The Latest Breaking News from Eleventh Circuit

Section 1983 should not be read to impose obligations on state legislatures to enact legislation.

Rare gems, neutral judges, and a blindsided referee.

This is the fifth and final post in a series on The Fair Notice Rationale for Qualified Immunity. Thanks so much to Eugene and the other conspirators for letting me post, and to you for reading to the bitter end! Yesterday I said that there are some cases where the…

From Judge John Badalamenti (M.D. Fla.) today in Doe v. Austin: Plaintiffs in this case are thirty-nine individuals who are currently employed by federal executive agencies or federal contractors and have chosen to not receive a COVID-19 vaccination. Pursuant to Executive Orders 14042 and 14043 (the "Vaccination Mandates"), Plaintiffs are…

The ruling is not a final decision on the merits. But it likely signals that at least five Supreme Court justices believe the law is unconstitutional.

Jury trials, bench trials, and prospective insurrections.

So the Eleventh Circuit held today in U.S. v. Jimenez-Shilon, in an opinion by Judge Kevin Newsom, joined by Judges Elizabeth Branch and Andrew Brasher; the opinion focused on Framing-era history, and concludes, [Under eighteenth-century law,] aliens could not surreptitiously enter a foreign nation in violation of the immigration prerogatives…

I'm still going through the decision, in Netchoice v. Attorney General, but I thought I'd note the result: The question at the core of this appeal is whether the Facebooks and Twitters of the world—indisputably "private actors" with First Amendment rights—are engaged in constitutionally protected expressive activity when they moderate…

Plasma, prisons, and political parties

As I suggested Friday and yesterday, Supreme Court precedent is unclear on whether Florida's dissolving the special government district that Florida had created for Disney in the 1960s violates the First Amendment. On one hand, the dissolution appears to be retaliation for Disney's prominent opposition to the Florida law that…

Some implications of the government's decision not to seek a stay of the district court ruling. Plus, the low quality of the trial judge's opinion doesn't necessarily mean there are no good arguments against the mandate's legality.