The Enlightenment

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Welcome to The Judiciary at Noon. Take a break from work to get an update on the oft-neglected third branch of the United States government, the judicial branch.

The series covers any updates to the federal judiciary, including any new judges confirmed, any deaths, resignations, or retirements from the courts, and any new vacancies that have occurred. It includes political analysis at the very end. This post covers the last month

Confirmations

No judges were confirmed for the month spanning March 21, 2025 to April 17, 2025.

Vacancies

• Apr. 15, 2025: Judge Sharion Marie Aycock of the Northern District of Mississippi assumed senior status, opening up a vacancy on the court.

59 vacancies remain on the federal judiciary, an increase from 58 a month ago.

Retirements, Deaths, and Resignations

• Mar. 30, 2025: Senior Judge Robert Edward Jones of the District of Oregon died at the age of 97. He had been an H. W. Bush appointee.
• Apr. 1, 2025: Senior Judge James Edward Shadid of the Central District of Illinois retired from the court.

Other

Chief Judges

• Apr. 10, 2025: Judge Matthew Hillel Solomson, a Trump appointee, became the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Federal Claims. He is succeeding Judge Elaine Debra Kaplan as Chief Judge. Judge Kaplan was appointed to the court by Obama and designated Chief Judge by Biden.

Analysis

The blog, ladies and gentlemen, is not over.

First of all, Happy Easter to those who celebrate.

I return from a month-long hiatus to see that, actually, there haven’t been all that many changes in the federal judiciary.

With Judge Aycock taking senior status, the Northern District of Mississippi has formed an active Democratic plurality, with just one active Democrat serving and two vacancies. But I have a feeling that won’t last long.

I had thought that Trump was going to announce the first nominations of his second term. I was sure of it, last week, Thursday, April 17th, was when we’d get the first batch. It was not so. Assuming Trump is going to nominate judges on a similar timeframe as his first administration, then, I would look at May 8th as a likely date. That was the date in 2017 when Trump made his first round of appointments.

A lot has happened over the past month in judicial news. Honestly, I don’t keep close track of all the cases. The trend is very clear: judges in the United States, regardless of appointing President, ideology, age, background, gender, race, or even favorite color are unanimously pushing back against Trump’s various policies.

Well, nearly unanimously. The last month has also seen the first judicial victories of the Trump administration. On April 18, the D.C. Circuit halted DC District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg’s contempt charge against President Trump; and on April 9, Fourth Circuit allows federal agencies to continue firing certain employees.

On March 28, the D.C. Circuit allows the removal of Gwynne Wilcox as member of the National Labor Relations Board; on April 7, the D.C. Circuit meets en banc and reinstates Wilcox by a vote of 7 to 4; then the Supreme Court on April 10 pauses that order and Wilcox is off the NLRB again.

These cases highlight the influence of Trump’s judges. In all of these cases, not one of Trump’s appointees ruled against him. Trump appointees Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao halted Boasberg’s order; Trump-appointed Allison Jones Rushing of the Fourth Circuit joined a Reagan appointee in allowing federal agencies to resume firing workers; and Trump’s third D.C. Circuit pick, Justin Walker, sided with H.W. Bush appointee Karen Henderson to stop the reinstatement of Wilcox. All three Trump D.C. Circuit picks plus Henderson voted in the minority not to reinstate Wilcox on April 7.

Perhaps the biggest case this last month, however, was the unanimous April 10 Supreme Court ruling in Noem v. Abrego Garcia that the United States government should quote “facilitate” the return to the United States of a man by the name of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia. Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador when the government erroneously believed him to be a member of the MS-13 gang. He is not.

A lot of pundits are making it out to be the Supreme Court against the Trump administration. Is it really? I got the exact opposite impression. In the decision (which is unsigned), the author explicitly states that Maryland District Judge Paula Xinis went too far when she said the government must “effectuate” the return of Abrego Garcia. Here’s a quote from the order:

The District Court should clarify its directive,
with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive
Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.

“The courts need to show more deference to the Executive Branch” doesn’t sound like a slam dunk to me. But all this nitpicking over words aside, what the hell does “facilitate” even mean? Seriously, what does facilitate mean? If there is a failed attempt to secure Abrego Garcia, doesn’t that count? What if the U.S. invades El Salvador and gets him that way; isn’t that “facilitating” a release?

I’m writing this, and I’m getting angrier and angrier about all this bullshit over meaningless rhetoric amongst our judicial branch. It’s “facilitate”, not “effectuate”! Seriously? Is this what the highly prestigious Supreme Court is wasting its time on? Doing grammar suggestions for lower courts?

None of this is the main point. The main point is the now Trump doesn’t appear to be facilitating or effectuating anything regarding Abrego Garcia. Trump has said he won’t return Abrego Garcia. In fact, he’s mocking Abrego Garcia and continuing to claim he’s a member of MS-13 based on the testimony of an anonymous informant and a police officer claiming Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13 because he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie with pictures of money on it after Abrego Garcia was arrested for “loitering”. I’m not making this up.

In other words, Trump is defying court orders.

Which makes me depressed. A while ago, maybe it was my last post, in fact, I talked about how Democrats really screwed some of their judicial nominations in the last months of Biden’s presidency. Looking back now, would any of it really mattered?

Let’s say there were five more liberal circuit appeals judges. Even Adeel Mangi made it onto the bench. There are two more judges on the Southern District of New York and a Democrat judge in the Southern District of California. Would any of it matter if the President simply doesn’t obey court rulings?

Let’s pretend every judge in the country was a liberal for argument’s sake. Would it matter if the President simply doesn’t obey court rulings?

The worst of it all is that judges are desperate not to let the facade slip. Remember, court rulings are not enforceable by an army and rely on the honor system; Presidents have to choose to obey them. Historically, most Presidents have obeyed court rulings; we now have a President who is not.

So to maintain their “prestige” I fear courts may simply rule how Trump wants them to make it seem like they have power and respect when they don’t.

What to make of this, I don’t know. I don’t always agree with courts, but I think the concept of the independent judiciary has been one of the best developments in liberal democratic government in the last few centuries. To see it go the way of the dodo is, indeed, very troubling.

SIGN-OFF

That’s it for this week’s The Judiciary at Noon. This has been Anthony Myrlados.