Recent activities of federal judges

Federalsism
Checks and Balances



- Federal judge in Texas rules that disarming those under protective orders violates their Second Amendment rights.

A Texas federal judge declared it was unconstitutional to disarm someone who is under a protective order, setting into motion a likely legal fight over who can possess firearms — a move that advocates say could have wide-ranging impacts on gun access across the county.

U.S. District Judge David Counts, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, ruled last week that banning those under a protective order from possessing a gun infringes on their Second Amendment rights.

Judges who deem people a danger to family members or intimate partners can take the extra step to issue a protective order requiring people to relinquish the guns they already have. Federal law currently prohibits domestic abusers who are charged with a felony, misdemeanor or are under a protective order from possessing a gun.

The ruling comes months after a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case on the Second Amendment, the effects of which, legal experts say, are just beginning to be felt.

- U.S. can’t quickly expel migrants under pandemic-era health rule, federal judge says.

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the federal government from continuing to use an emergency health order known as Title 42 to immediately expel migrants at the southern border after they have entered the United States.

Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., ruled that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s use of Title 42 to prevent people from accessing the asylum process is “arbitrary and capricious” and a violation of the law because it was not implemented properly.

“It is unreasonable for the CDC to assume that it can ignore the consequences of any actions it chooses to take in the pursuit of fulfilling its goals, particularly when those actions included the extraordinary decision to suspend the codified procedural and substantive rights of noncitizens seeking safe harbor,” Sullivan wrote in his opinion.


- In latest challenge to student loan forgiveness program, a Texas judge blocks Biden’s policy.

A federal judge in North Texas ruled on Thursday that President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program is “unlawful,” the latest challenge to the policy that has seen several attacks from conservative groups.

U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman said in court files that he declared the loan forgiveness plan unlawful because Biden did not follow federal procedures to allow for public comment prior to the policy’s announcement.

In October, the Job Creators Network Foundation filed the lawsuit in the North Texas court on behalf of two borrowers who don’t qualify for all of the program’s benefits. Those borrowers disagreed with the program’s eligibility criteria and the lawsuit alleged that they could not voice their disagreement.