT is the father of all the kids then we’re not deporting anyone.
No. of Recommendations: 1
the Constitutional power of the Court to order relief is limited to granting relief to the parties that are in front of it.
Then any order by the court does not apply to anyone except the individual(s) involved the the case. Thus, no state or federal law can prohibit abortion--because each individual woman would have to be personally/individually sued in order to enforce such a law at any level. Unless, of course, the First Amendment does not apply. Then any religious law could also be a state/federal law. Imagine the MAGA consternation when they have to comply with Islamic religious law....
No. of Recommendations: 4
Umm, it seems, rather, that the Supreme Court has made a conscious decision to break the Constitution, transforming it from the law of the land into a piecemeal promise.This is already the case. It is not uncommon for there to be differences in how federal laws are interpreted in different parts of the country. In fact, one of the main factors in SCOTUS' decisions to accept cases for review is if there is a "split in the circuits" - where you have different interpretations in different courts, that SCOTUS feels are necessary to resolve. Not only that, but it's pretty common for SCOTUS to deliberately let those differences
percolate for a while, to get a sense of where different circuits land on an issue and see how things play out, before entering the issue to resolve it. Here's some examples:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_split#Exampl...
No. of Recommendations: 1
Then any order by the court does not apply to anyone except the individual(s) involved the the case. Thus, no state or federal law can prohibit abortion--because each individual woman would have to be personally/individually sued in order to enforce such a law at any level.
I don't follow the logic. In this very specific aspect, there's no real change here.
If a state prohibits abortion, it's making it illegal for anyone to perform that procedure (that's usually the form these laws primarily take). The way these laws work is that anyone can still go out and perform abortions, but if you do perform an abortion the state can "personally/individually" arrest you and take you to trial and put you in jail. Enforcing laws through criminal penalties is almost always a "personal/individual" process today.
