Hundreds sign amicus briefs in support of Maryland’s federal judges

Hundreds of lawyers and pro-democracy groups have signed amicus briefs in support of Maryland’s federal judges, who are facing an unprecedented lawsuit by the Trump administration over a standing order that seeks to preserve due process for people facing deportation.

Three amicus briefs, endorsed by groups across the political spectrum, support the judges.

America’s Future, a conservative group that offers networking and mentorship to young professionals, filed the only amicus brief in support of the executive branch’s lawsuit against the judiciary.

The Trump administration sued all 15 of Maryland’s federal judges, the court clerk and the court itself in June in an attempt to block a standing order signed in May by George Russell III, chief judge of the Maryland U.S. District Court. Russell’s order prevents the executive branch from deporting people for about two business days after they file a petition for writ of habeas corpus. The judges recently moved to dismiss the case.

The order has been used to pause deportations in 12 cases as of Tuesday, according to court records.

Eleven retired federal judges, who were appointed by both Republican and Democratic presidents, state in an amicus brief that the lawsuit “threatens the judicial role to its core.”

They referred to the standing order as a “common-place docket-management technique.”

“Indeed, amici — who have among them decades of judicial experience — have never seen nor been subject to such a lawsuit. And for good reason. As Defendants correctly argue in their opposition brief, this lawsuit is not even justiciable because it effectively is a suit by the United States against the United States.”

Lawyers Defending American Democracy and the Lawyers Society for the Rule of Law Institute, along with retired federal appellate Judge J. Michael Luttig — a prominent anti-Trump conservative who was appointed to the bench by President George H.W. Bush — also filed an amicus brief asking for the case to be tossed.

Those groups echoed the retired judges’ description of the order, referring to it as a “modest exercise of this Court’s inherent authority to manage its dockets and exercise its constitutional responsibilities.”

“Through precipitous deportations and concealment of information about where it is confining detainees, the government seeks to prevent detainees and deportees from accessing the courts and the courts from adjudicating their claims,” the groups state.

“The Standing Order provides a brief window during which this Court can inquire into the relevant facts, nothing more. It is a necessary element of the judiciary’s constitutional role as an equal branch of government.”

The Maryland State Bar Association declined to weigh in on the merits of the standing order itself, instead focusing on the Trump administration’s decision to sue the judges and the court itself, rather than appeal the order.

The MSBA, which was joined by 39 law firms and advocacy groups and 183 lawyers, argued there were multiple ways the administration could challenge the order, including challenging the use of the order in a specific defendant’s case.

“If the Government’s lawsuit is not dismissed, and this new procedure to challenge court orders is condoned, the effect on the legal profession will be significant,” their brief states.

The MSBA’s brief includes a string of questions about the consequences of judges becoming litigants.

“If this case is not dismissed, it will signal that it may be ‘lawful and ethical’ for attorneys to sue the presiding judge when a client disagrees with the judge’s ruling or standing order. Attorneys, in the exercise of their professional obligations, could then be required to advise their clients of the option to sue the judge upon receipt of an adverse ruling.”

America’s Future, the conservative group, is represented by Mississippi-based solo practitioner Stephen Stamboulieh. It echoed the administration’s assertion that the pauses required by the standing order are the same as injunctions, referring to the pauses as “abusive.”

The group claimed that the standing order is part of a “battle being fought to perpetuate the policies of the prior Administration by impeding the actions of the Executive Branch of Government under its current leadership.”

U.S. District Judge Thomas Cullen, of the Western District of Virginia, was assigned to hear the case because none of Maryland’s judges could do so. He rejected three individuals’ requests to intervene or to file amicus briefs because they were not relevant.