Matthew Segal

As much as I was looking forward to seeing Elizabeth Prelogar, Don Verrilli, and Paul Clement take turns dunking on these orders in front of a D.C. Circuit panel, this is good news.

Being able to drive as ourselves and use the correct bathroom are essential to basic everyday life — they aren't privileges afforded to only people who aren't transgender.

We're suing the state of Kansas.

Doe v. Kansas complaint, page 1

Doe v. Kansas complaint, page 2

COMPLAINT: assets.aclu.org/live/uploads...

Congrats to my colleagues on filing this important case.

Investigative Post obtained this video of Border Patrol abandoning Nurul Shah Alam, the nearly blind Burmese refugee who was found dead

www.investigativepost.org/2026/02/26/t...

The Conference of Catholic Bishops is... not playing around in this brief.

www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25...

Judge Bryan in Minnesota has scheduled a combined contempt hearing in morethan two dozen immigration cases for what he says has been widespread defiance of his orders to ensure released detainees are given their confiscated property. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Trump, seeking executive power over elections, is urged to declare emergency Activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a draft executive order that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting.

Among the many problems with SCOTUS's decision in Trump v. Anderson are that the Court did not bother to state plainly (1) what Trump did, and (2) that it was extremey bad.

That failure helped pave the way for nonsense like this: www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Order on Motion for Order – #74 in CENTER FOR TAXPAYER RIGHTS v. INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE (D.D.C., 1:25-cv-00457) – CourtListener.com Order on Motion for Order

More information and devestating rebukes from the court in ongoing litigation over the IRS sharing taxpayer data with ICE

"The IRS violated the [Internal Revenue Code] approximately 42,695 times by disclosing last known taxpayer addresses to ICE"

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

🚨NEW REPORT from @brennancenter.org: Countering Originalism: A Guide for Litigators.

What’s inside?

⚖️ Practical strategies to respond to originalist arguments
📚 Case law + scholarship
📝 Real examples from court filings
🏛️ Lessons from our SCOTUS practice
🌐 Tips for both fed + state courts

Blind refugee abandoned by Border Patrol dies in Buffalo. A nearly blind refugee abandoned by Border Patrol miles from his home dies in Buffalo after having been missing for nearly a week.

Here's a story about his death www.investigativepost.org/2026/02/25/b...

Arkansas Constitution: Section 1: Elective offices - Exceptions Vacancies in the office of United States Senator, and in all elective state, district, circuit, county, and township offices except those of Lieutenant Governor, Member of the General Assembly and Representative in the Congress of the United States, shall be filled by appointment by the Governor. Section 2: Ineligible persons - Nepotism The Governor, Lieutenant Governor and Acting Governor shall be ineligible for appointment to fill any vacancies occurring or any office or position created, and resignation shall not remove such ineligibility. Husbands and wives of such officers, and relatives of such officers, or of their husbands and wives within the fourth degree of consanguinity or affinity, shall likewise be ineligible. No person appointed under Section 1 shall be eligible for appointment or election to succeed himself.

Article Text: Two months later, in February 2025, she signed into law a bill that made it more likely that her two appointees would succeed at staying on the bench over the long term. House Bill 1223 allowed interim judges to use their new title on the ballot when they face voters for the first time. As a result, voters next month will see the word “justice” next to Bronni and Hiland’s names, marking them as the incumbents. Incumbency typically brings important advantages. In Arkansas, no sitting justice has lost a reelection bid since at least the 1930s, including just recently when a conservative challenger lost to a justice known for her moderate politics.

House Bill 1223 Title: To Allow A Candidate For The Office Of Justice Of The Supreme Court Or Judge Of The Court Of Appeals Who Is Serving In That Position As An Appointee To Use The Title Of That Position As A Prefix On The Ballot.

So:

1. AR Constitution says "[n]o person" apptd by gov is eligible for "election to succeed himself"

2. Apptd justices are running for each other's seats, on theory that seats are *different*

3. Bill allows justices to call selves "justice" on ballot, on theory that seats are *interchangeable*

What

1. I appreciate your thoughtful responses.

2. Got photo from UCLA report. There were swastikas, but I won't post them.

3. I took your initial posts to imply that behaviors shouldn't be seen as discriminatory if members of the targeted group engaged in them. But if you're not saying that, great.

Sign: "israelis Are Native 2 HELL"

It does not. This case seems unlikely to hinge on a student's testimony about what they didn't hear. And while juries might (improperly) consider someone's race or ethnicity in assessing credibility, courts generally don't.

Besides, as you know, there is non-oral evidence, e.g. swastikas, signs.

Can you clarify why you think that is relevant to the legal claims?

If the DOJ alleges that a police dept has engaged in a pattern-or-practice of discrimination based on race, e.g., example through racial profiling, does the law care whether some officers were themselves Black?

JUST IMAGINE.

(The whole thread, summarizing his article which is gift-linked at the end of the thread, is worth your time.)

The motions are “unopposed” because Trump now sits on both sides of the case—as the defendant and as the glowering visage who looks out from tall banners on the walls of a subjugated DOJ—and Judge Cannon did not allow any of the third parties who sought to intervene to argue for disclosure.

One reason her analysis here is so bad is that let's say she's right, and Smith was improperly appointed. There STILL would be a public interest in understanding how he comported his investigation, even if wrongfully.

NEW: Supreme Court adds a major case to its docket asking whether states may sue energy companies for inflicting damage on the environment by producing and marketing fossil fuels around the world

White House, Minnesota Supreme Court chief justice quietly negotiated deal over ICE enforcement in courts Four days later, chaos unfolded inside the Hennepin County Government Center.

Federalism can't work under these conditions.

State court should be safe for all. And many people — from defendants to victims to other witnesses — need to be able to go to state court without fear that doing so will result in their apprehension by ICE. www.startribune.com/white-house-...

Massachusetts kids have already been home from school for a week due to “February Vacation,” so I think I speak for all MA parents when I say that the prospect of not sending them back on Monday is, frankly, offensive and immoral.

The “Democrats on the court” are “a frankly disgrace to our nation.” “But you can’t knock their loyalty. One thing you can do with some of our people.”

This is a truly horrifying memo. It says that the policy of the US government will now be to proactively seek out and arrest likely tens of thousands of refugees who entered legally under Biden and subject them to detention, where they will be interrogated about their status.

Indiana on the verge of adopting legislation with stringent requirements that local law enforcement & sheriffs help ICE.

The bill is aggressive — e.g. requiring full compliance with detainers; far-right AG still trying to make it even stronger. indianacapitalchronicle.com/2026/01/27/i...

Not long ago I started refereeing soccer games and it’s endlessly amusing to me that the overlap between this hobby and my civil rights work is offering polite, smiling rebuttals after people tell me I’m horribly wrong.

The willingness of people to believe obviously false claims lacking *any* factual support — particularly when the claims align with their politics — does not bode well for how things will go when false claims are combined with compelling deepfake videos.

I'm delighted that the Harvard Law Review has published a book review of "The Digital Fourth Amendment." The review, by @granick.bsky.social, is here.
harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-13...

Hey remember when the Biden admin sued to ask a court to let them remove razor wire that Texas officials had put up to impede federal agents?

Is there any doubt that, if state officials were to try anything like that now, the Trump admin would try to prosecute them?

It's unusual when the government can't persuade a sufficient number of grand jurors to return an indictment. But this is a whole other kind of unusual.