A divided federal appeals court on Tuesday ordered US District Judge James Boasberg to end his efforts to hold Trump administration officials accountable for flouting his orders in a high-stakes immigration case.

The decision comes almost exactly a year after Boasberg, the chief judge of the federal trial-level court in Washington, DC, said in a blockbuster ruling that “probable cause exists to find the government in criminal contempt” for defying his orders to temporarily halt the deportation of migrants under a powerful wartime authority invoked by Donald Trump.

The Trump administration appealed several times to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals so the contempt proceedings never fully got underway, halting the judge’s work while it considered whether he had the power to move ahead with the inquiry.

  • Miles O'Brien@startrek.websiteEnglish
    451·
    2 days ago

    So a court has told another court to stop looking into court cases (and the people not following court orders) and let people not follow court orders.

    So court orders are meaningless.

    • NekoKoneko@lemmy.world
      26·
      2 days ago

      Not quite. This is a panel decision from two Trump appointees and the respondents have said they will ask the full DC Circuit Court to hear the case. It may be that the initial decision was a lucky draw for Trump and the full circuit will reverse.

  • Brummbaer@pawb.social
    9·
    2 days ago

    So how does the american court system work? A judge gives an order, but can be overruled if at least to other judges order against it?

    So if the judge who gave the first order finds at least three other judges …

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      24 hours ago

      The guns were and are always about signaling threats to the perceived enemies of the perpetually paranoid radical right wing. The idiots waving those things around do not give a flying fuck about the Constitution, America, rights, or freedom.

      We all saw what happened when the Black Panther started exercising their rights to open carry. None of this was even remotely a mystery long before donnie dumbfuck rode down that escalator.

    • Züri@lemmy.ml
      3·
      1 day ago

      They even demonstrated on Jan 6 2021 that they’d be capable to storm the capitol.

      That there is no such thing now speaks volumes!

  • mkwt@lemmy.world
    27·
    2 days ago

    This three judge panel has been quasi-overruled by the en banc court on this case and issue once before. So it seems reasonable to think that might happen again.

    There are still a bunch of hurdles to getting close to any kind of real contempt finding, even if that happens. There’s a real argument that the most Boasberg can do with criminal contempt is make a referral to the DOJ for prosecution. And just imagine how much action this DOJ would take on such a referral…

    Edit: apparently this is a different three judge panel than the first, but Judge Rao was randomly assigned to both panels.

  • VeryVito@lemmy.ml
    10·
    2 days ago

    It’s crazy to think how many people are going to stand trial or self-exile before this is all over.

  • Optional@lemmy.world
    96·
    2 days ago

    But now, a pair of Trump appointees on the appellate court has decided to fully stamp out Boasberg’s plans, saying in a sharply worded opinion that his contempt probe represented “a clear abuse” of power given that the administration had previously identified then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as the official responsible for deciding to allow the deportations in question to continue.

    Yeah, but, see, Kamala wasn’t a literal Jesus figure so we didn’t vote