Timeline for How can the judicial branch enforce a judge's order against the CBP if it does not comply?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
17 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 30, 2017 at 3:05 | comment | added | user6726 | Yeah, that's the difference between can and will. | |
| Jan 30, 2017 at 2:33 | comment | added | ohwilleke | @user6726 A court can punish someone for failing to follow a court order and following their bosses order instead. Acting in orders from superiors is generally not a defense to failing to obey a valid court order. | |
| Jan 30, 2017 at 2:27 | comment | added | ohwilleke | @TimLymington "I mean that contempt is entirely within the discretion of the court (nobody can apply to send somebody to jail for it)," This is incorrect. The person who applied for the injunction can seek to have someone sent to jail for violating the order and indeed is usually the person who does so. The Court can choose the nature of the sanction upon a conviction for contempt of court following a prosecution at a hearing in the injunction case, and might choose a fine rather than incarceration, but it is not completely in the discretion of the Court and people do apply to have it done. | |
| Jan 30, 2017 at 2:23 | answer | added | ohwilleke | timeline score: 9 | |
| Jan 30, 2017 at 2:19 | comment | added | user6726 | @phoog, yes, but chronology matters too. If the court order follows an initial administrative order, the CBP officer does what his superior says, not what the judge says. It completely comes down to 'chain of command': the order was issued to Trump, Kelly, Mcaleenan and their respective departments. Not to the guys manning their posts. They will comply when they get orders from their bosses | |
| Jan 30, 2017 at 2:04 | comment | added | phoog | @user6726 but if a lower-level officer is having trouble deciding whether to obey a judge's order, or a conflicting order from a higher-level officer, then it's clear that the higher-level officer who issued the conflicting order is at fault, and is the one who should be pursued for contempt of court. | |
| Jan 30, 2017 at 1:21 | comment | added | user541686 | @feetwet: I'm aware of that example, in fact that's what prompted me to ask this. But there's a huge difference here because of... well, user6726 just mentioned why better than I could. This one runs all the way up to the president and all the way down to the CBP officers so it's hard to use that one as an indicator. Plus the fact that in this case you can't use pure force, since people's documents do still have to be checked before they come in. | |
| Jan 30, 2017 at 1:20 | comment | added | user6726 | I want to point out that there's a vast difference between top-down refusal by high officials of CBP, and failure especially immediately after a ruling is made, for bottom-level officers to not comply because they not have conflicting orders and cannot know if the judge's order legally applies to them. | |
| Jan 30, 2017 at 1:17 | comment | added | feetwet♦ | If you're looking for a precedential example, see how the National Guard was used to resist and then enforce desegregation in 1954. | |
| Jan 30, 2017 at 1:02 | answer | added | Dale M♦ | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jan 29, 2017 at 22:58 | comment | added | user541686 | @K-C: Makes sense, thanks! That could be an answer... | |
| Jan 29, 2017 at 22:54 | comment | added | user541686 | @TimLymington: I'm asking more like, assume the court finds the target in contempt. Based on your knowledge of history/law/etc., what is/are the most likely action(s) the court will take to remedy the situation? | |
| Jan 29, 2017 at 22:46 | comment | added | Tim Lymington | No, I mean that contempt is entirely within the discretion of the court (nobody can apply to send somebody to jail for it), and so ideas like 'precedent' do not apply. Opinions on what the judge will take into account, let alone do, are just opinions (and so off-topic). | |
| Jan 29, 2017 at 22:43 | comment | added | user541686 | @K-C: I think you're describing how the court would punish the people in charge, whereas I'm asking how the order itself would be enforced. If US Marshals send the people-in-charge to jail, that still wouldn't help the poor souls stuck at the border. Are you saying there's nothing that the courts can do in that regard? | |
| Jan 29, 2017 at 22:41 | comment | added | user541686 | @TimLymington: Do you mean there is no precedent for anything like this to give us any potential ideas of what might happen? | |
| Jan 29, 2017 at 15:03 | comment | added | Tim Lymington | If a senior manager orders staff not to comply with a court order, he is directly in contempt of court, and could be sent to jail without a hearing. What the court would do we can only speculate on. | |
| Jan 29, 2017 at 12:19 | history | asked | user541686 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |