Photo: The high-capacity freezer trawler, F/V Relentless. NCLA represents the owners in Relentless Inc. v. U.S. Dept. of Commerce Fourth Amendment rights are crucial in preventing government abuse and securing privacy. It is then of little import whether that abuse or invasion of privacy is perpetrated by local police or the IRS; in both cases,…

After a near decade-long Ahab-like pursuit alleging NCLA clients Spartan Securities Group, Island Stock Transfer, principals Carl Dilley, Micah Eldred, and Dave Lopez were knowingly involved in a massive fraud involving creating fake “shell” companies, SEC lost its entire case against Mr. Lopez, and all but one relatively minor civil charge against Spartan, Island, Mr.…

  Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan has staked out a position for herself as the Supreme Court’s foremost defender of stare decisis. That doctrine holds that today’s Court ought to stand by yesterday’s decisions. Respecting stare decisis sometimes means sticking to wrong decisions, because, as Justice Brandeis famously explained, it is usually “more important that…

  Last week, a panel for the Eleventh Circuit in Brown v. Secretary of HHS determined that the U.S. Center for Disease Control likely lacked any power to issue its nationwide eviction moratorium, but two of the three judges still refused to block CDC’s unlawful order. The panel’s decision has the feel of a court…

  Deference is ubiquitous in modern administrative law. Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. NRDC, Inc. is the most cited case in administrative law and one of the most cited Supreme Court cases in history, having been cited in more than 17,428 cases and 12,879 law review articles as of June 28, 2021. Many types of judicial…

  The Constitution’s separation of powers and nondelegation doctrine aren’t important because they’re functions and products of the structure of constitutional government, ipse dixit. They are important because there’s an existential nexus between constitutional order and its role as the bulwark protecting our civil liberties. In fact, we just celebrated this nexus for the 245th…