4/25/2025 at 6:46:48 PM
A key point here, which the judge brought up with the ICE agents, is that they only had an "administrative warrant".[1] An “ICE warrant” is not a real warrant. It is not reviewed by a judge or any neutral party to determine if it is based on probable cause. "An immigration officer from ICE or CBP may not enter any nonpublic areas—or areas that are not freely accessible to the public and hence carry a higher expectation of privacy—without a valid judicial warrant or consent to enter."[2]The big distinction is that an administrative warrant does not authorize a search.
[1] https://www.aclunc.org/our-work/know-your-rights/know-your-r...
[2] https://www.nilc.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/2025-Subpoen...
by Animats
4/25/2025 at 8:02:08 PM
Another key point is that generally speaking the charge of obstruction of justice requires two ingredients:1) knowledge of a government proceeding
2) action with intent to interfere with that proceeding
It doesn't especially matter in this case whether ICE was entitled to enter the courtroom because she's not being charged for refusing to allow them entry to the room. The allegation is that upon finding out about their warrant she canceled the hearing and led the defendant out a door that he would not customarily use. Allegedly she did so with the intent of helping him to avoid the officers she knew were there to arrest him.
The government has to prove intent here, which as some have noted is difficult, but if the facts as recounted in the news stories are all true it doesn't seem that it would be overwhelmingly difficult to prove that she intentionally took action (2) to thwart an arrest that she knew was imminent (1).
by lolinder
4/25/2025 at 9:21:13 PM
This is the constitutional crisis.You are taking ICE's/the administration's perspective and assuming it is cogent which leads you to conclusion that doesn't support justice and instead supports the end of constitutional rule in the US.
The administration is in open violation of supreme court rulings and the law. They have repeatedly shown contempt for the constitution. They have repeatedly assumed their own supremacy. People responsible for enforcement are out of sync with those responsible for due process and legal interpretation. That is true crisis. These words are simple, but the emotional impact should be chilling. When considering the actions of the ICE agents, it seems very reasonable that aiding or abetting them would be an even greater obstruction of justice if not directly aiding and abetting illegal activity.
America is being confronted with a very serious problem. What happens when those responsible for enforcing the law break it or start enforcing "alternative" law? If the police are breaking the law, then there is no law, there is only power. Law is just words on paper without enforcement.
If the idea sounds farfetched, imagine if KKK members deciding to become police officers and how that changes the subjective experience of law by citizens compared to what law says on paper. Imagine they decide to become judges to. How would you expect that to pervert justice?
by hayst4ck
4/25/2025 at 9:29:13 PM
> You are taking ICE's/the administration's perspective and assuming it is cogent which leads you to conclusion that doesn't support justice and instead supports the end of constitutional rule in the US.No I'm not. I'm taking the facts as they're presented by the AP (which is famously not sympathetic to this administration) and saying that nothing in the facts that I'm seeing here in this specific case serves as evidence of a constitutional crisis. This is a straightforward case of obstruction: either she did the things that are alleged or she didn't. If she did, it's obstruction regardless of who is in the White House, and we have no reason to believe at this time that she didn't!
We have better litmus tests, better evidence of wrongdoing by the administration, and better cases to get up in arms about. If we choose our martyrs carelessly we're wasting political capital that could be spent showing those still on the fence the many actual, straightforward cases of overreach.
by lolinder
4/25/2025 at 10:39:04 PM
The truth is somewhere in the middle.There was a similar case in Massachusetts many years back. It never went to trial, and legal analysis could go both ways. The bargain struct was it would go into secretive judicial oversight channels.
There is a strong case to be made for obstruction of justice, and an equally strong case to be made about her making an error in her professional capacity as a judge and a government employee (which grants a level of immunity). Police officers, judges, soldiers, etc. make mistakes, but they generally don't go to jail for them because (even corruption aside) everyone makes mistakes. In some jobs, mistakes can and do have severe consequences up to and including people dying. If that led to prison, no one sane would take those jobs.
In any sane universe, it'd be fair to say she screwed up, and then the FBI also screwed up arresting her. I think the FBI screwed up more, since their mistake was premeditated, whereas she was put on the spot.
I do agree with your fundamental point of fatigue. This is not something anyone has a moral high ground to hang their flag on without looking bad.
by frognumber
4/25/2025 at 11:51:57 PM
What was the honest mistake the judge made?by s1artibartfast
4/26/2025 at 12:41:18 AM
I usually read coverage from different sides. If you don't realize where she screwed up, look at Fox News. If you don't realize where the FBI screwed up, look at NY Times.Fox News perspective is that she broke court procedures in order to obstruct federal agents.
Prior cases seem to support that:
https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/massachusetts-judge-court-...
Case concluded with some kind of judicial reprimand (not criminal, but administrative). This one is further over the line.
Neutral description to LLM also supports that the judge acted improperly (but LLM didn't think this would lead to a conviction). LLMs aren't great at legal analysis, but are actually pretty good at pattern-matching cases.
One thing helpful to have is a lawful plan. The courthouse might have handled ICE without breaking protocols by having protocols. Protocols should be prima facie neutral, but it's reasonable to expect people in courts, schools, and other places we actually want them to show up to feel safe there. That shouldn't involve sneaking people through back doors or hiding them in jury areas.
by frognumber
4/26/2025 at 1:16:19 AM
Why would I trust that an "entertainment" network like fox news would provide a good legal analysis of how a judge messed up the law? LLMs are worse than this.ICE has been regularly overstepping its bounds and going after people in ways that impact our legal system's ability to function. This is a terrible precedent to set for no other reason than it impacts the rule of law. If people who are accused of crimes can be disappeared without a trial, just for showing up to court, what incentive is there for anyone to go to court? They are literally ignoring the "innocent until proven guilty" that is critical to the rule of law.
If you take away people's ability to get justice within the system, you are making it inevitable that they will go outside the system to get justice.
by xracy
4/26/2025 at 2:02:13 AM
Ergo, I posted a link to an analogous legal situation in Massachusetts.We can agree with what the judge did, but it doesn't make it legal.
We can also agree that ICE is breaking laws, but it also doesn't make what the judge did legal. It does help a bit -- in another comment I explained why -- but not enough to change the legal analysis.
As a footnote, modern LLMs aren't worse than Fox News. They have a lot of case law in their training set. They make mistakes so shouldn't yet be used for anything critical, but the legal analysis from Claude or GPT4.1 is a lot better than e.g. 95% of forum posts here.
by frognumber