Lawyers need to join the fights!

The Trump administration is openly targeting Biglaw firms for their representation of clients and causes adverse to the president’s political agenda. Five top firms — Covington & Burling, Perkins Coie, Paul Weiss, Jenner & Block, and WilmerHale — have found themselves on the receiving end of Trump’s retaliatory executive orders, reported Above the Law. On top of these (likely unconstitutional) executive actions, Trump has sicced the EEOC on 20 Biglaw firms over their DEI policies, with the agency launching full-scale investigations into their alleged “unlawful” employment practices.

Outside support for these law firms has come from more than 50 bar associations, nearly 80 law school deans, and now more than 3,000 lawyers and legal organizations from both sides of the political spectrum have sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, pleading with America’s top government lawyer to step in and defend the rule of law by opposing not just attacks on these law firms, but on judges as well.

The letter, which was put together by the Society for the Rule of Law Institute and Democracy Forward, urges Bondi to live up to what she promised to do during her confirmation hearings and refuse to back “partisan weaponization” of the Justice Department. Here’s an excerpt from the letter:

It is your responsibility, as the lawyer ultimately entrusted with the representation of the United States in legal matters, to oppose attacks on the legal profession, on judges, and on the rule of law and to ensure that the Department of Justice uses its full power to protect the legal profession and equal justice under law for all people. …

It is incumbent on you to use all of the tools available to you to preserve and protect the independence and integrity of the legal profession, including opposing the use of the federal government to attack lawyers, law firms, and legal organizations for engaging in good faith representation of their clients.

Reuters has additional details on some of the lawyers who signed the letter:

Republican signatories included J. Michael Luttig, a former U.S. appeals court judge; former U.S. Representative Barbara Comstock, a senior advisor at Baker Donelson; Peter Keisler, a former acting U.S. attorney general under President George W. Bush; and Donald Ayer, a former top Justice Department lawyer under President George H.W. Bush.

Democrats who signed the letter included Marc Elias, a longtime lawyer for Democratic politicians whom Trump has criticized, and Norm Eisen, whose group the State Democracy Defenders Action is suing the Trump administration in several cases.

If you agree that Attorney General Pam Bondi should do her job properly by standing up for the legal profession and the rule of law, please click here to add your name to the list of signatories.

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AG Bondi indicates investigation into military operation breach unlikely

Attorney General Pam Bondi signaled that there was unlikely to be a criminal investigation into the sharing of military operation details in an unsecured text group, declaring that the specifics of when fighter jets would depart and when bombs would fall were “not classified,” reported The New York Times.

Ms. Bondi, speaking at a news conference in Virginia, was asked about the public debate surrounding Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after he sent details of a coming attack on rebels in Yemen to senior administration officials in a Signal group chat that accidentally included a magazine editor.

“It was sensitive information, not classified, and inadvertently released,” Ms. Bondi said, while praising the military operation that ensued.

“What we should be talking about is it was a very successful mission,” she said, before quickly accusing Democrats from previous administrations of mishandling classified information.

“If you want to talk about classified information, talk about what was in Hillary Clinton’s home,” she said. “Talk about the classified documents in Joe Biden’s garage, that Hunter Biden had access to.”

The Justice Department opened investigations into Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Biden in those instances, but neither ultimately faced criminal charges. She did not mention the prosecution of Donald J. Trump over his handling of classified documents after his first term in office — a case that was ultimately abandoned when he won a second term.

In this case, Ms. Bondi seemed to be ruling out any similar investigation to determine all the facts.

Dating back to at least the Reagan administration, the government has considered the details of “military plans, weapons or operations” to be classified.

The F.B.I., along with the Justice Department, could still investigate the matter, but agents and prosecutors typically do not pursue cases if the information is not classified.

Under the Espionage Act, it is possible for people to be charged with crimes for mishandling national defense information that is not classified, but such prosecutions are very rare.

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Mangino discusses arrest of fire chief on Law & Crime Network

Watch my interview with Kennedi Walker of Law & Crime Network discussing the arrest of a Pennsylvania fire chief for fracturing the skull of his three month old son.

To watch the interview CLICK HERE

The most outrageous post-verdict in court celebration ever!

Watch the most outrageous post-verdict in court celebration ever! Check out my response on Court TV with host Ted Rowlands.

 

To watch the clip CLICK HERE

Louisiana seeks constitutional amendment to draw more juveniles into adult court

When Louisiana reversed its “Raise the Age” law in early 2024, moving all 17-year-olds back into the adult criminal system, it became the first and only state in the nation to enact such a reform, intended to shield youth from adult prisons, only to then repeal it. Since then, sheriffs of some of the biggest parishes in the state have struggled to accommodate the influx of minors into their jails. Now, Louisiana lawmakers are seeking to go a step further: They’ve proposed an amendment to the state constitution that would give themselves more leeway to decide what crimes can send children even younger than 17 into adult court—and potentially adult prison, reported Bolt. 

On March 29, Louisianans will vote on Amendment 3, a constitutional amendment that would hand legislators the power to add, with a two-thirds majority vote, any felony to the list of charges that would qualify a child to be treated like an adult in the eyes of the law. In Louisiana, this includes crimes like making a fake ID or stealing a phone. The state constitution currently restricts the crimes for which minors aged 14 and up can be charged as adults to a list of 16 serious felonies including murder, rape, and armed robbery. 

The amendment’s sponsor, Republican state senator Heather Cloud, says the limits on charging children as adults have “hamstringed” Louisiana from being able to address juvenile crime. Some of the bill’s supporters have expressed a deeply pessimistic view of Louisiana’s youth population; in a House committee hearing last fall, Republican lawmaker Tony Bacala told his colleagues, “Some of these kids are already lost when they’re two years old.” 

The move has alarmed advocates across the state, who are urging a no vote. “This is just casting the net wider to get young people inside the system,” Antonio Travis, the youth organizer for the group Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children, told Bolts.

“These are grasps for more power,” said Sarah Omojola, the executive director of Vera Institute New Orleans. “We’re really trying to cage up and defund Louisiana’s future.”

Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry sat in chambers during the House’s debate and vote on the amendment in November, a signal of his support. Its content is consistent with a broader effort by Landry and his allies in the legislature to establish more serious and lasting consequences for young people accused of crimes. In 2023, as attorney general, Landry campaigned for a bill that would have made young people’s criminal records public—but only for residents of the state’s three most populous parishes, which are all majority-Black. The bill was sponsored by state representative Debbie Villio, a former prosecutor and ally of Landry’s who brought the constitutional amendment alongside Cloud. 

Both Landry and Villio insisted at the time that this targeting was about crime rates, not race, but organizers were appalled. “How could a person not look at the evidence and see that this is an intentional attack on certain communities?” Travis asked. The bill died in the senate amidst widespread accusations of racism. But in 2024, during a special session on crime that Landry called as his first official act as governor, Bacala brought back a new version that applied equally to every parish, which passed. Landry promptly signed it into law. 

Before 2017, the year Louisiana’s “Raise the Age” law took effect, “the education system was definitely, definitely feeding our youth justice system,” Travis told Bolts. “Kids were getting incarcerated from truancy. Kids were getting incarcerated from being suspended too much.” 

The reform moved 17-year-olds into the juvenile justice system as a default, though those accused of serious crimes could still be transferred to adult court. “This narrative of these hard criminals … that narrative was slowly being done away with,” Travis said. “The general public was recognizing that these are kids and they deserve resources.”

But this new day in Louisiana wouldn’t last long. There were a few abortive efforts to overturn “Raise the Age”: one bill that Landry, then attorney general, supported died in 2022; another was vetoed by then-Governor John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, in 2023. But this year, with Landry as governor, the legislation passed and became law last April. Landry feted the change on X, writing: “No more will 17-year-olds who commit home invasions, carjack, and rob the great people of our State be treated as children in court. These are criminals and today, they will finally be treated as such.”

The fallout was immediate: Any 17-year-olds already in custody were transferred to adult facilities, and all 17-year-olds arrested from then on were processed and treated as adults, meaning that their criminal history also becomes public record. The vast majority of these young people were not accused of home invasions, carjacking, or robbery, it turns out. Of the 203 17-year-olds arrested in the state’s three largest parishes during the first five months under the new law, ProPublica found that nearly 70 percent were charged with nonviolent crimes, like trespassing or marijuana possession. Only 13 percent were charged with serious felonies—and prosecutors already had the discretion to send young people accused of these crimes into adult court. 

Erika Jupiter, statewide organizing manager for Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children’s, told Bolts that the change has had the effect of separating young people from their families and communities. ”Parents are very worried about the experience their children are having, and also it’s harder for them to communicate with their children,” she told Bolts. “If your child is in that adult facility, you may go weeks without knowing a status on what’s happening with them.” 

Recognizing that minors are at increased risk of physical and sexual assault in prison, the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act requires them to be “sight and sound” separated from adult prisoners. This has resulted in adult prisons placing young people in solitary confinement or in “pods,” which Jupiter described as “windowless shipping containers.” “It’s still inhumane,” she said. Officials have also shipped kids to prisons over 150 miles away from their original facility since the law took effect. “You have children going so far away from home, and their parents can’t visit,” Jupiter said.

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Federal courts create judicial task force for security and independence

A task force of federal judges will consider how to respond to “current risks” for the judiciary, following a spate of threats against judges who have ruled against the Trump administration, reported The New York Times.

According to an internal two-page memo distributed to federal judges and obtained by The New York Times, the new Judicial Security and Independence Task Force will hold its first meeting within the next 10 days.

The announcement comes days after Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. issued a rare statement rebuking calls for impeaching judges. President Trump and his allies have repeatedly called for the removal of judges who have issued rulings halting or slowing the adoption of his agenda.

The formation of the task force is another sign that the judicial branch is taking seriously an increasingly hostile and politicized climate. In recent weeks, there have been hoax reports of bombs placed in mailboxes. Pizzas have also been anonymously sent to judges’ homes and the homes of their family members, which security experts have said is intended to send a menacing message that the public knows where they live.

On social media, allies of President Trump have shared posts that purport to contain the personal information of judges’ families. Elon Musk and prominent Republican lawmakers have singled out specific judges and called on Congress to impeach them.

In a statement, a White House spokesman condemned “attacks on public officials, including judges.” Such attacks “have no place in our society and President Trump knows all too well the impact of callous attacks, having faced two assassination attempts,” said Harrison Fields, the spokesman.

Threats against public officials have been rising for years.

Democrats have also used heated rhetoric on judges and their rulings. “You have unleashed the whirlwind, and you will pay the price,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York outside the Supreme Court in 2020, as the court was considering a major abortion case. “I shouldn’t have used the words I did,” Mr. Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, said later, after Chief Justice Roberts condemned his remarks.

According to the memo, the intent of the task force will be “to identify and help” the judicial branch “respond to current risks, and to anticipate new ones.”

“Through its efforts, it is hoped that the security of individual judges will be enhanced and that judicial independence will be assured,” the memo said.

The memo names 10 judges and one circuit executive who will be serving on the task force, with two more court clerks to be announced. Judge James K. Bredar of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland will serve as the new group’s chair.

It was signed by Judge Robert J. Conrad Jr., who oversees the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, which helps oversee the system under the direction of the Judicial Conference, a policymaking body led by Chief Justice Roberts. The office declined to comment.

The establishment of the task force is an encouraging step, said Judge Michael Ponsor of the U.S. District Court for the District Massachusetts, who has written on recent threats against the judiciary. “This is a welcome initiative and a powerful expression of the judiciary’s concern and its determination to do the job that our Constitution sets out for it,” he said.

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SCOTUS upholds restrictions on ghost guns

The Supreme Court upheld federal restrictions aimed at curtailing access to kits that can be easily assembled into homemade, nearly untraceable firearms, a rare move by a court that has taken an expansive view of gun rights, reported The New York Times.

In a 7-to-2 decision, written by Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, one of the court’s conservatives, the justices left in place requirements enacted during the Biden administration as part of a broader effort to combat gun violence by placing restrictions on so-called ghost guns.

Justice Gorsuch included photographs, unusual in court opinions, to illustrate how one of the gun kits, Polymer80’s “Buy Build Shoot,” came with “all of the necessary components to build” a Glock-style semiautomatic weapon. He wrote that it was “so easy to assemble” that it could be put together in about 20 minutes.

“Plainly, the finished ‘Buy Build Shoot’ kit is an instrument of combat,” Justice Gorsuch wrote, adding that no one would confuse the pistol “with a tool or a toy.”

The ruling in favor of gun regulations is a departure for the court, which has shown itself to be skeptical of them — and of administrative agency power. Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Clarence Thomas, both conservatives, filed dissents.

The “weapon-parts kits themselves do not meet the statutory definition of ‘firearm,’” Justice Thomas wrote, important because Congress in 1968 agreed the government could legally impose some regulations on firearms. “That should end the case.”

Legal experts said the decision was a victory for those advocating more gun regulations.

“Although this is not a Second Amendment ruling, it shows that the justices are not uniformly hostile to gun regulation,” said Adam Winkler, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Ghost guns have been found in increasing numbers at crime scenes, and today’s decision should help the problem.”

The Biden administration in 2022 enacted rules tightening access to the weapons kits, after law enforcement agencies reported that ghost guns were exploding in popularity and being used to commit serious crimes.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives estimated that use of the gun components and kits in crime increased tenfold in the six years before the rules were adopted.

Among the regulations: requiring vendors and gun makers to be licensed to sell the kits, mandating serial numbers on the components so the weapons could be tracked and adding background checks for would-be buyers.

Steven M. Dettelbach, the former director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who shepherded the regulation, urged the Trump administration and Congress to “fully support” the agency to implement the ghost gun regulations. With support from the administration, he said in a statement, “today’s decision can save lives.”

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Gun rights groups based their challenge to the regulations by claiming that the government had overstepped its bounds in regulating the gun kits because they did not meet the definition of firearms under the Gun Control Act of 1968.

Opponents of gun regulations argued that most people who bought the kits were hobbyists, not criminals. In legal filings, the groups argued that a majority of firearms used in crimes were traditional weapons that were manufactured professionally.

Lawyers for the government, arguing in October while President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was in office, said the guns kits should be regulated as firearms because they allowed “anyone with basic tools and access to internet video tutorials to assemble a functional firearm ‘quickly and easily’ — often, in a matter of minutes.”

During the oral argument in Bondi v. VanDerStok, No. 23-852, a majority of the justices had appeared to favor keeping the rules in place. At least two conservatives, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, raised sharp questions about arguments by the plaintiffs that the administration had overstepped its bounds.

The justices had wrestled with how best to draw analogies to the gun kits. Chief Justice Roberts seemed skeptical of attempts by the gun rights lawyers to say that people who put together the kits were similar to amateur car hobbyists, saying that the kits seemed to require much less effort to put together.

“Drilling a hole or two,” Chief Justice Roberts said, “doesn’t give the same sort of reward that you get as working on your car on the weekends.”

Justice Gorsuch returned to this point in the opinion, explaining that the gun kits could be considered weapons even though they were unfinished objects because “their intended function is clear.”

An author might ask for an opinion on her latest novel, Justice Gorsuch wrote, even though the person was referring to an unfinished draft. A friend might talk about a table he bought at IKEA, even though he had hours of assembly ahead of him.

In both cases, the justice wrote, “the intended function of the unfinished object is obvious to speaker and listener alike.”

The same, he said, was true for the ghost gun kits.

“Yes, perhaps a half-hour of work is required before anyone can fire a shot,” Justice Gorsuch wrote. “But even as sold, the kit comes with all necessary components, and its intended function as instrument of combat is obvious. Really, the kit’s name says it all: ‘Buy Build Shoot.’”

Like Justice Gorsuch, Justice Thomas also included photographs of gun kits to illustrate his point. But he came to the opposite conclusion.

Justice Thomas wrote that in his view, an object that “may readily be converted” into a gun would only qualify as a firearm if it was already a weapon.

“The ordinary meaning of ‘weapon’ does not include weapon-parts kits,” he wrote.

His point echoed a debate from the oral argument, when Justice Alito disputed the idea that the gun kits could count as firearms. Justice Alito made an analogy to cooking an omelet in his questions to the government’s lawyer.

As in, when do the components of a gun become a firearm?

“If I show you — I put out on a counter some eggs, some chopped-up ham, some chopped-up pepper and onions, is that a Western omelet?” Justice Alito asked.

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