The Supreme Court does one good thing on immigration, which made Sam Alito BIG MAD. And although the administration has been stymied (for now) in its efforts to rendition detainees out of the country with no notice, the Supreme Court did allow the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans. Then, since we all need a good chuckle, we spend some time pointing and laughing at California’s plan to outsource the bar exam to an AI chatbot. And in the patreon bonus, we describe how one of America’s worst trial court judges just tried to overrule the Supreme Court.

Links:

Alito Gets Fragged in Supreme Court Order

https://www.lawandchaospod.com/p/alito-gets-fragged-in-scotus-order

New York Times, “Emil Bove, Top Justice Dept. Official, Is Considered For Circuit Court Nomination”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/us/politics/emil-bove-circuit-court-federal-appeals.html?unlocked_article_code=1.IU8.KLV8.yndwN6PJV_HE

Noem v. National TPS Alliance et al. [SCOTUS Miscellaneous order]

https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/051925zr1_5h26.pdf

Washington Post, “Trump Justice Dept. considers removing key check on lawmaker prosecutions”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/05/17/trump-justice-department-prosecutions/

State of Texas v. EEOC order (Kacsmaryk)

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txnd.393489/gov.uscourts.txnd.393489.59.0.pdf

DOJ OCR Letter Harmeet Dhillon to Brandon Johnson

https://www.justice.gov/crt/media/1400811/dl?inline

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Today, Liz and Andrew interview Prof. Leah Litman about her book Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes. And, as if to prove the point, the Supreme Court today entertained absolutely nonsense arguments in the birthright citizenship cases about how district courts can’t issue the kind of injunctions they’ve issued for the past two centuries because it would make Trump sad.

Links:

Leah Litman’s Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes

https://www.amazon.com/Lawless-Supreme-Conservative-Grievance-Theories/dp/1668054620/

Show Links:

https://www.lawandchaospod.com/

BlueSky: @LawAndChaosPod

Threads: @LawAndChaosPod

Twitter: @LawAndChaosPod

Meta thinks that if you steal tens of millions of books, the value of each individual theft rounds down to zero. Is that the law? (No.) Also, the Qatari Royal family wants to give Donald Trump a half-billion-dollar plane and make the US government pay to renovate it. Turns out, that hasn’t been legal for more than two hundred years, but who’s counting? Oh, and the administration arrested the Mayor of Newark. Rumeysa Ozturk is free, though, so it’s not all bad news.

Links:

Ozturk v. Hyde

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69845539/ozturk-v-hyde/

W.M.M. v. Trump (Alien Enemies Act case in Northern District of Texas)

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69898198/wmm-v-donald-j-trump

US v. Baraka

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70242142/united-states-v-baraka/

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https://www.lawandchaospod.com/

BlueSky: @LawAndChaosPod

Threads: @LawAndChaosPod

Twitter: @LawAndChaosPod