Things to Read This Week (4/13/26)
Automatic Interim Relief, by Aaron Jacobowitz. A strong legal case against automatic immigration stays such as in the Ninth Circuit and other circuits: “automatic interim relief is not always lawful. When awarded by a court’s procedural rules, automatic interim relief must be ‘consistent with’ federal law. That demanding requirement prohibits automatic interim relief that conflicts with, circumvents, or otherwise subverts federal law—which includes written law, like statutes and the Federal Rules of Procedure, but also unwritten law, like the law of writs and of equity. Courts are ignoring that limit and routinely awarding automatic interim relief unlawfully.”
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850: A Public-Rights Paradox, by Scott Jones. Another interesting student note. (But I should clarify that I think there were quite plausible arguments that the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 violated Article III, as I noted in Adjudication Outside Article III p. 1555).
Epistemic Discovery, Psychedelic Drugs, and the First Amendment, by Jeremy Kessler and David Pozen. Is this a doctrinal exploration of the constitutional right to freedom of thought, or a paper about the constitutional right to take psychedelics? Very interesting.
What Really Happens on the Emergency Docket, by Taraleigh Davis. A deep dive into the emergency/interim docket proceedings in Wisconsin v. Moeck in 2005. Very much worth reading as a 20-year-old case study, but I don’t think we can be confident in the post’s claim that “there is no reason to believe this process has changed significantly” since then. I just don’t think we know that much about the modern internal process.
Regarding the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, I don't think the note fairly quotes Lincoln as supporting Congressional power to enact it. He is quoted as being willing to give slaveholders “any legislation for the reclaiming of their fugitives." The full statement he gave in a speech was:
"When they remind us of their constitutional rights, I acknowledge them, not grudgingly, but fully, and fairly; and I would give them any legislation for the reclaiming of their fugitives, which should not, in its stringency, be more likely to carry a free man into slavery, than our ordinary criminal laws are to hang an innocent one."
Likening enslavement to capital punishment (which he did on more this occasion), he clearly objected to the law on either due process or Article III grounds, or both.
As much as I want the government to make psychedelics lawful that argument is pretty ridiculous. Indeed, it seems far more plausible to try to ground any such right in a Griswold style claim to autonomy and control over one's body than this epistemic right.
And far from being more limited than cognitive liberty it seems far more expansive. For instance, would it encompass a right by psychogists to conduct RCTs without patient consent? Say it's a situation where both types of treatment are considered to be within the professional standard of care. As silly as I believe much of the laws around IRBs may be that seems to go much too far.