Middleboro Review and so on

  Pat Robertson Tried It While Campaigning. Will Trump Fare Any Better? But he shouldn’t. Joyce Vance Oct 6 The Eleventh Circuit moved up the date for oral argument in a case where two news organizations are asking the court to let them argue for the release of Volume II of Jack Smith’s special counsel's report. We discussed the situation and the need to have intervening parties in the case last week in this post: Volume II. Finally. Volume II is the report for the Mar-a-Lago classified documents prosecution. The new date, November 2, is one day before the midterm elections. The case is set for argument in the Elbert P. Tuttle Courthouse in Atlanta. The coffee in the lawyers’ ready room is always good, the bench is hot (the judges are well prepared and full of questions), and Donald Trump now says he can’t be there. Trump’s case is set for oral argument in Atlanta. We discussed this case, where the current issue on appeal is whether the news organizations should be permitted to in...

  The Week Ahead October 4, 2026 Joyce Vance Oct 4 Oh, the first Monday in October. I used to joyously await the start of a new term of the Supreme Court and the interesting (in a lawyerly way) issues that were about to consume us for the next nine months. New developments to discuss. Cases and analysis to parse. For a federal prosecutor, there was always something interesting happening. No more. Now, even though its active shadow docket has made the Court an ever-present feature of American life, without summers off, I approach the first Monday with an unsettled feeling. What will the Court do to us this year? It’s already taken away Roe v. Wade , allowed dark money to pervade our politics, given Trump a pass from prosecution for January 6, and permitted partisan gerrymanders. How much worse can it get? This term, there are some distinctly unpleasant possibilities. Everyone else is picking their favorites, or at least their top cases, for the term right now. Instead, I have my li...

Bloody Sunday Joyce Vance Mar 8 Today marks the 61st anniversary of Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965. The Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, march for voting rights was halted by Alabama state troopers and sheriffs who tear-gassed and beat the marchers. A trooper beat Future Georgia Congressman John Lewis in the head with a nightstick. Given the brutality of the attacks, he was lucky to end up with a concussion. As serious as that was, it could have been far worse. The national press reported what was happening in Selma to the rest of the country. The outrage it generated across the country was a pivotal moment in the struggle for civil rights. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed later that year. It created federal protection for voters and outlawed the supposed literacy tests that kept Black people from voting if they couldn’t answer ridiculous questions meant to exclude them from participation in elections—things like how many bubbles there were on a bar of soap or how many jelly beans...

  No More Benefit Of The Doubt Joyce Vance Mar 7 Last Sunday, we discussed a number of cases pending in front of federal district judges in Minneapolis. Friday night, one of them, Judge John Tunheim, dropped a decision that is well worth your time—even on a Friday night. It involves allegations from people detained by ICE that their property was seized and not returned to them. Another word for that might be theft, although one supposes it could also be the result of extraordinary carelessness. Federal law enforcement agents routinely collect, and subsequently return, the possessions of people they detain. But that isn’t happening here. Judge Tunheim felt so much urgency about the matter than he got his ruling out on a Friday night, not a typical time for a federal judge to be finishing up at work. But he decided it was time to deliver a reckoning to the Trump administration and apparently, didn’t want to delay.  His order   starts like this: “During Operation Metro Surg...