Stephen Miller claims that ICE officers have "immunity" for anything they do while enforcing immigration law. Even as an argument about *state* criminal prosecutions, that claim is overstated at best.
My expectation is that SCOTUS will, implicitly if not explicitly, weave together two dubious concepts, viz, the concept of a unitary executive and its concept of presidential immunity, to rule that the immunity SCOTUS recognized for the president’s official acts extends to federal officials—and most clearly and completely to federal law enforcement officers—when they are attempting to carry out the president’s orders, because their acts are—in effect—the acts of the president for whom they are merely agents. The Court will find that the agents are protected under the umbrella of presidential immunity if they reasonably believed that their actions could contribute to implementing a presidential order.
Call it the trickle down theory of presidential immunity: Because all executive power resides in the president alone, presidential immunity logically must extend and flow from the president down to his agents for the same or similar reasons that the president himself has immunity: “Appreciating the ‘unique risks’ that arise when the President’s [agents’] energies are diverted by proceedings that might render [them] … ‘unduly cautious in the discharge of … [their] official duties,’ the Court has recognized Presidential immunities and privileges [extend to federal agents and are] ‘rooted in the constitutional tradition of the separation of powers and supported by our history’.”
Because John Roberts is more clever than I am, I cannot insist that each link in SCOTUS’s chain of logic will be exactly the same as those I have suggested, but I would bet a 12-pack of good beer that Roberts will in some way weave together the unitary executive theory and the theory of presidential immunity (with some “separation of powers” and “deference” language slathered on to plaster over the gaps) to sculpt a novel concept of immunity for federal officials who carry out official orders for which the president himself would enjoy immunity. (Apologies for the quadruply mixed metaphor, but you get the idea.)
Roberts will claim this immunity is “nothing new.”
I cannot say it loudly enough or often enough: SCOTUS will not save us.
In our current post-constitutional situation, with Congress abdicating its role and the Judiciary so broken that legal arguments will not inspire SCOTUS to restrain Trump in any decisive way on any substantial issue, We The People are going to have to figure out the least destructive tactics to save ourselves and our republic from Trump’s abuses of power.
Roberts & this court will not be around forever. What goes around, comes around. & to mix metaphors, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. MLK. Of course, that is not always true, but let us hope!
Whether "The executive Power" of Article II can be delegated/ extended to federal employees charged with statutory duties is a great future topic for Prof Vladeck.
Herman, I agree with your characterization of immunity as trickling down. But to see how it trickles down, we need to start at the top. The president isn't at the top. Immunity cannot be granted to protect a mere public servant. Immunity must be granted to support our Constitution and to protect primarily the people (because the people are sovereign).
The People are sovereign, and acting in our capacity as the supreme legislative authority in the U.S., "We the People" did "ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America" to "establish Justice" and "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves."
Of course, Article VI established that "the supreme Law of the Land" encompasses only the U.S. "Constitution," federal "Laws" that were "made in Pursuance thereof" (of the Constitution) and "all Treaties." But that obviously isn't dispositive of whether federal judges can grant immunity to federal executive officials for conduct that is criminal under state (or federal) law.
Amendment X did (and was designed to) summarize our entire Constitution in a single sentence. We the People “by the Constitution” merely “delegated to the United States” certain limited “powers;” We “prohibited by it” (our Constitution) “to the States” certain “powers;” We “reserved to the States respectively” certain “powers;” and We “reserved” to “the people” all residual “powers.”
Article II emphasizes that the People "vested in a President" only particular parts of our own "executive Power," i.e., the duty to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed" and otherwise to "preserve, protect and defend" our "Constitution." Article IV emphasizes the duty of the U.S. government to secure "all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens" and "guarantee" a "Republican Form of Government." So the president can have immunity (at most) to the extent that We the People had immunity that we could grant to him to carry out the duties that we delegated to him.
We the People don't have immunity from federal criminal statutes or from state criminal statutes, so we cannot grant the president or other executive branch officials such immunity. Article III judges in whom the People vested only limited judicial power ("judicial Power shall extend" no further than permitted "under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties") have no power to purport to grant any immunity that We the People did not and do not have.
I appreciate all the information you’ve given us. But I’m sickened by the absolutely disgraceful inhumane outcome of Anthony Boyd’s execution which took a full half hour.
FWIW, here’s a media report of how Boyd and his accomplices murdered their victim:
“They kidnapped Huguley at gunpoint, stopped to buy gasoline and went to a nearby baseball field, where the attackers made him lie down on a bench, prosecutors said. They then taped Boyd’s hands, feet and mouth before taping him to the bench, dousing him in gasoline, and lighting him on fire … The men then watched Huguley burn for 10 to 15 minutes until the flames went out ….” https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/10/23/alabama-execution-anthony-todd-boyd/86861744007/
No, & it was not. One loses consciousness w/i about 20 seconds in cases of nitrogen hypoxia. & does not feel suffocated b/c no carbon dioxide build up in the blood.
State-sanctioned killing is equally inhumane. To suggest that it would have only been inhumane to kill Boyd in the same manner he killed his victim, is disturbing. Two wrongs do not make a right.
Should Boyd’s execution have been done in a manner “equally inhumane” as the way he murdered his victims?
Equally inhumane?
No.
As I said, it would have been wrong to tie Boyd to a park bench, cover him with gasoline, set him on fire, watch him scream in agony for 15 minutes, and then leave him to die where children would find his body the next day—the way Boyd murdered his victim.
The way Boyd killed his victim was much, much more inhumane than the manner of Boyd’s execUtion.
The state should not execute murderers that way. But that’s not the “only” form of execution I would consider improper and inhumane.
We'll have to agree to disagree. I know what you said, and I disagree with the idea that the method of killing in this context (the intentional killing of a human being) has any bearing on its humanity.
I am still feeling puzzled over what sort of case could be brought against these federal officials. Is there any conduct, for example, in the Chicago apartment building raid that might allow prosecutions? The one with the zip tied children and people hauled out of their homes without warrants? What about in Oregon where they routinely use chemical agents in a residential neighborhood around the ICE facility there? Or when federal agents push peaceful protesters away from the facility desire the protestors standing where they have a legal right to be? Or sitting people in the face with a pepper bullet at close range?
THANK YOU for your thorough rebuttal of Miller’s absurd claim that federal officers possess “absolute immunity.” It’s infuriating how often I encounter morans repeating this canard.
Federal officers are protected only when their actions are authorized by federal law and when they have an objectively reasonable and well-founded belief that their conduct is necessary to carry out that law.
For example, a federal corrections officer may use force to prevent a prison inmate from escaping during a transfer. While such actions might constitute assault in other contexts, they are legally justified when the force used is reasonable to prevent an escape.
Similarly, if a demonstrator outside an ICE facility begins throwing stones at officers, those officers would be justified in taking reasonable measures to stop the threat. Moreover, if the incident occurs on federal property, federal law governs, and state law generally does not apply due to lack of jurisdiction.
However, this leaves a VERY wide range of circumstances where immunity does not apply. Consider the detention of an elementary school teacher escorting children to a bus, the tackling of a gardener tending begonias, or the pepper-spraying of a minister engaged in prayer.
These are likely criminal assaults, and possibly more serious offenses, for which federal officers should be prosecuted.
It’s deeply frustrating that local police often fail to intervene in such obvious criminal situations.
Instead, state and local officials are encouraging citizens to document ICE misconduct. Some states have even established formal mechanisms, such as the Illinois Accountability Commission and the New York Federal Action Reporting Form website, to systematically record federal abuses of power.
Personally, I believe local police should act immediately to de-escalate or halt violence initiated by ICE and arrest federal officers when appropriate.
I suspect officials like Governor Pritzker and New York Attorney General James have refrained from doing so out of concern that it could provoke violent confrontations between heavily armed federal and state forces. Such clashes would be dangerous and could give T another excuse to deploy federal troops under the guise of “restoring order.”
They may also be trying to avoid becoming a test case for the unresolved question in Wyoming v. Livingston, 443 F.3d 1211 (10th Cir. 2006): whether federal officers may egregiously violate state law in the name of enforcing federal policy.
We certainly want to avoid giving the current Supreme Court an opportunity to rule on that issue.
miller is human excrement. He would deem it legal for ICE to go around and just shoot those they choose where they stand. He is a nazi, and nothing says hate, disgust and disdain for their fellow humans like a nazi.
How does the "objective" standard set interact with the federal court requirement for active use of body cameras? I think that will be key. If federal agents do not have an active body camera in use, in violation of federal court orders, and the two parties differ wildly on the description of the events, will the lack of body camera footage be enough for a lawsuit to proceed and/or get before a jury?
Yes, easily. What the courts will struggle with is "Did an agent on patrol have a camera malfunction, or was it sabotage?" That's usually the problem. And, even if a tentative conclusion of "not sabotage" was reached, what does a court do with the conflicting accounts?
I did a quick Google search on authenticating body camera footage. One web site (1) says "... a chain of custody must be established. The authenticity of footage can be established through timestamps and metadata embedded in the video or testimony of the officer wearing the camera." Relying on the testimony of the officer wearing the camera is not a cryptographically secure means of authentication, and I personally believe that the Trump administration has lost whatever credibility it may have had. Timestamps and metadata may not do the trick either, unless there's some sort of cryptographically secure mechanism in play.
Another web site (2) seems to indicate that courts simply trust that the police will not provide fake videos.
In general, it's difficult to verify whether or not something was created by A.I. You say that in this context, it can be easily done. I'd be interested to know how.
Again, not the issue. If the video is so widely divergent from the other people's memories, then a forensic dive will be necessary and the officer will be in danger of perjury plus a bunch of other crimes for evidence tampering and the like.
The key issue for courts under Neagle will be how to handle incidents during which or before which all body cameras suddenly "malfunction". Sometimes, this is deliberate sabotage and courts will grapple with the quantum. And this is especially important in Chicago-area where all federal agents are under direct, on-point federal court orders to use body cameras in all interactions with the public.
It seems that the answer to my original question is: no, there's no secure way to authenticate body camera videos; but if ICE, et. al. tried to fake them, various legal processes would kick in, and that possibility will likely deter them from trying to fake camera footage.
I hope you're right. It might only take a video edit that makes it look like someone was reaching for an ICE officer's gun. Then again, maybe they don't want to bother with all that given that Stephen Miller has already promised federal agents full immunity.
On July 1, 2024, the Supreme Court ruled (in a 6–3 decision) that presidents have absolute immunity for acts committed as president within their core constitutional purview, at least presumptive immunity for official acts within the outer perimeter of their official responsibility, and no immunity for unofficial acts. My question is whether this decision by the six Supreme co-conspirators extends immunity (Supremacy Clause Immunity) to the actions of federal officers – ICE agents for example – who are acting in accordance with instructions from the Department of Justice and/or Department of Homeland Security that have been approved and authorized by the President. If the person giving the order is immune from prosecution, how can anyone carrying out that order also not be immune? I also direct attention to an interesting story “ Repression on a whim” in the Norway-based Barents Observer of October 23rd, written by a dissenting Russian journalist living in exile.He refers to the innovative lies or “mistakes” about him propagated in his Roskomnadzor file, including in his case the attribution of two additional citizenships to the one (Russian) he holds. Roskomnadzor is the Russian federal agency responsible for monitoring, controlling and censoring media and telecommunications. I wonder if DHS and ICE will be taking cues from this agency to produce new justifications for their attacks on US residents including citizens, green card and valid visa holders as well as undocumented immigrants. All part of the Putinization of the federal government and the White House. We may have “won” the Cold War but now we are doing our best to extract defeat from the jaws of victory.
Professor Vladeck, thank you for these timely and valuable insights. The allusion to the concept of "necessary and proper" from the Necessary and Proper Clause of Article I and the Tenth Circuit's elaboration on that concept reminded me of the words of Justice Jackson (writing for the SCOTUS majority) when he addressed similar crucial generalities in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette in 1943:
It is "our duty" (at least, of legislators, lawyers and judges, but actually all Americans) "to apply the Bill of Rights to assertions of official authority" to fulfill our "task of translating the majestic generalities of the Bill of Rights, conceived as part of the pattern of liberal government in the eighteenth century, into concrete restraints on officials dealing with the problems of [our] century." "These principles grew in soil which also produced a philosophy that the individual was the center of society, that his liberty was attainable through mere absence of governmental restraints, and that government should be entrusted with few controls and only the mildest supervision over men's affairs. We must transplant these rights" to the "soil" of our country in our time.
"There is no mysticism in the American concept of the State or of the nature or origin of its authority. We set up government by consent of the governed, and the Bill of Rights denies those in power any legal opportunity to coerce that consent. Authority here is to be controlled by public opinion, not public opinion by authority."
The concept of immunity for public servants whose first, foremost and constant duty is to support our Constitution (for the purposes stated in the Preamble and to secure "all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens" and "guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government") must be consistent with the foregoing.
I am a paid subscriber to EXIT Internationals ebook, The Peaceful Pill Handbook.
EXIT Intrn'l advocates for self-deliverance and has been recommending nitrogen hypoxia for the past 8 years. I personally experimented with it and when utilizing pure nitrogen it, loss of consciousness, is completely painless.
My guess is "they" are purposely using a blend of 20% carbon dioxide as a means of torture, as the presence of carbon dioxide causes feelings of suffocation.
the interesting question: would a "reasonable" ICE officer be able to cite Miller's announcement as either his reasonable basis or his subjective belief?
Many dynamical systems may have tipping points where gradual changes lead to a sudden and irreversible change in the system's behavior -- local ecological systems, the climate system, neurological systems, etc. Our democracy is probably another such system.
While legal debates continue, Trump continues to chip away at our Constitution, the very thing that guarantees the right to challenge his actions in court. If this keeps up, there may come a tipping point where the ability to legally challenge Trump has been reduced to rubble and the system quickly shifts to an autocracy, a change that is of course hard to reverse. We may be living through a real-life lesson in Catastrophe Theory.
New Steve Vladek super fan here - thank you for your comprehensive and clear explanations of very complex subjects. And also what you choose to bring to our attention… lastly I just finished the Shadow Docket yesterday… I saw an old friend on Saturday - she is an environmental engineer, is Ivy League undergrad and has two masters degrees, is a regular reader of news, is active and interested in her community and what is going on in the world — and her only idea or knowledge around the emergency docket was emergency stays for executions… her jaw dropped when I started to outline what has happened and what is happening with the emergency docket…
My expectation is that SCOTUS will, implicitly if not explicitly, weave together two dubious concepts, viz, the concept of a unitary executive and its concept of presidential immunity, to rule that the immunity SCOTUS recognized for the president’s official acts extends to federal officials—and most clearly and completely to federal law enforcement officers—when they are attempting to carry out the president’s orders, because their acts are—in effect—the acts of the president for whom they are merely agents. The Court will find that the agents are protected under the umbrella of presidential immunity if they reasonably believed that their actions could contribute to implementing a presidential order.
Call it the trickle down theory of presidential immunity: Because all executive power resides in the president alone, presidential immunity logically must extend and flow from the president down to his agents for the same or similar reasons that the president himself has immunity: “Appreciating the ‘unique risks’ that arise when the President’s [agents’] energies are diverted by proceedings that might render [them] … ‘unduly cautious in the discharge of … [their] official duties,’ the Court has recognized Presidential immunities and privileges [extend to federal agents and are] ‘rooted in the constitutional tradition of the separation of powers and supported by our history’.”
Because John Roberts is more clever than I am, I cannot insist that each link in SCOTUS’s chain of logic will be exactly the same as those I have suggested, but I would bet a 12-pack of good beer that Roberts will in some way weave together the unitary executive theory and the theory of presidential immunity (with some “separation of powers” and “deference” language slathered on to plaster over the gaps) to sculpt a novel concept of immunity for federal officials who carry out official orders for which the president himself would enjoy immunity. (Apologies for the quadruply mixed metaphor, but you get the idea.)
Roberts will claim this immunity is “nothing new.”
I cannot say it loudly enough or often enough: SCOTUS will not save us.
In our current post-constitutional situation, with Congress abdicating its role and the Judiciary so broken that legal arguments will not inspire SCOTUS to restrain Trump in any decisive way on any substantial issue, We The People are going to have to figure out the least destructive tactics to save ourselves and our republic from Trump’s abuses of power.
Roberts & this court will not be around forever. What goes around, comes around. & to mix metaphors, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. MLK. Of course, that is not always true, but let us hope!
You might be right, but I hope not.
Whether "The executive Power" of Article II can be delegated/ extended to federal employees charged with statutory duties is a great future topic for Prof Vladeck.
Chief Justice Roberts wanted the president free to be bold. Under that doctrine, every federal employee can be equally bold. Ugh!
There’s still the reasonable belief and good faith issue. My guess is that this will still play some part.
Herman, I agree with your characterization of immunity as trickling down. But to see how it trickles down, we need to start at the top. The president isn't at the top. Immunity cannot be granted to protect a mere public servant. Immunity must be granted to support our Constitution and to protect primarily the people (because the people are sovereign).
The People are sovereign, and acting in our capacity as the supreme legislative authority in the U.S., "We the People" did "ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America" to "establish Justice" and "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves."
Of course, Article VI established that "the supreme Law of the Land" encompasses only the U.S. "Constitution," federal "Laws" that were "made in Pursuance thereof" (of the Constitution) and "all Treaties." But that obviously isn't dispositive of whether federal judges can grant immunity to federal executive officials for conduct that is criminal under state (or federal) law.
Amendment X did (and was designed to) summarize our entire Constitution in a single sentence. We the People “by the Constitution” merely “delegated to the United States” certain limited “powers;” We “prohibited by it” (our Constitution) “to the States” certain “powers;” We “reserved to the States respectively” certain “powers;” and We “reserved” to “the people” all residual “powers.”
Article II emphasizes that the People "vested in a President" only particular parts of our own "executive Power," i.e., the duty to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed" and otherwise to "preserve, protect and defend" our "Constitution." Article IV emphasizes the duty of the U.S. government to secure "all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens" and "guarantee" a "Republican Form of Government." So the president can have immunity (at most) to the extent that We the People had immunity that we could grant to him to carry out the duties that we delegated to him.
We the People don't have immunity from federal criminal statutes or from state criminal statutes, so we cannot grant the president or other executive branch officials such immunity. Article III judges in whom the People vested only limited judicial power ("judicial Power shall extend" no further than permitted "under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties") have no power to purport to grant any immunity that We the People did not and do not have.
I appreciate all the information you’ve given us. But I’m sickened by the absolutely disgraceful inhumane outcome of Anthony Boyd’s execution which took a full half hour.
FWIW, here’s a media report of how Boyd and his accomplices murdered their victim:
“They kidnapped Huguley at gunpoint, stopped to buy gasoline and went to a nearby baseball field, where the attackers made him lie down on a bench, prosecutors said. They then taped Boyd’s hands, feet and mouth before taping him to the bench, dousing him in gasoline, and lighting him on fire … The men then watched Huguley burn for 10 to 15 minutes until the flames went out ….” https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/10/23/alabama-execution-anthony-todd-boyd/86861744007/
So are you suggesting his execution should be equally inhumane?
No, & it was not. One loses consciousness w/i about 20 seconds in cases of nitrogen hypoxia. & does not feel suffocated b/c no carbon dioxide build up in the blood.
No, it would have been wrong to immolate Boyd.
State-sanctioned killing is equally inhumane. To suggest that it would have only been inhumane to kill Boyd in the same manner he killed his victim, is disturbing. Two wrongs do not make a right.
I answered the question that was asked.
Should Boyd’s execution have been done in a manner “equally inhumane” as the way he murdered his victims?
Equally inhumane?
No.
As I said, it would have been wrong to tie Boyd to a park bench, cover him with gasoline, set him on fire, watch him scream in agony for 15 minutes, and then leave him to die where children would find his body the next day—the way Boyd murdered his victim.
The way Boyd killed his victim was much, much more inhumane than the manner of Boyd’s execUtion.
The state should not execute murderers that way. But that’s not the “only” form of execution I would consider improper and inhumane.
We'll have to agree to disagree. I know what you said, and I disagree with the idea that the method of killing in this context (the intentional killing of a human being) has any bearing on its humanity.
This act unfortunately truly justifies if not in law the pain of this execution.
I am still feeling puzzled over what sort of case could be brought against these federal officials. Is there any conduct, for example, in the Chicago apartment building raid that might allow prosecutions? The one with the zip tied children and people hauled out of their homes without warrants? What about in Oregon where they routinely use chemical agents in a residential neighborhood around the ICE facility there? Or when federal agents push peaceful protesters away from the facility desire the protestors standing where they have a legal right to be? Or sitting people in the face with a pepper bullet at close range?
THANK YOU for your thorough rebuttal of Miller’s absurd claim that federal officers possess “absolute immunity.” It’s infuriating how often I encounter morans repeating this canard.
Federal officers are protected only when their actions are authorized by federal law and when they have an objectively reasonable and well-founded belief that their conduct is necessary to carry out that law.
For example, a federal corrections officer may use force to prevent a prison inmate from escaping during a transfer. While such actions might constitute assault in other contexts, they are legally justified when the force used is reasonable to prevent an escape.
Similarly, if a demonstrator outside an ICE facility begins throwing stones at officers, those officers would be justified in taking reasonable measures to stop the threat. Moreover, if the incident occurs on federal property, federal law governs, and state law generally does not apply due to lack of jurisdiction.
However, this leaves a VERY wide range of circumstances where immunity does not apply. Consider the detention of an elementary school teacher escorting children to a bus, the tackling of a gardener tending begonias, or the pepper-spraying of a minister engaged in prayer.
These are likely criminal assaults, and possibly more serious offenses, for which federal officers should be prosecuted.
It’s deeply frustrating that local police often fail to intervene in such obvious criminal situations.
Instead, state and local officials are encouraging citizens to document ICE misconduct. Some states have even established formal mechanisms, such as the Illinois Accountability Commission and the New York Federal Action Reporting Form website, to systematically record federal abuses of power.
Personally, I believe local police should act immediately to de-escalate or halt violence initiated by ICE and arrest federal officers when appropriate.
I suspect officials like Governor Pritzker and New York Attorney General James have refrained from doing so out of concern that it could provoke violent confrontations between heavily armed federal and state forces. Such clashes would be dangerous and could give T another excuse to deploy federal troops under the guise of “restoring order.”
They may also be trying to avoid becoming a test case for the unresolved question in Wyoming v. Livingston, 443 F.3d 1211 (10th Cir. 2006): whether federal officers may egregiously violate state law in the name of enforcing federal policy.
We certainly want to avoid giving the current Supreme Court an opportunity to rule on that issue.
miller is human excrement. He would deem it legal for ICE to go around and just shoot those they choose where they stand. He is a nazi, and nothing says hate, disgust and disdain for their fellow humans like a nazi.
How does the "objective" standard set interact with the federal court requirement for active use of body cameras? I think that will be key. If federal agents do not have an active body camera in use, in violation of federal court orders, and the two parties differ wildly on the description of the events, will the lack of body camera footage be enough for a lawsuit to proceed and/or get before a jury?
Is it possible for courts to verify that purported body camera videos are authentic and not generated by A.I.?
Yes, easily. What the courts will struggle with is "Did an agent on patrol have a camera malfunction, or was it sabotage?" That's usually the problem. And, even if a tentative conclusion of "not sabotage" was reached, what does a court do with the conflicting accounts?
I did a quick Google search on authenticating body camera footage. One web site (1) says "... a chain of custody must be established. The authenticity of footage can be established through timestamps and metadata embedded in the video or testimony of the officer wearing the camera." Relying on the testimony of the officer wearing the camera is not a cryptographically secure means of authentication, and I personally believe that the Trump administration has lost whatever credibility it may have had. Timestamps and metadata may not do the trick either, unless there's some sort of cryptographically secure mechanism in play.
Another web site (2) seems to indicate that courts simply trust that the police will not provide fake videos.
In general, it's difficult to verify whether or not something was created by A.I. You say that in this context, it can be easily done. I'd be interested to know how.
[1] https://aikenattorneys.com/body-cameras-police-misconduct-criminal-defense/
[2] https://www.blankingshipandkeith.com/news-insights/the-supreme-court-determines-the-admissibility-of-an-officers-body-worn-camera-footage
Again, not the issue. If the video is so widely divergent from the other people's memories, then a forensic dive will be necessary and the officer will be in danger of perjury plus a bunch of other crimes for evidence tampering and the like.
The key issue for courts under Neagle will be how to handle incidents during which or before which all body cameras suddenly "malfunction". Sometimes, this is deliberate sabotage and courts will grapple with the quantum. And this is especially important in Chicago-area where all federal agents are under direct, on-point federal court orders to use body cameras in all interactions with the public.
Thanks for the response.
It seems that the answer to my original question is: no, there's no secure way to authenticate body camera videos; but if ICE, et. al. tried to fake them, various legal processes would kick in, and that possibility will likely deter them from trying to fake camera footage.
I hope you're right. It might only take a video edit that makes it look like someone was reaching for an ICE officer's gun. Then again, maybe they don't want to bother with all that given that Stephen Miller has already promised federal agents full immunity.
On July 1, 2024, the Supreme Court ruled (in a 6–3 decision) that presidents have absolute immunity for acts committed as president within their core constitutional purview, at least presumptive immunity for official acts within the outer perimeter of their official responsibility, and no immunity for unofficial acts. My question is whether this decision by the six Supreme co-conspirators extends immunity (Supremacy Clause Immunity) to the actions of federal officers – ICE agents for example – who are acting in accordance with instructions from the Department of Justice and/or Department of Homeland Security that have been approved and authorized by the President. If the person giving the order is immune from prosecution, how can anyone carrying out that order also not be immune? I also direct attention to an interesting story “ Repression on a whim” in the Norway-based Barents Observer of October 23rd, written by a dissenting Russian journalist living in exile.He refers to the innovative lies or “mistakes” about him propagated in his Roskomnadzor file, including in his case the attribution of two additional citizenships to the one (Russian) he holds. Roskomnadzor is the Russian federal agency responsible for monitoring, controlling and censoring media and telecommunications. I wonder if DHS and ICE will be taking cues from this agency to produce new justifications for their attacks on US residents including citizens, green card and valid visa holders as well as undocumented immigrants. All part of the Putinization of the federal government and the White House. We may have “won” the Cold War but now we are doing our best to extract defeat from the jaws of victory.
Thanks for the facts.
Thanks ,again, for your enlightening insights!
Professor Vladeck, thank you for these timely and valuable insights. The allusion to the concept of "necessary and proper" from the Necessary and Proper Clause of Article I and the Tenth Circuit's elaboration on that concept reminded me of the words of Justice Jackson (writing for the SCOTUS majority) when he addressed similar crucial generalities in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette in 1943:
It is "our duty" (at least, of legislators, lawyers and judges, but actually all Americans) "to apply the Bill of Rights to assertions of official authority" to fulfill our "task of translating the majestic generalities of the Bill of Rights, conceived as part of the pattern of liberal government in the eighteenth century, into concrete restraints on officials dealing with the problems of [our] century." "These principles grew in soil which also produced a philosophy that the individual was the center of society, that his liberty was attainable through mere absence of governmental restraints, and that government should be entrusted with few controls and only the mildest supervision over men's affairs. We must transplant these rights" to the "soil" of our country in our time.
"There is no mysticism in the American concept of the State or of the nature or origin of its authority. We set up government by consent of the governed, and the Bill of Rights denies those in power any legal opportunity to coerce that consent. Authority here is to be controlled by public opinion, not public opinion by authority."
The concept of immunity for public servants whose first, foremost and constant duty is to support our Constitution (for the purposes stated in the Preamble and to secure "all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens" and "guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government") must be consistent with the foregoing.
27.Oct.25 4:09 pm Mtn Time
I am a paid subscriber to EXIT Internationals ebook, The Peaceful Pill Handbook.
EXIT Intrn'l advocates for self-deliverance and has been recommending nitrogen hypoxia for the past 8 years. I personally experimented with it and when utilizing pure nitrogen it, loss of consciousness, is completely painless.
My guess is "they" are purposely using a blend of 20% carbon dioxide as a means of torture, as the presence of carbon dioxide causes feelings of suffocation.
Albuquerque, New Mexico
the interesting question: would a "reasonable" ICE officer be able to cite Miller's announcement as either his reasonable basis or his subjective belief?
Many dynamical systems may have tipping points where gradual changes lead to a sudden and irreversible change in the system's behavior -- local ecological systems, the climate system, neurological systems, etc. Our democracy is probably another such system.
While legal debates continue, Trump continues to chip away at our Constitution, the very thing that guarantees the right to challenge his actions in court. If this keeps up, there may come a tipping point where the ability to legally challenge Trump has been reduced to rubble and the system quickly shifts to an autocracy, a change that is of course hard to reverse. We may be living through a real-life lesson in Catastrophe Theory.
New Steve Vladek super fan here - thank you for your comprehensive and clear explanations of very complex subjects. And also what you choose to bring to our attention… lastly I just finished the Shadow Docket yesterday… I saw an old friend on Saturday - she is an environmental engineer, is Ivy League undergrad and has two masters degrees, is a regular reader of news, is active and interested in her community and what is going on in the world — and her only idea or knowledge around the emergency docket was emergency stays for executions… her jaw dropped when I started to outline what has happened and what is happening with the emergency docket…