We’re like two weeks away from seeing footage of a DOJ lawyer named Adolf arguing that Brandeis should be dismantled because of its antisemitism, and no one is going to know whether it’s a live feed or an SNL clip.
Constitutional litigator. Public interest/First Amendment/civil rights/innocence/election litigation. Nashville politics. Anti-SLAPP evangelist. Email daniel at horwitz.law. My views are my employer’s.
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We’re like two weeks away from seeing footage of a DOJ lawyer named Adolf arguing that Brandeis should be dismantled because of its antisemitism, and no one is going to know whether it’s a live feed or an SNL clip.
Good for Illinois. Strong anti-SLAPPs laws are what gives the First Amendment its teeth. What good is the right of free speech if it takes years of litigation and hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a defendant out of a case?
Some of you do not recognize that broad judicial determinations of state power apply broadly beyond narrow disputes that you consider "unimportant," and it shows. bsky.app/profile/mia1...
There’s no way they are doing CLE for no reason. It’s got to be less.
I’d have guessed less? Why keep an active license if you literally never practice?
Once more for those in back: They were never going to be able to implement a mass deportation program without prioritizing people like this. Criminals and gang members are too hard to find and apprehend. Regular folks who show up to work, church, and their scheduled immigration appointments are not.
Intermediate Scrutiny for August 23-29, 2025: horwitzlawpllc.cmail19.com/t/y-e-qitlio...
Do you think the government should be able forbid the name you want to give your child because it dislikes it and it will end up on a “government-issued ID”? Why not? Would you be ok with your state allowing pro-Trump vanity plates but not anti-Trump vanity plates? Why not? bsky.app/profile/lucy...
I mean, the state’s witnesses were pretty candid (though they pretended to embrace the government’s position at trial). The only people really advocating the charade were its lawyers. This was from the state rep depo:
Special thank you to @adamsteinbaugh.bsky.social, @volokhc.bsky.social (Eugene, specifically), @simontam.bsky.social, and many others who are helping us with this.
A reminder that the trial record in this case is so incredible that you would not believe me if you didn’t simply read it yourself.
Half a decade later, it has come to this. www.usatoday.com/story/news/p...
*have standing. LA wouldn’t *have* standing but for President Trump’s invasion.
This whole thing is great but the highlighted bit made me laugh out loud. 😂 Marlon on Snoop:
📌
These people deserve to be charged; no one should be seeking out sex with someone they think is a minor. But as usual, there was zero human trafficking involved in this “human trafficking operation,” a remarkably consistent pattern. www.tennessean.com/story/news/c...
Every time. Calling prostitution stings “human trafficking operations” is: (1) literally false in most instances, and (2) serves only to increase budgets for law enforcement agencies that pretend to be involved in curbing human trafficking. Pure copaganda.
Just saw someone refer to Cheryl Hines as The Marvelous Mrs. Measles and 💀💀💀💀💀💀
Fixing this also isn’t something that can be done incrementally. I will write an article on this someday, but a recurring problem is that jurisdictions pass an incremental reform allowing certain claims, and the judiciary responds by interpreting the reform to be as useless and limited as possible.
Immunity doctrines aren’t designed to protect against (and they aren’t necessary to protect against) meritless claims. Instead, they protect against *meritorious* claims, which is their main function. Immunity doctrines ensure that government officials can’t be sued even when they violate the law.
People are always shocked to learn this, but the issue here is not that it is “difficult” to hold law enforcement officials accountable for wrongdoing in a civil setting. Instead, in nearly all cases, it is *impossible,* and it is impossible *by design.*
I know there are no silver bullets here, but I think constantly about how our culture of insanely aggressive and thoughtless policing would be upended if federal and state officials were subject to individual liability for their torts instead of being protected by a vast web of immunity doctrines.
For what I think is the first time, I was charged my local county sales tax today by a subscription (legal software) service that is based in another state. Has anyone ever experienced this? I use a ton of legal subscription services, and I have never seen this as far as I can recall.
oh come on www.nytimes.com/2025/08/29/u...
Another fun thing BigLaw does is tout—in marketing materials, the press, etc.—“pro bono” cases they handled in which they sought and collected a fee-shifting award at the end of the engagement. Which a lot of us call “working on contingency” and/or our “jobs.”
I don’t know about “unqualified”—I’m pretty sure that is the qualification.
This is a real photograph of Washington, DC this week, where the United States president has ordered military occupation in peacetime, and ordered the display of colossal portraits of himself. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
And next time will be the same result because the prison had all of this and *rodents,* rather than roaches. (Qualified immunity is a farcical, made-up, completely outrageous bullshit doctrine, part nine bazillion.)
His legal analysis is spot on.
After this nightmare Administration ends, the absolute bare minimum that needs to be done is publishing the names of every 2025 ICE agent so they can be linked to these crimes against humanity forever. No one should be able to hide from participating in this. And many of them should be prosecuted.
(((Indeed)))
What’s it called when a national leader who is explicitly worried about losing power in the next election deploys the military to the nation’s capital city and the places where his political opponents are concentrated? I think it might not be “a distraction.”
If you see something, say something — wait not that thing don’t say that
If we took all of the money/tax credits devoted to our mishmash of a social safety net (including the massive administration expenses for means-testing, etc.) and used that money to fund a universal basic income program instead, I’ve got to believe American poverty would be dramatically improved.
Basically every welfare program should be evaluated based on the criterion: “Would this help more than simply giving the intended beneficiaries cash?” And if the answer is no, we should give people cash instead.
I still catch a ton of shit for expressing these correct opinions: www.abajournal.com/magazine/art...
We have not had a quorum at my monthly “vacuous civility sucks, you shouldn’t be gratuitously polite to terrible people you hate” meeting for years, so I am pleased to see this dialogue.
There have been some very scathing dissents over the years, but I can't think of one where the accusation is so bluntly made that the majority is a bunch of partisan hacks who are politically subservient to a president.
GodDAMN
Is anyone—and I mean anyone—still under the misimpression that whatever the federal courts are doing when they make big structural pronouncements like this is “law” in any meaningful sense?
The labor theory of value, but for magic.
Apart from the cartoon villain nature of this letter, I am reminded yet again how often prior restraints are imposed and/or threatened (all the time, constantly) in a country that purportedly does not tolerate them.
Saw this story in Bolts about NOLA voting to allow cops to use cameras with facial-recognition technology. Sent the City Council a letter to let them know it's unconstitutional and, historically, we really like to sue over this sort of thing. ij.org/press-releas...
I mean, probably yeah? Is there any American jurisdiction that doesn’t falsify crime data?
This is exactly the attitude that prevents some of you from becoming the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Appears to be the common law writ of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum. I think 2241 is the statutory scheme for applying for one.
The whole confederacy is getting in on it.
It’s come to my attention that this means something else. I mean the non-statutory one where you make them bring you to a court, rather than the one where you’re collaterally attacking a state conviction. Whatever that one’s called (the “common law” writ?). I’m sure @stevevladeck.bsky.social knows.
FILE AN ORIGINAL HABEAS PETITION
Ignorant, unaccountable, empowered, violent, and xenophobic. A tremendous combination.
And this doesn't include the tequila!
Ok yeah, that was my bad, but in fairness to me, the nearest UPS store was 300 miles away and getting there required taking a moose, so give a guy a break, ok
The mission-essential equipment:
DC must be made a state with its own governance after this. No alternative.
Andy Ogles is like two news cycles away from introducing a mandatory minimum enhancement for getting mayo on a stormtrooper.
Get this game into the Olympics, I'm begging.
the two young women just waiting for their Ubers while this unfolds behind them really captures the complete ludicrousness of this situation
Pretty sure it’s not just the website; this sounds remarkably similar to Sam Alito’s jurisprudence.
While I have plenty of beef with other stuff Newsom has done, this is exactly what we need right now
Horrific. mRNA vaccines have saved millions of lives and could save millions more. “I don’t think I’ve seen a more dangerous decision in public health in my 50 years in the business,” said Mike Osterholm, a UMN expert on infectious diseases & pandemic preparations. www.huffpost.com/entry/rfk-va...
What happened here is almost unimaginably grotesque. www.nashvillescene.com/news/pithint...
This is honestly an astonishing pick for an Administration that has made ending DUI the centerpiece of its domestic policy agenda.
The silver lining here is that, as long as she’s in charge, you could literally cripple the office by having a sale on Chardonnay.
Every day an impeachable offense. Most days, several.
We will need a Third Reconstruction.
Public media is really special. Shame, shame, shame on this regime and its campaign to make everyone scared, obedient, and stupid. They are stealing from all of us and from our futures. Despicable.
Absent further order of the Tennessee Supreme Court or a federal court or intervention by the Governor (or an agreement between the parties), yes. bsky.app/profile/gabi...
This reasoning is, uh, wafer-thin. Particularly when paired with the later conclusion that the parties can negotiate this relief on their own without court approval.
Just unbelievable
What’s so baffling is that their clients generally are not price-sensitive (certainly not on the margins), so they would make MORE money by NOT doing this. I don’t get it at all.
I can understand solos and small firms that are swamped and working on contingency stupidly doing this. But how the hell are firms that are charging their clients a bajillion dollars an hour doing this? This is like the 100th story like this. It’s totally baffling. www.abajournal.com/news/article...
It’s wild to me that the failed nominee cemeteries are teeming with lefty lawyers who fought too hard for civil liberties on behalf of unpopular people, while this Bond villain got the inside track by pledging fealty to the President.
No means no, Congressman
2026/2028 Dem hopefuls should really start running on an “I will do everything possible to roll back everything that Trump has ever touched, including his judicial appointments” platform.
And Senate Republicans are about to confirm him to a life appointment on a federal appeals court. Democrats must ask: What’s a proportional response to Trump’s heinous corruption of the federal judiciary? Doing nothing means letting Bove and his ilk rule us for the next 40 years. I don’t accept it.
!!! www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?...
I had to spend two and a half years fighting a frivolous lawsuit that was a direct result of Bollea v. Gawker. And that lawsuit massively decreased our capability to do what we do, so I take issue with one of Hulk Hogan's lawyers claiming that Bollea v. Gawker had no impact on journalism
Intermediate Scrutiny for July 25, 2025: horwitzlawpllc.cmail20.com/t/y-e-qjdirj...
You could literally make a living doing nothing but Tennessee RLUIPA cases in which some municipality here has discriminated against Muslims. www.commercialappeal.com/story/news/l...
Laughed so hard I snorted
You guys are not going to believe this
Guess you can’t blame him for trying, but, uh, good luck
The most straightforward solution to the problem is automatic fee-shifting for defamation defendants who prevail at any stage of litigation (which no American jurisdiction has, to my knowledge).
SLAPP-suits are such an obvious retaliatory tactic. Inexplicably, though, the federal court system (and many state court systems) have proven fundamentally incapable of addressing the problem. Defending SLAPP-suits will bankrupt most people, who thus are forced to self-censor and capitulate.
"Her businesses, known for donating meals to homeless shelters, supporting local police, providing funding for high school baseball teams... “She gives back to the community, creates jobs for young people, pays taxes. Why would you want to remove someone like that?” www.12news.com/article/news...
Intermediate Scrutiny for July 12–18, 2025: horwitzlawpllc.cmail19.com/t/y-e-qjyuju...
The law “prohibits speech encouraging lawful abortion while allowing speech discouraging lawful abortion,” Judge Gibbons’ opinion explains. "That is impermissible viewpoint discrimination, which the First Amendment rarely tolerates—and does not tolerate here.” www.tennessean.com/story/news/2...
“Getting fucked at the moment.”
Imagine being the fucking Tennessee Assistant Attorney General who fought this tooth and nail: www.tennessean.com/story/news/c.... There is NO reason for the state to oppose a request like this. It benefits the public not at all, even theoretically. It’s just unadulterated cruelty.
Does anyone *actually* believe that Donald Trump—the guy who owned the Miss Teen USA pageant during this time, who was best friends with the guy who was fucking kids during this time whose birthday it was, and who sounds exactly like this—would write something like this? Get real
Yes, CBS paid Trump a $16 million bribe, and yes, Stephen Colbert said so on the air, and yes, CBS canceled his show the next day. But actually, given the economic realities of the prevailing late-night landscape, that is still exactly what happened.
If this catches on, this would be a sea change.
Two big wins in the same day, this one a plaintiff verdict in a prison wrongful death case we tried back in April: horwitz.law/wp-content/u.... Should probably buy a lottery ticket just in case something cosmically weird is going on.
Which fuckin lawyer made them write “pictures not to scale” on this twice
(It was because of this, though: reason.com/2024/10/03/n...)
I am proud to report that our clients have prevailed in their First Amendment challenge to this pernicious, viewpoint-discriminatory law that sought to criminalize information about abortion care: horwitz.law/wp-content/u.... Thus, all enforcement of this overbroad law is now enjoined.
“What’d you get?” “He sucks at money.” “Anything on his extremely close multidecade relationship with one of the most disgraced people on the planet?” “Nope, there’s nothings there.”