El Salvador detainees - Judge Boasberg contemplates contempt for Trump officials

 Update April 18, 2025:   ACLU moves before Judge Boasberg for emergency TRO in contemplation of more ICE seizures of immigrants without notice or hearing

 

Good Friday march, Birmingham, AL 1963

In J.G.G. v. Trump  James Boasberg - the U.S. Chief Disrict Judge - has carefully but firmly challenged the United States.  The administration has moved hundreds of men to an El Salvadoran prison purportedly dedicated to terrorists.  The U.S. has failed to abide by the Judge's order to turn back  airplanes carrying hundreds of Venezuelans who had been seized without notice as part of an "anti-terrorist" drive by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The U.S. Supreme Court vacated Judge Boasberg's order to return those seized - but acknowledged that people are entitled to notice and an opportunity to be heard before being deported.  Due process has demanded as much since the Magna Carta in 1215. 

 

In this important ruling by Judge James Boasberg - who is working carefully to stem the tsunami of illegality by the Trump administration - cites Walker v. City of Birmingham, 388 U.S. 307, 314 (1967).  At Easter 1963 Rev. Wyatt T. Walker, a leader in the M.L. King-led Southern Christian Leadership Conference - applied for a Good Friday permit to march.  It was denied.  Without notice to the permit applicants the segregationist Sheriff Bull Connor obtained a plainly unconstitutional sweeping injunction y.  King and confreres marched, were attacked, and jailed.  King wrote his now famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail.

At trial for contempt of court the defendants were not allowed to raise the efense that the injunction violated free speech principles.  At the Supreme Court three justices dissented (Warren, Brennan, and Fortas) dissented from the majority ruling:

"The legal and orderly processes of the Court would require the defendants to attack the unreasonable denial of such permit by the Commission of the City of Birmingham through means of a motion to dissolve the injunction, at which time this Court would have the opportunity to pass upon the question of whether or not a compliance with the ordinance was attempted and whether or not an arbitrary and capricious denial of such request was made by the Commission of the City of Birmingham. Since this course of conduct was not sought by the defendants, the Court is of the opinion that the validity of its injunction order stands upon its prima facie authority to execute the same."

Relying on the Walker ruling  Judge Boasberg explains that even though his TRO has been dissolved by the Supreme Court defiance of his order may subject the violators to contempt of court.

- GWC

J.G.G., et al., Plaintiffs,v. DONALD J. TRUMP, et alii, Defendants.

Civil Action No. 25-766 D.C.D.C. (JEB) April 16, 2025

MEMORANDUM OPINION 

On the evening of Saturday, March 15, 2025, this Court issued a written Temporary Restraining Order barring the Government from transferring certain individuals into foreign custody pursuant to the Alien Enemies Act. At the time the Order issued, those individuals were on planes being flown overseas, having been spirited out of the United States by the Government before they could vindicate their due-process rights by contesting their removability in a federal court, as the law requires. Trump v. J.G.G., 2025 WL 1024097, at *2 (U.S. Apr. 7, 2025) (per curiam). 

Rather than comply with the Court’s Order, the Government continued the hurried removal operation. Early on Sunday morning — hours after the Order issued — it transferred two planeloads of passengers protected by the TRO into a Salvadoran mega-prison. 

As this Opinion will detail, the Court ultimately determines that the Government’s actions on that day demonstrate a willful disregard for its Order, sufficient for the Court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt. The Court does not reach such conclusion lightly or hastily; indeed, it has given Defendants ample opportunity to rectify or explain their actions. None of their responses has been satisfactory.

One might nonetheless ask how this inquiry into compliance is able to proceed at all given that the Supreme Court vacated the TRO after the events in question. That Court’s later determination that the TRO suffered from a legal defect, however, does not excuse the Government’s violation. Instead, it is a foundational legal precept that every judicial order “must be obeyed” — no matter how “erroneous” it “may be” — until a court reverses it. Walker v. City of Birmingham, 388 U.S. 307, 314 (1967).

If a party chooses to disobey the order — rather than wait for it to be reversed through the judicial process — such disobedience is punishable as contempt, notwithstanding any later-revealed deficiencies in the order. See id. at 314, 320. That foundational “rule of law” answers not just how this compliance inquiry can proceed, but why it must. See id. at 320.

 The rule “reflects a belief that in the fair administration of justice no man can be judge in his own case,” no matter how “exalted his station” or “righteous his motives.” Id. at 320–21. The Constitution does not tolerate willful disobedience of judicial orders — especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it. To permit such officials to freely “annul the judgments of the courts of the United States” would not just “destroy the rights acquired under those judgments”; it would make “a solemn mockery” of “the constitution itself.” United States v. Peters, 9 U.S. (5 Cranch) 115, 136 (1809) (Marshall, C.J.). “So fatal a result must be deprecated by all.” Id.

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