Haydn Lambert

I have a new article “Waiting for Justice: Unconstitutional Delays in the Appointment of Criminal Defense Counsel” up on ssrn in which I talk about how long defendants are being forced to wait for attorneys and what courts are doing and can do to fix these problems: 🧵 papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Not the most important thing happening right now. But perhaps of interest for the constitutional-interpretation crowd.

Thanks to a great group of students.

Very good state-on-top cert petition recently filed: Are searches of a person's bags incident to arrest governed by the always-search-the-person rule of Robinson, or the only-search-in-the-area-around-the-person rule of Chimel? supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25...

The fact that TPUSA posted the entirely reasonable comments from the instructor here as coming from the “TRANS PROFESSOR” gives away the game.

They’re not defending students, they’re targeting faculty — as always

If a Psych prof assigns students an essay response paper with explicit guidelines and then flunks a student for turning in a paper that ignores those guidelines but instead makes vague gestures to "the Bible" then THAT IS NOT A VIOLATION OF THE STUDENT'S RELIGIOUS FREEDOM.

😵‍💫

Holy hell. DHS just openly stated that its agents use “reasonable suspicion” to make ARRESTS. This is blatantly unconstitutional. The Supreme Court is clear that you need probable cause to arrest someone, as opposed to stop them to ask them a question or two. This is huge b/c…

"It is without a doubt the most illegal search I've ever seen in my life," U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui said from the bench. "I'm absolutely flabbergasted at what has happened. A high school student would know this was an illegal search."

unreal quote 😭

Attention legal writing profs and folks interested in teaching legal writing—we are hiring! careers.umich.edu/job_detail/2...

Opinion | John Bolton, Trump and the Crisis of Trust in Federal Law Enforcement If the F.B.I. is seen as a tool of retribution, it will come at the expense of its effectiveness in the long run.

In @nytopinion.nytimes.com

The public can’t be sure whether the John Bolton search is a legitimate investigation — and this very fact highlights the current crisis of trust in federal law enforcement, writes the former FBI special agent Asha Rangappa in a guest essay.

5Qs: Herzog on LGBTQ+ Opt-Outs in Mahmoud v. Taylor Supreme Court Decision | University of Michigan Law School The Supreme Court decided on June 27 that parents can opt their elementary school children out of instruction that includes LGBTQ+ stories. The court’s 6-3 opinion in Mahmoud v. Taylor states that den...

5Qs with Professor Don Herzog on LGBTQ+ Opt-Outs in Mahmoud v. Taylor Supreme Court Decision

michigan.law.umich.edu/news/5qs-her...

Is it your position that it is "common" for Universities to hire private, undercover security--regardless of their specific mandate?

Malls and sporting venues I can believe. But to say this is normal in academia seems like a real stretch.

It's "common" for college campuses to hire undercover agents to follow students around?

My university has no business doing this. I love the University of Michigan, and this is not how we should operate.

The opening of Judge Boasberg’s opinion:

HAWLEY: Let's see the Trump chart. You don't think it's a little bit anomalous that Trump has so many more nationwide injunctions against him?

KATE SHAW: A very plausible explanation you have to consider is that he's engaged in much more lawless activity than other presidents

Data for Defenders Bringing Social Science into the Courtroom

New #DataforDefenders motion to discount ShotSpotter alerts in reasonable suspicion analyses relies on research from NYC, Chicago, Houston & Dayton to argue that alerts are unreliable, rarely lead to discovery of gun-related crime or weapon use, & are unparticularized. www.datafordefenders.org

Case 1:25-cv-00916-JDB Document 138 Filed 05/23/25 Page 1 of 52 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA JENNER & BLOCK LLP, Plaintiff, V. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, et al., Defendants. Civil Action No. 25-916 (JDB) MEMORANDUM OPINION In our constitutional order, few stars are as fixed as the principle that no official "can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics. W. Va. State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943). And in our constitutional order, few actors are as central to fixing that star as lawyers. This case arises from one of a series of executive orders targeting law firms that, in one way or another, did not bow to the current presidential administration's political orthodoxy. Like the others in the series, this order which takes aim at the global law firm Jenner & Block-

makes no bones about why it chose its target: it picked Jenner because of the causes Jenner champions, the clients Jenner represents, and a lawyer Jenner once employed. Going after law firms in this way is doubly violative of the Constitution. Most obviously, retaliating against firms for the views embodied in their legal work— and thereby seeking to muzzle them going forward-violates the First Amendment's central command that government may not "use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression." Nat'l Rifle Ass'n of Am. v. Vullo, 602 U.S. 175, 188 (2024). More subtle but perhaps more pernicious is the message the order sends to the lawyers whose unalloyed advocacy protects against governmental viewpoint 1 Case 1:25-cv-00916-JDB Document 138 Filed 05/23/25 Page 2 of 52 becoming government-imposed orthodoxy. This order, like the others, seeks to chill legal representation the administration doesn't like, thereby insulating the Executive Branch from the judicial check fundamental to the separation of powers. It thus violates the Constitution and the Court will enjoin its operation in full.

Conclusion Jenner raises many more claims of unconstitutionality. These present interesting, difficult, and potentially meritorious questions about the scope of presidential power and more. What has been said here of the First Amendment (and in passing of the Fifth and Sixth), however, is sufficient to declare Executive Order 14246 unlawful and enjoin its operation, eliminating the need to explore those other questions. So the Court need not break new ground: 51 Case 1:25-cv-00916-JDB Document 138 Filed 05/23/25 Page 52 of 52 Executive Order 14246 violates settled First Amendment law and its operation must be enjoined in full. Jenner's motion for summary judgment is granted; the defendants' motion is denied. A separate order will issue. Is/ JOHN D. BATES United States District Judge Dated: May 23, 2025

BREAKING: Judge John Bates, a George W. Bush appointee, holds that Trump's executive order targeting Jenner & Block is likely unconstitutional — "doubly" — and will be blocked in full. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

In the pandemic, we were told to keep 6 feet apart. There’s no science to support that. In a congressional appearance, infectious-disease expert Anthony S. Fauci characterized the recommendation as “an empiric decision that wasn’t based on data.”

This feels like an absurdly bad-faith attack to me. It's true that there were no studies on *6 feet specifically*, but there is a mountain of evidence showing that social distance reduces COVID transmission.
www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/...

The Secretary of Homeland Security, ladies and gentlemen.

Here’s a judge actually writing for the ages (albeit in a footnote)

In the law firm executive order cases, DOJ takes the position that an injunction barring implementation will only be enforceable against the govt agencies named in the complaint. So Perkins Coie just amended its complaint to name all the relevant fed agencies. The case caption is now 40 pages long.

Thread:

To All Students at the University of Michigan Law School: In the aftermath of the University of Michigan's decision to abolish its DEl office on March 27, 2025, law-school interim dean Kyle Logue sent an e-mail to members of the University of Michigan Law School community claiming that the Law School has been complying with Proposition 2's ban on "preferential treatment to individuals on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin." That statement is untrue. The Michigan Law Review has been discriminating and continues to discriminate on account of race and sex when selecting its student members, by awarding discriminatory preferences to women, non-Asian racial minorities, and homosexual or transgender students. The Michigan Law Review employs similar (and equally unlawful) race and sex preferences when selecting articles for publication. These race and sex preferences are flatly prohibited by Title VI, Title IX, 42 U.S.C. § 1981, and state anti-discrimination laws such as Proposition 2.

The Michigan Law Review implements these illegal and discriminatory preferences by inviting students to submit "personal statements" when applying for membership on the Law Review. The Law Review then selects approximately half of its new student members through a process that it calls "holistic review." During this "holistic review," applicants who indicate in their personal statements that they are female, non-white and non-Asian, or homosexual or transgender are chosen over heterosexual white men with better grades and better scores on the components of the Law Review's writing competition. FASORP (Faculty, Alumni, and Students Opposed to Racial Preferences) is a membership organization that litigates against illegal race and sex preferences in academia. FASORP has associational standing to sue the University of Michigan over these illegal race and sex preferences on the Michigan Law Review, and it will sue the university if the Michigan Law Review does not immediately terminate its use of race and sex preferences in membership and article selection. FASORP has already sued Northwestern University over the use of race and sex preferences on the Northwestern University Law Review, as well as its use of race and sex preferences in law-school faculty hiring. SeeFASORP v. Northwestern University, et al., No. 1:25-cv-01129_(N.D. IlI.).

Doubtless there are some 1Ls who have been intending to trumpet their demographic characteristics in the "personal statements" that they submit to the Law Review, in the hopes of obtaining a diversity bonus and stealing a place on the journal from a more deserving student with better grades and better scores on the writing competition. We strongly suggest that you reconsider this strategy, despite the past success of others who have used their race, sexual proclivities, or gender non-conforming behavior to obtain positions on the Law Review that they did not deserve. FASORP will subpoena every personal statement in discovery, and if we uncover evidence that you obtained your spot on the Law Review through race or sex preferences then you be exposed as a DEl hire on social media. FASORP will also notify your future employers that your Law Review credential is tainted and should be disregarded. You do not want to obtain a position on the Law Review that you did not earn through academic merit, and if you attempt to game the system or think that your race, sex, or LGBTQ status gives you an entitlement to be chosen for the Law Review over your more deserving classmates, then FASORP will ensure that you live to regret it.

For the 2Ls and 3Ls who have already used or attempted your personal statements to obtain a diversity bonus in previous years, it is too late to undo what you have already submitted, and you now are under an obligation to preserve those personal statements into perpetuity. But you might want to encourage the Law Review to change its discriminatory membership-selection practices before FASORP sues and obtains your previously submitted personal statements in discovery. The Law Review will avoid litigation if it immediately eliminates all use of race and sex preferences in the selection of members, editors, and articles, and adopts an official law-review policy that explicitly prohibits any consideration of race or sex. You have every reason to hope that the Law Review will implement these changes rather than litigate these issues in court. Sincerely, FASORP https://fasorp.org

Earlier today, students at the University of Michigan Law School received a bizarre email from an account associated with FASORP, the anti-diversity group that has previously sued multiple law schools over faculty hiring practices and selection of law review members, per source familiar.

All of this is insane, of course. But the special irony of this guy getting the Bluebooking wrong in an attack on law review members is not lost on me.

She Inspired Laws to Hold the Fossil Fuel Industry Accountable. Now She’s a Target. (Gift Article) A conservative group is suing for emails of a law professor who helped create legislation to force oil, gas and coal companies to pay for climate damage.

I'm very proud of, and stand with, my colleague Rachel Rothschild. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/27/c...

Every year, when I teach civil rights litigation, my students are confronted with & confront me questions about what civil rights suits can actually accomplish. This essay is my answer. It's a very early draft & I'd welcome your suggestions, additions & stories.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Boasberg: "I often tell my clerks before they go ou tinto the world and practice law that the most valuable" treasure they have is "their reputation and their credibility"

Title: Both Liberal and Conservative Judges Rule Against Trump Description: A scatter plot showing the rulings of judges against or in favor of Trump, categorized by ideology using the DIME score. The x-axis represents Judge Ideology (DIME Score), ranging from liberal (-1) to conservative (1), and the y-axis represents the case outcome (against or for Trump). • Blue dots represent liberal judges, purple dots represent moderate judges, and red dots represent conservative judges. • Some judges are labeled, including Rudolph Contreras, Lauren King, John Coughenour, and James Emanuel Boasberg on the liberal to moderate side, and Carl Nichols, Richard J. Leon, and Joseph N. Laplante on the conservative side. • A note mentions that Boasberg, though slightly right-leaning, was initially appointed by George W. Bush. • The visualization suggests that judges from both ideological backgrounds ruled against Trump.

1/🧵 Judges across ideological lines are ruling against Trump at strikingly similar rates (84% liberal, 86% centrist, 82% conservative). This isn't partisan opposition to Trump—it's the judiciary functioning as intended by cutting across partisan lines to uphold the Constitution.