Public defenders in the nation’s capital are asking a judge in a federal lawsuit to block the U.S. Parole Commission from arresting D.C. residents and to release at least three people currently in jail on its orders, arguing that the federal body no longer has authority to jail people because, as of Wednesday, it does not legally exist.
The U.S. Parole Commission — a division of the Justice Department that primarily supervises several thousand D.C. residents who were released from prison but still serving their sentence — didn’t just have a lapse in funding when the government shut down this week. The agency was also set to sunset on Sept. 30, unless Congress passed legislation that extended it.
In a lawsuit filed in D.C.’s U.S. District Court last week, the D.C. Public Defender Service argues that because Congress instead took no action, the commission expired and now has no power. The public defenders asked a judge to block the parole commission from operating and to order the release of three D.C. residents recently sent to D.C. jail by the commission on alleged violations of their supervision.
“All three of these claims ask the same question: Does the Commission have congressional authorization to issue arrest warrants, detain, and sentence individuals to further incarceration? The answer is no, because, effective last night, Congress has abolished the Parole Commission,” public defenders wrote in their motion for a temporary restraining order seeking to stop the commission’s operations. They are seeking class-action status on their lawsuit so that it would apply to a broader number of people who’ve been jailed.
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes declined to grant the temporary restraining order, saying the question of whether the U.S. Parole Commission legally exists needs deeper review. She stopped short of blocking the commission from continuing to arrest people — but suggested that the commission should avoid sending a large amount of people to jail while its legal authority is in question.
“Until we get this settled, they might not want to be issuing arrest warrants left and right,” Reyes told the attorney representing the commission, noting that might require her to move more quickly in the case. “I would counsel your client that sometimes discretion is the better part of valor, and if it’s not absolutely necessary to act … I think that would be better with respect to arrest warrants.”
Archived at https://archive.is/vHE1y
I’m a little surprised the judge merely “counciled” them not to jail too many people, as opposed to putting in a TRO until there’s an official ruling. The logic seems pretty clear.
The Supreme Court ruled in Trump v. CASA that district courts don’t have the power to issue nationwide injunctions to enjoin government agencies from enforcing policies nationwide. Instead, they say that a case needs class action status in order for a court to issue nationwide relief.
But this isn’t about nationwide relief, this is about DC residents.
More specifically, the Supreme Court ruled that the court can’t enjoin an agency from enforcing the rule in question, except against the actual named parties to the case.
So if John Doe and Jane Roe sue an agency and want an injunction, the court can only order the agency to not bother those two people. It cannot order the agency stop doing the thing altogether to all people, even in one area only. That requires a class action.
Be that as it may, in this case the enforcement is automatically invalid since the authority in question doesn’t legally exist.
Might as well jail them in the name of Emperor Charles the Fat
That’s the dual state for you. The normative state applies to all actions by Trump and his goons, everyone else is subject to the prerogative state. This case is just the normative state being used to protect the prerogative state.
Ahh, right, that dumbass shit.
they should block it for their area which was the reason nationwide became the norm. they need to get the pain back that the scotus asked for (disparate rules)
The Supreme Court ruled that district courts can only grant relief to the parties of the case. So the district court is powerless to protect those who don’t file a case before it, with one exception, which is a class action. That’s why the DC public defender wants to change the case to a class action, because that is the only way they can get the board to stop enforcing against everyone.