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SCOTUS pauses return of man that Trump wrongfully deported

homesafetytechpros — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 09:19:55 +0000

Inset: President-elect Donald Trump on “Meet the Press” Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024 (NBC News/YouTube). Background: Immigration records for Kilmar Abrego Garcia (WTTG/YouTube).

Chief Justice John Roberts has paused a Monday deadline for the Trump administration to return a protected Maryland resident who was mistakenly sent to El Salvador as part of President Donald Trump’s deportations of Venezuelan migrants back to the United States through a judge’s order after the Justice Department urged the U.S. Supreme Court to do so.

Issuing an order on Monday afternoon, Roberts temporarily halted a preliminary injunction in which U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis gave the DOJ just over three days to facilitate bringing Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the country, referring to his deportation as “an illegal act” in her order. The 29-year-old was sent to El Salvador on March 15 in error as part of Trump’s proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to rush through mass deportations, which have since been blocked by a federal judge, without providing due process to those being flown out of the country.

Abrego Garcia was in the U.S. with protected legal status at the time of his deportation. His wife and 5-year-old child are both U.S. citizens. The DOJ admitted to the lower court on Friday that his deportation was an “administrative error,” leading to the suspension of a 15-year DOJ vet who made the public confession.

Roberts said Monday that the midnight deadline set by Xinis would be put on hold until the Supreme Court can come to a conclusion on whether to lift the judge’s order altogether.

“It is further ordered that a response to the application be filed on or before Tuesday, April 8th, 2025, by 5 p.m.,” Roberts added.

Instead of waiting until Tuesday, though, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys chose to file their response mere moments after the Supreme Court decision was handed down.

“This case is one of one,” wrote Abrego Garcia’s legal team. “It presents the ‘extraordinary circumstances’ of the Government conceding that it erred in removing Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia ‘to a foreign country for which he was not eligible for removal,”” the response said. “The Government knew about the court order prohibiting Abrego Garcia’s removal to El Salvador, and admits that removing him in violation of that order was an ‘administrative error.’ Abrego Garcia has never been charged with a crime, in any country. He is not wanted by the Government of El Salvador. He sits in a foreign prison solely at the behest of the United States, as the product of a Kafka-esque mistake.”

With just hours to go before the Trump administration was set to return Abrego Garcia, the DOJ tossed up its “Hail Mary” bid to the Supreme Court on Monday morning — asking it to put the kibosh on the efforts — after Xinis doubled down on her order Sunday.

In a 22-page opinion, Xinis said she would not back off from forcing the Department of Homeland Security and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who are being sued by Abrego Garcia, to return him to U.S. soil. The DOJ filed an emergency motion to stay Xinis’ preliminary injunction on Saturday with the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals and lower court, “given the urgency of harms to the government,” the DOJ filings said. The 4th Circuit denied the motion on Monday shortly before the DOJ filed its Supreme Court application.

In prior arguments as well as the SCOTUS filing Monday, DOJ lawyers called Xinis’ order “indefensible” and impossible to carry out on account of where he’s being held.

“The United States does not control the sovereign nation of El Salvador, nor can it compel El Salvador to follow a federal judge’s bidding,” wrote Solicitor General D. John Sauer in the DOJ’s Supreme Court application to vacate the order.

“The Constitution vests the President with control over foreign negotiations so that the United States speaks with one voice, not so that the President’s central Article II prerogatives can give way to district-court diplomacy,” Sauer said. “If this precedent stands, other district courts could order the United States to successfully negotiate the return of other removed aliens anywhere in the world by close of business. Under that logic, district courts would effectively have extraterritorial jurisdiction over the United States’ diplomatic relations with the whole world.”

Xinis, a Barack Obama appointee, dismissed the DOJ’s claim that the Trump administration had its hands tied with Abrego Garcia in her Sunday filing. She said the U.S. can’t prop up the prison in El Salvador as “one of the tools” in the government’s deportation shed — as Xinis said Noem has previously claimed — and then try to act like nothing can be done.

Xinis noted Sunday how the U.S. government and administration officials have repeatedly claimed “without any evidence” that Abrego Garcia is a member of the gang MS-13, which it continued to do on Monday in the Supreme Court application. Even if that were true, Xinis pointed out Sunday how he was given legal protection to live in the United States because he wanted out of El Salvador due to the threat of retaliation and attacks from MS-13’s “chief rival gang,” identified by Xinis as Barrio 18. She noted how the Trump administration was housing Abrego Garcia with inmates belonging to Barrio 18.

“Abrego Garcia will suffer irreparably were he not accorded his requested relief,” Xinis said. “The risk of harm shocks the conscience. Defendants have forcibly put him in a facility that intentionally mixes rival gang members without any regard for protecting the detainees from harm at the hands of the gangs.”

Abrego Garcia’s lawyers said Monday in their response to Roberts’ order that they believed the government was unlikely to succeed on the merits of the case.

“Its application to this Court is built on a series of strawmen,” they said. “First, that ordering the Government to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return requires ‘compel[ling] El Salvador to follow a federal judge’s bidding.’ Second, that the district court lacks jurisdiction over this case … based on a ‘decision or action by the Attorney General to … execute removal orders against any alien.’ And third, that complying with the order requires letting ‘a member of a foreign terrorist organization into America tonight.’

“None of this is true,” the lawyers insisted.

To support their case, Abrego Garcia’s lawyers filed an amicus curiae brief with the 4th Circuit on Sunday, showing support from “world-renowned scholars of constitutional law” who say Abrego Garcia’s removal was “extreme” and legally unprecedented. “Not surprisingly, amici are not aware of any precedent or recognized constitutional principle supporting the government’s argument,” the statement of amicus curiae says, with it being filed by law professors Erwin Chemerinsky, Martha Minow and Laurence Tribe on Sunday night.

“If this court were to adopt the government’s position here, it would dramatically expand the Executive Branch’s power at the expense of fundamental individual liberties, and diminish both the Legislative Branch’s and the Judicial Branch’s power in unprecedented and dangerous ways,” the trio concluded. “If the government’s argument were correct, the Executive Branch would possess a shuddering degree of power — power that the President could wield in extreme and extraordinary ways, including against American citizens that the President simply disfavors.”

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Jerry Lambe contributed to this report.

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Conviction set aside for man wrongfully convicted in robbery

homesafetytechpros — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 09:51:17 +0000

Willie L. Williams Jr., right, had his conviction set aside by a judge in Florida. (Innocence Project of Florida/Saskiya Fagan)

A Florida judge set aside the wrongful conviction of a man who served nearly 45 years in prison for an armed robbery based on shaky evidence that prosecutors failed to disclose — their star witness identified him as the shooter after having had his memory “hypnotically refreshed” by a police lieutenant self-taught in hypnotism.

In a hearing on Wednesday, Fourth Judicial Circuit Judge Lindsay Tygart vacated Willie L. Williams Jr.’s 1976 convictions for attempted murder and robbery. The move came after the Fourth Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office’s Conviction Integrity Review (CIR) examined the case and uncovered the exculpatory evidence, his lawyers said in a news release.

“It has been more than 48 years since I was originally arrested for this crime,” said Williams, 79. “I always knew that I was not the shooter, but I didn’t have the evidence to properly defend myself. I am so grateful to the State Attorney’s Office for diligently reviewing my case and discovering the key evidence to show that I was wrongfully convicted. I also want to thank the Innocence Project of Florida for helping me resolve my case. I am so thankful that I can finally put this injustice behind me and move on with my life.”

IPF Legal Director Brandon Scheck applauded the move.

“It is important that when it becomes clear that a conviction was procured through unconstitutional means, that all parts of the system — the State, Defense and Court — move swiftly to right that wrongful conviction,” he said. “We are grateful to the CIR and the senior leadership at the State Attorney’s Office for identifying this critical evidence and quickly concluding that its non-disclosure violated Mr. Williams’ due process rights, making his conviction and almost 45 years in prison wrongful.”

David Chapman, a State Attorney’s Office spokesman, said in an email to Law&Crime that the State concedes the newly discovered evidence entitles Williams to post-conviction relief.

“Years after Williams’ convictions, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that hypnotically refreshed memory was unreliable and consequently inadmissible as evidence of guilt,” the statement said. “As a result, the State will not refile the charges from 1975 against Williams.”

He was convicted on Feb. 16, 1976, on two counts of attempted first-degree murder with possession of a firearm and two counts of robbery with possession of a firearm.

The motion to vacate the judgment and sentence obtained by Law&Crime spells out the details of the long-ago case.

The drama happened at the Wesconnett Produce Store in Jacksonville at 4 p.m. on Oct. 8, 1975. A gunman demanded money from the store’s co-owner — and got $50 — and a customer’s wallet before shooting them both in the head and driving off. Miraculously, they survived.

The store’s co-owner was shot and nearly blacked out from bullets to the head, back, and hand. The customer, David Phillips, later the key witness in the state’s case, was also shot in the back of the head after handing his wallet over. He managed to walk out of the store and sit in the middle of the road until an ambulance arrived. The store’s co-owner survived but couldn’t identify the attacker.

Williams, a passenger in the green Buick that the gunman drove, was arrested after a police chase. The gunman, Alfred Mitchell, killed himself with a .32 caliber lead alloy bullet to the head after running into a house surrounded by officers.

Williams claimed his innocence right away in a written statement to police. He said Mitchell was the driver, and he was the passenger that day.

Williams testified in court that he did not go into the Wesconnett Produce Store on Oct. 8, 1975, nor did he shoot the victims or even know that Mitchell was about to commit a robbery.

He said in the car afterward, when he asked Mitchell to pull over when police were chasing them, Mitchell pulled out a black pistol and told him, “I just killed two people. Don’t you be the third one.”

When Mitchell collided with other cars during the pursuit, Williams got out of the car and ran when Mitchell shot at Williams but missed. Williams did not get far. Police quickly arrested him.

“The State’s theory was that Willie Williams was the shooter and driver, while the defense’s theory was that Alfred Mitchell was the shooter and driver,” court documents said.

In court, Phillips identified Williams as the man who accosted and shot him.

The defense argued that Phillips misidentified Williams, that his testimony was “based on human error” — and that Williams was not involved in the shootings or robberies. The defense argued the evidence showed the dead man, Mitchell, was the assailant.

But a jury disagreed, finding Williams guilty on Feb. 16, 1976, of two counts of attempted first-degree murder with possession of a firearm and two counts of robbery with possession of a firearm. The following month, he maintained his innocence at his sentencing but was given life in prison and three 30-year sentences to run concurrently. The Court noted “clear and unequivocal” testimony by Phillips that Williams had robbed and shot him.

His appeal was unsuccessful.

But he didn’t give up, filing motions for post-conviction relief and correcting an illegal sentence. They were all denied.

His request for copies of various documents, including “Video Hypnosis Result(s),” was also denied.

He managed to get DNA tested on his and Mitchell’s clothes, but an analysis of the items didn’t find any blood on them.

Ultimately, Williams was released on parole on June 30, 2020, which was rare for Florida.

The following year, the Conviction Integrity Review Division of the Fourth Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office (CIR) took up his case. This yearslong re-examination included testing for DNA and interviewing witnesses.

The CIR learned that a lieutenant with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office had placed Phillips under hypnosis before the eyewitness selected Williams out of a photo lineup.

“Phillips told the CIR that his memory ‘blacked out’ after being shot and he could not remember anything about the robbery prior to being hypnotized,” court documents said. “He was not sure if he did not remember anything because of the gun being pointed at him, the head injury he sustained, or both.”

Phillips told integrity investigators that the now-dead lieutenant who took him through the session “self-studied hypnotism” and did not know whether he was certified, court documents said.

“On May 16, 2023, the CIR met with Mr. Williams at the State Attorney’s Office and disclosed to him the information about the State’s use of hypnosis in his case,” court documents said. This constituted the first time that the State disclosed this information to Mr. Williams or his previous counsels.”

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