Quinta Jurecic

BREAKING: Judge Tostrud -- a Trump appointee — has quickly granted a restraining order, barring the administration from "destroying or altering evidence" taken from today's shooting. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

YouGov is out with a new poll after ICE killed another person in Minnesota today. Abolishing ICE is now +5 among all adults, and **+12 among independents**

substack.com/@gelliottmor...

Nonviolence is, in fact, working. This administration is weaker than it was a year ago. More and more of the public is becoming galvanized against it; its agents are being impeded.

Re: In Re: United States of America No. 26-1135 Dear Chief Judge Colloton, I apologize for addressing this letter to you, but, for reasons I will describe, I do not have any other option. I am working from home today, as the program that my mentally disabled adult son attends each day is closed because of the extreme cold At 11:34 am, I received an email regarding Case No. 26-1135, entitled "In re: United States of America." The order in its entirety read: The motion of the United States to seal is granted. The Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota is invited to file a response, at his discretion, to the petition for writ of mandamus. Any response is due by 2:00 p.m. Friday, January 23. This is the first that I have heard of any petition for a writ of mandamus. The United States did not have the courtesy to tell me that they would be filing such a petition, nor did the United States serve the petition on me. I am unable to access any documents in Case No. 26-1135 because, at the request of the United States, the case is sealed-apparently even from me. So I have been given about two-and-one-half hours to respond to a mandamus petition that I have not read and cannot read. Apparently I am supposed to guess what the petition is about and guess what the mandamus petition says and then respond. I will do so.

The Honorable Steven M. Colloton January 23, 2026 Page 2 On the evening of Tuesday, January 20, the United States presented an application for eight arrest warrants to Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko in connection with the disruption of a religious service at Cities Church on Sunday, January 18. Judge Micko was the magistrate judge who was on duty at the time. Judge Micko found there was probable cause to issue warrants with respect to three of the suspects but not with respect to the other five. Minutes after Judge Micko signed three arrest warrants, the U.S. Attorney notified me that his office wanted a district judge to review Judge Micko's decision -either by hearing an appeal of that decision or by considering the application de novo. The first thing I did is ask our Clerk's Office to randomly assign a district judge to consider the government's request. I was the judge who was randomly assigned. It is important to emphasize that what the U.S. Attorney requested is unheard of in our district or, as best as I can tell, any other district in the Eighth Circuit. I have surveyed all of our judges — some of whom have been judges in our District for over 40 years —and no one can remember the government asking a district judge to review a magistrate judge's denial of an arrest warrant. I have also surveyed the chief judges of all of the districts in the Eighth Circuit. I have heard back from almost all of them, and all of those responding have said that, to their knowledge, no district judge has ever reviewed the decision of a magistrate judge to deny an arrest warrant. The reason why this never happens is likely that, if the government does not like the magistrate judge's decision, it can either improve the affidavit and present it again to the same magistrate judge or it can present its case to a grand jury and seek an indictment. On Wednesday, January 21, I informed the U.S. Attorney that because he was asking me to do something that was unprecedented, and because m…

A magistrate judge found no probable cause to support arrest warrants for 5 people involved in the St. Paul church protest.

DOJ appealed to the 8th Cir.

That appeal led to this remarkable letter from the Chief Judge of the Minnesota district court…

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

Many of us have been pointing out that the readiness with which these agents have drawn weapons, and gotten their fingers anywhere near the trigger, is WILDLY contrary to best practices and the sort of thing that inevitably leads to people getting shot.

My loose info so far is that the Minneapolis General Strike today had about 80 unions sign on, and it might be one of the biggest labor actions in decades depending on your definition

The Trump administration tried to detain two of the arrested church protesters charged under a little-used provision of the FACE Act but got shut down by a judge. One of the lawyers prosecuting the case is a former Republican congressional candidate.

Order Re: Appeal/Objection of Magistrate Judge Decision to District Judge – #22 in United States v. SEALED (D. Minnesota, 0:26-mj-00040) – CourtListener.com ORDER denying 7 APPEAL/OBJECTION OF MAGISTRATE JUDGE DECISION to District Judge as to Nekima Valdez Levy-Armstrong (1), Chauntyll Louisa Allen (2). (Written Opinion) Signed by Judge Laura M. Provinzin...

JUST IN: Judge OKs release of 2 MN church protesters charged w/civil rights viol, Nekima Levy-Armstrong & Chauntyll Allen. Judge Laura Provinzino (Biden) finds no 'serious risk of flight,' sets release conditions.
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us... Earlier: www.politico.com/news/2026/01...

typically, court records are publicly available unless the government can offer the judge a justification as to why they should be sealed. if the reason is operational security or something like that, blasting doctored photos of the arrests everywhere on social media seems odd

i had missed that! do we know if the hearing actually happened?

The hearing scheduled for today was also not on the Courts calendar this morning.

Minnesota church protest: Activists still in jail after judge orders release Two Twin Cities activists, including Nekima Levy Armstrong, have been arrested for their roles in planning a protest at a St. Paul church over the weekend, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Thur...

there are some eyebrow-raising details in this report, too, although it's second- or thirdhand because it doesn't appear the reporter was in the courtroom www.fox9.com/news/twin-ci...

it is, shall we say, a little bit odd!

something strange in the St Paul church case: despite the government's eagerness to get publicity around the arrests of the three activists, the case itself still appears to be sealed in PACER

Good. Also: We can't know about any particular case, but this is the sort of thing that happens more when everyone thinks the president is unpopular - politicians start looking for highly visible ways to oppose him and are willing to devote resources to it.

this is honestly a very good metaphor

like a roomba, sometimes he also gets stuck and tries to overpower an obstacle by simply running into it again and again and again

I always love synonym suggestions

Federal judge appears skeptical that Trump has legal authority to proceed with White House ballroom | CNN Politics A federal judge expressed deep skepticism Thursday that the White House has legal authority to construct President Donald Trump’s massive new ballroom without express authorization from Congress.

Trump tearing down the East Wing and then being unable to build anything in its place would certainly seem like potent symbolism www.cnn.com/2026/01/22/p...

There's also been a shift in character in activism.

In Trump's first term, the big actions were symbolic protests designed to make a narrative impact.

In Trump's second term, we are seeing actions designed to practically frustrate an authoritarian crackdown on civil liberties.

I don't disagree, honestly! I was a little surprised by the sense that resistance 1.0 had failed (I don't think it did)

Not only is the city shutdown but people are out here protesting with a -40F wind chill.

people experienced the trump 1.0 focus on protest *aesthetics* as a big mistake

yes! among the organizers I spoke with when reporting that piece, there was a real sense that opposition needed to be practical, focused on protecting the community from authoritarian incursion, and (interestingly!) not overly ideological

one thing i’ll note is that the administration is desperate for a repeat of 2020 and the targeted jurisdictions refuse to give it to them

yes, absolutely, and I think that manifests in different ways in different places—eg, dc responded by (for the most part) avoiding big marches in areas where trump could stage a confrontation (so, no repeat of lafayette square)

Since the summer, Trump’s strategy of shifting ICE and the National Guard from city to city magnified this localism. Each targeted jurisdiction has responded with its own character: Protesters gathered to confront ICE en masse in the middle of a Los Angeles freeway, or have danced in frog costumes in Portland, Oregon. With the notable exception of a protest held a month into the federal occupation of D.C., the District’s residents have opted against the large gatherings that the city saw during the Women’s March and the George Floyd protests. Instead, many of them focused on helping one another as neighbors—chasing away ICE agents and walking the children of immigrant parents to school in the morning. “The people getting food to families of migrant neighbors abducted by ICE is resistance,” the D.C. mutual-aid collective Remora House explained. In Chicago, David Black, a Presbyterian pastor whom ICE agents shot with pepper balls, described protests outside Illinois ICE facilities as not “resistance” but “world building”: “We are making ourselves into the world we want to give to the next seven generations.”

One of the big trends in opposition activism during Trump 2.0 has been the localism of protest. This level of organizing is pretty astonishing to watch, and anyone who insists that there haven't been any protests against Trump is simply ignoring it www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

NYT app with lead hed “Hundreds of Minnesota Businesses Are Set to Close in Protest Against ICE”

The Minnesota strike has made it to the top story on NYT. I am not a knee jerk NYT hater, but imo this is noteworthy given the paper’s relative lack of interest in other recent anti-Trump protest activity

Here is the @qjurecic.bsky.social article referenced below ⬇️

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...