Other than the fact that it didn’t include the word “Epstein,” it’s unclear what caused President Trump to suddenly concern himself with “cashless bail,” as he calls it, other than his latest thrust to make himself the president who ended crime and win public adoration and a prize. When Trump decides to concern himself with something, he issues an order about it, because “I have the right to do anything I want to do. I’m the president of the United States.”  So the president signed an Executive Order entitled “Taking Steps To End Cashless Bail to Protect Americans.”

Many very smart and knowledgeable people have spent a great deal of time trying to find the “right” answer to dealing with bail and pretrial detention. I’ve been dubious, if not critical, about many of the reforms enacted over the past few years. Then again, I’ve been dubious, if not critical, about the handling of bail before these reforms. Trump’s EO, on the other hand, reflects neither the thoughts nor solutions of smart and knowledgeable people. Continue reading →

With far too many issues raised in a day to address, none of which had anything to do with Jeffrey Epstein, Trump ran the gamut from criminalizing protected free speech in an Executive Order criminalizing the burning of the American flag (and announcing the sentence to be imposed for doing so!), to violating the Posse Comitatus Act by federalizing National Guard units to perform law enforcement functions when there is no local request or emergency**

To cap off the day, President Trump “fired” member Lisa Cook of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. By firing her and replacing her with one of his guys, it would give Trump a majority of the Board and enable him to dictate monetary policy, among other things, to his performative advantage of reducing the interest rate at the expense of sound economic policy. Continue reading →

It’s hard to imagine that John Bolton, after years and multiple investigations, is illegally in possession of classified documents. If so, it still isn’t remotely like Trump’s being given multiple opportunities to return the docs and refusing, lying and concealing so he could show them to randos and impress people with how important he was. And Trump not only said he was not a fan of Bolton’s, whom he claimed he fired and Bolton claimed he quit Trump 1.0, but he stripped Bolton of his security clearance and detail, even though he was under threat, on Day 1.

Still, raids need search warrants, and search warrants need Magistrate Judges to sign off on them. And yet, Trump’s actions have sown the seeds of mistrust in anything that gets touched by his bloated yet grubby fingers. Continue reading →

The government’s allegations against Kilmar Abrego Garcia have not held up well under even the slightest scrutiny. On the one hand, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who favors cosplaying, obedient dogs and holding anything related to her president near to her head, called him a “monster” though he’s yet to be convicted of anything. Then there’s the president himself, who knows an MS-13 gangbanger when he sees one.

After insisting repeatedly that there was no way the United States could get El Salvador President Nayib Bukele to return Abrego Garcia to American custody, even though he was being held without any due process and tortured in a Salvadorean prison at Trump’s request and with American payment, it turned out that all that was needed was to ask and, boom, he was back. Continue reading →

It’s 8:00 p.m. on a Sunday. The house is quiet. Eerily so. My wife has retreated to the bedroom with a book and a “do not disturb” look. My friends have stopped answering my texts, and even the neighbors, who once welcomed my company, now seem to pull their blinds when they see me coming. Why? Because it’s WWE SummerSlam night, and I have opinions. Loud, passionate, endless opinions.

But I’m not alone. There, sprawled across the living room rug, is my loyal sidekick: Poppy, my dog. She’s the only one in the house who doesn’t roll her eyes when I start ranting about John Cena’s latest comeback or Brock Lesnar’s mysterious motives. In fact, I’m pretty sure she’s starting to recognize the theme music. The moment the first guitar riff blares from the TV, her ears perk up. Maybe she’s expecting a treat, or maybe she’s just bracing herself for another night of my animated commentary. Continue reading →

Historically, the party out of power wins the midterm elections as a means of rebuking and restraining the excesses of the party in power. Trump has no intention of letting that happen and no shame in doing whatever he can to prevent it. Fortunately for him, neither the Texas lege nor Governor Greg Abbott have any concern about disenfranchising citizens of the Republic who might vote otherwise by gerrymandering congressional districts to flip five districts to assure that they are as red as can be.

In response, California plans to put a question to its voters whether to do the same so that five congressional districts that are now red are turned blue. Both states are quite open about their purpose and, while California might better reflect the position of its citizens based upon the mechanism being used while Texas shows no interest whatsoever in what its citizens want, both are using redistricting in the most cynical, undemocratic way imaginable. Continue reading →

It was pretty damn smart of David Oscar Markus to strike while the iron was hot and get his client, Ghislaine Maxwell, moved into Club Fed while the second in command of the Department of Justice, Trump criminal defense lawyer Todd Blanche, was still scared to death that a certain part of his patron’s anatomy was exposed.

Why? Because the public, in general, and the MAGA faithful, in particular, have the attention span of a gnat. But then, even if they were capable of holding a thought in their head for longer than 8 second, they would manufacture an excuse to save their beloved overlord.

But Southern District of New York Judge Richard Berman, in denying the release of the grand jury transcript, hadn’t forgotten. Continue reading →

There was a time when it was arguably proper that law school accreditation was placed in the hand of the American Bar Association. That time passed a while ago, when the ABA lost the faith of the legal profession as it morphed from an organization focused on the law and lawyers into a captive social justice organization. Lawyers fled the voluntary bar organization as it took up arms for causes far beyond the law and with which the majority of lawyers either disagreed or, even if they supported the causes generally, believed to be outside the purview of the ABA.

And yet, the ABA maintained its official position as accreditor of law schools. This time, however, its attempt to “reinvent” law school based on little more than an ideological belief that it could make law students “practice ready” if only there was more time in clinics and less time in the classroom. After all, why let learning law get in the way of cosplaying lawyer? Mind you, this happened in conjunction with a view that the third year of law school was largely a waste of time, required just to get another year of tuition out of students and give law profs a place to go during the week. Continue reading →

Following the Saturday Night Massacre during the Nixon administration, the independence of the Department of Justice from political influence and partisanship became a foundational position of its existence. The DoJ existed to serve the American people, not the president. It was theoretically there to do justice, without fear or favor. And that understanding remained intact until Trump 2.0, when it openly and notoriously became a tool of the administration.

In an act of extreme irony, Attorney General Pam Bondi, whose effusive admiration of her patron was expressed at every opportunity whether relevant or not, named Ed Martin, the Trump nominee for United States Attorney for the District of Columbia whose lack of competence and integrity was so extreme that not even the Republican majority in the Senate would confirm him, the head of the Weaponization Task Force to investigate people who “weaponized” the government against Trump. Continue reading →

Ed. Note: On July 21, 2025, Roy Black passed away at the age of 80. Roy was a legend in the criminal defense world, and subscriber and occasional commenter at SJ. Roy Black’s work had a particularly significant on Mario Machado, who remembers him here.

For me, there’s one quote that always stuck out:

I’m going to do whatever I can to see justice is done in the courtroom. If the town burns down because of it, so be it.

That’s from when Roy Black defended Miami Police Officer Luis Alvarez, the 1982 case that had the city in perpetual fear because of the Miami Riot Syndrome. Having done my damn best to study Roy’s approach to everything, that line sticks out because it’s the complete opposite to what I see and read about today’s defense lawyers: the majority casually going along to get along, terrified of superseding indictments and pleading out cases in perpetuity, lest they upset anything about the status quo. Continue reading →