WASHINGTON: The Supreme Court is saving one of its biggest cases for last. The justices are hearing arguments Wednesday over President Donald Trump’s ban on travelers from several mostly Muslim countries.
It’s the last case the justices will hear until October.
The Trump administration is asking the court to reverse lower court rulings striking down the ban. The policy has been fully in effect since December, but this is the first time the justices are considering whether it violates immigration law or the Constitution.
The court will consider whether the president can indefinitely keep people out of the country based on nationality. It will also look at whether the policy is aimed at excluding Muslims from the United States.
People have been waiting in line for a seat for days. In another sign of heightened public interest, the court is taking the rare step of making an audio recording of the proceedings available just hours after the arguments end. The last time was the gay marriage arguments in 2015.
The travel ban is the first Trump policy to undergo a full-blown Supreme Court review. The justices are looking at the third version of a policy that Trump first rolled out a week after taking office, triggering chaos and protests across the US as travelers were stopped from boarding international flights and detained at airports for hours. The first version was blocked by courts and withdrawn. Its replacement was allowed to take partial effect but expired in September.
The current version is indefinite and now applies to travelers from five countries with overwhelmingly Muslim populations — Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. It also affects two non-Muslim countries: blocking travelers from North Korea and some Venezuelan government officials and their families. A sixth majority Muslim country, Chad, was removed from the list this month after improving “its identity-management and information sharing practices,” Trump said in a proclamation.
Trump’s campaign pledge to shut down Muslim entry into the US, his presidential tweets about the travel ban and last fall’s retweets of inflammatory videos that stoked anti-Islam sentiment all could feature in the justices’ questioning of Solicitor General Noel Francisco, defending the ban, and Neal Katyal, the former acting solicitor general under President Barack Obama. Katyal is representing the challengers.
The administration has argued that courts have no role to play because the president has broad powers over immigration and national security, and foreigners have no right to enter the country. Francisco also has said in written arguments that Trump’s September proclamation laying out the current policy comports with immigration law and does not violate the Constitution because it does not single out Muslims.
The challengers, backed by a diverse array of supporting legal briefs, have said that Trump is flouting immigration law by trying to keep more than 150 million people, the vast majority of them Muslim, from entering the country. They also argue that it amounts to the Muslim ban that Trump called for as a candidate, violating the Constitution’s prohibition against religious bias.
A decision in Trump v. Hawaii, 17-965, is expected by late June.
US Supreme Court’s last argument is over Trump travel ban
US Supreme Court’s last argument is over Trump travel ban
- The travel ban is the first Trump policy to undergo a full-blown Supreme Court review
- A decision in Trump v. Hawaii, 17-965, is expected by late June
Judge bars federal prosecutors from seeking the death penalty against Luigi Mangione
- Judge Margaret Garnett’s Friday ruling foiled the Trump administration’s bid to see Mangione executed
- Garnett dismissed a federal murder charge against Mangione, finding it technically flawed. She left in place stalking charges that could carry a life sentence
NEW YORK: Federal prosecutors can’t seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a federal judge ruled Friday, foiling the Trump administration’s bid to see him executed for what it called a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.”
Judge Margaret Garnett dismissed a federal murder charge that had enabled prosecutors to seek capital punishment, finding it technically flawed. She wrote that she did so to “foreclose the death penalty as an available punishment to be considered by the jury” as it weighs whether to convict Mangione.
Garnett also dismissed a gun charge but left in place stalking charges that carry a maximum punishment of life in prison. To seek the death penalty, prosecutors needed to show that Mangione killed Thompson while committing another “crime of violence.” Stalking doesn’t fit that definition, Garnett wrote in her opinion, citing case law and legal precedents.
In a win for prosecutors, Garnett ruled they can use evidence collected from his backpack during his arrest, including a 9mm handgun and a notebook in which authorities say Mangione described his intent to “wack” an insurance executive. Mangione’s lawyers had sought to exclude those items, arguing the search was illegal because police hadn’t yet obtained a warrant.
During a hearing Friday, Garnett gave prosecutors 30 days to update her on whether they’ll appeal her death penalty decision. A spokesperson for the US attorney’s office in Manhattan, which is prosecuting the federal case, declined to comment.
Garnett acknowledged that the decision “may strike the average person — and indeed many lawyers and judges — as tortured and strange, and the result may seem contrary to our intuitions about the criminal law.” But, she said, it reflected her “committed effort to faithfully apply the dictates of the Supreme Court to the charges in this case. The law must be the Court’s only concern.”
Mangione, 27, appeared relaxed as he sat with his lawyers during the scheduled hearing, which took place about an hour after Garnett issued her written ruling. Prosecutors retained their right to appeal but said they were ready to proceed to trial.
Outside court afterward, Mangione attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo said her client and his defense team were relieved by the “incredible decision.”
Jury selection in the federal case is set for Sept. 8, followed by opening statements and testimony on Oct. 13. The state trial’s date hasn’t been set. On Wednesday, the Manhattan district attorney’s office urged the judge in that case to schedule a July 1 trial date.
“That case is none of my concern,” Garnett said, adding that she would proceed as if the federal case is the only case unless she hears formally from parties involved in the state case. She also said the federal case will be paused if the government appeals her death penalty ruling.
Thompson, 50, was killed on Dec. 4, 2024, as he walked to a midtown Manhattan hotel for UnitedHealth Group’s annual investor conference. Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting him from behind. Police say “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were written on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase used by critics to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.
Mangione, an Ivy League graduate from a wealthy Maryland family, was arrested five days later at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) west of Manhattan.
Following through on Trump’s campaign promise to vigorously pursue capital punishment, Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered Manhattan federal prosecutors last April to seek the death penalty against Mangione.
It was the first time the Justice Department sought the death penalty in President Donald Trump’s second term. He returned to office a year ago with a vow to resume federal executions after they were halted under his predecessor, President Joe Biden.
Garnett, a Biden appointee and former Manhattan federal prosecutor, ruled after hearing oral arguments earlier this month.
Besides seeking to have the death penalty rejected on the grounds Garnett cited, Mangione’s lawyers argued that Bondi’s announcement flouted long-established Justice Department protocols and was “based on politics, not merit.”
They said her remarks, followed by posts to her Instagram account and a TV appearance, “indelibly prejudiced” the grand jury process resulting in his indictment weeks later.
Prosecutors urged Garnett to keep the death penalty on the table, arguing that the charges were legally sound and Bondi’s remarks weren’t prejudicial, as “pretrial publicity, even when intense, is not itself a constitutional defect.”
Prosecutors argued that careful questioning of prospective jurors would alleviate the defense’s concerns about their knowledge of the case and ensure Mangione’s rights are respected at trial.
“What the defendant recasts as a constitutional crisis is merely a repackaging of arguments” rejected in previous cases, prosecutors said. “None warrants dismissal of the indictment or categorical preclusion of a congressionally authorized punishment.”
