Morning Report

December 16, 2025 — Morning Report

Dec 16, 2025

1216 AM TT

The administration had been deporting people to third countries — not their home countries — and a judge issued a partial summary judgment requiring the government to give people notice and a chance to be heard before removing them somewhere they'd never chosen.

Standard immigration removal sends someone back to their country of origin. But the administration had been arranging removals to third countries — nations the person had no connection to and had never agreed to go to. This raised a distinct due process question: even if someone can lawfully be removed from the United States, do they have a right to know they're being sent somewhere unexpected and to challenge that specific destination? The court in DVD v. DHS granted a partial summary judgment — meaning the law was clear enough on at least some of the issues that no trial was needed on those points — requiring the government to provide notice and an opportunity to object before third-country removals proceeded. Bryan explained why this is legally distinct from ordinary removal: the destination matters. Being removed to El Salvador, where someone has family and language, is categorically different from being sent to a country where they have no connections, don't speak the language, and may face new risks. The due process clause applies to the manner and conditions of removal, not just to whether removal can happen at all.

Constitutional question: Fifth Amendment due process in the removal context: the government's authority to remove someone does not eliminate procedural rights about the conditions of that removal — including the destination. Sending someone to a country they have no connection to, without notice or hearing, implicates due process even when the underlying removal is otherwise lawful.

Davenport v. US 24-7435 · 24-7435

The Supreme Court declined to hear a case about what judges can tell juries about "reasonable doubt" — and Justice Sotomayor wrote a concurrence flagging that the Court needs to eventually address this because circuit courts are all over the map.

Reasonable doubt is the highest standard in American law — prosecutors must prove every element of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt before a jury can convict. But federal courts have struggled for decades with what judges are allowed to tell juries about what "reasonable doubt" actually means. Can a judge define it? Must a judge define it? Can the judge say it means you need to be "firmly convinced"? Some circuits allow detailed definitions. Others say trying to define it creates more confusion than leaving it as a plain-English phrase. Davenport asked the Court to weigh in on this circuit conflict. The Court denied cert — it won't hear the case. But Justice Sotomayor wrote separately to note that the circuit split on reasonable doubt jury instructions is real, it's significant, and the Court will need to address it eventually. Bryan used Sotomayor's concurrence to explain what a concurrence in denial of cert signals: the Court isn't endorsing the lower court's approach, it's just not ready to take the case now — but a justice is putting down a marker that the issue isn't resolved.

Constitutional question: Due process requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt for criminal conviction (In re Winship). If jurors don't understand what that standard means — or if judges define it in ways that raise or lower the bar — the constitutional protection is undermined regardless of what phrase is on the page.

Fields v. Plappert 23-6912 · 23-6912

A capital defendant's jury used a screwdriver to test evidence during deliberations — evidence that had never been admitted at trial — and the question was whether habeas corpus could reach that constitutional violation when the law governing it had changed after his conviction.

Bryan used Fields v. Plappert to explain one of the hardest problems in habeas corpus law: what happens when you were convicted under a rule, the rule later changed in your favor, but the courts say the change came too late for you? In capital cases especially, this problem recurs. The facts of Fields: during jury deliberations in a capital case, jurors used a screwdriver — a tool that was not in evidence — to conduct their own experiment on physical evidence. That's a Sixth Amendment violation. A defendant is entitled to have the verdict based only on evidence admitted at trial, with an opportunity to confront it. A juror running independent experiments with their own tools is exactly what trial procedure is designed to prevent. Fields brought a habeas petition. But habeas corpus under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) has a specific constraint: you can only get relief on federal law claims where the law was "clearly established" at the time of your conviction. The issue in Fields's case was that the case clarifying the "clearly established law" standard for this kind of jury misconduct — Andrews — was decided after his conviction. The question for SCOTUS was whether Andrews changed the clearly-established-law test in a way that helped or hurt Fields, and whether he had a viable path through habeas.

Constitutional question: AEDPA's "clearly established law" requirement creates a retroactivity barrier: constitutional rights that weren't squarely established when your case was final may be unavailable to you in habeas even if you could win on the merits today. In capital cases, this means the timing of legal evolution can determine whether a constitutional violation results in execution.

← December 12, 2025 — Aloha Friday December 17, 2025 — Morning Report →