SCOTUS AM

November 4, 2025 — SCOTUS AM

Nov 4, 2025

1104 AM SCOTUS TT

US v. Comey 25-cr-00272

The DOJ keeps restarting the Comey prosecution clock — each time a new grand jury term expires or a judge pushes back, the government finds a procedural workaround to keep the case alive without actually moving it forward.

Bryan flagged this as a pattern: the Comey prosecution has been cycling through magistrate judges and grand jury terms without resolving. The DOJ's strategy appears to be appointment cycling — bringing in a new appointment when the existing one runs into friction — rather than pressing the case on the merits. Bryan noted that Halligan, the special counsel, had been managing these cycles, and the magistrate had publicly criticized the indict-first approach being used. The case remained in this limbo state as of November 4, 2025.

Constitutional question: Whether the executive branch's appointment and reappointment of special counsel officers between grand jury cycles complies with the Appointments Clause — and whether using procedural cycling to sustain a prosecution without advancing it on the merits raises due process concerns.

Oregon v. Trump 25-cv-01756

A Trump-appointed judge just issued a preliminary injunction against the Trump administration — one of the early signals that executive order litigation was going to cut across political appointment lines.

Bryan covered Oregon v. Trump as a notable moment in the early executive order litigation wave: a judge appointed by Trump himself issued a preliminary injunction against one of Trump's executive orders. Bryan framed this as significant not because of the merits of any particular order, but because it illustrated that the legal challenges weren't splitting cleanly along who-appointed-whom lines. The preliminary injunction standard — likelihood of success on the merits, irreparable harm, balance of equities, public interest — was met in the court's view regardless of the appointing president.

Constitutional question: Whether the challenged executive action exceeded statutory or constitutional authority granted to the executive — and the court's role in checking executive overreach regardless of political alignment.

Coney Island v. Burton 24-808

A $47,000 judgment sat on the books for years after it was entered — and then a court had to decide whether a judgment entered without proper personal jurisdiction is void from the beginning, or just voidable.

Coney Island Medical Center had a $47,000 judgment against Burton. The problem: the court that entered the judgment may not have had proper personal jurisdiction over Burton when it did so. Burton moved under Rule 60(b)(4) to void the judgment — Rule 60 allows courts to relieve a party from a final judgment, and subsection (4) covers void judgments. The circuit split at issue was whether a judgment entered without personal jurisdiction is void ab initio (void from the start, can be challenged at any time) or merely voidable (challengeable only within certain time limits). Bryan used this case to explain the void/voidable distinction and what "reasonable time" means in Rule 60 motions — the rule says you must file "within a reasonable time," but courts disagree on what that means for void-versus-voidable judgments.

Constitutional question: Due process: whether a judgment entered without personal jurisdiction — meaning a court acting without constitutional authority over the defendant — can ever be treated as merely voidable rather than constitutionally void from the start.

Hain v. Palmquist 24-724

Whole Foods is a big company — and its presence in a lawsuit is enough to destroy complete diversity and strip federal courts of jurisdiction, even if the plaintiff never actually sued Whole Foods.

Hain Celestial Group made organic baby food. Palmquist sued, alleging heavy metals contamination. The case was removed to federal court on diversity jurisdiction grounds — the idea that when parties are from different states, federal courts can hear the dispute. But Whole Foods was also in the supply chain, and Whole Foods is incorporated in Texas (same state as some of the parties), destroying complete diversity. The Fifth Circuit reversed the district court's exercise of jurisdiction: if there's a non-diverse defendant — even a large corporation like Whole Foods that everyone assumes is diverse — complete diversity fails and the case must go back to state court. Bryan used this to explain the complete diversity rule: every plaintiff must be from a different state than every defendant; one non-diverse party kills federal jurisdiction entirely.

Constitutional question: Article III's "Controversies between Citizens of different States" — the constitutional and statutory limits on when federal courts may exercise jurisdiction over state-law claims between private parties.

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