Aloha Friday

November 7, 2025 — Aloha Friday

Nov 7, 2025

**Video ID:**

Trump v. Orr 25A319

The Supreme Court issued a stay allowing the government to issue passports showing only the sex assigned at birth — a temporary procedural order, not a ruling on the merits, but one with immediate real-world consequences for transgender Americans.

Bryan covered this as a SCOTUS emergency stay application. The underlying case concerned an executive order directing the State Department to issue passports reflecting only biological sex. A lower court had blocked the order. The government applied to the Supreme Court for a stay pending appeal — asking the Court to let the policy go into effect while the legal fight continued. The Court granted it. Bryan was careful to explain the procedural posture: this was not a ruling on whether the executive order is constitutional. It's a temporary pause on the lower court's injunction. The key legal question it sidesteps: whether the administration can recognize a class of people (cisgender) and decline to recognize another (transgender) for the purpose of government-issued identification. Bryan noted the stay signals at least five justices think the government has a reasonable chance of winning — but that's all it signals.

Constitutional question: Equal protection under the Fifth Amendment: whether a federal policy that classifies individuals by birth sex for the purpose of government identification discriminates on the basis of sex or gender identity — and what level of scrutiny applies.

US v. Dunn 25-cr-00252

A man threw a sandwich at a federal employee and was acquitted — and Bryan used it to explain why jury nullification is one of the oldest and most misunderstood doctrines in American law.

US v. Dunn involved a defendant who threw a sandwich at a federal employee — a clear assault on a federal officer charge under federal law. The jury acquitted. Bryan covered this not for the legal complexity of the charge (there wasn't much) but for what the acquittal reveals about jury power. He connected it to the Boston Massacre trials: John Adams defended British soldiers, and acquittals in cases with politically charged facts have been part of American legal culture since before the founding. Jury nullification is the practice of a jury returning a not-guilty verdict despite the evidence because they disagree with the law, the prosecution, or the application of the law to these facts. It's entirely legal — a jury cannot be punished for its verdict, and the Double Jeopardy Clause prevents the government from retrying an acquitted defendant. Courts don't instruct juries that they have this power, but they can't take it away either.

Constitutional question: The Sixth Amendment's right to jury trial and the Fifth Amendment's Double Jeopardy Clause together create a zone of jury power that is unreviewable and unrepeatable — the constitutional basis for why jury nullification, once exercised, is permanent.

US v. Comey 25-cr-00272

The magistrate judge assigned to the Comey case publicly criticized the government's approach — describing the indict-first strategy as backwards — and Halligan, the special counsel, admitted on the record that the indictments had been swapped.

Bryan gave a detailed update on the Comey prosecution's procedural state. The magistrate judge had made an on-the-record statement criticizing the indict-first, investigate-later approach the government appeared to be using — raising concerns about grand jury integrity. More significantly, Halligan admitted in proceedings that the indictments had been swapped: the original indictment and a subsequent indictment were exchanged, which raised questions about whether the grand jury that authorized the charge had actually reviewed the facts underlying the final charging document. Attorney General Bondi's review of the case — which had been announced publicly — was shown to be incomplete: the review hadn't examined all the relevant material. Bryan flagged that the Comey case was starting to show structural problems that could affect its viability.

Constitutional question: Fifth Amendment grand jury clause: whether a substituted indictment — one where the charging document presented to the public differs from what the grand jury reviewed — satisfies the constitutional requirement that a grand jury find probable cause for the specific charges.

Mass v. DoAg 25-cv-13165

Massachusetts and Rhode Island both sued over SNAP benefits cuts — but got very different results, showing how much the specific facts and legal theory matter even when the underlying dispute looks identical.

Bryan covered two SNAP cases on the same day as a paired comparison. Massachusetts had sued over the Department of Agriculture's handling of SNAP (food stamp) benefits, arguing the administration's changes were unlawful. The Massachusetts court issued a more flexible order — partial compliance was accepted, the USDA was moving to implement the required changes, and the judge was managing the compliance process without finding contempt. Bryan used the comparison between the two cases (Massachusetts more flexible, Rhode Island more strict) to illustrate that even when two states are litigating essentially the same statutory question, the litigation dynamics — the evidence presented, the judge's prior orders, the government's compliance track record — shape the outcome significantly.

Administrative law

Constitutional question: Separation of powers and the spending power: whether executive agencies may unilaterally modify congressionally-funded benefit programs — and courts' power to enforce compliance with injunctions restraining executive agency action.

RISCC v. Rollins 25-cv-00569

Rhode Island got a stricter court order in its SNAP case than Massachusetts did — same legal fight, different judge, and a much harder line on what USDA compliance actually requires.

The Rhode Island SNAP case ran parallel to Massachusetts but Bryan described the Rhode Island court as taking a harder compliance stance. Where the Massachusetts court was working with the government on a compliance timeline, the Rhode Island court's order was less forgiving of partial or delayed compliance. Bryan used the contrast to show that federal district courts, even on identical statutory questions, exercise significant discretion in how they manage injunction compliance. The USDA had appealed portions of the Rhode Island order. Bryan explained this as the government's typical appellate strategy in multi-district regulatory litigation: comply in the more flexible district, appeal in the more restrictive one, and try to get the appellate court to set a uniform (and more favorable) standard.

Constitutional question: Same spending power and separation-of-powers question as Mass v. DoAg — but with an additional dimension: how much discretion do district courts have to define what adequate compliance looks like when Congress has set the statutory baseline?

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