Steve Vladeck
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stevevladeck.bsky.social
Steve Vladeck
@stevevladeck.bsky.social
240K followers 1K following 2.4K posts
@ksvesq.bsky.social’s husband; father of daughters; professor @georgetownlaw.bsky.social; #SCOTUS nerd @CNN.com

Bio: www.law.georgetown.edu/faculty/stephen-i-vladeck

"One First" Supreme Court newsletter: stevevladeck.com

Book: tinyurl.com/shadowdocketpb
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stevevladeck.bsky.social
An early Monday morning order from Justice Jackson in the SNAP case—ordering DOJ to file any further briefs responding to last night's First Circuit ruling by 4:00 this afternoon, and allowing the plaintiffs to respond by 8:00 a.m. tomorrow.

For how we got here: www.stevevladeck.com/p/191-taking...
An order from Justice Jackson ordering briefs on the latest developments in the SNAP case.
November 10, 2025 at 1:21 PM
stevevladeck.bsky.social
#BREAKING: Justice Jackson has issued an "administrative" stay, temporarily pausing a district court order that would've required the USDA to continue using contingency funds to pay SNAP benefits.

The stay expires 48 hours after the First Circuit rules on USDA's request for a stay pending appeal.
November 8, 2025 at 2:28 AM
stevevladeck.bsky.social
If you prefer this graphically:
A chart listing the details of all of the emergency applications filed in the Supreme Court by the Trump administration, and when and how the Court ruled.
November 6, 2025 at 8:39 PM
stevevladeck.bsky.social
#BREAKING: #SCOTUS grants yet another stay to the Trump administration, putting back into place a new State Department policy requiring passports to display their bearers' biological sex at birth.

Justice Jackson (joined by Justices Sotomayor and Kagan) once again dissents.
November 6, 2025 at 8:18 PM
stevevladeck.bsky.social
Things must’ve gone *very* wrong for me to end up here.
A picture of an empty dais at a conference hosted by the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
October 31, 2025 at 4:25 PM
stevevladeck.bsky.social
#BREAKING: In the Illinois National Guard case, #SCOTUS is asking for additional briefing on one of the key substantive questions (and one flagged by my Georgetown colleague @martylederman.bsky.social in an amicus brief):

Among other things, this means no ruling until *at least* the week of 11/17.
October 29, 2025 at 7:31 PM
stevevladeck.bsky.social
New paper from me offering a holistic assessment of #SCOTUS's behavior on Trump-related emergency applications thus far:

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

TL;DR: The ultimate theme of the decisions is a majority bent on preserving *their* supremacy, as such—which is likely to only be self-defeating.
Abstract This essay, prepared for the 2025 volume of The Supreme Court Review, seeks to provide a holistic account of the Supreme Court’s behavior on emergency applications relating to the Trump administration during its October 2024 Term. As it demonstrates, the justices in those cases not only flouted the traditional standards for emergency relief; they exhibited repeated and sustained disrespect for both lower courts and Congress, enabling the executive branch to act in defiance of countless statutory restrictions; of settled constitutional understandings; and even of coercive district court mandates, all with dramatic (and deleterious) real-world consequences. As the Alien Enemies Act cases illustrate, the takeaway is not that the Court always ruled for President Trump; it's that it pushed back only when its mandates were on the line. The upshot is an attempt by the Supreme Court to preserve its supremacy, as such. But such an approach, the essay concludes, is likely to be self-defeating. In the short term, it will encourage the executive branch to take ever-more-aggressive actions against both the people and the lower courts. And in the long term, it will not just further weaken Congress and the lower courts; it will further erode public confidence in the judiciary as an institution. Together, the increased power and momentum of the executive and the decreased credibility of (and respect for) the courts will make it that much harder for the Supreme Court to wield the supremacy it's protecting, even when it wants to.
October 29, 2025 at 1:20 PM
stevevladeck.bsky.social
I haven't posted an updated version of this chart in a little while, so here's where things stand with the 30 emergency applications filed by the Department of Justice during the second Trump administration:
A screenshot of an Excel spreadsheet with details about each of the Trump administration's 30 emergency applications in the Supreme Court, and how (and when) the Court ruled on them.
October 28, 2025 at 9:38 PM
stevevladeck.bsky.social
Here’s a link to the order:

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

As Josh notes, it’s entirely non-substantive, and doesn’t change the status quo on the ground (because Judge Immergut’s second TRO remains in effect).

In other words, folks shouldn’t read much into this one way or the other.
October 24, 2025 at 11:46 PM
stevevladeck.bsky.social
Despite holding out Costa Rica as an option, DOJ has just publicly filed a notice in Abrego Garcia suggesting that it's identified the Republic of Liberia as the next country that's willing to accept Abrego Garcia (after it was rejected by/unable to make a deal with Ghana, Eswatini, & Uganda).

FFS.
Federal Defendants hereby provide notice that they have identified a new country for removal that has agreed to accept Petitioner: the Republic of Liberia. Although Petitioner has identified more than twenty countries that he purports to fear would persecute or torture him if he were removed there, Liberia is not on that list. Liberia is a thriving democracy and one of the United States’s closest partners on the African continent. Since its founding more than two centuries ago by American émigrés, Liberia has maintained strong connections to the United States. Indeed, Liberia named its capital, Monrovia, in honor of a U.S. president; its national language is English, the same as the country in which Petitioner has resided for the last several years; and it modeled its constitution, which has been in place since 1986 and which provides robust protections for human rights, in large part on the U.S. Constitution. Liberia also is committed to the humane treatment of refugees. This commitment is reflected in President Joseph Boakai’s February 2025 Executive Order, which aimed to enhance protections for refugees and vulnerable populations in Liberia. Federal Defendants have received diplomatic assurances regarding the treatment of thirdcountry individuals removed to Liberia from the United States and are making the final necessary arrangements for Petitioner’s removal. Defendants expect to provide the requisite formal notice of the new designation of Liberia to Petitioner later today. Once that notice is provided to Petitioner, Defendants will follow the procedures set forth in the policy for third-country removals previously submitted to this Court. Defendants expect to be able to effectuate removal as soon as October 31.
October 24, 2025 at 2:16 PM
stevevladeck.bsky.social
#SCOTUS denies a stay of execution to Alabama death-row prisoner Anthony Boyd, over *quite* a dissent from the three Democratic appointees, written by Justice Sotomayor, about the problems with nitrogen hypoxia as a method of execution:

www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...
Take out your phone, go to the clock app, and find the stopwatch. Click start. Now watch the seconds as they climb. Three seconds come and go in a blink. At the thirtysecond mark, your mind starts to wander. One minute passes, and you begin to think that this is taking a long time. Two . . . three . . . . The clock ticks on. Then, finally, you make it to four minutes. Hit stop. Now imagine for that entire time, you are suffocating. You want to breathe; you have to breathe. But you are strapped to a gurney with a mask on your face pumping your lungs with nitrogen gas. Your mind knows that the gas will kill you. But your body keeps telling you to breathe. That is what awaits Anthony Boyd tonight. For two to four minutes, Boyd will remain conscious while the State of Alabama kills him in this way. When the gas starts flowing, he will immediately convulse. He will gasp for air. And he will thrash violently against the restraints holding him in place as he experiences this intense psychological torment until he finally loses consciousness. Just short of twenty minutes later, Boyd will be declared dead. Boyd asks for the barest form of mercy: to die by firing squad, which would kill him in seconds, rather than by a torturous suffocation lasting up to four minutes. The Constitution would grant him that grace. My colleagues do not. This Court thus turns its back on Boyd and on the Eighth Amendment’s guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment. Because the Court should have instead granted a stay of execution and Boyd’s petition for certiorari, I respectfully dissent.
October 23, 2025 at 8:49 PM
stevevladeck.bsky.social
Divided Ninth Circuit panel stays injunction against President Trump’s federalization of National Guard troops in Portland:

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Judge Graber, who is no firebrand, wrote quite a dissent—encouraging en banc review and some patience on the part of the public:
We have come to expect a dose of political theater in the political branches, drama designed to rally the base or to rile or intimidate political opponents. We also may expect there a measure of bending sometimes breaking the truth. By design of the Founders, the judicial branch stands apart. We rule on facts, not on supposition or conjecture, and certainly not on fabrication or propaganda. I urge my colleagues on this court to act swiftly to vacate the majority's order before the illegal deployment of troops under false pretenses can occur. Above all, I ask those who are watching this case unfold to retain faith in our judicial system for just a little longer.
October 20, 2025 at 7:24 PM
stevevladeck.bsky.social
#ICYMI: Yesterday’s “One First” summarized just how weak the defenses of the Supreme Court’s behavior on Trump-related emergency applications have been—and explained what someone would have to do to *actually* defend all that the Court’s majority has been doing:

www.stevevladeck.com/p/183-the-mi...
After all, maybe one can defend the Court granting emergency relief more often than ever before and in cases with far greater real-world (and structural) impacts. And maybe one can defend the Court altering (if not completely scrapping) the traditional balance of the equities in these cases. But does that defense extend to the Court doing so especially in cases in which President Trump is a party-and no others? And does it extend to the Court doing all of this without usually providing written explanations of what it is doing-or why? And even if the answer is somehow "yes," does it also extend to the Court doing all of this, not usually explaining what it's doing or why, and nevertheless accusing lower courts who fail to read the justices' minds of "defying" the Court? I have a very hard time believing that anyone can genuinely make it through even three of those sentences with a coherent defense of what the Supreme Court has done over the past seven months-let alone all five of them. I'd love to see such an argument, if it exists, but I haven't been-and won't be-holding my breath.
October 14, 2025 at 11:41 AM
stevevladeck.bsky.social
Today’s “One First” looks at how #SCOTUS and its defenders have responded to criticisms of the Court’s behavior in Trump cases either by knocking down straw men or by attacking the critics—without meaningfully defending what the Court is actually *doing*:

www.stevevladeck.com/p/183-the-mi...
After all, maybe one can defend the Court granting emergency relief more often than ever before and in cases with far greater real-world (and structural) impacts. And maybe one can defend the Court altering (if not completely scrapping) the traditional balance of the equities in these cases. But does that defense extend to the Court doing so especially in cases in which President Trump is a party—and no others? And does it extend to the Court doing all of this without usually providing written explanations of what it is doing—or why? And even if the answer is somehow “yes,” does it also extend to the Court doing all of this, not usually explaining what it’s doing or why, and nevertheless accusing lower courts who fail to read the justices’ minds of “defying” the Court? I have a very hard time believing that anyone can genuinely make it through even three of those sentences with a coherent defense of what the Supreme Court has done over the past seven months—let alone all five of them. I’d love to see such an argument, if it exists, but I haven’t been—and won’t be—holding my breath.
October 13, 2025 at 11:31 AM
stevevladeck.bsky.social
So the argument is that Congress giving *judges* this power ≠ Congress giving *courts* this power?

Umm…
October 5, 2025 at 7:36 PM
stevevladeck.bsky.social
The specific provision is section 2 of the Calling Forth Act of 1792:

www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/...

For more background on the judicial review provision, and on how President Washington expressly relied upon it in putting down the Whiskey Rebellion, see:

www.yalelawjournal.org/pdf/427_pa9s...
October 5, 2025 at 2:58 PM
stevevladeck.bsky.social
The very first statute authorizing domestic use of the military during domestic emergencies, enacted in 1792 by a Congress full of the same folks who wrote and ratified the Constitution, expressly provided for judicial review in certain circumstances *before* the President could even send troops.
October 5, 2025 at 2:58 PM
stevevladeck.bsky.social
From Friday's #SCOTUS ruling in the Venezuela TPS case: "Although the posture of the case has changed, the parties’ legal arguments and relative harms generally have not. The same result that we reached in May is appropriate here."

One problem: the May ruling didn't *analyze* those arguments/harms:
A screenshot of page 1 of the Supreme Court's October 3 grant of a stay in the Venezuela TPS case, the only analysis of which provides that "Although the posture of the case has changed, the parties’ legal arguments and relative harms generally have not. The same result that we reached in May is appropriate here." A screenshot of the Supreme Court's May 19 order in the Venezuela TPS case, which includes no analysis whatsoever. The boilerplate language reads as follows: The application for stay presented to Justice Kagan and by her referred to the Court is granted. The March 31, 2025 order entered by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, case No. 3:25-cv-1766, is stayed pending the disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, if such a writ is timely sought. Should certiorari be denied, this stay shall terminate automatically. In the event certiorari is granted, the stay shall terminate upon the sending down of the judgment of this Court. This order is without prejudice to any challenge to Secretary Noem's February 3, 2025 vacatur notice insofar as it purports to invalidate EADs, Forms I-797, Notices of Action, and Forms I-94 issued with October 2, 2026 expiration dates. See 8 U. S. C. §1254a(d)(3). Justice Jackson would deny the application.
October 4, 2025 at 10:15 AM
stevevladeck.bsky.social
It's worth asking how differently things might look on the ground right now if #SCOTUS hadn't eviscerated Bivens—and made it all-but impossible to bring damages suits against federal officers (like ICE agents) who violate our constitutional rights.

This is from my rebuttal in Hernández v. Mesa:
I do want to go back to putting this case in the broader context because I think it's important to understand how we got here. Historically, the whole way that the tort liability regime worked for government misconduct was that this Court and state courts looked to existing common law causes of action and focused on immunity defenses as the way of calibrating the harm that citizens and others faced when injured by government officers against the need to protect officers acting in good faith, back to Judge Hand in Gregoire versus Biddle. The Court struck this balance by fashioning immunity defenses where the fight would be over whether the officer was entitled to immunity or not. And for law enforcement officers specifically, this Court has long rejected the argument that there should be any context in which law enforcement officers, because of the frequency with which they interact with average individuals, because of the nature of their interactions, because of the powers they have to search, to seize, to arrest in this context, to use lethal force, did not justify absolute immunity and instead justified a more narrower, qualified kind of immunity for those most likely to come face-to-face with private citizens. Distilled to its simplest, the government's position in this case is that officers in what is self-described as the nation's largest law enforcement agency should have a functional absolute immunity at least where foreign nationals are concerned. And our submission is that that is not consistent with how this Court has always understood the relationship between causes of action and immunity defenses in this context. It is not required by any of this Court's Bivens decisions. It does not abide by this Court's suggestion in Abbasi that there are strong reasons and powerful reasons to retain Bivens in this context. And it would eliminate the one deterrence that is meaningfully available to ensure that officers in the nation's largest law enforcement agency are complying with the law.
October 2, 2025 at 5:47 PM
stevevladeck.bsky.social
#BREAKING: #SCOTUS punts in the Lisa Cook case, deferring resolution of Trump’s emergency application seeking to remove Cook from the Federal Reserve Board pending argument on the application in January 2026.

Cook stays on the Board for now:
October 1, 2025 at 2:49 PM
stevevladeck.bsky.social
Over no public dissents, #SCOTUS denies a stay of execution to Florida death-row inmate Victor Jones, who is scheduled to be executed this evening:
September 30, 2025 at 6:12 PM
stevevladeck.bsky.social
Alas, it’s time to remind everyone else about footnote 6 of Justice Gorsuch’s West Virginia v. EPA concurrence:

www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21p...
September 30, 2025 at 2:04 AM
stevevladeck.bsky.social
Got this journal as a birthday present from one of my best friends.

What can I say? He gets me.
Picture of small notebook the cover of which says “Things the Supreme Court has done to piss me off.”
September 28, 2025 at 3:02 PM
stevevladeck.bsky.social
In non-Trump #SCOTUS emergency application news, the full Court has *granted* New Jersey Transit's request to put off (potentially forever) a trial in the case in which the Court had already agreed to resolve its sovereign immunity. (Justice Sotomayor had issued an "administrative" stay last week.)
Order from Supreme Court granting a stay of the pending trial in the New Jersey Transit case.
September 19, 2025 at 7:37 PM
stevevladeck.bsky.social
#SCOTUS denies a stay of execution to Florida death-row inmate David Pittman—who’s scheduled to be executed tomorrow. There were no public dissents.
Order denying stay of execution to David Pittman.
September 16, 2025 at 8:35 PM