🤮BIDEN/GARLAND APPEAR HEADED FOR “VICTORY” @ SUPREMES OVER LONG-TIME RESIDENTS SEEKING GREEN CARDS — Progressives, Immigration Advocates, Dems Rebuffed As Biden Administration Goes “Full Stephen Miller” On Couple With Two Decades’ Residence,  USC Child! — Only Justice Sotomayor Speaks Up For “Better” Interpretation Of Statute, Immigrants Rights, Common Sense In The Law!

 

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/us-supreme-court-doubts-green-cards-some-protected-migrants-2021-04-19/

Andrew Chung reports for Reuters:

U.S. Supreme Court justices on Monday appeared reluctant to let people who have been allowed to stay in the United States on humanitarian grounds apply to become permanent residents if they entered the country illegally.

The justices heard arguments in an appeal by a married couple from El Salvador who were granted so-called Temporary Protected Status of a lower court ruling that barred their applications for permanent residency, also known as a green card, because of their unlawful entry.

The case could affect thousands of immigrants, many of whom have lived in the United States for years. President Joe Biden’s administration opposes the immigrants in the case. The dispute puts Biden, who has sought to reverse many of his Republican predecessor Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies, at odds with immigration advocacy groups and some of his fellow Democrats. read more

A federal law called the Immigration and Nationality Act generally requires that people seeking to become permanent residents have been “inspected and admitted” into the United States. At issue in the case is whether a grant of Temporary Protected Status, which gives the recipient “lawful status,” satisfies those requirements.

. . . .

Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor told Justice Department lawyer Michael Huston, “If you’re asking us to find the better reading of the statute, we should go by its terms: Those people have been admitted.”

. . . .

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Read the full article at the link.

Garland helps Biden deliver “tough noogies, go pound sand, your lives don’t matter” message to immigrants like Jose and Sonia and their supporters who might have had the illusion that better times were on the horizon with Biden’s election! Progressives find that when push comes to shove, Biden & Garland can be just as cruel, dumb, and counterproductive as Trump & Miller!

Any hope that advocates might have had of help, sympathy, or understanding for their green-card-qualified clients with decades of residence and citizen family members goes down the tubes early in Dem Administration. Biden-Harris humane rhetoric and promises prove just another illusion for progressives in Administration’s first High Court test!

But for Justice Sotomayor, the thinness of the Justices’ understanding of both immigration law and the human issues involved was alarming, yet basically predictable. What do a bunch of highly privileged, above the fray, judges who have never personally dealt with the stupidity, arbitrariness, and trauma of our immigration system, and never represented clients in Immigration Court, care about shutting hard working American residents, people of color, like Jose and Sonia, out of our system and disenfranchising them for no particular reason. The worst, most racially discriminatory “interpretations” are “available” to those judges, so why not use them? For them, it’s a wooden academic exercise played out with human lives that don’t matter because they are “the other.” Except for Sotomayor, going for the best, most practical, humane interpretation evidently never crossed the minds of these Justices.

As Justice Sotomayor correctly said: “If you’re asking us to find the better reading of the statute, we should go by its terms: Those people have been admitted.” 

It’s not rocket science. Just common sense, humanity, and a clear understanding of the effect of legal interpretations on human lives. At the Supreme Court level, most decisions represent a “choice” rather than a “mandate.” That’s where having Justices who neither care to understand nor have to live with the consequences of their decisions really hurts people of color, immigrants, asylum seekers, and others not in the “power structure!” Better judges for a better America!

Meanwhile, advocates and progressives should never underestimate the ability of Dem Administrations to screw up immigration policy. 

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-20-21

🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎🏻AMERICAN INJUSTICE: A COURT SUPREMELY WRONG FOR OUR TIME: Justices Who Oppose Equal Justice For All, View Refugees & Asylum Seekers As Subhuman, Are Incapable Of Consistent Moral Leadership, & Willingly Participate In & Hollowly Attempt To Justify The Bullying Of “The Other” Are Fueling America’s Race To The Bottom Under Trump! — “They believe these people do not deserve an iota of sympathy, let alone due process. That is already how many border agents viewed these immigrants: not as humans with rights, but as fraudulent parasites. The Supreme Court has now transformed that vision into law—and, in the process, allowed the executive to send more persecuted people to their deaths without even a meaningful day in court.”

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/06/supreme-court-asylum-deportations-thuraissigiam.html

From Slate:

JURISPRUDENCE

The Supreme Court Doesn’t See Asylum-Seekers as People — One week after saving DACA, the high court proved that its sympathies for immigrants seeking better lives are limited.

By DAHLIA LITHWICK and MARK JOSEPH STERN

JUNE 25, 20203:35 PM

Last Thursday, the Supreme Court saved more than 700,000 immigrants from the Trump administration’s nativist buzz saw. The court ensured that these immigrants, who were brought to the United States by their undocumented parents as children, would continue to be protected by an Obama administration policy called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, sparing them from deportation to countries many could not even remember. The court split 5–4, with Chief Justice John Roberts throwing his lot in with the liberals to find that Donald Trump’s rescission of DACA had been unlawful—largely because it had been carelessly effectuated, defended pretextually, but also because hundreds of thousands of young people had altered their lives in reliance on the promise that they would be immune from deportation.

In a key section of the majority opinion, Roberts highlighted the humanity of these young undocumented people, as was the hopes and dreams of their families: “Since 2012, DACA recipients have enrolled in degree programs, embarked on careers, started businesses, purchased homes, and even married and had children, all in reliance” on DACA, Roberts wrote, quoting from briefs in the case. “The consequences of the rescission … would ‘radiate outward’ to DACA recipients’ families, including their 200,000 U.S.-citizen children, to the schools where DACA recipients study and teach, and to the employers who have invested time and money in training them.” The chief justice evinced frustration that the Trump administration seemingly took none of those very human interests into account.

One week later, on Thursday morning, the high court proved that its sympathies for immigrants seeking better lives are limited. In a 7–2 ruling, the justices approved the Trump administration’s draconian interpretation of a federal law that limits courts’ ability to review deportation orders. This time around, the court did not note immigrants’ contributions to the nation or acknowledge their humanity in any way. Having last week treated one class of immigrants like actual people, the court on Thursday pivoted back to callous cruelty. All of the chief justice’s kind words about DACA recipients seemingly do not apply to immigrants who—according to the executive branch—do not deserve asylum.

Thursday’s case, Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam, involves an asylum-seeker from Sri Lanka named Vijayakumar Thuraissigiam who faces likely death if he is deported because he is Tamil. Thuraissigiam was apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol while trying to cross at the southern border in 2017. After an asylum officer and immigration judge rejected his claims, Thuraissigiam was slated for “expedited removal.” Federal law bars courts from reviewing that deportation order. But the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found the law unconstitutional as applied to Thuraissigiam under the Constitution’s suspension clause, which limits the government’s ability to restrict habeas corpus—the centuries-old right to contest detention before a judge.

At the Trump administration’s request, the Supreme Court reversed the 9th Circuit, with Justice Samuel Alito writing a maximalist majority opinion for the five conservatives and Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg proffering a narrower concurrence. Justice Sonia Sotomayor penned a lengthy, vivid dissent joined by Justice Elena Kagan that accused the majority of flouting more than a century of precedent and “purg[ing] an entire class of legal challenges to executive detention.” (In his own opinion, Alito dismissed Sotomayor’s criticisms as mere “rhetoric.”)

This outcome strips due process from immigrants seeking asylum, who now have even fewer rights to a fair adjudicatory process under an expedited system that already afforded them minimal protections. It will also embolden the Trump administration to speed up deportations for thousands of people with no judicial oversight. Under this now court-approved system, immigrants fleeing their home country must undergo a “credible fear” interview, at which they must explain to a federal officer why they qualify for asylum. (The Trump administration has allowed Customs and Border Protection agents—not trained asylum officers—to conduct credible fear interviews.) If the officer finds no “credible fear of persecution,” their supervisor reviews the determination, as does an immigration judge (who is not a traditional judge but rather an employee of the executive branch appointed by the attorney general). If these individuals find no credible fear, the immigrant is thrown into “expedited removal”—that is, swiftly deported in a matter of weeks. They may not contest the government’s “credible fear” determination before a federal court. It is this extreme rule that Thuraissigiam challenged as a violation of habeas corpus and due process.

Alito breezily dismissed Thuraissigiam’s individual claims by stripping a broad swath of constitutional rights from unauthorized immigrants. First, he declared that habeas corpus does not protect an immigrant’s ability to fight illegal deportation orders. Sotomayor fiercely contested this claim, citing an “entrenched line of cases” demonstrating that habeas has long protected the right of individuals—including immigrants—to challenge illegal executive actions in court. Second, Alito held that unauthorized immigrants who are already physically present in the United States have not actually “entered the country.” Thus, they have no due process right to challenge the government’s asylum determination. Sotomayor noted that this holding departs from more than a century of precedent by imposing distinctions drawn by modern immigration laws on the ancient guarantee of due process.

Alito not only waved away these galling consequences; he seemed to laugh at them.

The upshot of the decision will mean almost certain death for Thuraissigiam and others like him. Thuraissigiam faced brutal persecution in Sri Lanka, a fact Alito did not seem to understand at oral arguments. Various officials in the executive branch shrugged off that persecution. Thuraissigiam just wants an opportunity to prove to a federal judge that these officials violated the law by denying his asylum claim. Now, thanks to the Supreme Court, he cannot. Nor can the many immigrants thrown into expedited removal by the Trump administration, which has used the process as a tool to speed up deportations across the country. Just two days ago, a federal appeals court cleared the way for the government to expand expedited removal beyond immigrants intercepted near the border to those apprehended anywhere in the nation. The administration has shown little interest in carefully considering whom it’s deporting; now many of those decisions will be rubber-stamped by executive officers and left unscrutinized by the federal judiciary.

Alito not only waved away these galling consequences; he seemed to laugh at them. Not for a moment does he appear to believe that asylum-seekers may be genuinely in fear for their lives. Among the many bon mots dropped by Alito in his opinion, he wrote: “While [Thuraissigiam] does not claim an entitlement to release, the Government is happy to release him—provided the release occurs in the cabin of a plane bound for Sri Lanka.” Given that Thuraissigiam claims he will likely be tortured to death if he is sent back to Sri Lanka, it’s not clear that line means what he thinks it does. Throughout the opinion Alito refers to Thuraissigiam as either “alien” or “respondent” and appears simply incapable of imagining that his claims are truthful.

RECENTLY IN JURISPRUDENCE

It’s easy to miss the massive erosion of asylum-seekers’ rights in the victory last week around the triumph of DACA. But in some ways, it’s the most American outcome in the world to view DACA beneficiaries as more human because they have gone to school here and birthed children here, while scoffing at asylum-seekers, who, as part of a lengthy tradition under both constitutional and international law, simply ask the U.S. government to save their lives. Roberts, who seemed so attuned to the hardships of DACA recipients, joined Alito’s merciless opinion in full; in fact, the chief justice assigned the opinion to Alito, who has become the court’s staunchest crusader against immigrants’ rights.

The court’s split shows that a majority of justices think immigrants like Thuraissigiam are not the productive young people of the DACA case, with financial and familial ties to all that makes America great, but rather faceless masses cynically manipulating America’s generous asylum policy and overwhelming its immigration system. They believe these people do not deserve an iota of sympathy, let alone due process. That is already how many border agents viewed these immigrants: not as humans with rights, but as fraudulent parasites. The Supreme Court has now transformed that vision into law—and, in the process, allowed the executive to send more persecuted people to their deaths without even a meaningful day in court.

Support our independent journalism

 

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Imposing death sentences without fair hearings, or indeed any real hearings at all, is bad stuff. And, Justices who justify this behavior should not be on the bench at all.

Sadly, that applies just as much to the two so-called “liberal icons” who voted with Alito and four other sneering colleagues who seemed to actually glory in being able to dehumanize another soul with the audacity to fight for his life. Frankly, this stuff is right out of the Third Reich. Read a few of the German Judiciary’s opinions of the time and see how quickly, easily, naturally, and often happily Reich jurists “justified the unjustifiable and the unthinkable.”  I have no doubt that Sam Alito and some of his colleagues would have fit right in. How has American Justice gotten to this incredible “low point.”

I don’t know exactly what we can do about life-tenured judges who are unqualified for their jobs. Life tenure is there for a reason — to insure judicial independence overall, even in particular instances like this where it clearly does no such thing. And, with 200+ largely unqualified Trump appointees now on the Federal Bench, essentially “young deadwood,” the problem will get worse before it gets better.

The first step is to replace Trump and oust the GOP from the Senate. Then, methodically appoint only judges committed to equal justice for all, willing to stand up against abuses of justice by both the Executive and the Congress, and whose life experiences and legal work show an unswerving commitment to human rights and the rights of migrants to be treated as persons (fellow humans) under law.

It’s a national disgrace that with immigration and human rights the major issues clogging today’s Federal Courts, few, if any, Federal Judges have any experience representing asylum seekers in the Star Chambers known as “Immigration Courts” nor have they personally experienced the type of dehumanization, racism, torture, grotesque abuses, and unnecessary cruelty that they so unnecessarily, uncourageously, and glibly inflict on migrants and asylum seekers who indeed are the most vulnerable among us. If immigration and human rights are the pivotal issues of American justice, then we need to get Justices and judges on the bench who understand what they are doing and the dire human consequences of their actions (or inactions). 

The situation of today’s asylum seekers of color is not much different from that of others Americans of color whose legal and Constitutional rights were denied, and whose humanity was intentionally degraded, by a corrupt judiciary and a legal system that intentionally failed to make Constitutonal equal justice for all a reality rather than a cruel fiction .

A nation that doesn’t demand better judges will never rise above its own mistakes and failures. And a Federal Judiciary that so obviously and intentionally lacks diversity and humanity can never properly serve the national interest. 

Ditch the clueless, largely white, male “dudocracy” with their Ivy League degrees and not much else to offer. Appoint judges schooled in real life, who know what the law means in human terms and will use it to solve, rather than aggravate, inflame, or avoid, human problems! There are tons of such lawyers out there. We all know them. We need them to move from the “bullpen” to the Federal Benches, before it’s too late for everyone in America!

Folks, what we have here is “judicially-approved murder without trial.” It could also be called “extrajudicial killing.” Ugly, but brutally true! “The upshot of the decision will mean almost certain death for Thuraissigiam and others like him.” We should understand what’s happening, even if seven disingenuous and unqualified members of our highest court claim not to know or care what they are doing and refuse to acknowledge the real life consequences of their deep, dark, and disturbing intellectual corruption and their studied lack of human compassion, empathy, and decency.

Vote ‘Em Out, Vote ‘Em Out! It’s a Start On A Better Court, For America & For Humanity!

PWS

06-28-20

RELAX, Cabinet Members! — Supremes Say No Monetary Damages For Unconstitutional Acts! — Ziglar v. Abbasi

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-1358_6khn.pdf

The full opinion is at the above link.  Here’s the Court’s “Detailed Syllabus,” which, of course, is NOT part of the opinion:

Syllabus

ZIGLAR v. ABBASI ET AL.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR

THE SECOND CIRCUIT

No. 15–1358. Argued January 18, 2017—Decided June 19, 2017*

In the immediate aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Federal Government ordered hundreds of illegal aliens to be taken into custody and held pending a determination whether a particular detainee had connections to terrorism. Respondents, six men of Arab or South Asian descent, were detained for periods of three to six months in a federal facility in Brooklyn. After their release, they were removed from the United States. They then filed this putative class action against petitioners, two groups of federal officials. The first group consisted of former Attorney General John Ashcroft, for- mer Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller, and former Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner James Ziglar (Executive Officials). The second group consisted of the facili- ty’s warden and assistant warden Dennis Hasty and James Sherman (Wardens). Respondents sought damages for constitutional viola- tions under the implied cause of action theory adopted in Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388, alleging that peti- tioners detained them in harsh pretrial conditions for a punitive pur- pose, in violation of the Fifth Amendment; that petitioners did so be- cause of their actual or apparent race, religion, or national origin, in violation of the Fifth Amendment; that the Wardens subjected them to punitive strip searches, in violation of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments; and that the Wardens knowingly allowed the guards to abuse them, in violation of the Fifth Amendment. Respondents also brought a claim under 42 U. S. C. §1985(3), which forbids certain

——————

*Together with No. 15–1359, Ashcroft, Former Attorney General, et al. v. Abbasi et al., and No. 15–1363, Hasty et al. v. Abbasi et al., also on certiorari to the same court.

2

ZIGLAR v. ABBASI Syllabus

conspiracies to violate equal protection rights. The District Court dismissed the claims against the Executive Officials but allowed the claims against the Wardens to go forward. The Second Circuit af- firmed in most respects as to the Wardens but reversed as to the Ex- ecutive Officials, reinstating respondents’ claims.

Held: The judgment is reversed in part and vacated and remanded in part.

789 F. 3d 218, reversed in part and vacated and remanded in part. JUSTICE KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court, except as to

Part IV–B, concluding:
1. The limited reach of the Bivens action informs the decision

whether an implied damages remedy should be recognized here. Pp. 6–14.

(a) In 42 U. S. C. §1983, Congress provided a specific damages remedy for plaintiffs whose constitutional rights were violated by state officials, but Congress provided no corresponding remedy for constitutional violations by agents of the Federal Government. In 1971, and against this background, this Court recognized in Bivens an implied damages action to compensate persons injured by federal officers who violated the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures. In the following decade, the Court allowed Bivens-type remedies twice more, in a Fifth Amend- ment gender-discrimination case, Davis v. Passman, 442 U. S. 228, and in an Eighth Amendment Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause case, Carlson v. Green, 446 U. S. 14. These are the only cases in which the Court has approved of an implied damages remedy un- der the Constitution itself. Pp. 6–7.

(b) Bivens, Davis, and Carlson were decided at a time when the prevailing law assumed that a proper judicial function was to “pro- vide such remedies as are necessary to make effective” a statute’s purpose. J. I. Case Co. v. Borak, 377 U. S. 426, 433. The Court has since adopted a far more cautious course, clarifying that, when decid- ing whether to recognize an implied cause of action, the “determina- tive” question is one of statutory intent. Alexander v. Sandoval, 532 U. S. 275, 286. If a statute does not evince Congress’ intent “to create the private right of action asserted,” Touche Ross & Co. v. Redington, 442 U. S. 560, 568, no such action will be created through judicial mandate. Similar caution must be exercised with respect to damages actions implied to enforce the Constitution itself. Bivens is well- settled law in its own context, but expanding the Bivens remedy is now considered a “disfavored” judicial activity. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U. S. 662, 675.

When a party seeks to assert an implied cause of action under the Constitution, separation-of-powers principles should be central to the

Cite as: 582 U. S. ____ (2017) 3

Syllabus

analysis. The question is whether Congress or the courts should de- cide to authorize a damages suit. Bush v. Lucas, 462 U. S. 367, 380. Most often it will be Congress, for Bivens will not be extended to a new context if there are “ ‘special factors counselling hesitation in the absence of affirmative action by Congress.’ ” Carlson, supra, at 18. If there are sound reasons to think Congress might doubt the efficacy or necessity of a damages remedy as part of the system for enforcing the law and correcting a wrong, courts must refrain from creating that kind of remedy. An alternative remedial structure may also limit the Judiciary’s power to infer a new Bivens cause of action. Pp. 8–14.

2. Considering the relevant special factors here, a Bivens-type rem- edy should not be extended to the claims challenging the confinement conditions imposed on respondents pursuant to the formal policy adopted by the Executive Officials in the wake of the September 11 attacks. These “detention policy claims” include the allegations that petitioners violated respondents’ due process and equal protection rights by holding them in restrictive conditions of confinement, and the allegations that the Wardens violated the Fourth and Fifth Amendments by subjecting respondents to frequent strip searches. The detention policy claims do not include the guard-abuse claim against Warden Hasty. Pp. 14–23.

(a) The proper test for determining whether a claim arises in a new Bivens context is as follows. If the case is different in a mean- ingful way from previous Bivens cases decided by this Court, then the context is new. Meaningful differences may include, e.g., the rank of the officers involved; the constitutional right at issue; the extent of judicial guidance for the official conduct; the risk of disruptive intru- sion by the Judiciary into the functioning of other branches; or the presence of potential special factors not considered in previous Bivens cases. Respondents’ detention policy claims bear little resemblance to the three Bivens claims the Court has approved in previous cases. The Second Circuit thus should have held that this was a new Bivens context and then performed a special factors analysis before allowing this damages suit to proceed. Pp. 15–17.

(b)The special factors here indicate that Congress, not the courts, should decide whether a damages action should be allowed.

With regard to the Executive Officials, a Bivens action is not “a proper vehicle for altering an entity’s policy,” Correctional Services Corp. v. Malesko, 534 U. S. 61, 74, and is not designed to hold officers responsible for acts of their subordinates, see Iqbal, supra, at 676. Even an action confined to the Executive Officers’ own discrete con- duct would call into question the formulation and implementation of a high-level executive policy, and the burdens of that litigation could prevent officials from properly discharging their duties, see Cheney v.

4

ZIGLAR v. ABBASI Syllabus

United States Dist. Court for D. C., 542 U. S. 367, 382. The litigation process might also implicate the discussion and deliberations that led to the formation of the particular policy, requiring courts to interfere with sensitive Executive Branch functions. See Clinton v. Jones, 520 U. S. 681, 701.

Other special factors counsel against extending Bivens to cover the detention policy claims against any of the petitioners. Because those claims challenge major elements of the Government’s response to the September 11 attacks, they necessarily require an inquiry into na- tional-security issues. National-security policy, however, is the pre- rogative of Congress and the President, and courts are “reluctant to intrude upon” that authority absent congressional authorization. Department of Navy v. Egan, 484 U. S. 518, 530. Thus, Congress’ failure to provide a damages remedy might be more than mere over- sight, and its silence might be more than “inadvertent.” Schweiker v. Chilicky, 487 U. S. 412, 423. That silence is also relevant and telling here, where Congress has had nearly 16 years to extend “the kind of remedies [sought by] respondents,” id., at 426, but has not done so. Respondents also may have had available “ ‘other alternative forms of judicial relief,’ ” Minneci v. Pollard, 565 U. S. 118, 124, including in- junctions and habeas petitions.

The proper balance in situations like this, between deterring con- stitutional violations and freeing high officials to make the lawful de- cisions necessary to protect the Nation in times of great peril, is one for the Congress to undertake, not the Judiciary. The Second Circuit thus erred in allowing respondents’ detention policy claims to proceed under Bivens. Pp. 17–23.

3. The Second Circuit also erred in allowing the prisoner abuse claim against Warden Hasty to go forward without conducting the required special factors analysis. Respondents’ prisoner abuse alle- gations against Warden Hasty state a plausible ground to find a con- stitutional violation should a Bivens remedy be implied. But the first question is whether the claim arises in a new Bivens context. This claim has significant parallels to Carlson, which extended Bivens to cover a failure to provide medical care to a prisoner, but this claim nevertheless seeks to extend Carlson to a new context. The constitu- tional right is different here: Carlson was predicated on the Eighth Amendment while this claim was predicated on the Fifth. The judi- cial guidance available to this warden with respect to his supervisory duties was less developed. There might have been alternative reme- dies available. And Congress did not provide a standalone damages remedy against federal jailers when it enacted the Prison Litigation Reform Act some 15 years after Carlson. Given this Court’s ex- pressed caution about extending the Bivens remedy, this context

Cite as: 582 U. S. ____ (2017) 5

Syllabus

must be regarded as a new one. Pp. 23–26.
4. Petitioners are entitled to qualified immunity with respect to re-

spondents’ claims under 42 U. S. C. §1985(3). Pp. 26–32.
(a) Assuming that respondents’ allegations are true and well pleaded, the question is whether a reasonable officer in petitioners’ position would have known the alleged conduct was an unlawful con- spiracy. The qualified-immunity inquiry turns on the “objective legal reasonableness” of the official’s acts, Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800, 819, “assessed in light of the legal rules that were ‘clearly estab- lished’ at the time [the action] was taken,” Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U. S. 635, 639. If it would have been clear to a reasonable officer that the alleged conduct “was unlawful in the situation he confront- ed,” Saucier v. Katz, 533 U. S. 194, 202, the defendant officer is not entitled to qualified immunity. But if a reasonable officer might not have known that the conduct was unlawful, then the officer is enti-

tled to qualified immunity. Pp. 27–29.
(b) Here, reasonable officials in petitioners’ positions would not

have known with sufficient certainty that §1985(3) prohibited their joint consultations and the resulting policies. There are two reasons. First, the conspiracy is alleged to have been among officers in the same Department of the Federal Government. And there is no clear- ly established law on the issue whether agents of the same executive department are distinct enough to “conspire” with one another within the meaning of 42 U. S. C. §1985(3). Second, open discussion among federal officers should be encouraged to help those officials reach con- sensus on department policies, so there is a reasonable argument that §1985(3) liability should not extend to cases like this one. As these considerations indicate, the question whether federal officials can be said to “conspire” in these kinds of situations is sufficiently open that the officials in this suit would not have known that §1985(3) applied to their discussions and actions. It follows that rea- sonable officers in petitioners’ positions would not have known with any certainty that the alleged agreements were forbidden by that statute. Pp. 29–32.

KENNEDY, J., delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II, III, IV–A, and V, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and THOMAS and ALITO, JJ., joined, and an opinion with respect to Part IV–B, in which ROB- ERTS, C. J., and ALITO, J., joined. THOMAS, J., filed an opinion concur- ring in part and concurring in the judgment. BREYER, J., filed a dis- senting opinion, in which GINSBURG, J., joined. SOTOMAYOR, KAGAN, and GORSUCH, JJ., took no part in the consideration or decision of the cases.

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It was an odd opinion in that only six Justices participated, so the majority was 4-2. The majority opinion was Justice Kennedy, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas and Alito. But, the Chief Justice and Justices Thomas and Alito also wrote or joined in separate concurring opinions. Justice Breyer wrote a dissenting opinion in which Justice Ginsburg joined.

Justices Sotomayer, Kagan, and Gorsuch sat this one out. Justice Sotomayor previously was a Judge on the Second Circuit at the time this case was before that court. Justice Kagan worked on the case as Solicitor General. And, Justice Gorsuch arrived too late to participate in the argument and deliberations.

However, I doubt that there would be a difference in result with all nine Justices voting. Justice Gorsuch almost certainly would side with the majority opinion’s “strict construction” of liability. Even assuming that Justices Sotomayor and Kagan would side with the dissenters, there would still be a 5-4 majority for the approach set forth in Justice Kennedy’s opinion.

Reading between the lines here, I think that the whole Bivens concept is “on the rocks” before this Court.  The current, more conservative, Court clearly wishes Bivens were never decided and wants to limit it essentially to its facts. With a GOP President, any future appointments are likely to turn the tide even more solidly for overruling or strictly limiting Bivens.

I must admit to having mixed feelings. As a Government Senior Executive I was subject to several (totally unfounded) Bivens suits. I was greatly relieved and totally delighted when the doctrines of absolute and implied immunity got me dismissed in my private capacity. I also took out a standard Government approved “Bivens liability insurance policy” just in case.

On the other hand, I’d have to say that the specter of being involved in Bivens litigation was something that I and almost all of the other senior government officials whom I advised and worked with, up to and including Cabinet officers, had Bivens in the back of our “collective minds” in determining actions and policies. So, there was at least some “deterrent value” in the Bivens case. Moreover, it was an effective tool for pointing out the necessity for line enforcement officers, whom I often trained or advised, to keep their actions within clearly established constitutional boundries.

The Court suggests that it would be best for Congress to address this subject. But, Bivens has been around for many years and Congress has never addressed it. So, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Interestingly, among those high-ranking officials who were relieved of any liability in this case were former Attorney General John Ashcroft and then FBI Director Robert Mueller.

PWS

06-19-17