Category: Legal, Laws, and Regs

My pet court case continues after Texas skullduggery in the dead of night.

Texas filed a motion for leave to file a ‘surreply’ in response to the US reply. Normally after motion, response, reply, the case is briefed and ready for the judge. But Texas has to get in one more shot, and it’s a crapsh0ot at that.

What caught my interest in this junk filing is a reference to Sacketts vs EPA. In the context of this case, it doesn’t fit…other than Thomas opening up the door for questioning ‘navigability’ and US control over navigable interstate waters.

Still concerns me.

But what becomes more interesting is the judge in this case, and his record with the Fifth circuit court of appeals.

David Ezra is a judge who took senior status and who Roberts brought over from Hawaii to help with the overburdened Texas court. Judge Ezra may have originally been appointed by Reagan, but he’s a solid judge. If you’re wondering what happened to the Texas absurd ‘fetal burial’ law, Judge Ezra is what happened.

And for his effort, he was actually personally attacked by members of the Fifth circuit court; specifically Edith Jones and Jim Ho.

Edith Jones, who said in 2013 that ‘racial groups like African-Americans and Hispanics are predisposed to crime.’ Jim Ho, appointed by Trump and arguably considered the worst judge in the entire federal system. He doesn’t write legal opinions, he writes political commentary.

This should be a slam dunk case. But the very nature of how profoundly broken our court system is—demonstrated by this previous attack on Judge Ezra, and also demonstrated by how degraded the Fifth Circuit is—leaves me concerned about the case.

I do know that Judge Ezra is going to be extremely meticulous in his handling of this case. He has a very hostile circuit court ready to toss aside the law and do whatever Abbott wants.

US Judge defends actions as trial on Texas’ fetal burial law begins.

The Judge set a hearing on the preliminary injunction for August 22 in the US vs Abbott case.

In the meantime, the US _just_ filed a notice that Texas has been moving the barrier in the dead of night. Most likely trying to drag it out of Mexican territory. It won’t matter, because it will just be moved the next storm.

But it does demonstrate Abbot’s total disregard of the law.

This is what happens when Republicans believe they own the courts.

Court Document

My concerns about the US vs Abbott case may have been unfounded.

The US and Mexico did a joint survey of the buoys placed by Abbott. They found that 787 feet of the buoys are actually in Mexico’s side of the Rio Grande. Yup, that’s right:

Abbott invaded Mexico.

Playing with definitions of ‘navigable’ or not, Abbott violated Mexico’s sovereign territory.

Unless the idiot wants to say that Mexico is now part of Texas, he’s going to have to move those damn things. And it’s time for the Judge to stop the Amicus nonsense and make the decision he should have made days ago.

Result of survey.

Taking a breather from indictments, I grow increasingly alarmed at what’s happening with a court case, US vs Abbott.

The federal government sued Abbott and Texas because his putting those barbaric buoys in the Rio Grande violated the Rivers and Harbors Act.

Slam dunk, you’d think.

But the amicus briefs filed and the response from Texas has been to challenge the very concept of the term ‘navigable’, and reflects Thomas opinion in the Sacketts vs EPA WOTUS case decided by SCOTUS not too long ago.

They are literally using this case to launch an attack on the very concept of federal oversight of rivers and bodies of water, such as the Rio Grande that extend beyond state lines. An attack that, if it goes to SCOTUS, will gut whatever clean water protections we have left in this country.

This is all flying under the radar. I sure wish there were some friendlier faces paying attention to this.

Court case docket at Free Law