The 5th Circuit of Appeals moved the start of hearings from July 10 to the end of July. That is a good thing. Anything that can drag this out longer is good because one of the goals is to run the clock out on Obama.
Judge Hanen has not folded. He is respectful of court schedules and events marked on calendars with respect to his own court and the Appeals Court. His order for DHS and DOJ for the report to be filed in his court by July 31 has not changed. Once a required report is filed, the court will give itself about 2 weeks to review because there are many other items on the court’s calendar. From July 31 which is Friday, the court has scheduled a contempt hearing for Wednesday August 19 which is 2.5 weeks later. That’s typical.
Judges must observe decorum with higher courts. He may want to rain hell down now on DOJ and DHS but if he incarcerates people that are arguing against the merits of his injunction order, it puts the higher court in a very awkward position.
Judge Hanen is running this case in an extremely adroit way. He will come down like a ton of bricks on DOJ and DHS after the 5th Circuit has heard oral arguments and made their decision.
The scheduling is in favor of the injunction and in favor of the plaintiffs in the appeals case. Note that Judge Hanen will have the report at the same time the Appeals Court begins hearing the appeal on Judge Hanen’s injunction order. The report ordered by Judge Hanen and due July 31 will be available to clerks of the appeals court and will be available to be used by the plaintiffs in that case as an argument that the federal government does not have clean hands or is evasive.
Now there is a hearing for contempt scheduled. That’s good news. And it puts enormous pressure on DOJ and DHS to not play games on the report because if they do, then Judge Hanen has their game playing in writing and he has a contempt hearing meaning JAIL scheduled soon thereafter.
Many thanks for the detailed information!
Now to see what happens between now and the deadlines.
Looks like Judge Hanen is getting all his ducks in a row...
Thanks for your posts at #22 and #24
The topic that is most interesting is receivership.
From your analysis:
Judge Hanen’s Federal Court ...that ‘receivership’ was a possible part of sanctions.
Jeh Johnson:
“it is not necessary that the Department be put under compliance by the court” because he claimed that that his Department was investigating...”
Basically a receivership is a temporary arrangement whereby a Judge’s investigators or in this case US Marshals take over command of a department to run an investigation and monitor its performance. The department personnel all report to the ‘Court’s Master’. It’s a big deal.