The U.S. District Court in Maryland tossed out President Donald Trump’s administration’s lawsuit against Maryland’s judges.
The administration named Chief Judge George Russell as the main defendant, but also added “every other active and senior (i.e., semi-retired) judge in the district (15 in total), the Clerk of Court, and the court itself.”
The court found:
(A) the Executive lacks standing to bring its claim for injunctive relief, but even disregarding that critical flaw, its entire complaint is subject to dismissal because (B) Defendants are immune from suit and, (C) alternatively, the Executive fails to identify a legitimate cause of action that allows it to bring this lawsuit. Because these irreconcilable defects mandate dismissal of the entire suit, the court does not reach the merits question of whether the standing orders are a proper exercise of judicial power.
The situation started in May when the court’s Chief Judge George Russell “issued two standing orders prohibiting federal immigration officials, for just two business days, from removing or altering the legal status of any alien detainee who had filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus.”
Trump’s administration described Russell’s standing orders as “a direct insult” to the Executive Branch’s authority to handle immigration laws.
Judge Thomas Cullen, who authored the ruling, wrote out the administration’s grievances with the order.
“Fair enough, as far as it goes,” Cullen responded. “If these arguments were made in the proper forum, they might well get some traction. And under normal circumstances, it would not be surprising if the Executive raised these concerns through the channels Congress prescribed—that is, by challenging the orders as applied to a particular habeas proceeding through a direct appeal to the Fourth Circuit or, as expressly authorized by federal statute, by petitioning the Judicial Council of the Fourth Circuit, which has the authority to rescind or modify local court rules.”
Cullen then said we do not live in “normal times.” The administration’s decision to sue the court did not surprise him.
Cullen gave the administration blunt advice: “It should appeal.”
The judge had a point when he wrote, “the executive branch is not the sole sovereign” of America. The three branches, legislative, executive, and judiciary, are the sovereign branches in America.
Cullen admitted it’s serious when one branch accuses another branch of encroaching on its constitutional duties. He also acknowledged that the judiciary is not above the rules.
“But those disputes, weighty as they may be, must be resolved within the constitutional structure and with due respect for the Judiciary’s co-equal standing with the executive branch,” explained Cullen. “The Constitution does not give courts ‘general oversight’ of other branches; rather, it permits courts to adjudicate only cases and controversies to the extent Congress allows.”
In other words…appeal Russell’s standing order.
Look, I am tired of activist judges. But Cullen has a point. We have a process, so use it.
“Much as the Executive fights the characterization, a lawsuit by the executive branch of government against the judicial branch for the exercise of judicial power is not ordinary,” concluded Cullen. “The Executive’s lawsuit will be dismissed, and its motion for preliminary injunction denied as moot. Whatever the merits of its grievance with the judges of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, the Executive must find a proper way to raise those concerns.”
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