Obama's immigration actions ruled unconstitutional by Penn judge

[SteveRogers]

Lol, just skimmed over this. Obama's executive order doesn't have anything to do with this case. It doesn't even sound like the defendant here raised the issue of the new policy in the case. The judge just on his own initiative asked the parties to brief the issue of whether Obama's immigration actions were relevant to the case. 

This judge be trollin'. This won't have any impact on anything.

[SteveRogers]

What's the next level up? I assume there's a Democratic judge or Democratic staffed Appeals Court that would review the case.

This is rather unlikely to be appealed.

[SteveRogers]

This "judge" seems more interested in fame than actually performing his duties.

No kidding. The immigrant defendant in question already plead guilty before the judge randomly ordered the parties to argue this issue. He's literally just making the poor guy and his lawyer (probably a public defender) show up to random nonsensical hearings that have no bearing on the case. Neither side is even challenging Obama's executive order, the judge's opinion already concluded that regardless of the constitutionality the order almost certainly doesn't pertain to this defendant, and yet at the end of this decision he orders the parties to show up for another round of "arguments" on this issue.

[SteveRogers]

What's the next level up? I assume there's a Democratic judge or Democratic staffed Appeals Court that would review the case.

This is rather unlikely to be appealed.

Wait, what? How can it not be appealed?

So the deal is that there's not really anything to appeal. The criminal defendant here had already plead guilty. Then the judge on his own initiative asked the parties to argue whether the executive order impacted the case in any way. The judge's opinion concludes that (1) the executive order is unconstitutional, and (2) even if it were constitutional, it probably doesn't have any bearing on this case. Then at the end the judge basically says, "but if you still think for some reason that it might apply to you, you have the option of either seeking to withdraw your guilty plea, or sticking with the guilty plea and getting the sentence that had already been recommended." I'm guessing the defendant just sticks with his guilty plea, so there's nothing for him to challenge. And the court didn't issue an injunction against the government or anything interfering with the executive order, so there's nothing for the government to appeal.

Technically the judge's determination that the executive order is unconstitutional is precedent in that district that would be relevant if some other case involving the order comes up in that district, but for right now it really has no impact on anything. It's all just a rather strange action on the judge's part.


Here's the actual conclusion of the opinion and the order at the end for reference:

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