Today in Supreme Court History: April 29, 1745

4/29/1745: Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth was born.

Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

I'd like to make a brief comment on a case decided on APRIL 29: Niz-Chavez v. Garland, 593 U.S. ---, 2021, where the Court held that someone being told that he would be getting "a" deportation notice should expect it in a single document, not a series of documents. The single document in this case did not give all the information needed to attend; that document was sent two months later. At issue was whether the first document served to stop time accumulating to meet the seven years of "continuous residence" which would allow to apply for cancellation of deportation.

The plaintiff here had fled Guatemala in 2005 because he had been threatened with having his land seized and his family killed. It was only (almost) seven years later that he got the notice which must have been a surprise to him.

The government (this was the Trump Administration, when the case was argued) argued that it did not matter if he got one notice or two.

Jesus said, "Woe to you lawyers! You place huge burdens on others, but you yourselves do not lift a finger!" Luke 11:46. Lawyers are allowed every little technicality. If this was a Notice of Entry, for example, served on opposing counsel, and a lawyer doesn't serve a Notice of Appeal in 30 days, he could point to any little defect in the Notice of Entry and the court would excuse his laziness by holding that the Notice of Entry was defective. And this is a lawyer who should know his business. Yet here we have a desperate man, presumably not an English speaker, and the Trump Administration is asking the Court to excuse sloppy practice by its lawyers and hold this poor guy to a stricter standard.

[Bob from Ohio]

Way to be more boring than the birthday post.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Indifferent to human suffering as usual. The mark of a conservative. Unless of course it's someone you know.