DOJ Requests Supreme Court Block on Transgender Care for Inmates

​Trump administration Solicitor General John Sauer asked the Supreme Court to effectively erase transgender individuals from the law, with the aim of ending transgender care for all ages. Sauer is doing that by attempting to remove gender affirming care from being accessed by prisoners that are transgender. On Monday September 28, the Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to block an order from U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth that protected such care in the face of a new Federal Bureau of Prisons policy that would lead to the end of such care.

​The Trump administration has “determined that sex-trait-modification surgeries, hormone interventions in general, and social accommodations could no longer be justified as treatment for gender dysphoria.“ (To be clear, “social accommodations” are such simple steps that include “include ‘buttock padding,’ ‘breast padding,’ chest ‘binders,’ ‘makeup,’ ‘wigs,’ and other items ‘used to alter the person’s appearance to align with the person’s “gender identity.”’“). The  administration argued that removing gender affirming care is justified because prior policies allowing those “treatment“ steps “did not reflect the latest scientific information“ and only seeks to bolster by reliance on “security and prison-administration concerns“ specific to this case.

​Effectively, Sauer is asking the Supreme Court to say that the federal government no longer believes that trans people are justified in being trans in either the medical or social ways that allow trans people to live their lives authentically. This ruling will have vast ripples throughout society.

​Federal Judge Blocks FEMA Grant Conditions Linked to Election Policies

​In June, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) warned state and local governments that it would withhold up to 20 percent of some terrorism-preparedness grants, totaling up to $1 billion, unless election officials demonstrated that they were attempting to move to paper ballots or verifying voters’ citizenship. A group of states, Tennessee, Texas, and Ohio, sued FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) arguing that the federal government did not have the authority to force changes in election-related activities.

​On Monday September 28, Judge Amir H. Ali of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia agreed that the conditions exceeded the administration’s power over elections and ordered them removed from the application of the grant programs.

​Judge Issues Sanctions Over Improper IRS Settlement Attempt

​On Monday September 28, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams issued a ruling that concluded the Justice Department and private lawyers representing Donald Trump improperly had “a shared, unitary interest“ in settling Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) through the creation of the now-jettisoned “Anti-Weaponization” slush fund along tax-related immunity for Trump and his family.

​Judge Williams wrote: “[T]he Court finds that this matter was brought for an improper purpose—to gain the imprimatur of judicial legitimacy for a ‘settlement’ that had no viable basis in law or fact,”

​Williams, an Obama appointee, sanctioned Trump’s lawyers by referring Alejandro Brito to the Florida Bar and ordering that Daniel Z. Epstein was not allowed to practice in the Southern District of Florida for one year and ordered monetary sanctions as well. She also ordered that Monday’s opinion be sent to the State Bar of New York and District of Columbia Bar, where Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward already face bar complaints. The parties were also prohibited from holding out this farce of a settlement.

​A group of retired judges filed a request to reopen this case after Trump and the DOJ attempted to settle the lawsuit against the IRS, causing Williams to review and ultimately issue a scathing 56-page opinion along with her above orders and sanctions.

​Williams deemed the matter simple, stating: “In sum, the facts before this Court demonstrate there was never adverseness between the Parties; there was never a case or controversy; and there was never a question as to who would prevail,”.

​Supreme Court Permits Third-Country Deportations Pending Appeal

​On Tuesday September 29, SCOTUS allowed the Trump administration to continue third-country deportations and agreed to hear the case in full in their December sitting.

​The action by the high court marks the third time the justices have rejected efforts by U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston to pause the deportations, which the judge said violate due process rights and fail to give detainees meaningful notice to raise arguments that they have credible fears of torture or abuse in the countries where they could be sent.

​Reflecting Pool Damage Charges Dismissed With Prejudice

​In August, federal prosecutors asked Superior Court Judge Todd Edelman to dismiss the criminal indictment against Hearn, who had been charged with felony destruction of government property. He was accused of causing more than $1,000 in damage to the sealant that was installed last summer at the bottom of the Reflecting Pool.

​On October 1, Edelman dismissed the charges with prejudice, meaning the charges cannot be filed against him again.

​Hearn pleaded not guilty to the initial charges, claiming he placed his hand into the water of the Reflecting Pool while taking a break on a July ride through the Capitol. He was detained for five hours after being arrested.

​When the prosecutors filed for dismissal, the US Attorneys Office in DC admitted that Hearn had not caused the damage, citing that the damage was caused by a botched installation by the contractors that had recently renovated the site.

​"It (the case) reached this conclusion not because it has misidentified Mr. Hearn as the perpetrator of the alleged act, but because no crime had occurred," Edelman wrote, adding that the government's interest in keeping the possibility of charging Hearn again would result in a "meritless, politically motivated prosecution.”

​High Court Declines Emergency Stay on Delaware Donor Disclosure Law

​On October 1, the Supreme Court declined an emergency stay requested by the Koch-backed lobbying firm Americans for Prosperity that claimed a Delaware law violated its 1st Amendment rights.

​Americans for Prosperity argued that the Delaware Elections Disclosure Act, which requires organizations like Americans for Prosperity to disclose the names and addresses of donors who give more than $100, was causing irreparable harm to their donors by forcing them to disclose.

​Delaware state attorney Emily V. Burton argued that “If they want to speak with the benefit of all their donors’ money, the law simply requires them to disclose all of their donors.”

​U.S. Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas, a Donald Trump appointee, questioned the claim's urgency when they waited nearly five years after Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta, a SCOTUS ruling in 2021 restricting donors disclosure laws.

​Ultimately the Circuit Court declined to provide a preliminary injunction in favor of Americans for Prosperity, forcing them to wait for the court's decision. SCOTUS further iterated that AfP must wait for the ruling.

​Federal Court Rules Mass License Plate Surveillance Violates 4th Amendment

​On October 1, Judge Sarah Hill of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma ruled that a warrantless search of the Flock ALPR system had violated a woman's 4th Amendment rights.

​In the case United States v. Kyle, the defendant Melisa Kyle claimed that the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Deputy and DEA task force officer Freddie Alaniz had violated her rights conducting more than 50 historical location searches over a month of travel after spotting her California license plate in Oklahoma. The search showed Kyle moving across the country during that time frame.

​Tulsa County Sheriff Deputy Alaniz, assigned with a DEA task force, conducted a traffic stop after determining her activity to be suspicious and found approximately 91 pounds of methamphetamine in the vehicle and $7,000 in cash. Citing her travel activity as the only probable cause.

​"This is a type of indiscriminate mass surveillance," Hill wrote. "The Fourth Amendment requires courts to draw a line when the cost is too great." The ALPR search, in her words, "intruded on her reasonable expectation of privacy in the whole of her physical movements.”

​Ultimately, Judge Hill suppressed the ALPR data and the methamphetamine in Kyle's case with this ruling.

​The Justice Department is expected to appeal this case to the Tenth Circuit and if the panel agrees with Judge Hill's decision it would force law enforcement policy change across six states.

​District Court Temporarily Halts Big Bend Border Wall Construction

​On October 2, Judge Kathleen Cardone of the US District Court for the Western District of Texas put a temporary block on the building of the border wall in Big Bend National Park and the surrounding region.

​Landowners, businesses and environmentalists in the region have united to oppose the planned projects, which are part of a $46 billion effort by the Trump administration to line the southern border with a mix of 30-foot-tall steel walls, vehicle barriers, roads and surveillance technology. The plaintiffs claimed that the wall was unnecessary in the region because of the naturally rugged terrain being deterrent enough for immigration. They also argued that the Trump administration violated the law when it issued a swath of waivers allowing it to bypass numerous regulations in order to speed up border wall infrastructure projects.

​Judge Kathleen Cardone said in her ruling that the plaintiffs were “likely to succeed on the merits of at least one of the claims in suit, that there is a likelihood that they will suffer serious, irreparable harm without an injunction, and that the balance of the equities and the public interest weigh in their favor.”

​“We stand by our assessment and remain confident in our legal authorities to secure the border while preserving the unique landscape of the Big Bend region,” said US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) while defending the project. They further claimed that they would be working with the Department of Justice on the next steps.

​The temporary block should remain in place until the case is heard by Judge Cardone on the merits and a ruling is released.