#177: CSI: Courts

Let’s start the roundup with the most off-the-wall order of the week which comes from Judge Thomas Barber in Florida regarding a defamation case involving Dominion and the 2020 election. “It is hereby ordered that no party or witness in this case is permitted to bring any type of weapon to a deposition, mediation, or meeting of parties and/or counsel relating to this case. This prohibition includes but is not limited to any type of firearm, knife or similar sharp object, mace or similar product, and sap or blackjack or similar object.” You’d think that would be something you wouldn’t need to make an order about, but there’s a bit of a history.

It’s what we call a unicorn legal moment. Something that rarely ever happens. Like the Orioles winning back to back games or 1993 Knicks Championship.  A defense attorney finally won a motion for vindictive and selective prosecution.

The Anti-Weaponization Fund is already facing several legal challenges.

Customers of Rihanna's lingerie company want their tariff fees refunded.

A judge seems annoyed that author Michael Wolff involved the federal courts in his drama with First Lady Melania Trump.

As we noted, after the Washington Post decided to stop reporting the news, there are no dedicated reporters watching the Eastern District of Virginia. Which means it's a fitting place for two news startups (well, one news startup and a rich guy trolling with a substack) to fight about what to call themselves when they don’t cover the Eastern District of Virginia. For 1/8th the cost of the initial legal fees, someone might have been able to at least notice this case when it hit the docket. 

A federal judge ordered the release of a Cuban man who was convicted of sexually assaulting a minor and has been detained indefinitely pending his removal from the United States. In a lengthy opinion, the judge noted. “Thus, the Court ordered the Government to provide more details about those attempted removals. The Government’s response? Crickets. Nothing was filed in response to the Court’s order. Because the Government offers nothing to suggest removal is more likely now than it was months ago, Castellanos-Gorra must be released. It is easy to see why this outcome might cause unease. Castellanos-Gorra is a convicted criminal. Yet, because the Government is completely unable to effectuate his removal, he has been allowed to live in this country for over ten years without facing the ultimate immigration consequence. But this Court is bound by the law. And the law is clear: the Government cannot lock individuals in a cell indefinitely as a workaround for a stalled deportation process, nor can it use indefinite detention simply to placate popular opinion. The Constitution cannot be ignored just because the facts are frustrating. If there is a flaw in a system that leaves convicted criminals in a state of perpetual immigration limbo, the remedy lies in the halls of Congress or with the Executive branch—not with a federal judge.”

A Utah couple reportedly helped an undocumented man run away from ICE agents in their Volkswagen, as he was being detained in a Home Depot parking lot. Prosecutors say the man had already been handcuffed, so the couple purchased a pair of bolt cutters to free him, and then bragged about it on social media.

It’s best not to buy Latvian passports from a guy named “Georgie” on WhatsApp.

FBI Director Kash Patel’s girlfriend’s case against a former FBI agent turned online conservative influencer survived a motion to dismiss.

A significant warning that this is a tough read, but a detention memo in Tennessee outlines a man's multiple year membership into 764 and the nearly dozen minor victims he’s accused of doing horrible things to. We’re linking to it because it has an interesting window into how the FBI sees ‘nihilistic violent extremism’ evolving as a threat. 

Everyone seems to be focused on changes at 60 Minutes, but Bari may instead want to focus her efforts on another storied CBS franchise. The Eye Network should consider a new spinoff, CSI: Courts. This week, we learned that judicial officials set up a “testing in a chambers with a similar layout to determine whether law clerks seated outside chambers could hear sounds from within; arranging forensic testing of a couch cushion in the subject judge’s chambers” to ultimately find that a judge had sexual relations with a law enforcement official in chambers “within earshot” of the law clerks.

Doubling and tripling down did not save an attorney accused of using AI case hallucinations in Alabama.

President Trump’s lawyers (again) want a district court judge to reassign a magistrate judge on his defamation suit against the BBC because of her purported ties to the 2016 Clinton campaign.

More and more defendants want the judiciary to look for additional prosecutorial misconduct in front of a Chicago grand jury after the Broadview Six case.

A journalist was charged with serving as an unregistered foreign agent for China.

DHS says an Iranian man was a member of Iran’s military. The man, however, says he only played the saxophone for its band. A judge allowed for his release after DHS lawyers didn’t present any evidence that he was a threat or posed a risk of flight.

A group of Maryland sheriffs is suing their own governor over so-called sanctuary city policies.

A judge called out the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. for missing filing deadlines and court appearances.

Your pro se of the week is from “the sovereign pharohkinian nation.”

(Eyes emoji) Harvard says a former professor may have fabricated exculpatory evidence in her lawsuit against the university… for firing her after an investigation concluded she falsified data.

The song of the week was from one of Peter’s first concerts (after Bob Dylan and Beck, of course), but it still goes just as hard. We went deep in the Nate Ruess acoustic sets, and his newer music still slaps in its own understated way.

A Pennsylvania man allegedly threatened President Trump and called him the antichrist and the “great deceiver,” among other things. In Tennessee, one guy allegedly left threatening voicemails for Governor Bill Lee and Senator Marsha Blackburn. And in Arizona, another man reportedly threatened federal prison officials, an Assistant U.S. attorney, and at least two other attorneys. We’d once again really appreciate it if everyone just chilled out, especially now that the weather’s so nice.

The ATF says one guy in Tennessee got ticked off at a Citgo and then tried to burn it down.

CBP has received requests for more than $85 billion in tariff refunds. And, according to footnote 3, its math was off by <checks note> ten billion. 

An alleged senior leader of Kata’ib Hezballah, an Iraqi militia that's backed by Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was indicted in the Southern District of New York.

Amazon was sued by a customer, who purchased a four-pack of 2032 Energizer batteries made in China, for a cut of its tariff refunds.

Sometimes it can be hard to tell whether something’s AI or not. And other times it’s as clear as day: As one judge noted yesterday in an opinion: “Lastly, the court notes that Mr. McMillan’s complaint appears to have interacted with generative artificial intelligence (“AI”) because an AI response remains on the document. Text above the complaint caption says, “Absolutely — here is your updated complaint with only the damage amount revised to total $25,000, as requested.”