Plead the Fifth (Cir.‪)‬ Leo Yu

In this episode, we discussed a recent case U.S. v. Seekins, in which the federal public defender attempted to push the Fifth Circuit to revisit the scope of interstate commerce in the criminal justice context. By a close vote (7-9), the Fifth Circuit refused to open this door. However, Justice Ho, in his dissenting opinion, laid out a blueprint for the defendant to get the the Supreme Court's attention. Will this case be the case for the conservative Supreme Court to cut back on the scope of...

In Shepperd v. United States, an attorney represented his client, the criminal defendant, and also the government's key witness at the same time. Two weeks before trial, this conflict of interest was finally made known to the defendant, who immediately obtained new counsel. The new counsel informed the trial court about the conflict and requested a continuance of the trial. The trial court, however, held that the trial must proceed as planned. The defendant got 30 years from the trial. T...

Can a police officer search a criminal suspect's cell phone in full, when the only charge in the warrant was drug possession, and the affidavit provided barebone justification? This is the question the Fifth Circuit was presented in U.S. v. Morton. The Morton case presents an issue that is not fully resolved by the Supreme Court - what kind of protection a cell phone deserves under the Fourth Amendment? Treat it like a person's home? Or, more than a home?We have the privilege to have two gues...

When the U.S. Supreme Court remands a case back to a circuit court, how much room does the circuit court have to "play around"? The Fifth Circuit's response is "a lot". The U.S. Supreme Court remanded the SB8 case back to the Fifth Circuit and allowed claims against Texas health agencies to proceed. The Fifth Circuit is not pleased. Instead of following the Supreme Court's remand order, the Fifth Circuit certified a question - whether the state health agencies have the enforcement power...

In this episode, we talked about Justice Breyer's retirement and Justice Gregg Costa's unexpected resignation from the Fifth Circuit. Justice Breyer's retirement announcement proposes an opportunity to the Biden administration and the replacement strategy is rather clear - Biden has determined to deliver his campaign promise to nominate an African American woman to fill the seat. But what about Costa's unorthodox resignation? At the age of 49, Costa, a young Obama appointee, announced hi...

On November 5, 2021, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS), which required employers who have more than 100 employees to mandate vaccination for their employees. A variety of plaintiffs requested a stay from the Fifth Circuit, and the Fifth Circuit granted a stay on November 6. On November 13, the Court issued a longer opinion, affirming its previous stay, and extended the stay till the final judgment. BTS Holdings v. OSHA,...