9th ct bak
==
mconnell flipped?!
see district appeal court
also COURTS 2
prolly neglected
220 bak capt
---
AN COMM DR 10 25
Top Trump administration adviser Stephen Miller was accused of spreading dangerous “propaganda” Saturday night regarding the federal judge who ruled that the White House could not deploy 200 National Guard troops to Portland, Oregon.
The White House deputy chief of staff accused US District Judge Karin Immergut, who was appointed by President Donald Trump during his first term, of “legal insurrection” after she found that the president’s claims about violent protests at a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland were “untethered to facts,” and that residents’ expressions of opposition to ICE do not meet the high legal standard for calling the National Guard.
Miller claimed authorities in Oregon and Portland are aiding “an organized terrorist attack on the federal government and its officers” by refusing to aid ICE agents, and claimed Immergut was attempting to assume the role of “commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces” by siding with state officials and issuing a temporary restraining order blocking the National Guard deployment, which was expected to begin this weekend.
Immergut said the state had provided “substantial evidence that the protests at the Portland ICE facility were not significantly violent or disruptive in the days—or even weeks—leading up to the president’s directive.”
Portland residents who oppose Trump’s mass deportation agenda began holding nightly demonstrations at the ICE facility over the summer, with some trying to block vehicles from entering and exiting the property. Crowds have dispersed quickly during the daytime, while at night federal officers have sometimes used tear gas and other weapons to move people away from the building. The Portland police have reported 27 arrests since early June at the protests, and at least two dozen people have been arrested by federal officers.
While the president has described Portland as “war-ravaged,” Immergut said that the protests fall far below the threshold for ordering federal troops to Portland, which the president has the authority to do only in times of foreign invasion, a rebellion, or when local authorities are unable to maintain order.
“The protests have been such a minor issue that the normal nightlife in downtown Portland has required more police resources than the ICE facility,” said Immergut.
The judge added that the US “has a longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach, especially in the form of military intrusion into civil affairs... This historical tradition boils down to a simple proposition: This is a nation of constitutional law, not martial law. Defendants have made a range of arguments that, if accepted, risk blurring the line between civil and military federal power—to the detriment of the nation.”
Miller’s accusation that Immergut was taking part in a “legal insurrection” by rejecting Trump’s false claims about the nature of the protests was “reckless,” said California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“It’s authoritarian propaganda, plain and simple. Stephen Miller should be fired,” said the Democrat.
New York Timescolumnist David French added that Miller’s claims put Immergut in potential danger, as right-wing counterprotesters have arrived in Portland in recent days.
Immergut’s temporary order is set to expire in two weeks, but she is expected to rule on the state’s request for a more permanent injunction barring the deployment of the National Guard.
The Trump administration on Saturday night appealed Immergut’s ruling to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which previously ruled that Trump could send the National Guard to Los Angeles to stop anti-ICE protests after a federal judge had decided that deployment should be halted.
In addition to seeking the National Guard deployment, the administration has reportedly discussed sending the Army’s 82nd Airborne division, which is typically deployed in hostile foreign territory, into Portland.
On Saturday, Miller repeated claims that “there is a large and growing movement of left-wing terrorism in this country” that is “well organized and funded” and ”shielded by far-left Democrat judges.” Immergut is a Republican.
“The only remedy is to use legitimate state power to dismantle terrorism and terror networks,” said Miller.
Since the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk last month, the president and his allies have insisted that left-wing groups are fomenting violence, with Trump signing an executive order falsely claiming he has the authority to designate “antifa” as a “domestic terrorist organization”—despite the fact that no “antifa” organization exists.
The president also signed National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), which mandates a “national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.”
On Saturday, Miller said on Newsmax that the administration intends to apply NSPM-7 in Portland, initiating investigations into what he called a “domestic terrorist network” whenever federal agents make an arrest at a protest.
Miller, said investigative reporter Jim Stewartson, “collapsed Democrats, ‘far-left Democrat judges’, and ‘antifa’ into a single domestic terror threat as a pretext for mass arrests.”
---
10 24 master class scotus? CU did not get --> AFP lawsuit camp finance disclosure?
Americans for Prosperity v. Bonta - Ballotpedia
Americans for Prosperity v. Bonta is a case that was argued before the Supreme Court of the United States on April 26, 2021, during the court's October 2020-2021 term. It was consolidated with Thomas More Law Center v. Bonta (formerly Thomas More Law Center v. Becerra).
In a 6-3 opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit's ruling and remanded the case for further proceedings, holding that the district court was correct in entering judgment in favor of the petitioners and permanently enjoining the California Attorney General from collecting their Schedule B forms, and that the Ninth Circuit erred when it vacated those injunctions and directed the entry of judgment for the attorney general. Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the majority opinion of the court. Justice Clarence Thomas filed a concurring opinion. Justice Samuel Alito filed a concurring opinion, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch. Justice Sonia Sotomayor filed a dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.[1] Click here for more information about the ruling.
HIGHLIGHTS
- The case: Two conservative advocacy groups, the Thomas More Law Center and Americans for Prosperity, challenged a California policy requirement that tax-exempt §501(c)(3) charitable organizations must disclose the names and addresses of major donors. The groups argued that the policy violated the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled in favor of the state. Click here to learn more about the cases' background.
- The issues: The cases concerned governmental disclosure requirements for charitable organizations' donor lists and the Supreme Court's decision in NAACP v. Alabama.
- The questions presented: "Whether the exacting scrutiny this Court has long required of laws that abridge the freedoms of speech and association outside the election context—as called for by NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449 (1958), and its progeny—can be satisfied absent any showing that a blanket governmental demand for the individual identities and addresses of major donors to private nonprofit organizations is narrowly tailored to an asserted law-enforcement interest."[2]
- The outcome: The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit's ruling and remanded the case for further proceedings.
The case came on a writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. To review the lower court's opinion in the consolidated cases, click here.[3]
Timeline...
---
big ruling cities 4/22
{{{RAM rundo BS:
[### Judge clears alleged supremacists, claims bias against far ...
Los Angeles Times
https://www.latimes.com › california › story › judge-ag...](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-02-21/judge-again-dismisses-charges-against-members-of-california-white-nationalist-group)
Feb 22, 2024 — U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney on Wednesday dismissed charges against Robert Rundo — who was extradited from Romania last year — and ...
[### A highly unusual ruling to dismiss a case against 2 White ...
CNN
https://www.cnn.com › 2024/02/22 › rise-above-move...](https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/22/us/rise-above-movement-ruling-on-hold/index.html)
Feb 23, 2024 — After a federal judge made the rare decision to dismiss a criminal case against two White nationalists suspected of inciting violence at ...
[### Circuit court blocks judge's decision to release ... - ABC News
ABC News - Breaking News, Latest News and Videos
https://abcnews.go.com › story](https://abcnews.go.com/US/circuit-court-blocks-judges-decision-release-white-supremacist/story?id=107447126)
Feb 22, 2024 — White supremacist leader Robert Rundo was freed from prison before the Circuit Court stayed his release Thursday.
[### Prosecutors ask court to keep white supremacist in prison ...
CBS News
https://www.cbsnews.com › ... › Local News](https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/federal-prosecutors-ask-court-to-keep-white-supremacist-in-prison-after-judge-tosses-case/)
Feb 21, 2024 — "At the same time, the government chose not to prosecute far-left extremist groups, such as Antifa, that went to the same protests and rallies ...
[### White Nationalist Robert Rundo Re-Arrested
Rolling Stone
https://www.rollingstone.com › politics › politics-news](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/robert-rundo-judge-dismisses-charges-white-nationalist-1234974338/)
Feb 23, 2024 — Federal government scrambled to put Robert Rundo back behind bars after California judge dismissed riot charges, citing "selective ...
[### Charges Against Two White Nationalists Are Dismissed as ' ...
The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com › U.S. › Politics](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/21/us/politics/rise-above-selective-prosecution.html)
Feb 21, 2024 — A federal judge found that prosecutors were biased in pursuing charges against the two men and not against far-left activists who had also ...
[### whiplash in a leading neo-Nazi's legal case
The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com › world › mar › californi...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/02/california-courts-neo-nazi-robert-rundo)
7 days ago — The violent neo-Nazi Robert Rundo thought he'd won freedom last week after a US district court judge in California threw out a federal ...
[### White supremacist will leave jail 'imminently' under federal ...
Legal Affairs and Trials with Meghann Cuniff
https://www.legalaffairsandtrials.com › white-supremaci...](https://www.legalaffairsandtrials.com/p/white-supremacist-will-leave-jail)
Feb 22, 2024 — For the second time, a federal judge in Orange County has dismissed an indictment against white supremacists accused of inciting violence at ...
[### Judge who dismissed case against violent OC white ...
Orange County Register
https://www.ocregister.com › 2024/03/08 › judge-who-...](https://www.ocregister.com/2024/03/08/judge-who-dismissed-case-against-violent-oc-white-supremacist-is-no-stranger-to-tough-decisions/)
18 hours ago — U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney has made several high-profile rulings challenging alleged misconduct by law enforcement officials.
Missing: ram | Show results with: ram
[### Founder of violent OC white supremacist group ordered ...
Orange County Register
https://www.ocregister.com › 2024/02/21 › founder-of-...](https://www.ocregister.com/2024/02/21/founder-of-violent-oc-white-supremacist-group-free-after-judge-claims-bias-against-far-right/)
Feb 21, 2024 — Judge says prosecutors didn't target 'Antifa and other extremist, far-left groups.'
Missing: ram | Show results with: ram
[### Judge dismisses charges against white nationalists who ...
Berkeleyside
https://www.berkeleyside.org › rise-above-movement](https://www.berkeleyside.org/2024/02/23/rise-above-movement)
Feb 23, 2024 — 1, 2017, just hours before right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos was to speak at UC Berkeley, a band of black-masked Antifa protesters swept ...
[### Charges against alleged white supremacists tossed by judge
NBC News
https://www.nbcnews.com › news › us-news › charges-...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/charges-against-alleged-white-supremacists-tossed-judge-n1013931)
Jun 4, 2019 — LOS ANGELES — Federal charges against three alleged members of a violent white supremacist group accused of inciting violence at California ...
[### Federal Judge Dismisses Charges Against 3 White ...
ProPublica
https://www.propublica.org › article › federal-judge-dis...](https://www.propublica.org/article/federal-judge-dismisses-charges-against-3-white-supremacists)
Jun 4, 2019 — The three, members of the Rise Above Movement, had been charged under a federal anti-riot statute with planning and then carrying out ...
[### Judge again dismisses charges against members of ...
The Daily Item
https://www.dailyitem.com › wire › politics › judge-aga...](https://www.dailyitem.com/wire/politics/judge-again-dismisses-charges-against-members-of-california-white-nationalist-group/article_949a3e7e-81e6-55b6-9d48-72c2c5fea8ed.html)
Feb 21, 2024 — U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney on Wednesday dismissed charges against Robert Rundo — who was extradited from Romania last year — and ...
[### US judge again drops case against alleged white ...
Daily Journal
https://www.dailyjournal.com › articles › 377278-us-jud...](https://www.dailyjournal.com/articles/377278-us-judge-again-drops-case-against-alleged-white-supremacists-citing-unequal-targeting)
Feb 22, 2024 — It was the second time U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney dismissed charges against Robert Rundo and Robert Boman of Torrance. In 2018, the ...
[### UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. ROBERT RUNDO AND ...
FindLaw
https://caselaw.findlaw.com › us-dis-crt-c-d-cal-sou-div](https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-dis-crt-c-d-cal-sou-div/115856212.html)
Feb 21, 2024 — The government cannot prosecute RAM members such as Defendants while ignoring the violence of members of Antifa and related far-left groups ...
[### US appeals court blocks release of white supremacist leader
JURIST - Legal News
https://www.jurist.org › news › 2024/02 › us-appeals-co...](https://www.jurist.org/news/2024/02/us-appeals-court-blocks-release-of-white-supremacist-leader/)
Feb 23, 2024 — A US federal appeals court halted the release of Robert Rundo, an alleged leader of the white supremacist group Rise Above Movement (RAM), ...
[### US judge again drops case against alleged white ...
Daily Journal
https://www.dailyjournal.com › article › 377277-us-judg...](https://www.dailyjournal.com/article/377277-us-judge-again-drops-case-against-alleged-white-supremacists-citing-unequal-targeting)
Feb 22, 2024 — ... California. It was the second time U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney dismissed charges against Robert Rundo and Robert Boman of Torrance.
[### Gabriel San Román
X · gsanroman2
1 like · 2 weeks ago](https://twitter.com/gsanroman2/status/1760421024162791905)
OC federal judge Cormac Carney citied "selective prosecution" when freeing alleged members of RAM, a white supremacist group who brawled ...
Missing: california | Show results with: california
[### Judge Tosses All Charges in White Nationalist Rioting Plot
Courthouse News Service
https://www.courthousenews.com › judge-tosses-all-cha...](https://www.courthousenews.com/judge-tosses-all-charges-in-white-nationalist-rioting-plot/)
Jun 3, 2019 — A federal judge in Los Angeles dropped all charges against three men charged with inciting riots across California as part of a white ...
[### Charges against alleged white supremacists are tossed by ...
AP News
https://apnews.com › article › california-white-suprema...](https://apnews.com/article/california-white-supremacists-charges-dismissed-498d1099d9ab592d94fe6207faf01d49)
Feb 21, 2024 — LOS ANGELES (AP) — For the second time in five years, federal charges against alleged members of a violent white supremacist group accused ...
Missing: ram | Show results with: ram
[### Los Angeles judge dismisses all riot charges against 3 ...
Los Angeles Daily News
https://www.dailynews.com › los-angeles-judge-dismiss...](https://www.dailynews.com/los-angeles-judge-dismisses-all-riot-charges-against-3-members-of-reputed-white-nationalist-group/)
Jun 3, 2019 — LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles federal judge Monday dismissed all charges against three reputed members of a Southern California white ...
[### Judge clears charges against alleged white supremacists ...
AOL.com
https://www.aol.com › news › judge-again-dismisses-ch...](https://www.aol.com/news/judge-again-dismisses-charges-against-200451647.html)
Feb 22, 2024 — Rundo is alleged to be a founding member of Rise Above Movement, or RAM, a white supremacist group that, according to a federal indictment, ...
[### Rise Above Movement
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Rise_Above_Movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rise_Above_Movement)
The Rise Above Movement (RAM) is a militant alt-right Southern California-based street fighting group which has variously been described as "a loose ...
[### Charges against alleged white supremacists tossed by judge
AP News
https://apnews.com › ...](https://apnews.com/general-news-4076ec1422f747668e1ecc29f85bd679)
Jun 4, 2019 — Three alleged members of a white supremacist group accused of inciting violence at California political rallies were cleared of federal ...
[### Calif. district judge tosses US case against members of white ...
ABC News - Breaking News, Latest News and Videos
https://abcnews.go.com › Politics › story](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/calif-district-judge-tosses-us-case-members-white/story?id=63511366)
Jun 6, 2019 — The government suffered a loss this week in a case against members of a militant white nationalist group accused of inciting violence at ...
[### White Nationalist Robert Rundo Re-Arrested
Yahoo News Singapore
https://sg.news.yahoo.com › government-scrambles-cap...](https://sg.news.yahoo.com/government-scrambles-capture-white-nationalist-014454328.html)
Feb 23, 2024 — The feds secured an emergency warrant for Robert Rundo, whose riot charges were shockingly dismissed Wednesday.
[### Violent White Nationalist Rob Rundo Arrested in Romania
Southern Poverty Law Center
https://www.splcenter.org › hatewatch › 2023/03/31 › v...](https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2023/03/31/violent-white-nationalist-rob-rundo-arrested-romania)
Mar 31, 2023 — Romanian authorities have arrested white nationalist brawler Robert Rundo at the request of American authorities, according to several local ...
[### Judge dismisses charges against members of California ...
Los Angeles Times
https://www.latimes.com › local › lanow › la-me-ln-whi...](https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-white-nationalist-charges-dropped-20190604-story.html)
Jun 4, 2019 — A federal judge in L.A. dismissed all charges against three reputed members of a Southern California white nationalist group suspected of ...
[### Robert Rundo
Counter Extremism Project
https://www.counterextremism.com › extremists › robert-...](https://www.counterextremism.com/extremists/robert-rundo)
Robert Rundo is the founder and leader of the Rise Above Movement (RAM), a white supremacist gang based in Southern California that calls itself the ...
[### Judge dismisses federal charges against 3 members of ...
Los Angeles Times
https://www.latimes.com › socal › daily-pilot › news › t...](https://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/news/tn-dpt-me-hb-ram-charges-dropped-20190604-story.html)
Jun 4, 2019 — A U.S. District Court judge ruled Monday that the federal Anti-Riot Act is "unconstitutionally overbroad in violation of the First Amendment ...
[### White supremacist Robert Rundo extradited from Romania ...
The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com › us-news › aug › robert-...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/02/robert-rundo-white-supremacist-extradited-romania-charges-los-angeles)
Aug 2, 2023 — Rise Above Movement co-founder to face charges in Los Angeles in relation to violent clashes with anti-fascist protesters in 2017.
[### Judge Cormac Carney dismisses Rundo indictment
DocumentCloud
https://www.documentcloud.org › documents › 2443635...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24436350-judge-cormac-carney-dismisses-rundo-indictment)
-1- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA SOUTHERN DIVISION ...
Missing: ram | Show results with: ram
[### Romania extradites California white supremacist to US
Courthouse News Service
https://www.courthousenews.com › romania-extradites-...](https://www.courthousenews.com/romania-extradites-california-white-supremacist-to-us/)
The Southern California resident was arrested in Romania after federal prosecutors brought a new indictment against him and other participants in the Rise ...
[### Rob Rundo, RAM Members Among Extremists on Leaked ' ...
Southern Poverty Law Center
https://www.splcenter.org › hatewatch › 2023/01/31 › r...](https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2023/01/31/rob-rundo-ram-members-among-extremists-leaked-no-fly-list)
Jan 31, 2023 — A leaked Department of Homeland Security (DHS) list shows that Robert Paul “Rob” Rundo, founder of the violent white nationalist Rise Above ...
[### Charges dismissed against RAM members ...
NewsRadio WINA |
https://wina.com › news › 064460-charges-dismissed-a...](https://wina.com/news/064460-charges-dismissed-against-ram-members-charged-with-inciting-violence-at-california-rallies/)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Three alleged members of a white supremacist group accused of inciting violence at California political rallies were cleared of federal ...
[### Four Local Members of White Supremacy Group Face ...
United States Department of Justice (.gov)
https://www.justice.gov › usao-cdca › four-local-memb...](https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/four-local-members-white-supremacy-group-face-federal-charges-attacks-political-rallies)
Oct 24, 2018 — The four RAM members allegedly engaged in a series of violent attacks at political rallies in 2017, including events in Huntington Beach, ...
Missing: carney | Show results with: carney
[### United States v. Rundo U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (.gov)
https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov › 2021/03/04](https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2021/03/04/19-50189.pdf)
Mar 4, 2021 — The panel reversed the district court's dismissal of an indictment charging four defendants with conspiracy to violate the Anti-Riot Act and ...
[### 9th Circuit reverses Judge Carney in USA v. Rundo, 1st order
DocumentCloud
https://www.documentcloud.org › documents › 2443930...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24439307-9th-circuit-reverses-judge-carney-in-usa-v-rundo-1st-order)
FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ROBERT PAUL RUNDO; ROBERT BOMAN; ...
Missing: ram | Show results with: ram
[### Lead Defendant in Federal Case Charging White ...
United States Department of Justice (.gov)
https://www.justice.gov › usao-cdca › lead-defendant-fe...](https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/lead-defendant-federal-case-charging-white-supremacist-group-violence-political)
Aug 4, 2023 — LOS ANGELES – The lead defendant in an indictment that charges three Southern California men linked to a white supremacy extremist group ...
Missing: carney | Show results with: carney
[### Ninth Circuit Steps In After California Judge Drops Charges ...
The Daily Caller
https://dailycaller.com › 2024/02/22 › ninth-circuit-cali...](https://dailycaller.com/2024/02/22/ninth-circuit-california-judge-white-supremacist/)
Feb 22, 2024 — Font Size: The Ninth Circuit of Appeals stepped in Thursday to block a ruling from U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney after he dropped all ...
[### As Neo-Nazi 'Active Club' Grows, Charges Against Its ...
Unicorn Riot
https://unicornriot.ninja › as-neo-nazi-active-club-grow...](https://unicornriot.ninja/2024/as-neo-nazi-active-club-grows-charges-against-its-founder-dismissed/)
5 days ago — Known hate group Active Club has seen explosive growth while the group's founder was nearly released by a federal judge last week.
[### Judge tosses riot charges against white supremacist — again
Law and Crime News
https://lawandcrime.com › high-profile › yes-another-m...](https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/yes-another-minute-in-custody-back-to-jail-for-alleged-white-supremacist-leader-after-judge-dismisses-rioting-charges-again/)
Yes, 'another minute in custody': Back to jail for alleged white supremacist leader after judge dismisses rioting charges — again. Brandi BuchmanFeb 22nd, 2024, ...
[### Judge Says Feds Can't 'Selectively' Prosecute Right-Wing ...
The Daily Wire
https://www.dailywire.com › news › judge-says-feds-ca...](https://www.dailywire.com/news/judge-says-feds-cant-selectively-prosecute-right-wing-rioters-while-ignoring-antifa)
Feb 27, 2024 — A judge in California threw out charges against two far-right political agitators, saying the federal government engaged in “selective ...
[### Of COURSE It was a Controversial Right Wing Judge Who ...
Idavox
https://idavox.com › index.php › 2024/02/22](https://idavox.com/index.php/2024/02/22/14764/)
Feb 22, 2024 — A judge that once had to resign as chief judge of the Central District of California over racist comments about a Black court official and ...
[### Judge Drops Charges Against Two Far-Right Activists
La Voce di New York
https://lavocedinewyork.com › news › 2024/02/22 › ju...](https://lavocedinewyork.com/en/news/2024/02/22/judge-drops-charges-against-two-far-right-activists-its-selective-prosecution/)
Feb 22, 2024 — U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney dismissed charges against Robert Rundo and Robert Boman, members of the Rise Above Movement (RAM), a ...
[### Judge Found That government 'Selectively' Prosecuted ...
OutKick
https://www.outkick.com › culture](https://www.outkick.com/culture/judge-found-that-government-selectively-prosecuted-right-wing-rioters-while-ignoring-antifa)
Feb 28, 2024 — A California judge dismissed charges against two members of the conservative agitator group Rise Against Movement (RAM), while ignoring ...
[### DOJ Rearrests Exonerated 'Far-Right' Protester
Dallas Express
https://dallasexpress.com › National](https://dallasexpress.com/national/doj-rearrests-exonerated-far-right-protester/)
7 days ago — A federal judge dismissed cases against two far-right protesters because the prosecution did not charge left-wing agitators committing ...
[### United States v. Rundo, No. 19-50189 (9th Cir. 2021)
Justia Law
https://law.justia.com › cases › federal › appellate-courts](https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/19-50189/19-50189-2021-03-04.html)
The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's dismissal of an indictment charging defendants with conspiracy to violate the Anti-Riot Act and three of ...
[### Appendix
Supreme Court of the United States (.gov)
https://www.supremecourt.gov › DocketPDF › 20...](https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-5952/195982/20211008164833245_Rundo%20et%20al%20-%20Appendix.pdf)
Oct 8, 2021 — v. Robert Paul RUNDO; Robert Boman;. Tyler Laube; Aaron Eason,. Defendants-Appellees. No. 19-50189.
[### Prosecution of Far-Right But Not Antifa for Same Riots ...
NTD News
https://www.ntd.com › prosecution-of-far-right-but-not...](https://www.ntd.com/prosecution-of-far-right-but-not-antifa-for-same-riots-constitutionally-impermissible-judge_974849.html)
Feb 22, 2024 — U.S. District Court Judge Cormac Carney of southern California therefore dismissed charges against two men from the “white nationalist” Rise ...
[### Judge: White supremacist group's actions protected by free ...
The Christian Science Monitor
https://www.csmonitor.com › USA › Justice › Judge-W...](https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2019/0605/Judge-White-supremacist-group-s-actions-protected-by-free-speech)
Jun 5, 2019 — A Los Angeles judge decreed that members of a white supremacist group were protected by constitutional free speech despite their advocacy ...
[### White supremacist group member from Redondo Beach ...
Daily Breeze
https://www.dailybreeze.com › white-supremacist-group-...](https://www.dailybreeze.com/white-supremacist-group-member-from-redondo-beach-pleads-guilty-to-conspiracy-for-role-in-o-c-rally-violence/)
Nov 20, 2018 — Tyler Laube, 22, of Redondo Beach, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the federal riots act. U.S. District Judge Cormac J.
[### Charges Against Alleged SoCal White Nationalist Revived
Spectrum News
https://spectrumnews1.com › crime › 2021/03/04 › app...](https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/la-west/crime/2021/03/04/appeals-court-revives-charges-against-alleged-socal-white-nationalists)
Mar 4, 2021 — The alleged members of the so-called Rise Above Movement were indicted in 2018 for allegedly inciting violence at political rallies.
[### A Descriptive Review of the Commercial, Industrial, ... google.com
https://books.google.com › books](https://books.google.com/books?id=l9EsAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA133&lpg=PA133&dq=judge+carney+california+ram+rundo&source=bl&ots=rBDL56asJ7&sig=ACfU3U3BhrIMz8jx1c1eTEV5wSCRzs_zGA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi7r5CP1eeEAxVX5skDHT5UBqs4MhDoAXoECAIQAw)
George F. Cram Company · 1915 · Atlases
... CARNEY NADEAU HANG BAGLEY PHEE CHARNOLD HOTUS ... RAM / ONA STIMSON M. WOODVILLE M HERRICK GILMORE ... CALIFORNIA MONTGOMERY O CAMDEN RANSOM MADIS PALM MEDINA ...
[### Charges against alleged white supremacists tossed by judge
San Diego Union-Tribune
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com › news › sns-bc...](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/sns-bc-us--white-supremacists-charges-dismissed-20190605-story.html)
Jun 4, 2019 — Federal charges against three alleged members of a violent white supremacist group accused of inciting violence at California political ...
[### A highly unusual ruling to dismiss a case against 2 White ...
WICZ
https://www.wicz.com › story › a-highly-unusual-ruling-...](https://www.wicz.com/story/50488532/a-highly-unusual-ruling-to-dismiss-a-case-against-2-white-nationalists-is-put-on-hold-by-a-federal-appeals-court)
Feb 22, 2024 — (CNN) — After a federal judge made the rare decision to dismiss a criminal case against two White nationalists suspected of inciting violence at ...
[### Federal judge dismisses charges against 3 white ...
MPR News
https://www.mprnews.org › story › 2019/06/05 › feder...](https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/06/05/federal-judge-dismisses-charges-against-3-white-supremacists)
Jun 5, 2019 — In this Aug. 12, 2017 file photo, white nationalist demonstrators clash with counter demonstrators at the entrance to Lee Park in ...
[### California judge dismisses charges against right-wing ...
Rebel News
https://www.rebelnews.com › california_judge_dismisse...](https://www.rebelnews.com/california_judge_dismisses_charges_against_right_wing_activists_cites_selective_prosecution)
Feb 28, 2024 — Judicial ruling points to unequal treatment of political agitators at 2017 Berkeley rally.
[### White Supremacist YouTube Channel Gives Tips on ...
Newsweek
https://www.newsweek.com › ... › Europe › California](https://www.newsweek.com/white-supremacist-youtube-channel-gives-tips-avoiding-homeland-security-1579102)
Mar 26, 2021 — The Anti-Defamation League said, "it's incredibly disturbing YouTube continues to provide Robert Rundo with an outlet for his bigotry."}}} endit
sept 26 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Monday struck down California's ban on privately-run immigrant detention centers in a challenge brought by private prison operator GEO Group Inc (GEO.N) and the Biden administration.
The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said California's 2019 ban gave the state too much control over how the federal government handles immigrant detainees.
A federal judge in San Diego had upheld the state law in 2020, ruling that California could prohibit private detention centers because federal law does not explicitly allow for them.
The 9th Circuit, in an 8-3 decision, said the government has come to rely almost exclusively on detention centers operated by GEO Group and other companies. California, the largest U.S. state, does not have the authority to interfere with the federal government's operations, the court said.
About 80% of immigrants awaiting deportation hearings are held in private facilities, according to the American Civil Liberties Union and other advocacy groups. Most are operated by GEO Group and rival CoreCivic Inc (CXW.N), but dozens are owned by smaller companies.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-right-to-a-stable-climate-is-the-constitutional-question-of-the-twenty-first-century
no lnx
the Right to a Stable Climate Is the Constitutional Question of the Twenty-first Century
By Carolyn Kormann
June 15, 2019
On June 4th, in a packed courtroom in Portland, Oregon, Judge Andrew Hurwitz, of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, posed an unusual hypothetical question.“Assume that we have rogue raiders come across the Canadian border of the Northwest. They are kidnapping children of a certain age and murdering them,” he said. “The White House refuses to do anything and Congress doesn’t act. Can those people”—the terrorized families and communities—“go to court to compel action?” He was asking Jeff Clark, the lawyer representing the federal government, the defendant in the case. Clark replied, “My answer is no.”
Judge Hurwitz, along with Judges Mary Murguia and Josephine Staton, was presiding over oral arguments in Kelsey Cascadia Rose Juliana v. the United States, better known as the climate kids’ lawsuit. In August of 2015, the twenty-one plaintiffs, who then ranged in age from eight to nineteen years old, sued the Obama Administration and various federal agencies, alleging that the government’s policies on fossil fuels advanced catastrophic climate change and therefore violated the right, guaranteed to them under the Fifth Amendment, that no one shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
In other words, as Judge Hurwitz’s hypothetical suggested, their suit is an attempt to compel action from a government that is ignoring (and furthering) a life-threatening danger that they face. Since then, the case has ricocheted through the courts, gaining strength as urgency around climate change has increased and the Trump Administration has continued to deny that a problem exists. (“The climate goes both ways,” President Trump said in London, last week. “I believe that there’s a change in weather and I think it changes both ways.”) Instead, the Administration has aggressively promoted and expanded the use of fossil fuels, recently announcing that natural gas would be rebranded as “freedom gas.”
Hurwitz asked his question at the start of the hearing, establishing the stakes and reflecting the gravity with which the judges were weighing the plaintiffs’ claims. It pointed to an issue at the heart of the case, and at the heart of most climate litigation—the separation of powers. “The central issue the Ninth Circuit is grappling with is what is the role of the courts vis a vis Congress and the executive branch,” Michael Gerrard, a professor at Columbia Law School and the faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, wrote me in an e-mail. “If a building is on fire and all the firefighters are off at a convention, can the neighbors break into the firehouse and run the firetrucks themselves? Or do they have to wait for permission, while the building burns down? Likewise, if the planet is on fire and Congress and the Administration are checked out, can the courts act on their own?”
Since most major environmental statutes date to the nineteen-seventies, and Congress has not been able to pass a single major environmental law since 1990, the Environmental Protection Agency, other federal agencies, and the courts have been forced to address current problems with laws that are decades old. (The main problem now is that the Senate will not act. In early May, as the House prepared to vote on a new bill, the Climate Action Now Act, which would force the Trump Administration to remain in the Paris climate agreement, the Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, said that it would “go nowhere.”)
Once Trump was elected, and federal agencies no longer had a mandate to address climate change, the courts became the only branch of government where action might be possible. But, in the absence of adequate climate-policy laws, the courts must find their right to act in the Constitution. Two days after Trump’s election, a federal judge for the District of Oregon, Ann Aiken, found that right and issued a major decision, denying the government’s motion to dismiss the Juliana case. “Where a complaint alleges governmental action is affirmatively and substantially damaging the climate system in a way that will cause human deaths, shorten human lifespans, result in widespread damage to property, threaten human food sources, and dramatically alter the planet’s ecosystem, it states a claim for a due process violation,” Aiken wrote.
“I have no doubt that the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society.” A trial date was set for early last year, then postponed until last fall. The government, meanwhile, turned to the Supreme Court, asking the Justices to prevent the trial from going forward. In November, they declined to do so, determining that the government needed to bring its objections before the Ninth Circuit first. The Ninth Circuit now must decide whether the case can, finally, proceed to trial.
During the hearing, Jeff Clark, from the Justice Department, argued that there is no substantive constitutional right to a stable environment.Julia Olson, the co-lead attorney for the plaintiffs and the executive director of Our Children’s Trust, a group that has been bringing climate-litigation cases around the country, argued that the government misunderstood the plaintiffs’ claims.
She said, “The Supreme Court has already recognized that the liberties that we all hold include our right to bodily integrity and personal security and family autonomy. So this court doesn’t need to step out of bounds and recognize any kind of new right, it can stick with the bedrock fundamental rights that we all—”
At this point, Judge Hurwitz interrupted her, saying, “Actually, to be fair, you’re arguing for us to break new ground.” He added, “I’m sympathetic to the problems you point out, but you shouldn’t minimize—you shouldn’t say this is just an ordinary suit, and all we have to do is follow A, B, and C, and we get there. You’re asking us to do a lot of new stuff, aren’t you?” Olson replied, “We’re asking the court to apply bedrock constitutional law and principles to a wholly new set of facts.”
The government, for its part, disputed some of those facts. Judge Aiken had found that the plaintiffs had standing to sue because they had demonstrated three things: that they had suffered particular, concrete injuries; that the cause of their injuries was “fairly traceable” to the government’s actions; and that the courts had the ability, at least partially, to remedy these injuries. On the first two parts of standing, the government’s case is weakening by the minute, owing especially to the growing body of attribution science—studies published in peer-reviewed journals that directly link extreme weather events, such as huge hurricanes and raging wildfires, to climate change. “Evidence to meet the standing burden has gotten much stronger,” Ann Carlson, an environmental-law professor at U.C.L.A., told me.
All the plaintiffs were in the courtroom for the hearing. They have each submitted sworn testimony to the court, explaining the personal injuries that climate change has caused in their lives. The youngest, Levi Draheim, who is now eleven, lives in the barrier-island community of Satellite Beach, Florida, which his family has been forced to evacuate several times, due to hurricanes and floods. Jayden Foytlin, who is fifteen and lives near the Louisiana coast, suffered emotional trauma when her home was severely flooded in 2016 and 2017. In her testimony, she describes how her family, having nowhere else to go, slept in the living room in a “house that was full of sewage and flood water damage.”
Journey Zephier, nineteen, of Hawaii, has watched treasured coral reefs near his home die, due to ocean acidification and warming temperatures, and last year saw his home flood when an unprecedented fifty inches of rain fell in less than twenty-four hours, which also caused landslides and power outages in his community. Jamie Butler, eighteen, had to leave her home and her relatives in the Navajo Nation, because of severe drought and water scarcity. Kelsey Juliana, the lead plaintiff (and the oldest, at twenty-three), grew up in Eugene, Oregon, where she is now an environmental-studies major at the University of Oregon. She, along with eight of the other plaintiffs, described adverse health impacts from the wildfires that rage in and around their home towns practically every year. Some also wrote about the damage that extreme weather events and climate threats have caused to their cultural heritage; others described psychological troubles—nightmares, anxiety, depression.
Olson and the other lawyers can make a strong case that the plaintiffs’ injuries are “fairly traceable” to the government’s actions, considering that, for instance, almost twenty-five per cent of U.S. carbon-dioxide emissions come from fossil-fuel development on federally owned land. There is also plenty of evidence that the government has known for many decades the dangers that adding greenhouse-gas emissions to the atmosphere would bring.The Ninth Circuit judges seemed more than sympathetic to these arguments—both to the plaintiffs’ injuries and to the fact that they could be linked to the government’s policies. “You present compelling evidence that we have a real problem,” Judge Hurwitz told Olson. “You present compelling evidence that we have inaction by the other two branches of government. It may even rise to the level of criminal neglect.” With statements like that, Carlson told me, “That’s about as sympathetic a panel as the plaintiffs are going to get.”
But Hurwitz and the two other judges hesitated about the third condition of standing—the ability of the courts to redress the plaintiffs’ injuries—which ultimately goes back to the separation of powers.He said, “The issue here is whether this branch of government, embodied by the three of us today, has the ability to issue the relief that your clients seek.” Olson argued that it did, because the case was not based on the government’s inaction (as Hurwitz’s hypothetical had implied) but, rather, on its affirmative and substantial actions to facilitate, subsidize, and promote a fossil-fuel-based energy system.
The courts could, therefore, declare that the government must use its statutory authority to transition the economy away from fossil fuels, and order government agencies—such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of the Interior, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration—to create national plans detailing how such a transition could be achieved. The evidence presented at trial—documents, cross-examination testimony, expert witnesses—would provide the specifics that such plans needed to include, Olson said.
The judges did not seem entirely convinced that the courts had the power to intervene in the activities of so many parts of the executive branch—at least eight government agencies would be involved. “I’m trying to figure out if we have done anything “on this scale, to this proportion,” Judge Murguia said. “I’m almost drawing on a clean slate.” Olson said that “the scale of the problem is so big because of the systemic conduct of the government.” As precedents, she pointed to Supreme Court cases in which the courts were deeply involved in the remedy of constitutional violations. In Brown v. Board of Education, the Court declared that segregation was unconstitutional in public schools, and then, in a follow-up ruling, ordered all federal, state, and local districts to desegregate. In Hills v. Gautreaux, the Court upheld an order requiring the Department of Housing and Urban Development to rectify discriminatory public housing.
In the government’s view, as Clark presented it, “the sweeping nature of the case” made it “a direct attack on the separation of powers” and “an assault on the Constitution’s design.” But, in the most basic terms, wasn’t the Constitution designed so that one branch of government can check the other two, if their behavior fails to protect and preserve individual liberties? It was, but, asHurwitz noted, “We may have the wrong Congress and the wrong President. That’s occurred from time to time over history. The real question for us is whether we get to intervene because of that.” That is to say, the judges need to decide whether they agree that the government’s action go beyond politics and are violating the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights—rights that only exist if we have a stable climate.
The judges will take a few weeks to issue their decision. If they decide in the plaintiffs’ favor, the government will likely petition the Supreme Court, again, to prevent the trial from proceeding. The Justices may decide that they need the full factual record that a trial would provide; they generally want things fully baked.
For observers thinking about long-term climate-litigation strategy, though, there is concern that the present bench of Justices might take the opportunity—either after the trial or in refusing to let it go forward—to set a precedent that could be damaging to environmental protections in lawsuits down the road. Worst of all, it might lead them to revisit Massachusetts v. E.P.A., the landmark 2007 decision that established that the E.P.A. has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. Justice Anthony Kennedy was the swing vote on that case; Chief Justice John Roberts wrote a dissenting opinion. “There is real worry,” Michael Gerrard said.
The strategic question of how far to push environmental cases is one that many groups face. All the challenges to the Trump Administration’s rollbacks of Obama’s climate policies are still pending in lower courts. If an environmental group loses, and takes the case to the Supreme Court, “you might get a decision that is even worse, that has greater reach,” Carlson said. Still, the fact that the Juliana case has come this far has had a galvanizing impact.Thousands of people, across the country and around the world, watched a live stream of the hearing—on the Ninth Circuit’s YouTube channel, on outdoor screens in parks—and the judges commented several times on the widespread interest in the case. It seemed indicative of what’s to come. In Olson’s concluding statement, she put the matter in its appropriate context. “If we look back on the twentieth century, we can see that race and sex discrimination were the constitutional questions of that era. And when our great-grandchildren look back at the twenty-first century, they will see that government-sanctioned climate destruction was theconstitutional issue of this century
https://www.youthvgov.org/our-case
21 American youth filed aconstitutional climate lawsuit, called Juliana v. United States, against the U.S. government in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon in 2015.
The youth plaintiffs’ complaint asserts that, through the government's affirmative actions that cause climate change, it has violated the youngest generation’s constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property, as well as failed to protect essential public trust resources.
CURRENT STATUS: The Juliana v. United Statesyouth plaintiffs are currently awaiting a ruling from U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken on a motion to amend their case, a decision which could set them back on the path to trial.
A HISTORY OF THE CASE
The fossil fuel industry initially intervened in the case as defendants, joining the U.S. government in trying to have the case dismissed. In April 2016, U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin recommended denialof both of motions to dismiss. U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken upheld Judge Coffin's recommendation, with the issuance of an historic November 10, 2016 opinion and order denying the motions. When the defendants sought an interlocutory appeal of that order, Judge Aiken denied their motions in June 2017.
In June 2017, Judge Coffin issued an orderreleasing the fossil fuel industry defendants from the case, and setting a trial date for February 5, 2018 before Judge Aiken at the U.S. District Court of Oregon in Eugene.
In July 2017, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals requested that attorneys for the youth plaintiffs submit a response to the government's**petition for "writ of mandamus**" and invited the District Court to respond as well. The District Court responded via letter and the youth filed their answer. Further, eight amicus briefswere filed with the Ninth Circuit in support of the case.
Pursuant to its order, a three judge panel of the Ninth Circuit, made up of Chief Justice Sidney Thomas, and Circuit Justices Alex Kozinski and Marsha Barzon heard oral arguments on December 11, 2017. Eric Grant, representing the Trump administration and the U.S. government, argued that the case be dismissed. Justice Kozinski subsequently resigned and was replaced on the panel by Circuit Justice Michelle Friedland.
Due to the Trump administration’s drastic tactics [emergency stay scotus?] before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to silence the voices of youth and keep science out of the courtroom, the trial did not begin on February 5th, as originally scheduled.
On March 7, 2018 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Trump administration’s “drastic and extraordinary” petition for writ of mandamus. During a public case management conference on April 12, 2018, U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin set **October 29, 2018** as the start date for the trial!
On May 25, 2018, U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin issued anorder denying the Trump Administration’s motion for protective order and a stay of all discovery.
On July 18, 2018, U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken heard the oral argument in the case. Judge Aiken considered the Trump administration’s latest procedural tactics to avoid trial: a motion for judgment on the pleadings (“MJP”) and a motion for summary judgment (“MSJ”). Supporters of the youth plaintiffs packed the Wayne Morse Federal Courthouse in Eugene and three overflow rooms!
On July 20, 2018, in a per curiam opinion, Chief Judge Sidney R. Thomas, and Circuit Judges Marsha Berzon and Michelle Friedland of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Trump administration’s second petition for writ of mandamus
On July 30, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of the youth plaintiffs! The Court denied the Trump administration’s application for stay, preserving the U.S. District Court’s trial start date of October 29, 2018. The Court also denied the government’s “premature” request to review the case before the district court hears all of the facts that support the youths’ claims at trial.
In October, 2018, the Trump administration filed :{**another**:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}: motion with the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon to stay discovery and a third writ of mandamus petition with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken ruled on the Trump administration’s motion for judgment on the pleadings (“MJP”) and motion for summary judgment (“MSJ”), which were filed earlier this year. Judge Aiken denied the motions brought by the Trump administration, but granted the motions in part by limiting the scope of the youths’ claims and dismissing the President from the case.
On October 18, 2018, the Trump administration filed a second writ of mandamus petition and application for stay with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to circumvent the ordinary procedures of federal litigation and stop the case. On October 19, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a temporary, administrative stay while it considers the federal government’s petition and asked the youth plaintiffs’ attorneys to respond to it. On October 22, 2018, attorneys for the youth filed their response, requesting that the Court allow their trial to proceed on October 29 and pointing to numerous mischaracterizations of the lawsuit by the Trump administration in its recent filing with the Court.
On October 29, thousands rallied at courthouses around the country to support the Juliana youths’ right to be heard at trial!
On November 2, 2018 the United States Supreme Court denied the Trump administration’s application for stay.
On November 5, the Department of Justice filed a motion for stay with the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon and, hours later, filed an application for stay and another petition for a writ of mandamus with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. On November 8, a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted, in part, the Trump administration’s motion for a temporary stay of District Court proceedings. The Court only placed a stay on trial, so trial preparations continued.
On November 21, 2018 U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken issued anorder certifying the case for interlocutory appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. On December 5, 2018, attorneys for the youth filed a motion for reconsideration with the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon. The motion asked Judge Aiken to reconsider her November 21 decision to place a stay on pretrial proceedings. On December 10, the youths’ attorneys filed their answer in opposition to the fifth petition of the Trump administration to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and on December 20 filed an emergency motion with the Ninth Circuit Court asking it to lift the stay imposed by its order of November 8, 2018 and allow the case to proceed to trial. On December 26, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted defendants’ petition for permission to bring an interlocutory appeal. On January 7, 2019 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted the youths’ request to expedite the briefing schedule, agreeing to fast-track the appeal.
On February 8, 2019, the youth plaintiffs sought a court order preventing the federal government from issuing leases and mining permits for extracting coal on federal public lands, leases for offshore oil and gas exploration and extraction activities, and federal approvals for new fossil fuel infrastructure. To obtain the order, attorneys for the young plaintiffs filed what’s called a motion for a preliminary injunction with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals while the government’s early appeal of the case is being heard.
On February 19, 2019 Zero Hour, a youth-led climate group, launched the website www.joinjuliana.org and announced its nationwide campaign to help thousands of young people add their names to the Young People’s amicus (“friend of the court”) brief in support of the youth and their case.
On March 1, 2019 powerful voices of support for the youths’ case filed amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) briefs with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In all, 15 amicus briefs, filed on behalf of a diverse set of supportive communities, including members of U.S. Congress, legal scholars, religious and women’s groups, businesses, historians, medical doctors, international lawyers, environmentalists, and more than 32,000 youth under the age of 25, displayed legal support for the case to proceed to trial. On March 24, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals set a hearing date for June 4, 2019 to hear oral arguments in Portland, Oregon, on the interlocutory appeal and the preliminary injunction.
At the hearing on June 4, 2019, Julia Olson argued on the youth plaintiffs’ behalf and Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark argued on behalf of the federal government before Judges Mary H. Murguia and Andrew D. Hurwitz of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and Josephine L. Staton of District Court for the Central District of California.
On January 17, 2020, a divided Ninth Circuit Court issued an order on the interlocutory appeal. In their ruling, the Court recognized the gravity of the evidence on the youths’ injuries from climate change and the government’s role in causing them. Yet, while it found the government is violating our constitutional rights, two of the three judges said that addressing our requested remedies should be addressed by the executive and legislative branches. The third judge affirmed our constitutional climate rights, writing "our nation is crumbling - at our governments' own hand - into a wasteland."
On March 2, 2020, attorneys for the youth filed a petition for rehearing en banc with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. This petition asks the full Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to convene a new panel of 11 circuit court judges to review January's sharply divided opinion.
On March 12, 2020,24 members of the United States Congress, prominent experts in the fields of constitutional law, climate change, and public health, and several leading women’s, children’s, environmental, and human rights organizations filed 10 *amicus curiae* (friend of the court) briefs with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in support of the youths’ case. The briefs urge the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to grant the plaintiffs’ en bancpetition and convene a new panel of 11 circuit court judges to review January’s ruling.
On February 10, 2021, the Ninth Circuit failed to correct the legal errors in March 2020’s panel decision and upheld the panel’s ruling. A judge requested a vote on whether to rehear the case, but a majority of judges declined to do so. Attorneys and the youth plaintiffs are planning to take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court. They have also asked the Biden-Harris DOJ to meet to discuss settlement options to protect the youths’ fundamental rights.
On March 9, 2021, attorneys for the youth plaintiffs filed a motion to amend their complaint against the federal government and adjust the remedy sought in their case in response to the February 2021 and January 2020 Ninth Circuit rulings.
On May 13, 2021, U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken ordered attorneys for the youth plaintiffs and attorneys with the Department of Justice to convene for a settlement conference with Magistrate Judge Thomas M. Coffin. The court also scheduled oral argument on the youth plaintiffs’ Motion for Leave to File Second Amended Complaint. The hearing on that motion will be held telephonically on Friday, June 25, 2021 at 10 a.m. PDT.
On June 8, 2021,attorneys General in 17 states filed a motion to intervene to insert themselves as adversariesto the Julianalawsuit and object to any potential settlement between the Biden Administration and the youth plaintiffs. Because they have indicated they won’t participate in the settlement process in good faith, the youth plaintiffs and their attorneys will object to these state governments intervening at this late stage in their case.
[ALABAMA, ALASKA, ARKANSAS, GEORGIA, INDIANA, LOUISIANA, MISSISSIPPI, MISSOURI, MONTANA, NEBRASKA, NORTH DAKOTA, OHIO, OKLAHOMA, SOUTH CAROLINA, TEXAS, UTAH, AND WEST VIRGINIA.]
On June 25, 2021, attorneys for the youth plaintiffs and the Department of Justice present oral arguments in front of U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken on the plaintiffs’ Motion for Leave to File Second Amended Complaint.
On July 7, 2021, attorneys General in New York, Delaware, Hawai‘i, Minnesota, Oregon, and Vermont, as well as environmental organization NRDC, file amicus briefs in support of the youth plaintiffs. Attorneys for the youth plaintiffs also file a brief opposing the intervention motion of18 Republican states who seek to obstruct settlement negotiations and get the case dismissed.
On November 1, 2021, Settlement talks between the Juliana youth, their attorneys, and the Department of Justice, ended without resolution after five months.
TODAY: The youth plaintiffs are currently awaiting a ruling from U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken on a motion to amend their case, a decision which could set them back on the path to trial.
Ninth Circuit upholds California's Low Carbon Fuel ...
Sep 18, 2013 Ninth Circuit upholds California's Low Carbon Fuel Standard A customer pumps gas at a Chevron gasoline station Friday, Jan. 27, 2006, in San Francisco. Chevron Corp.'s earnings rose 20 percent to a...
torres-sp
Chapter 9 · Death and Chocolate 171
Doe v Unocal (Burma Total France; rape extrajudical killing, military burn villages; Alien Tort Statue;
Kiobel v Royal Dutch/Shell Nigeria Ken Saro Wiwa jrnlist and others hanged; [2012 Mohammed v Palestinian Authority Torture Victims Protection ACT APPLIED ONLY TO NATURAL PERSONS]; NONVIOLeNT PROTESTORS; wIWA SETTLE 15M$
next year Daimler hu rights violations Argentina CA case; during dirty war vs union ppl? only 2.4% of sales, thus no (but still billions of $, Sotomayor; 9th circuit Nestle case slavery not OK and not off hook b/c corp; en banc denied and scotus denied cert? 190
https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/mcconnell-is-betting-democrats-dont-have-the-will-to-fight-fire-with-fire-biden-should-prove-them-wrong
...Back in 2013, then-Congressman Tom Cotton introduced a bill in the House called the "Stop Court-Packing Act" which would have eliminated three seats on the D.C. Court of Appeals. That seems like a strange title, but it gives away the game. He was trying to stop President Obama from being able to fill those three empty seats. Senator John Cornyn, R-Texas, agreed, writing a piece in the National Review called "Don't let the Democrats pack the DC Circuit." Keep in mind that these were legitimate vacancies.
As it happens, McConnell kept those and many other seats open so that a Republicans could fill them, so they needn't have worried. And he's very proud of it:
...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliana_v._United_States
Juliana, et al. v. United States of America, et al. is a climate-related lawsuit filed in 2015 by 21 youth plaintiffs against the United States and several executive branch officials. The plaintiffs, represented by the non-profit organization Our Children's Trust, include Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, the members of Martinez's organizationEarth Guardians, and climatologist**James Hansen**as a "guardian for future generations". Some fossil fuel and industry groups intervened as defendants, but were later dropped at their request following the 2016 presidential election.
The lawsuit asserts that the United States government violated the plaintiffs' rights by encouraging and allowing activities relating to greenhouse gas emissions that significantly infringed upon their right to life and liberty. The case is an example of an area of environmental law referred to as "atmospheric trust litigation", a concept based on the public trust doctrine and international responsibility related to natural resources.
While similar past lawsuits have been dismissed by U.S. courts, Juliana v. United States gained attention in 2016 when U.S. District Court of Oregon Judge Ann Aikendeclined to dismiss it; Judge Aiken ruled that access to a clean environment was a fundamental right. In January 2020, a Ninth Circuit panel reversed Judge Aiken and dismissed the case on the grounds that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue. Attorneys for the youth plaintiffs have appealed the dismissal.
- :{:{Case history:(style="display:table-cell"):}::(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}:
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Case history[
Background[
Legal actions to affect climate change by federal and state-level governments have been attempted since the 1990s; one of the first known cases was led by Antonio Oposa, a Philippine lawyer that represented a class-action suit of 43 students against the Philippine government to protect a forest surrounding their village. Oposa had won the suit, which led to numerous other lawsuits around the world.[1] As of July 2018, there were over 1,000 such lawsuits filed across 24 countries, with 888 of those within the United States.[2] Such cases typically involve youth and children and other future generations, as they help to broaden the appeal of the action, and represent the class that would be most affected by government action or inaction.[1]
The Oregon non-profit organization, Our Children's Trust, was created by attorney Julia Olson to help formulate legal cases that could be taken against states and the federal government that would charge them with mitigating climate change under the public trust doctrine.[3] Olson established the non-profit with advice and assistance from Mary Christina Wood, director of the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Program at the University of Oregon, who had been studying the concept of the public trust doctrine and established the idea of "Atmospheric Trust Litigation" to take legal action to make governments responsible for actions related to climate change.[4][3]
Part of Our Children's Trust's inspiration was from Oposa's work in the Philippines.Since 2011, Our Children's Trust has been filing various state and federal lawsuits on behalf of youth, though most of these have been dismissed by courts, as courts generally have not ruled that access to a clean environment is a right that can be litigated against.[5][2][3]
Such cases are also generally dismissed as lawsuits cannot be initiated by "generalized grievances", and require plaintiffs with standing to sue and can demonstrate concrete harm that the government has done, and that the courts can at least partially redress the harm by order of the court.[6] Further, cases cannot be brought to court if they deal with a "**political question**" which cannot be resolved by actions of Congress and the President.[6]
A few related cases on climate change have made it to the Supreme Court. The first, which opened the way for the others, was Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, 549 U.S. 497 (2007). In that suit, twelve states sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for failing to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases and sought relief. The Court agreed with the states by a 5–4 vote on each of three issues: that the states had standing to sue the EPA for not issuing regulations, that greenhouse gases were air pollutants, and that the EPA was authorized to regulate them.[7].
The majority opinion stated that, while any regulation made by the EPA would be unlikely to stop global warming, the agency should be required to regulate such emissions to reduce the extent of global warming.[6]
Subsequent cases were less successful. For example, an attempt to sue public utilities for greenhouse gas emissions under a "public nuisance" theory invoking the federal common law of nuisance was unanimously rejected by the Court in 2011in American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut, 564 U.S. 410 (2011), reversing a lower court decision in a case that also found an evenly divided court with regard to standing (as Justice Sotomayor did not participate).[8]
Also, a challenge to the EPA's subsequent regulations on greenhouse gases was upheld in part and denied in part in Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA, 573 U.S. _ (2014), a ruling which rejected the EPA's expansive reading of its powers by a 5–4 vote but permitted EPA to implement greenhouse gas regulation on existing monitored power plants by a 7–2 vote.[9][10]
Initial hearings
The present case was filed in August 2015 with the United States District Court for the District of Oregon, and was assigned to judge Ann Aiken, who was then the chief judge of the court.[11] The 21 youths, ranging from 8 to 19 at the time of filing, received pro bono representation from Our Children's Trust, and had support of climatologist James Hansen, acting as a "guardian for future generations" in the case filings.[12][13] (Hansen's granddaughter Sophie Kivlehan was one of the named plaintiffs.)[14] The youths were selected by Our Children's Trust as they all were able to demonstrate immediate "concrete injury" due to climate change, such as having their homes wiped out by excessive flooding, rising sea levels, and desertification which were tied to climate change.[6]
The case was filed against President Barack Obama and several agencies within the executive branch, and sought confirmation that their constitutional and public trust rights had been violated by the government's actions, and sought an order to enjoin the defendants from continued violation of their rights and to develop a plan to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions.
Among their arguments, the youths' attorneys asserted that the lack of governmental action on climate change discriminated against the youths' generation, since they would be most impacted by climate change but have no voting rights to influence that.[12]
Three fossil fuel industry groups, the American Petroleum Institute, American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, and the National Association of Manufacturers, initially intervened in the case as defendants, joining the U.S. government in trying to have the case dismissed.[15][16] Pre-trial hearings were held in March 2016 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin.
The U.S. Department of Justice argued that there was "no constitutional right to a pollution-free environment", and that the court system was not the proper venue to affect such changes.[12] Coffin ruled in April 2016 recommending that both motions to dismiss were denied; Coffin found that while the case was "unprecedented", it had sufficient merit to continue.[13]
Coffin's decision was upheld by Judge Aiken, who ruled in November 2016 that theright to "a climate system capable of sustaining human life" was a fundamental right similar to gay marriage as decided by the recent Supreme Court case, Obergefell v Hodges.[17]
According to Michael Gerrard, the director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, "this decision goes further than any other court ever has in declaring a fundamental obligation of government to prevent dangerous climate change",[17] and Judge Aiken’s decision that there might be a constitutional right to a sound environment was the first such ruling ever from a federal court.[18] Preliminary trial dates were set for 2017.[17]
Following the 2016 election, the federal defendants filed a response to the plaintiff's complaint on January 13, 2017, one week before President Obama left office.[19] In their response, thefederal defendants denied that they had caused climate change or specific climate change impacts such as increased temperatures, drought conditions, warmer water temperatures, rising sea levels, and ocean acidification.[20]
About a month later, the complaint was amended to make the lead defendant newly-elected President Donald Trump.[20] In the months that followed, thefossil fuel industry groups requested that they be removed from the case, believing that the Department of Justice under the Trump Administration would vigorously defend the case, unlike the Obama Administration.[15] HMMN RATIONALE?
The National Association of Manufacturers, one of the fossil fuel groups, said that "as the dynamics have changed over the last several months, we no longer feel that our participation in this case is needed to safeguard industry and our workers".[15][16] In late June 2017, Judge Coffin released the fossil fuel industry defendants from the case, as well as establishing a trial date on February 5, 2018 before Judge Aiken.[21]
Government objections[
In early June 2017, the Department of Justice filed a motion requesting that Judge Aiken rule on its prior motion for an interlocutory appeal to the Ninth Circuit of Judge Aiken's November 2016 decision on the justiciability of the plaintiffs' claims, by June 9 or the department would directly seek a writ of mandamus regarding the issue in the Ninth Circuit.[22]
Judge Aiken denied the motion requesting the interlocutory appeal on June 8,[23] leading the government to petition the Ninth Circuit for a writ of mandamus on June 11. The government's petition argued that the Ninth Circuit needed to act to correct "multiple and clear errors of law in refusing to dismiss an action that seeks wholesale changes in federal government policy based on utterly unprecedented legal theories".[24] The government also argued that the pre-trial discovery phase would cause the government harm due to the volume of data and evidence they would need to provide.[25]
After receiving responses from the plaintiffs, the Ninth Circuit opted in November 2017 to hear oral arguments before making their decision.[25] These arguments were held on December 11, 2017 in front of Judges Sidney Thomas, Alex Kozinski, and Marsha Berzon. A few days later, Judge Kozinski stepped down from the Ninth Circuit.[26] On December 21, 2017, Judge Michelle Friedland was appointed to replace Kozinski. Due to the Ninth Circuit's hearing, the planned trial date at District Court was put on hold.[27] On March 7, 2018, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected the requested writ of mandamus in a decision by Judge Thomas.[28][29] The District Court trial was then rescheduled to start October 29, 2018.[30]
The government then petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States requesting a stay to delay the trial. On July 30, 2018, the Supreme Court issued a brief order, denying the government's request for a stay as premature but expressing skepticism about the lawsuit, as well as noting that the breadth of the plaintiffs' claims was "striking" and requesting that the District Court issue a prompt ruling on the government's motions challenging the overall justiciability of those claims.[31][32]
Following the Supreme Court's order, the government again presented two motions to dismiss the case to Judge Aiken in July 2018. One motion stated that the case, in addressing multiple government agencies, violated the Administrative Procedure Act, while the other motion challenged the youths' standing in the case.[33] While Judge Aiken said she would rule promptly on the motions, she had not issued her decision by October 5, causing the government again to request an emergency stay from the Ninth Circuitvia a second writ of mandamus, asking them to delay the case until Aiken ruled on the two motions.[34] On October 15, Judge Aiken ruled on the two motions, denying both. Aiken also removed President Trump as a defendant in the case without prejudice, meaning that he could be re-added to the case at a later stage, and reaffirmed the trial start date of October 29.[35]
In response, on October 18, 2018, the U.S. government submitted an emergency motion to the Supreme Court, again requesting to stay the trial.[36][37] The government claimed that, "Absent relief from this court, the government imminently will be forced to participate in a 50-day trial that would violate bedrock requirements for agency decision making and judicial review imposed by the [Administrative Procedure Act] and the separation of powers."[38][39]
Chief Justice John Robertsof the Supreme Court granted the stay the next day, pending receipt of a response to the government's brief from the plaintiffs.[40][37][41] An environmental law professor at UCLA opined, with regard to this stay, "It's certainly a signal that the court is uncomfortable with the underlying legal theory of the Juliana case."[14] On October 24, 2018, Judge Aiken filed an order vacating the trial start date of October 29 and placing a hold on the rest of the trial schedule.[42]
On November 2, the Supreme Court (by a 7–2 vote) denied the government's request for a writ of mandamus and vacated the stay, holding that the government could still be granted pretrial relief from the Ninth Circuit.[43][44] In its order, the court noted that, even though the Ninth Circuit had already denied the government's request for relief twice, the reasons supporting its denials on the prior occasions "are, to a large extent, no longer pertinent".[45] The order was issued without prejudice, leaving open the possibility that the case could return to the Supreme Court again prior to trial, depending upon the actions taken by the Ninth Circuit.[45]
Interlocutory appeal[
On November 8, 2018, consistent with the Supreme Court's order of November 2, 2018, the Ninth Circuit granted an indefinite stay on the trial pending its ruling on the government's request for a writ of mandamus, as well as requesting briefs from both the plaintiffs and the trial court on the writ and requiring the trial court to rule on the government's renewed motion for an interlocutory appeal.[46][47] On November 21, 2018, Judge Aiken reversed her position and granted the government's request for an interlocutory appeal, putting the entire case on hold until the higher courts have ruled on this appeal.[48][49][50] On permission granted, the government filed a petition with the Ninth Circuit on November 30, 2018, for interlocutory review of the order on motions to dismiss and the order on motions for judgment on the pleadings and summary judgment. An answer was filed with the Court by the plaintiffs on December 10, 2018.[51]
On December 26, 2018, the Ninth Circuit denied the requested writ of mandamus as moot but granted the interlocutory appeal by a 2–1 vote.[52] Subsequently, as requested by plaintiffs, the Ninth Circuit set an expedited schedule for the appeal, requiring the government's opening appeal brief by February 1, 2019, the plaintiff's response brief by February 22, 2019, and all briefing to be completed by March 8, 2019.[53] The government's appeal brief again challenged the unique constitutional and statutory rulings on standing, fundamental rights, and the public trust doctrine made by the district court.[54]
On February 7, 2019, the plaintiffs filed an "extraordinary motion" asking the Ninth Circuit to issue a preliminary injunction by March 19, 2019, blocking the federal government from approving any fossil fuel production activities either on federal land or needing federal approval, such as coal mining on federal land, oil or natural gas drilling offshore, or pipelines that need federal approval.[55][56].
In opposition, the federal government noted that the case was filed over 3.5 years before the plaintiff's initial request for an emergency injunction.[57][58] Meanwhile, the plaintiffs argued in part that the appeal was improvidently granted and that the case should be returned to Judge Aiken.[59] The Ninth Circuit scheduled oral argument on the appeal for the week of June 3, 2019 in Portland,[60] and the appeal was ultimately heard on June 4 in front of a different three-judge panel from the Ninth Circuit consisting of Mary H. Murguia, Andrew D. Hurwitz, and Josephine Staton (sitting by designation), all of whom were appointed to the bench by**President Obama**.[61]
Some legal experts believed that the interlocutory appeal "could (and, indeed, likely will) bring this litigation to an end" due to the Supreme Court's already-expressed skepticism.[50] Other experts, such as the director of Columbia University's climate change center, noted that any decision in favor of the plaintiffs likely would be reversed by the Supreme Court, which has been reluctant to declare new rights and which unanimously held in American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut that it was not for the courts to decide appropriate levels of pollution.[18]
On January 17, 2020, on a 2–1 vote, the Ninth Circuit panel dismissed the case for lack of Article III standing. Writing for the majority, Judge Hurwitz wrote that "it is beyond the power of an Article III court to order, design, supervise, or implement the plaintiffs' requested remedial plan.
As the opinions of their experts make plain, any effective plan would necessarily require a host of complex policy decisions entrusted, for better or worse, to the wisdom and discretion of the executive and legislative branches."[62]
In dissent, Judge Staton characterized the majority as shirking its judicial responsibility to rectify a grave constitutional wrong in the manner the U.S. Supreme Court laudably did in its landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, stating, "My colleagues throw up their hands, concluding that this case presents nothing fit for the Judiciary."[63] She further argued, "No case can singlehandedly prevent the catastrophic effects of climate change predicted by the government and scientists. But a federal court need not manage all of the delicate foreign relations and regulatory minutiae implicated by climate change to offer real relief, and the mere fact that this suit cannot alone halt climate change does not mean that it presents no claim suitable for judicial resolution."[64]
In an analogy from her impassioned dissent that became widely cited in the news media,[65][66][67] Judge Staton stated that "[i]n these proceedings, the government accepts as fact that the United States has reached a tipping point crying out for a concerted response – yet presses ahead toward calamity. It is as if an asteroid were barreling toward Earth and the government decided to shut down our only defenses. Seeking to quash this suit, the government bluntly insists that it has the absolute and unreviewable power to destroy the Nation."[68] Lawyers for the plaintiffs stated their intent to appeal this dismissal to the full Ninth Circuit sitting en banc,[62][69] and subsequently filed such a petition. [70]
Involved parties
see below
hmn:
tool/site: http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2018/11/06/november-2018-updates-to-the-climate-case-charts/
eg
Each month, Arnold & Porter and the Sabin [metals?] Center for Climate Change Law [columbia U] collect and summarize developments in climate-related litigation, which we also add to our U.S. and non-U.S. climate litigation charts. If you know of any cases we have missed, please email us at columbiaclimate@gmail.com.
HERE ARE THE ADDITIONS TO THE CLIMATE CASE CHART SINCE UPDATE # 115.
FEATURED CASE
Supreme Court Denied Stay of Young People’s Constitutional Climate Case, Saying Federal Government Could Ask Ninth Circuit to Stop Case
On November 2, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order denying the federal government’s application for a stay of district court proceedings in the constitutional climate case brought by young plaintiffs in the District of Oregon. The Court also vacated an administrative stay granted by Chief Justice Roberts on October 19. The federal government had sought a stay pending the Court’s disposition of a petition for a writ of mandamus ordering the district court to dismiss the suit.
The trial had been scheduled to start on October 29. The Court said the petition for a writ of mandamus did not have a “fair prospect” of success because the government could still seek mandamus relief in the Ninth Circuit. The Court noted that while theNinth Circuit had denied two earlier requests for mandamus relief in this case, “the court’s basis for denying relief rested, in large part, on the early stage of the litigation, the likelihood that plaintiffs’ claims would narrow as the case progressed, and the possibility of attaining relief through ordinary dispositive motions.” The Supreme Court indicated that those reasons were, “to a large extent, no longer pertinent” since a 50-day trial was scheduled to begin on October 29, 2018 and had been held in abeyance only because of Chief Justice Roberts’s administrative stay. Justices Gorsuch and Thomas would have granted the stay.
Earlier in October, the district court largely denied the federal government’s dispositive motions in the case. The district court granted in part and denied in part motions for summary judgment and judgment on the pleadings. The court declined to rule for the defendants at this stage on the primary claims advanced by the plaintiffs: a “state-created danger” due process claim and a public trust claim. The court dismissed President Trump from the action (but without prejudice) and also granted summary judgment to the defendants on the plaintiffs’ Ninth Amendment claim and on an equal protection claim based on “posterity” being a suspect classification.
The district court said, however, that an equal protection claim based on alleged interference with a right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life would be aided by further development of a factual record.
The district court rejected arguments that the case was required to be heard under the Administrative Procedure Act; that separation of powers principles foreclosed the plaintiffs’ claims; that plaintiffs lacked standing; and that there is no right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life. The district court declined to certify its decisions for interlocutory appeal. On the same day, the district court denied the government’s motion for a stay pending Supreme Court review.
On October 12, a few days prior to the district court’s ruling on the dispositive motions and denial of the government’s motion for a stay, the government filed a third petition for writ of mandamus in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, also seeking a stay of district court proceedings pending Supreme Court review. On November 2, 2018, just hours before the Supreme Court denied the government’s stay application, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order denying the federal government’s request. TheNinth Circuitsaid that Chief Justice Roberts’s granting of a stay of the litigation on October 19 rendered the government’s “non-substantive” motion moot.
Correction: The October monthly update indicated incorrectly that the trial in Juliana v. United States was expected to last two weeks. Lawyers for the parties estimated that the trial would last 50 days or 8 to 12 weeks.
In re United States, No. 18-505/18A-410 (U.S. Nov. 2, 2018); United States v. U.S. District Court for District of Oregon, No. 18-72776 (9th Cir. Nov. 2, 2018); Juliana v. United States, No. 6:15-cv-1517 (D. Or. Oct. 15, 2018). Link to case page is available here.
DECISIONS AND SETTLEMENTS
Supreme Court Declined to Consider Appeals of D.C. Circuit Ruling That EPA Lacked Authority to Issue Rule Restricting HFCs with High Global Warming Potential...
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icn 920
five States Have Filed Climate Change Lawsuits, Seeking Damages From Big Oil and Gas - InsideClimate News
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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14092020/climate-change-lawsuit-connecticut-deleware
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connecticut and Delaware have joined a growing list of states, cities and counties that have filed climate change lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry, claiming oil and gas companies knew their products caused sea level rise and stronger hurricanes and willfully misled the public about those and other dangers related to global warming.
Connecticut's lawsuit, filed Monday, named ExxonMobil as a sole defendant, while the lawsuit filed on Friday by Delaware named 31 fossil fuel companies and trade groups. They joined Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Minnesota as states that have filed such litigation.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, who served 36 years as a senator from Delaware, cited the state's lawsuit in a climate change address on Monday to underscore the costs of global warming and the Trump Administration's failure to address the issue. He called Trump, who was surveying the devastation of wildfires in California, a "climate arsonist."
"Just last week Delaware state attorney general sued 31—31—big fossil fuel companies alleging they knowingly wreaked havoc and damage on climate—our climate—damage that is plain for everyone to see but the President," he said.
The coastal city of Charleston, South Carolina, also filed a climate lawsuit last week, joining close to 20 other cities and counties seeking to hold the fossil fuel industries liable for damages resulting from increased flooding and precipitation, droughts and intensifying storm surges, in addition to sea level rise and stronger hurricanes. The other cities include Baltimore, Oakland, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
In Connecticut's suit filed Monday, Attorney General William Tong sued Exxon for violating the state's Unfair Trade Practices Act, which allows for wide-ranging claims of public and private nuisance, trespass, negligence and for violating its Consumer Fraud Act.
"ExxonMobil sold oil and gas, but it also sold lies about climate science," Tong said when announcing the multi-billion dollar climate lawsuit against the company.
This spate of lawsuits comes after a series of recent rulings in similar cases that appear to give the advantage to states, counties and cities, legal scholars say.
The lawsuits also may send further tremors through the financial world that this summer has seen Exxon dropped from the Dow Jones Industrial Average and a U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission report that concluded climate change threatens U.S. financial markets, those experts say.
Connecticut Singles Out Exxon for its 'Deceptive Record'
Unlike the other climate lawsuits confronting the oil and gas industry that sweep up the world's largest producers, the Connecticut lawsuit singles out Exxon as the sole defendant because the company's deceptive record is well established, Tong said in an email interview.
"ExxonMobil is a leader in the industry and has been for decades," Tong said. "We have evidence that shows that Exxon knew from its own scientists that climate change was occurring, made a deliberate decision to deceive consumers, and then successfully implemented that plan over the course of decades.
"That's the evidence we have, and it makes our case very straightforward."
The climate lawsuits cite an InsideClimate News series and a later Los Angeles Times story that revealed the extent of Exxon's knowledge about the central role of fossil fuels in causing climate change as far back as the 1970s, based on research performed by its own scientists.
"ExxonMobil's campaign of deception has contributed to myriad negative consequences in Connecticut, including but not limited to sea level rise, flooding, drought, increases in extreme temperatures and severe storms, decreases in air quality, contamination of drinking water, increases in spread of disease, and severe economic consequences," Connecticut's lawsuit says.
The lawsuit seeks money to pay for defending against climate change threats, restitution for remediation costs already made, disgorgement of corporate profits, civil penalties and disclosure of all climate research.
It also calls for the creation of a climate change education fund and an immediate end to the false and misleading information that ExxonMobil has been disseminating for years.
Exxon did not respond to a request for comment.
Recent Rulings Weaken the Fossil Fuel Industry's Defense
Although the industry will no doubt put up a strenuous fight against these lawsuits, its chances of winning them have been diminished by a series of court rulings favorable to the plaintiffs, said Richard Frank, director of the California Environmental Law & Policy Center at the University of California, Davis School of Law.
Frank cited a :{recent ruling by the:(style="background-color:#ffcc66;"):}::{ Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals:(style="background-color:#ff9900;"):}: that ordered seven cases filed by local governments in California transferred from federal court to state court.
"The decision on where these cases will be heard seems to be pretty well settled," Frank said. "The state court forum gives the advantage to the plaintiffs whereas federal judges may not have had as much sympathy for these cases."
The first salvo in the legal war was fired in 2017 when Marin and San Mateo counties, near San Francisco, and the city of Imperial Beach, south of San Diego, filed climate lawsuits and drew national attention for daring to take on the powerful fossil fuel industry.
A ripple from the mounting number of lawsuits could be the further weakening of the oil industry's standing in financial markets, said Pat Parenteau, a professor of environmental law at the Vermont Law School.
Parenteau said a decision by the Dow Jones Industrial Average to drop Exxon was a wakeup call to investors, as was last week's decision by federal financial regulators to identify the cost of climate change as a factor in market stability. Their report called out the costs of wildfires, storms, droughts, flooding—and climate litigation as market stressors.
Now that the industry is potentially facing multi-billion dollar judgments, the pressure will continue to mount on these companies from financial markets to divorce from their oil-only business model, Parenteau said.
"There is going to be a verdict and it's going to be big," he said. "The smart money people see that and they don't want to be holding the bag."
The industry's primary defense has been that climate change issues are not a matter for judicial review but rather of legislative remedy. The courts have largely disagreed, saying as a federal court of appeals did in a case filed by Baltimore, that local jurisdiction was proper. Although those rulings have given momentum to the cities and states, they still face formidable challenges by the industry.
Another possible showdown in the Supreme Court looms later this month when the court will consider whether to take on the jurisdiction question that could provide definitive guidance on the venue of these claims.
While the states, cities and counties, for the most part, want their lawsuits heard in state courts, the industry prefers the federal courts as a venue so that they can argue the Clean Air Act and other federal laws preempt any claim under state law that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels cause climate change and related property damage.
'It is Not About Stopping Climate Change. It's About Delaware Surviving It'
Delaware's lawsuit against 31 fossil fuel entities and trade groups claims negligent failure to warn, trespass, public nuisance and multiple violations of Delaware's Consumer Fraud Act. It seeks monetary damages to compensate the state and punish the companies, including $10,000 per violation of the Consumer Fraud Act.
"Defendants have known for decades that climate change impacts could be catastrophic, and that only a narrow window existed to take action before the consequences would be irreversible," Democrat Kathy Jennings, the Delaware attorney general, says in the lawsuit
The complaint, which targets such oil giants as Exxon, Chevron and Shell, and the American Petroleum Institute trade organization, argues that changes to Delaware's environment are a "direct and proximate consequence of Defendants' wrongful conduct," and disproportionately affect communities of color and low-income communities.
At the heart of the lawsuit is the matter of who will pay for the mounting financial, environmental and public health costs of the climate crisis, Jennings said during a news conference announcing the lawsuit.
"It is not about stopping climate change. It's about Delaware surviving it," she said.
The lawsuit further blasts the industry for falsely claiming through advertising campaigns ... that their businesses are substantially invested in lower carbon technologies and renewable energy sources.
"In truth, each Fossil Fuel Defendant has invested minimally in renewable energy while continuing to expand its fossil fuel production ... None of Fossil Fuel Defendants' fossil fuel products are 'green' or 'clean' because they all continue to ultimately warm the planet," according to the lawsuit.
Shell and Chevron disputed the claims.
"These special-interest-promotedlawsuits designed to punisha few companies who lawfully deliver affordable, reliable and ever cleaner energyundermine real efforts to address the complex policy issues presented by global climate change," Chevron spokesperson Sean Comey said in an email. "There is no evidence Chevron misled the public about climate change. Those claims are false."
Shell spokeswoman Anna Arata said the courtroom is not the right venue to address climate change, and that change needs to come through "smart policy from government" supported by business sectors, including the fossil fuel industry, to address climate change.
"We fully support the need for society to transition to a lower-carbon future and we're committed to playing our part by addressing our own emissions and helping customers to reduce theirs," Arata said
API released a boilerplate response it issues in these cases. Paul G. Afonso, the American Petroleum Institute's chief legal officer and senior vice president, said in a statement: "The record of the past two decades demonstrates that the industry has achieved its goal of providing affordable, reliable American energy to U.S. consumers while substantially reducing emissions and our environmental footprint. Any suggestion to the contrary is false."
Charleston is the First Southern City to File a Climate Lawsuit
The Charleston lawsuit seeks to hold two dozen major oil and pipeline companies accountable for climate change damages to the city. The lawsuit claims their products and the spread of misinformation about fossil fuels have caused increasing and disastrous flooding.
South Carolina's largest city, Charleston is the first in the South to file a climate lawsuit.
Filed in the Court of Common Pleas in Charleston, the suit asks that Exxon, Chevron, Shell, BP and other companies to pay for the costs to keep the city from flooding.
"As a direct and proximate consequence of Defendants wrongful conduct described in this complaint, the environment in and around Charleston is changing, with devastating adverse impacts on the City and its residents," according to the lawsuit, which asserts six causes of action, including public and private nuisance, strict liability and negligent failure to warn, trespass and violations of South Carolina's Unfair Trade Practices Act
Flooding events have increased substantially in Charleston, from around four days per year around 50 years ago to nearly 89 days per year as of 2019.
The City has incurred significant costs on capital projects to address sea level rise, including rebuilding its aging Low Battery Seawall, installing check valves to prevent tidal intrusion on the City's storm drain system and redesigning and retrofitting its floodwater drainage system to keep up with increased flooding caused by sea level rise, including by constructing more than 8,000 feet of new drainage tunnels, according to the lawsuit.
City officials have estimated the cost of keeping up with rising sea levels at $2 billion.
Says Charleston's lawsuit: "The City seeks to ensure that the parties who have profited from externalizing the consequences and costs of dealing with global warming and its physical, environmental, social, and economic consequences, bear the costs of those impacts on Charleston, rather than the City, taxpayers, residents, or broader segments of the public."
8. Cooked the Books on Asbestos
Asbestos is a highly toxic, naturally occurring chemical linked to a particularly deadly form of cancer called mesothelioma.An estimated 40,000 Americans die every year from asbestos-related diseases. Although the toxicity of asbestos is well understood, the EPA has never actually banned most uses. The EPA attempted a ban in 1989, but most of the rule was overturned by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in 1991.
After Congress reformed TSCA in 2016, the EPA announced that asbestos would be one of the first 10 chemicals reviewed under the new law. Many hoped that this time, the EPA would finally ban asbestos.
Instead, when the EPA released its draft risk evaluation in May, it found that several uses of asbestos, including import of asbestos and asbestos-containing products and distribution of asbestos-containing products, did not pose an unreasonable risk. The EPA made its risk determinations by ignoring exposure from "legacy" uses of asbestos, such as old insulation and building tiles. Although in November the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the EPA to fix this error, it has yet to do so.
Instead of banning asbestos, in April 2019 the EPA published a rule requiring notice and approval before manufacturers could resume using it in some applications the agency considered abandoned. However, leaked documents show that more than a dozen EPA staffers urged an outright ban on asbestos instead.
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human rights
https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/nestle-u-s-a-inc-v-doe/
Nestlé U.S.A., Inc. v. Doe
Petition for certiorari denied on January 11, 2016
| Docket No. | Op. Below | Argument | Opinion | Vote | Author | Term |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15-349 | 9th Cir. | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | OT 2015 |
Issue: (1) Whether a defendant is subject to suit under the Alien Tort Statute for aiding and abetting another person's alleged violation of the law of nations based on allegations that the defendant intended to pursue a legitimate business objective while knowing (but not intending) that the objective could be advanced by the other person's violation of international law; (2) whether the “focus” test of Morrison v. National Australian Bank, Ltd. governs whether a proposed application of the Alien Tort Statute would be impermissibly extraterritorial under Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co.; and (3) whether there is a well-defined international-law consensus that corporations are subject to liability for violations of the law of nations.
same case?
https://ballotpedia.org/Nestle_USA_v._Doe_I
Nestlé USA v. Doe I is a case scheduled for argument before the Supreme Court of the United States during the court's October 2020-2021 term. The case came on a writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. It was consolidated with Cargill v. Doe I.[[2]](https://ballotpedia.org/Nestl%C3%A9_USA_v._Doe_I#cite_note-2)
The case concerns the Alien Tort Statute.
HIGHLIGHTS
- The case:A group of Malian citizens ("claimants") filed a lawsuit under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) against corporations including Nestlé USA and Cargill, Inc. In the lawsuit, the claimants alleged they were subjected to child slavery on cocoa farms in Côte d’Ivoire. The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California dismissed the case on the grounds that corporations could not be held liable under the ATS. On appeal, the 9th Circuit vacated the lower court's ruling.
- The issue:"1. Whether an aiding and abetting claim against a domestic corporation brought under the Alien Tort Statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1350, may overcome the extraterritoriality bar where the claim is based on allegations of general corporate activity in the United States and where plaintiffs cannot trace the alleged harms, which occurred abroad at the hands of unidentified foreign actors, to that activity.
- Whether the Judiciary has the authority under the Alien Tort Statute to impose liability on domestic corporations."[[3]](https://ballotpedia.org/Nestl%C3%A9_USA_v._Doe_I#cite_note-questions-3)
- The outcome: The appeal is pending adjudication before the U.S. Supreme Court.
You can review the lower court's opinion here.
Timeline
The following timeline details key events in this case:
- July 2, 2020: The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the consolidated cases.
- October 2, 2019: Cargill, Inc., the petitioner, appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
- September 25, 2019: Nestlé USA, the petitioner, appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
- July 5, 2019: The 9th Circuit reversed the district court's ruling in an amended opinion and denied the petition for rehearing.
Background
Initial complaint and appeal
A group of anonymous Malian citizens ("claimants") filed a class-action lawsuit under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) against multinational cocoa suppliers, including Cargill, Inc., and food and beverage companies, including Nestlé USA. The claimants alleged that as children they were forced to work on cocoa farms in Côte d’Ivoire.[[4]](https://ballotpedia.org/Nestl%C3%A9_USA_v._Doe_I#cite_note-Cargill-4)[[5]](https://ballotpedia.org/Nestl%C3%A9_USA_v._Doe_I#cite_note-petition-5)
In 2010, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California dismissed the lawsuit, holding the claimants (1) did not and could not allege the defendants "acted with the purpose and intent that their conduct would perpetuate child slavery in Ivorian farms" and (2) failed to show anything more than "ordinary commercial transactions." The district court also held that international law prevented ATS claims against corporate defendants.[[5]](https://ballotpedia.org/Nestl%C3%A9_USA_v._Doe_I#cite_note-petition-5)
On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit vacated the district court's ruling in an amended opinion and remanded the case. The 9th Circuit held ATS claims could be brought against corporate defendants.[[5]](https://ballotpedia.org/Nestl%C3%A9_USA_v._Doe_I#cite_note-petition-5)
Second appeal
In 2016, the Malian citizens filed an amended complaint. The Central District of California dismissed the complaint, holding the claimants' focus was outside the United States, or extraterritorial. On appeal, the 9th Circuit reversed the district court's judgment, holding that (1) corporations can be sued under the ATS and (2) the claimants' complaints had a sufficient U.S. focus. The 9th Circuit also issued an amended order holding the claimants had standing.[[5]](https://ballotpedia.org/Nestl%C3%A9_USA_v._Doe_I#cite_note-petition-5)
Alien Tort Statute
The Alien Tort Statute (28 U.S. Code § 1350) provides:
| “ | The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.[[6]](https://ballotpedia.org/Nestl%C3%A9_USA_v._Doe_I#cite_note-quotedisclaimer-6) |
https://www.ecowatch.com/clean-water-act--2645821708.html
the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the Trump administration Thursday in a case Earthjustice called "the clean water case of the century."
:{
}:
The case concerned a Maui, Hawaii wastewater treatment plant that pumped around four million gallons of sewage a day into groundwater, where some of it reached the Pacific Ocean, The New York Times reported. Maui County and the Trump administration argued that the plant did not need a Clean Water Act permit if the waste was passing through groundwater before entering protected waters, but the court rejected that narrow interpretation of the landmark environmental law six to three.
"We do not see how Congress could have intended to create such a large and obvious loophole in one of the key regulatory innovations of the Clean Water Act," Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in the majority opinion, as Earthjustice reported
[twt?]
Earthjustice brought the case on behalf of Maui environmental groups Hawaiʻi Wildlife Fund, Sierra Club-Maui Group, Surfrider Foundation and West Maui Preservation Association. Both the Hawaiʻi District Court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled against the county, but the Supreme Court case was high stakes.
"If the Supreme Court endorses the county's position, it would open a massive loophole for every polluter in the country to avoid regulation of their discharges by the law that protects the nation's waterways," arguing Earthjustice attorney David Henkin said in November 2019.
By backing up the county's case, the Trump Environmental Protection Agency was also reversing the agency's historic position, The Associated Press reported. This is in keeping with other Trump administration attempts to weaken water protections, such as its rollback of the Clean Water Rule rule granting protection to small streams and wetlands.
"This decision is a huge victory for clean water," Henkin said. "The Supreme Court has rejected the Trump administration's effort to blow a big hole in the Clean Water Act's protections for rivers, lakes and oceans."
Henkin said it was likely the lower court would now order the Maui plant to get a permit for its activities and ensure they do not damage the ocean. They have already been found to have harmed a coral reef.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Brett Kavanaugh joined Breyer in the majority opinion, while Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito dissented, though Alito wrote his own dissent, The New York Times reported.
"Based on the statutory text and structure, I would hold that a permit is required only when a point source discharges pollutants directly into navigable waters," Thomas wrote, according to The Associated Press.
In the majority ruling, the court did not go as far as the environmental advocates, who argued a permit was needed for any pollutants that "actually and foreseeably reach navigable surface waters," The New York Times reported.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled entirely in favor of the environmental groups, but Breyer said that standard was too all-encompassing and would include things like "pollutants carried to navigable waters on a bird's feathers."
Instead, he argued that discharges into groundwater had to be regulated if they were the "functional equivalent" of a direct discharge.
But Earthjustice still touted the decision as a win, and CNN Supreme Court analyst and University of Texas School of Law professor Steve Vladeck said it would boost water-protection efforts.
"Compared to the argument that it does not require permits for any groundwater pollution, which the county and the three dissenting justices all argued, this result will both empower the federal government to more aggressively regulate such pollution and allow private parties to sue when that regulation fails," Vladeck told CNN.
- Maui Mayor Rejects Clean Water Act Settlement, Aims for Supreme ... ›
- U.S. Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Hawaii Clean Water Act Case ... ›
==
220 intercept coos bay
But, if the agreement is renewed, it may be invalid under Oregon law. In 1998, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against a similar arrangement in Klamath County, Oregon, where the sheriff’s department had entered into an agreement with the timber corporation Weyerhaeuser to provide security services on the company’s land.
“Providing specialized law enforcement services to Weyerhaeuser has no logical relationship to a sheriff’s statutory responsibility to ‘Defend the county against those who, by riot or otherwise, endanger the public peace or safety,’” the court ruled. “We are persuaded that a sheriff lacks the express or implied authority under Oregon law to enter into an agreement to provide security services for private entities.”
“The court was pretty clear in saying that Oregon law sets out the general authority for governing bodies, and these types of contracts between corporations and police agencies don’t fit into that general authority,” said Kelly Simon, a staff attorney at the Oregon chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. “Contracts like this that are biased and create special-interest groups in government bodies — they are not authorized because the police’s authority is to protect the public fairly and equally.”
Zanni said the Coos County Sheriff’s Office has had contracts with federal agencies like the Bureau of Land Management as well as private timberland owners that occupy areas that the office otherwise wouldn’t have the resources to patrol. “Our contracts specifically say if there’s a law enforcement public safety need for that officer, we don’t care what you’re paying us for, he’s going to go handle that,” Zanni said.
==
FAIL any mconn ?
https://www.ecowatch.com/juliana-v-united-states-tossed-2644863188.html
An appeals court tossed out the landmark youth climate lawsuit Juliana v. United States Friday, arguing that the courts are not the place to resolve the climate crisis.
The three-judge panel on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the 21 young plaintiffs that the U.S. government had actively contributed to climate change by supporting a fossil-fuel based economy and that the young people had been injured by its actions, The Guardian explained. However, the majority ruled that the courts did not have the power to order a plan for government action to address the crisis, as the 12-to-23-year-old plaintiffs had requested.
"Reluctantly, we conclude that such relief is beyond our constitutional power," Judge Andrew D. Hurwitz wrote in the court's opinion. "Rather, the plaintiffs' impressive case for redress must be presented to the political branches of government."
[twt]
The decision raises the question of where young people can turn to ensure their futures are protected.
"The idea that their only recourse is to go to the very branches of government that are violating their rights when half of them can't even vote is a preposterous notion," the young people's lead lawyer Julia Olson told The New York Times.
In her dissent, Judge Josephine L. Staton agreed, criticizing her colleagues for "throw[ing] up their hands."
"Where is the hope in today's decision?" she wrote. "Plaintiffs' claims are based on science, specifically, an impending point of no return. If plaintiffs' fears, backed by the government's own studies, prove true, history will not judge us kindly. When the seas envelop our coastal cities, fires and droughts haunt our interiors, and storms ravage everything between, those remaining will ask: Why did so many do so little?"
The lawsuit was filed in 2015 by the 21 plaintiffs with the support of the nonprofit Our Children's Trust, according to Climate Liability News. It argues that by supporting a fossil-fuel based economy despite evidence it was contributing to climate change, the federal government violated the public trust and the young plaintiffs' constitutional rights to life, liberty and property.
For example, plaintiff Levi Draheim, 12, has had to repeatedly evacuate his home in Satellite Beach, Florida because of more extreme storms, according to The Guardian. Jaime Butler, 19, has been separated from her home and relatives in Navajo Nation because of water insecurity.
The federal government has tried to dismiss the case several times since it was filed, according to Climate Liability News. And Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Bossert Clark told The New York Times that the government was "pleased with the outcome" of Friday's decision.
However, Our Children's Trust and the plaintiffs have vowed to keep fighting and to ask the full Ninth Circuit to review the decision, the group announced in a press release.
"We will continue this case because only the courts can help us," Draheim said. "We brought this lawsuit to secure our liberties and protect our lives and our homes. Much like the civil rights cases, we firmly believe the courts can vindicate our constitutional rights and we will not stop until we get a decision that says so."
If the full Ninth Circle refuses to hear the case, the group would then have to appeal to the Supreme Court, Climate Liability News explained...===
https://www.ecowatch.com/emergency-trump-epa-pesticides-2638979880.html
no lnx many
Trump EPA OKs ‘Emergency’ Use of Bee-Killing Pesticide on 13.9 Million Acres
Jordan Simmons Jun. 25, 2019 01:08PM EST POLITICS
More than 40 percent of insects could go extinct globally in the next few decades. So why did the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last week OK the 'emergency' use of the bee-killing pesticide sulfoxaflor on 13.9 million acres?
EcoWatch teamed up with Center for Biological Diversity via EcoWatch Live on Facebook to find out why. Environmental Health Director and Senior Attorney Lori Ann Burd explained how there is a loophole in the The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act under section 18, "that allows for entities and states to request emergency exemptions to spraying pesticides where they otherwise wouldn't be allowed to spray."
In a press release sent to EcoWatch, the Center for Biological Diversity stated:
The approval includes 2019 crops of cotton and sorghum in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. Ten of the 11 states have been granted the approvals for at least four consecutive years for the same "emergency." Five have been given approvals for at least six consecutive years.
If an occurrence is happening six years in a row, does that justify an emergency?
"This administration has been grossly abusing this exemption to allow the use of this one pesticide called sulfoxaflor on a vast acreage year after year," said Burd.
Our biodiversity is at serious risk. For example, in Texas — where 5.8 million acres got emergency exemption to spray — more than 800 native bee species and eight species of bumblebees reside. It is also an important migration route for monarch butterflies.
"Monarch butterflies and eight species of bumblebees do overlap with Texas counties where there is sulfoxaflor spraying," said Burd. "Even at subacute, very low doses, sufoxaflor will have a very dramatic effect on bumblebee reproduction." The purpose of sulfoxaflor is to kill insects.
Farmers have only gotten away with spraying sulfoxaflor because they were granted emergency. The EPA has not approved the lethal insecticide sulfoxaflor to be used on sorghum because it is known to attract bees. At one point the EPA did allow the use of sulfoxaflor on cotton, however the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit vacated the approval — the result of a lawsuit brought to them by beekeepers.
In a summary following the vacated approval in 2015, The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit published conclusions:
The panel held that because the EPA's decision to unconditionally register sulfoxaflor was based on flawed and limited data, the EPA's unconditional approval was not supported by substantial evidence. The panel vacated the EPA's unconditional registration because given the precariousness of bee populations, leaving the EPA's registration of sulfoxaflor in place risked more potential environmental harm than vacating it.
..
==
icn 619
A federal appeals court on Thursday threw out a lower court decision to halt construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. But several major obstacles remain to the controversial project's progress, ensuring that the much-delayed Keystone XL will likely not be built soon.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision hands a victory, at least for now, to the Trump administration and tar sands oil interests that have sought to jump-start construction of the northern leg of the pipeline from Alberta to Nebraska.
President Barack Obama had decided in 2015 that Keystone XL should not be built, saying it wouldn't serve the U.S. national interest. But in one of his first acts in the White House, President Donald Trump signed an executive order reversing that decision and directing the State Department to issue a construction permit. The issue has been litigated ever since
==
https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Trump-s-sixth-appointee-to-Ninth-U-S-Circuit-13867904.php
https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-senate-confirm-ninth-circuit-lee-trump-feinstein-harris-20190515-story.html
collins
he Senate confirmed Los Angeles litigator Kenneth Kiyul Lee to a California seat on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday over the objections of Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris.
Harris and Feinstein have accused Lee of failing to initially disclose to the Senate Judiciary Committee his past writings decrying sexual harassment accusers, gay people, AIDS and affirmative action. They were uncovered by reporters and committee staff.
During his confirmation hearing in March, Republicans appeared satisfied with Lee’s apology for his youthful writings.
The final 52-45 vote fell along party lines.
Lee is the fifth Circuit Court nominee approved by the Senate over the objections of home-state senators since President Trump took office. Neither Harris nor Feinstein returned their “blue slips” for Lee’s nomination to signal their support for a judicial nomination in their home state.
Historically, failing to return the slips would have stalled a candidate’s nomination indefinitely, but Senate Republicans focused on confirming Trump’s court picks have trudged ahead confirming judicial nominees without the sign of support.
It’s a change in tradition that is likely to continue. Lee is the first of three men Trump nominated to fill vacant California seats on the 9th Circuit Court over Feinstein’s and Harris’ objections.
Lee, a South Korean immigrant, attended Cornell University as an undergraduate and earned a law degree at Harvard University. He worked on Capitol Hill and in the George W. Bush White House as associate counsel before entering private practice.
The Senate Judiciary Committee also approved the nomination of Los Angeles appellate attorney Daniel P. Collins in March, but a final Senate vote has not yet been scheduled.
Trump’s third 9th Circuit Court nominee, Daniel A. Bress, 39, a Washington-area partner with Kirkland & Ellis, was referred to the Judiciary Committee along with Lee and Collins.
Bress, born in California, has not lived in the state since high school. The state’s senators have questioned whether he has sufficient ties to California. His confirmation hearing has not been scheduled.
yikes omg
Republican-controlled Senate confirmed Daniel Collins to a lifetime seat on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Tuesday
Republican-controlled Senate confirmed Daniel Collins to a lifetime seat on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Tuesday. Collins has defended Big Oil companies like Shell and Occidental Petroleum against communities impacted by fossil fuel extraction and the effects of climate change. He has also refused to say whether the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling was correctly decided, and has filed briefs supporting the restriction of access to contraceptives through health insurance.
==
omg
https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/attacks-on-federal-district-courts-are-the-perfect-distillation-of-whats-wrong-with-the-trump-presidency/
Here’s a proposed step towards the new autocracy that Donald Trump is promoting that we ought to stop in its tracks.
Vice President Mike Pence told the Federalist Society on Wednesday that the Trump administration intends to challenge the right of federal district courts to issue rulings blocking nationwide policies, arguing that such injunctions are obstructing Trump’s agenda on immigration, health care and other issues. It’s a perfect distillation of what’s wrong about the direction of the Trump presidency. It is a call for disruption – again – of judicial procedures and jurisdictions, all with the intent to protect any policy announcement by an imperial White House to be questioned. And it is not the White House’s jurisdiction to change.
In effect, the policy being presented by Pence would require multiple court challenges to reach a nationwide effect. The whole point of a federal judiciary is the opposite.
That the courts have become the favored battleground for Trump critics is as much a reflection of the fact that Trump policies have been announced too often in violation of the Constitution, of standing law and procedures, is not a fault of the judicial system. It is an indictment of the Trump policy-making machinery.
Pence argued that nationwide injunctions issued by federal judges “prevent the executive branch from acting, compromising our national security by obstructing the lawful ability of the president to stop threats to the homeland where he sees them.” He said the administration wants to bring the issue to the Supreme Court “to ensure that decisions affecting every American are made either by those elected to represent the American people or by the highest court in the land."
Administration officials have complained that announced policies like a Muslim Travel Ban were blocked in the courts simply get in their way, Constitutional issues apparently be damned.
Simply put, Pence is saying that lower courts should not be allowed to block the government from enforcing a law even if that law is found unconstitutional — they should only be allowed to exempt the specific person or people who sued from the law, argued RawStory.com.
The Supreme Court has never addressed the nationwide extent of the injunction against the ban issued by lower courts because the justices upheld the ban in its entirety. Experts say that for the Supreme Court to issue a definitive ruling on nationwide injunctions, it would first have to rule against the administration on the underlying merits of the case before it. Only at that point could the court consider whether a lower court order should apply nationwide or only to the people who are challenging an administration policy.
Obviously, a nationwide injunction has the effect of stopping “a federal policy everywhere,” as argued in the travel ban case. An alternative is for a judge to issue an order that gives only the people who sued what they want.
In his remarks, Pence quoted from an opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas, who joined the majority opinion upholding the Trump travel ban last June, but also wrote separately to say nationwide injunctions “are legally and historically dubious” and that the high court would have to step in “if federal courts continue to issue them.”
Trump has long railed against district courts, especially the 9th Circuit, on the West Coast, for blocking his initiatives, including efforts to overhaul the nation’s immigration system.
Trump raised the courts issue at a Florida rally, saying, “Activist judges who issue nationwide injunctions based on their personal beliefs undermine democracy and threaten the rule of law.”
Ironically, Trump won a 2-1 ruling from the 9th Circuit just this week that allows the administration to make asylum seekers wait in Mexico for immigration court hearings while a court challenge continues.
Yes, there is an argument that lawyers go “forum shopping” for a believed-to-be friendly court. But adoption of such a ban on national injunctions could adversely affect cases with classes of individual plaintiffs as well. More importantly, these court challenges have become a necessary defense in an increasingly authoritarian presidency. Trump simply wants to eliminate all challenges to any policy he favors. This one ought to be stopped in its tracks.
5th added b/c 1st gop maj post trump?
...Russell Wheeler, a visiting fellow in the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies Program, crunched the numbers on this in December and found that 19 of Trump’s 29 circuit judges were replacing judges selected by other Republican presidents. HuffPost updated his numbers: 24 of the 36 circuit judges Trump has confirmed so far have replaced Republican picks.
What about the circuit court vacancies that Trump could still fill in his first term? Wheeler found in December that nine of 16 current and announced future vacancies were filled by Republican-chosen judges. HuffPost updated his numbers: Five of 10 current and future vacancies were or are still filled by Republican-chosen judges.
The lower court judges Trump are appointing will be the final deciders in the majority of federal cases, as the Supreme Court only takes 100 to 150 appeals from the roughly 7,000 annual cases before the 13 circuit courts.
These new judges are overwhelmingly young, anti-choice, anti-voting-rights conservative activists, often alumni of the hard-right Federalist Society — and many of them are flamboyant characters. John Bush, whom Trump seated on the Sixth Circuit, compared abortion to slavery. James Ho, on the Fifth Circuit, has suggested the wealthy should have the right to bribe regulators and accused judges who don’t agree with his hardline anti-abortion position of hating Christians. Don Willett, also on the Fifth Circuit, wants to bring back the Lochner doctrine, an extreme-right early 20th century judicial philosophy that holds that “contract rights” nullify virtually all laws regulating labor and businesses. Some of Trump’s judicial picks are so extreme and unqualified that even Senate Republicans rejected them, like Brett Talley, who defended the Ku Klux Klan in college writings.
While Trump’s ideological impact of the courts has advanced slowly so far, it is not as if there has been zero change — this month, the Third Circuit officially flipped to having a Republican majority. And while no other Democratic-majority appeals courts have enough vacancies for Trump to flip them yet, that could change if he wins a second term, and some of the older Democratic judges could retire or assume senior status. Then, of course, there’s the matter of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
If the 2016 elections were a pivotal moment for the federal courts, the 2020 elections could be infinitely more so.
...
==
==
https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/federal-judge-says-flint-water-lawsuit-actually-can-target-the-former-governor-meaning-he-may-finally-be-held-accountable/
A federal judge on Monday—who agreed that allegations of “conscience shocking” conduct claimed by plaintiffs were “plausible”—reinstated Michigan’s former Governor Rick Snyder as a defendant in a class action lawsuit by the victims of the water crisis in the city of Flint that first captured national headlines in 2014.
After earlier removing Snyder from the suit, brought by city residents harmed by the poisoning of the municipal water supply, U.S. District Court Judge Judith Levy reversed that decision as she noted the plaintiffs had shown the allegations against Snyder and his fellow co-defendants “plausibly describe ‘conscience shocking’ conduct” as thepeople of Flint were stripped of 14th Amendment protections from bodily harm or injury.
The plaintiffs in the suit, Levy wrote in her ruling,
"plausibly state that the Governor acted indifferently to the risk of harm they faced, demonstrating a callous disregard for their right to bodily integrity. This indifference manifested itself in two ways. Initially, the Governor was indifferent because instead of mitigating the risk of harm caused by the contaminated water, he covered it up. In private, he worried about the need to return Flint to DWSD water and the political implications of the crisis. But in public, he denied all knowledge, despite being aware of the developing crisis.”
As a result, plaintiffs were lured into a false sense of security. They could have taken protective measures, if only they had known what the Governor knew. Instead, the Governor misled them into assuming that nothing was wrong. Governor Snyder’s administration even encouraged them to continue to drink and bathe in the water."
The legal team representing the plaintiffs welcome the judge’s determination....
==
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/3/26/1845313/-Trump-administration-asks-court-to-demolish-Affordable-Care-Act
Trump Justice Department has shifted its position on the Affordable Care Act, now asking a federal court to strike down the law entirely. Last year, Justice argued in briefs filed in a federal court in Texas that certain provisions of the law, including those protecting people with pre-existing conditions, should be invalidated. In December, the "intensely political" Judge Reed O'Connor went further, invalidating the entire law.
Now in appeal at the 5th Circuit, Trump’s Justice Department has decided to go with O'Connor's ruling. Previously, it had argued only that the law's consumer protections should be struck down, despite Trump's midterm-election declarations that "Republicans will totally protect people with Pre-Existing Conditions, Democrats will not! Vote Republican" and "I will always fight for, and always protect, patients with preexisting conditions. You have to do it. You have to do it." There is no Republican plan to replace Obamacare. There never has been. It is myth.
So what would be lost? Coverage for about 20 million people. Yes, that includes protections for people with pre-existing conditions, along with the subsidies that make buying insurance affordable for many families getting individual plans. Coverage for the millions of low-income people who are in Medicaid expansion states. People covered by their parents' plans until age 26. Basic primary care such as physicals and vaccinations available with no extra charge. Protections against caps on how much insurance will pay during a year, or during the duration of a policy. Important changes to Medicaid and Medicare would be gone, including the billions in savings on prescription drugs Medicare recipients have gained since the law passed. What would be lost is all that the law did, but because it's a "super statute," touching so many aspects of health care, it would have a massive, detrimental impact on the whole system.
"To erase a law that is so interwoven into the health care system blows up every part of it," said Sara Rosenbaum, a health law professor at the George Washington University School of Public Health. "And [the ACA] is a super statute. It has changed everything about how we get health care." There is no part of the whole system—nearly one-fifth of the nation's whole economy—that hasn't changed under the law. The economic effects should it be erased could be dire.
Even foes of Obamacare such as libertarian free-marketer Peter Suderman are calling foul. "By all appearances," he writes, "the Trump administration is taking a political position for political purposes, ignoring the strongest legal arguments in the process." That political purpose is to entirely erase the most significant achievement of President Barack Obama. Period. Because it's going to be political disaster for Republicans in 2020.
Trump might be feeling his oats after the fiasco Attorney General William Barr created with the Mueller report. This is him and Barr unleashed. And it will be his political undoing.
==
9th overturned
2nd 5-4 ruling
a major blow for immigrant rights, the Supreme Court ruled the government can detain immigrants with past criminal records indefinitely and without due process—even decades after their convictions. The 5-4 ruling Tuesday in favor of the government centers around a 1996 law that allows immigration officials to take immigrants into custody after they are released from jail—but without specifying a time frame. The ACLU, which brought the case on behalf of immigrants affected by the law, said, “[T]he Supreme Court has endorsed the most extreme interpretation of immigration detention statutes, allowing mass incarceration of people without any hearing, simply because they are defending themselves against a deportation charge. We will continue to fight the gross overuse of detention in the immigration system.”
SCOTUS Rules Gov’t Can Detain Immigrants with Criminal Records Indefinitely
==
https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/02/02/climate-misinformation-researchers-california-communities-suing-fossil-fuels
Just in case fossil fuel companies had forgotten when and how much they knew about the impacts their products have had on the climate, a reminder came at them in court this week.
On January 29, six researchers studying climate misinformation filed one of eight friend-of-the-court briefs in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals supporting the California communities suing fossil fuel companies for climate damages.
The dozens of companies, which include a variety of oil, gas, and coal producers and refiners, such as Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Peabody, are trying to get the cases moved from state to federal court, where similar climate liability lawsuits from San Francisco, Oakland, and New York City have not fared so well. The Court of Appeals is lumping together six suits from California counties and cities while deciding where they should be tried.
Some of the top academics examining fossil fuel companies’ actions and communications around climate change were involved in filing the brief, which rather concisely summarizes the major take-aways from their research in its table of contents.
To sum up even more, fossil fuel companies:
knew the risks of burning their products on the climate.
worked proactively to cover up that knowledge and discredit climate science.
tried to protect their own assets from climate impacts by using the very same science they sought to undermine in public.
The researchers filing the brief include Naomi Oreskes (co-author of Merchants of Doubt) and Geoffrey Supran of Harvard University, Robert Brulle of Brown University, Justin Farrell of Yale University, Benjamin Franta of Stanford University, and Stephan Lewandowsky of the University of Bristol, UK. They’re joined in this brief by the Center for Climate Integrity, an initiative that provides legal, scientific, and policy support for affected communities seeking climate damages from polluters.
The other seven supporting briefs filed the same day came from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (Democrat from Rhode Island and vocal climate champion), climate and consumer advocacy nonprofits, climate scientists and scholars, states, and government groups. [vid]
Harvard historian of science Naomi Oreskes at a December 2016 rally calling on scientists to stand up for science.]pix
The reason social scientists and science historians decided to get involved in this legal battle, they write, is because these lawsuits in California center around the fact that the fossil fuel companies “affirmatively and knowingly concealed the hazards that they knew would result from the normal use of their fossil fuel products through misrepresentation about those products and deliberately discrediting scientific information related to climate change.”
In order to make things easy for the courts, these researchers created what is basically a highlight reel of these industry misrepresentations and disinformation campaigns in their 55-page brief.
It draws from fossil fuel industry records, such as the 1965 speech by the American Petroleum Institute CEO on the “catastrophic consequence” of carbon pollution.
Text of a speech by American Petroleum Institute leadership on climate change
Exerpt of API President Frank Ikard's 1965 speech on climate change and fossil fuels.
And cites investigations by journalists, such as the Inside Climate News team that uncovered what #ExxonKnew in its series “Exxon: The Road Not Taken,” and Amy Westervelt’s recent podcast Drilled, which chronicles the creation of climate denial.
Of course, the brief also points to the work of the researchers themselves, including Oreskes and Supran’s analysis of nearly four decades of Exxon internal and external communications, which found that the oil giant changed its tune on climate change depending on whether it was speaking privately or publicly.
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https://www.ecowatch.com/chlorpyrifos-epa-ban-2594491287.html
Court Rebukes EPA, Orders Ban on Pesticide That Harms Kids’ Brains
In a scathing opinion, a federal court on Thursday ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ban chlorpyrifos, a toxic pesticide linked to brain damage in children.
The ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals nullified the decision last year by then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to cancel the agency's proposal to ban chlorpyrifos—an insecticide that in small doses can harm children's brains and nervous systems—from use on food crops.
Pruitt's reversal of the proposed ban came a few weeks after he met with the CEO of Dow Chemical Company, the world's largest manufacturer of chlorpyrifos, according to The Associated Press.
In the Ninth Circuit's opinion, released Thursday morning, District Judge Jed Rakoff blasted the EPA's actions, stating that there "remains no justification for the EPA's 'continued failure to respond to the pressing health concerns presented by chlorpyrifos,' which has now placed the agency in direct contravention" of federal laws regulating food and pesticides.
"Today's court decision is a huge victory for public health, especially that of children," said Melanie Benesh, legislative attorney for the Environmental Working Group. "By requiring the EPA to finally ban chlorpyrifos, the Ninth Circuit is ensuring that the agency puts children's health, strong science and the letter of the law above corporate interests."
The Ninth Circuit decision orders the EPA to revoke all tolerances and cancel all registrations for chlorpyrifos within 60 days....
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Court_of_Appeals_for_the_Ninth_Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (in case citations, 9th Cir.) is a U.S. Federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:
District of Alaska
District of Arizona
Central District of California
Eastern District of California
Northern District of California
Southern District of California
District of Hawaii
District of Idaho
District of Montana
District of Nevada
District of Oregon
Eastern District of Washington
Western District of Washington
It also has appellate jurisdiction over the following territorial courts:
District of Guam
District of the Northern Mariana Islands
Headquartered in San Francisco, California, the Ninth Circuit is by far the largest of the thirteen courts of appeals, with 29 active judgeships. The court's regular meeting places are Seattle at the William Kenzo Nakamura United States Courthouse, Portland at the Pioneer Courthouse, San Francisco at the James R. Browning U.S. Court of Appeals Building, and Pasadena at the Richard H. Chambers U.S. Court of Appeals.
Panels of the court occasionally travel to hear cases in other locations within the circuit. Although the judges travel around the circuit, the court arranges its hearings so that cases from the northern region of the circuit are heard in Seattle or Portland, cases from southern California are heard in Pasadena, and cases from northern California, Nevada, Arizona, and Hawaii are heard in San Francisco. For lawyers who must come and present their cases to the court in person, this administrative grouping of cases helps to reduce the time and cost of travel.
Contents [hide]
1 History and background
2 Controversy
2.1 Allegations of liberalism
2.2 Rate of overturned decisions
2.3 Size of the court
3 Current composition of the court
4 Vacancies and pending nominations
5 List of former judges
6 Chief judges
7 Succession of seats
8 See also
9 Notes
10 References
11 External links
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Allegations of liberalism[edit]
According to the most current count, the Ninth Circuit has among the highest percentage of sitting judges appointed by Democratic presidents. Republicans argue the court is biased because of its relatively high proportion of Democratic appointees.[6]
Rate of overturned decisions[edit]
From 1999 to 2008, of the 0.151% of Ninth Circuit Court rulings that were reviewed by the Supreme Court, 20% were affirmed, 19% were vacated, and 61% were reversed; the median reversal rate for all federal appellate courts was 68.29% for the same period.[7] From 2010 to 2015, of the cases it accepted to review, the Supreme Court reversed around 79 percent of the cases from the Ninth Circuit, ranking its reversal rate third among the circuits; the median reversal rate for all federal circuits for the same time period was around 70 percent.[8]
Some argue the court's high percentage of reversals is illusory, resulting from the circuit hearing more cases than the other circuits. This results in the Supreme Court reviewing a smaller proportion of its cases, letting stand the vast majority of its cases.[9][10]
Size of the court[edit]
Chief among these is the Ninth Circuit's unique rules concerning the composition of an en banc court. In other circuits, en banc courts are composed of all active circuit judges, plus (depending on the rules of the particular court) any senior judges who took part in the original panel decision. By contrast, in the Ninth Circuit it is impractical for 29 or more judges to take part in a single oral argument and deliberate on a decision en masse. The court thus provides for a limited en banc review of a randomly selected 11 judge panel. This means that en bancreviews may not actually reflect the views of the majority of the court and indeed may not include any of the three judges involved in the decision being reviewed in the first place. The result, according to detractors, is a high risk of intracircuit conflicts of law where different groupings of judges end up delivering contradictory opinions. That is said to cause uncertainty in the district courts and within the bar. However, en banc review is a relatively rare occurrence in all circuits and Ninth Circuit rules provide for full en banc review in limited circumstances.[12]Critics of the Ninth Circuit claim there are several adverse consequences of its large size.[11]
All recently proposed splits would leave at least one circuit with 21 judges, only two fewer than the 23 that the Ninth Circuit had when the limited en banc procedure was first adopted. In other words, after a split at least one of the circuits would still be using limited en banc courts.[13]
In March 2007, Associate Justices Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas testified before a House Appropriations subcommittee that the consensus among the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States was that the Ninth Circuit was too large and unwieldy and should be split.[14]
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https://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/
As befitting International Women’s Day, an all-women appellate panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit heard oral arguments Thursday (March 8, 2018) at the William K. Nakamura U.S. Courthouse in Seattle. The panel consisted of Ninth Circuit Judges Johnnie B. Rawlinson of Las Vegas and Morgan Christen of Anchorage, Alaska, and, sitting by designation, Chief District Judge Nancy D. Freudenthal of the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming. As all-women panels occur infrequently, the court’s Seattle calendar was unusual in that another all-women panel heard cases the day before. Judges Rawlinson and Christen and, sitting by designation, District Judge Cathy A. Bencivengo of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California comprised that panel. The Ninth Circuit bench includes 23 active judges, 11 of whom are women, and 17 senior judges, two of whom are women.
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https://www.ecowatch.com/salmon-water-dams-conservation-2555670156.html
Appeals Court Affirms Order to Spill More Water Over Dams to Help Salmon Survive
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has sided with almost a dozen conservation and fishing organizations, the Nez Perce Tribe and the State of Oregon in their efforts to improve wild salmon and steelhead survival as the fish migrate to the Pacific Ocean.
Almost a year ago, in April 2017, U.S. District Judge Michael Simon ruled that federal dam managers on the Columbia and Snake Rivers have to meet higher spill requirements in the spring when baby salmon are migrating to the ocean—meaning they must allow more water to flow over the dams between April and mid-June, to help facilitate safe passage for young salmon.
http://www.alternet.org/food/local-governments-can-prohibit-ge-crops-says-us-court-appeals
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued its decisions Friday on whether federal and Hawai'i state laws preempt Hawai'i counties' authority to regulate genetically engineered (GE) crops and pesticide use. Of significance to state and local communities throughout the U.S., the Ninth Circuit ruled that federal law—specifically, the Plant Protection Act—does not prohibit states and counties from passing local laws to regulate and ban commercially-grown GE crops.
"Today's decision to allow states and counties to ban or regulate GE crops is an important victory for GE-free seed sanctuaries and small communities and farmers around the country," George Kimbrell, senior attorney for the Center for Food Safety, said.
In granting its decision the court recognized potential harm to farmers and environment from the widespread planting of GE crops, asserting, "the cultivation and testing of GE plants raise several well-documented concerns." Notably, the court affirmed, "transgenic contamination has previously caused significant economic impacts on farmers of conventional, non-GE crops."
The court acknowledged as well that "the cultivation of GE crops also may raise environmental concerns, such as harm to beneficial plants and animals caused by the increased use of pesticides sometimes associated with testing and growing GE crops, the proliferation of 'superweeds' and other pests resistant to pesticides, and the reduction of biodiversity." The court went on to declare: "The regulation of commercialized crops, both of GE and traditional varieties, remains within the authority of state and local governments."
At the same time, however, the court ruled that under Hawai'i law, counties and municipalities do not have the authority to regulate GE crops (as some in other states do), and that Hawai'i state law places such authority in the hands of the State alone.
"We're disappointed that the court misinterpreted Hawai'i law and concluded the Hawai'i legislature decided Hawai'i counties lack any such authority," Earthjustice attorney Paul Achitoff said. "The legislature did not, and the decision leaves Hawai'i unprotected from the harms the Ninth Circuit acknowledged. We believe that when Hawai'i's state courts have an opportunity, they will reject the Ninth Circuit's conclusion on this point and allow Hawai'i's people to protect themselves, since the State certainly hasn't protected them."
The court also ruled that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) alone has the authority to regulate field trials and experimental GE crops; neither states nor local governments can ban or approve. This is particularly troubling to communities in Hawai'i, since the many field trials and associated pesticide use in Hawai'i poses significant risks to local citizens and the environment
"We are extremely disappointed with the ruling that some experimental GE field trials can only be regulated by USDA, and are considering all legal options. Most importantly, we continue to stand and fight with the people of Hawai?i against these chemical companies," Kimbrell said.
Attorneys with Center for Food Safety and Earthjustice, who represented local residents, conservation groups, and Hawai'i County in the proceedings, are analyzing the full scope of the court's decisions and will be considering options that would protect Hawai'i's people, farms and the environment.
"As a mother and a resident of Kekaha, Kaua?i, I will continue to stand up and protect my family and my community," said Malia Kahale'ina Chun, a mother, educator and Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner. "It is our responsibility to insure that our keiki have access to clean air, clean water and to 'aina that sustains them."
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Office of Legal Counsel
Bybee served as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in the United States Justice Department from November 2001 to March 2003.[12][13]
Torture memos
Main article: Torture Memos
During Jay Bybee's tenure at the OLC, the CIA acting General Counsel John A. Rizzo requested a legal opinion on detainee interrogation. That request was routed to the OLC by the White House General Counsel Alberto Gonzales, who desired the "ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors."[14] The CIA inquired whether, after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, it could aggressively interrogate suspected high-ranking Al-Qaeda members captured outside the United States in ways some regard as torture. In effect, the CIA was asking for an interpretation of the statutory term of "torture" as defined in 18 U.S.C. § 2340. That section implements, in part, the obligations of the United States under the Geneva Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
Bybee signed that legal memorandum which endorsed "enhanced interrogation techniques" as lawful. These same techniques are viewed as torture by the Justice Department,[15] Amnesty International,[16] Human Rights Watch,[17] medical experts in the treatment of torture victims,[18][19] intelligence officials,[20] and American allies.[21] This memo has been the source of controversy; critics of his action have called for his impeachment or resignation.[22] Bybee and five others, known as the "Bush Six", were the subject of a war crimes investigation in Spain,[23] but the government decided against prosecution in 2011.
A memo declassified in 2012 indicates that some in the Bush State Department believed that the methods were illegal under domestic and international law, and constituted war crimes.[24] Secretary of State Colin Powell strongly opposed the invalidation of the Geneva Conventions,[25] and U.S. Navy general counsel Alberto Mora campaigned internally against what he saw as the "catastrophically poor legal reasoning" of the memo.[26] Philip D. Zelikow, former State Department adviser to Condoleezza Rice, in 2009 testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee studying the matter, "It seemed to me that the OLC interpretation of U.S. Constitutional Law in this area was strained and indefensible. I could not imagine any federal court in America agreeing that the entire CIA program could be conducted and it would not violate the American Constitution." Zelikow also alleged that Bush administration officials attempted to destroy his memos alleging fault in Bybee's reasoning.[27]
Office of Professional Responsibility investigation
In July 2009, after a five-year inquiry, the Office of Professional Responsibility released a report, later modified by the Justice Department, saying Jay Bybee and his deputy John Yoo committed "professional misconduct"[28] by providing legal advice that was in possible violation of international and federal laws on torture.[29][30] The OPR initial report recommended that both Bybee and Yoo be referred to the bar associations of the states where they were licensed for further disciplinary action and possible disbarment.[31] David Margolis, Associate Deputy Attorney General of the Department of Justice, examined the OPR report and wrote that Bybee and Yoo had used "poor judgement"[32] but did not "knowingly or recklessly provide incorrect legal advice or ... provide advice in bad faith."[33]
Federal judicial service
Bybee was first nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the largest U.S. appellate court, on May 22, 2002. The Senate recessed for mid-term elections without acting on the nomination, which was "returned without action" in November 2002 under Senate Rule XXXI, Paragraph 6.[34]
President George W. Bush resubmitted his nomination on January 7, 2003. The Senate Judiciary Committee reported favorably on Bybee's nomination by a 12-6 vote (10 Republicans and 2 Democrats for, 6 Democrats against) in late February and forwarded the nomination to the full Senate for consideration.[35] Senate deliberations took place on March 13, 2003.[36] The Senate confirmed Bybee's nomination by a vote of 74-19 the same day.[37] Bybee received his commission on March 21, 2003. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor administered the oath of office at the United States Supreme Court building on March 28, 2003.[38]
Democratic Senator Charles Schumer noted that he supported Bybee's confirmation specifically because the judge's conservative views would help to moderate "the most liberal court in the country."[39]
Some critics decried his confirmation, calling Bybee "an extremist who takes an overly limited view of federal power" and criticizing his "narrow view of individual rights", including abortion and gay marriage.[40]
Bybee was confirmed in 2003, more than a year before news of his role in the torture memos was revealed.[41] According to Senator Patrick Leahy, "If the Bush administration and Mr. Bybee had told the truth," regarding Bybee's role in the Torture Memos, "he never would have been confirmed."[41]
Significant opinions
On January 13, 2005, in a 2-1 decision, Bybee wrote for the majority in United States v. Bruce. This case further refined the rules for defining whether or not an individual is a Native American or an American Indian. The current two-prong Rogers approach requires that the individual's degree of Indian blood as well as his tribal or government recognition as an Indian be taken into consideration. The Court concluded that Violet Bruce was an Indian.[42]
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