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WSJ
A Supreme Court Injustice to a District Judge
Justice Alito’s dissent gets it right: James Hendrix handled the Alien Enemies Act case commendably.
By Paul G. Cassell
May 20, 2025 12:57 pm ET
The Supreme Court held last week that the government needs to provide more notice to alleged alien enemies before deporting them. The 7-2 ruling in A.A.R.P. v. Trump wasn’t itself a surprise; the court had already signaled skepticism of the president’s use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. But in the unsigned opinion, the justices did an injustice to James Wesley Hendrix, the presiding judge in Lubbock, Texas.
The high court accused Judge Hendrix of “inaction”—of failing to act quickly enough and thereby denying the aliens due process. In dissent, Justice Samuel Alito (joined by Justice Clarence Thomas) said this accusation was “unfair” and that “we should commend” the judge’s “careful approach.” The dissenters are right. Judge Hendrix’s service was exemplary. The majority was wrong to malign this judge and sent a disturbing message about procedural norms.
The case’s chronology is complex. On Thursday, April 17, Judge Hendrix was busy presiding over a complex criminal trial involving out-of-state minor victims who testified about sexual exploitation. That evening, lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union left a voicemail with Judge Hendrix’s chambers on the aliens’ behalf, asserting that their clients were at risk of immediate removal.
In my experience, trial judges are unlikely to check voicemails after hours, let alone act on them. But Judge Hendrix promptly issued an order stating that any emergency relief must be requested through a formal motion, and the government would have 24 hours to respond. At 12:34 a.m. on April 18—Good Friday—the ACLU submitted an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order. The motion included no deadline by which a ruling was needed.
According to the Supreme Court, Judge Hendrix’s timeline to address the motion began 34 minutes after midnight. That’s unreasonable. Judge Hendrix had no idea when or if an emergency motion would be filed. Was he expected to wait up all night to check if any motions came across the docket?
We can safely assume that Judge Hendrix didn’t see the emergency motion until his workday began on Friday. He later wrote that he “was working with utmost diligence to resolve these important and complicated issues as quickly as possible” and planned to rule by noon Saturday after receiving a government response. But he didn’t have a chance. At 12:48 p.m. on Friday, the ACLU demanded an emergency status conference and said if the court didn’t rule by 1:30 p.m., it would seek emergency relief from the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Hendrix was unable to resolve these complex issues in 42 minutes. No judge could have thoughtfully done so.
Once the appeal was filed, the district judge lost all jurisdiction. Later that evening, the Fifth Circuit affirmed Judge Hendrix. Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez, a Biden appointee, wrote that the “failure to issue the requested ruling within 42 minutes” was no error. Judge Ramirez and her colleagues were right. Judge Hendrix not only didn’t abuse his discretion but performed admirably under extraordinary time pressure.
Yet, on appeal, the Supreme Court found error. The justices stated that “the District Court’s inaction—not for 42 minutes but for 14 hours and 28 minutes—had the practical effect” of ruling against the aliens. Whether it is 40 minutes, 14 hours or even 40 hours, the Supreme Court is simply wrong. Lower-court judges can’t be expected to decide complex issues on the fly, especially in the area of national security, where there are weighty interests on all sides. The justices should know this—they took 27 days to write their opinion reversing Judge Hendrix. Members of the Supreme Court have complained in other cases about their inability to resolve complicated constitutional issues on compressed time frames.
The Supreme Court has sent a regrettable signal to the lower courts: If a civil-liberties group comes to you with a purported emergency you should issue an immediate order against the government and resolve the details later. This amounts to a one-way ratchet in favor of civil-liberties claims without regard to competing considerations.
Justice Alito’s dissent correctly defends Judge Hendrix’s deliberation. It stands in contrast with that of other judges, who, as Justice Alito noted, “granted temporary injunctive relief without adequate consideration of the relevant issues.” We need more jurists like Judge Hendrix, and the Supreme Court should think more carefully about how its rulings could distort the work of the lower courts.
Mr. Cassell is a professor of criminal law at the University of Utah. He served as a federal district judge in Utah, 2002-07.
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