Latest Case: Velasco Lopez v. Decker (Civil Rights)

Options for Biden’s Supreme Court Reform Commission

MICHAEL C. DORF

Cornell law professor Michael C. Dorf explores several options that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden should consider if he wins the election and fulfills his proposal of convening a bipartisan commission of constitutional scholars to study and recommend court reforms. Dorf discusses the benefits and limitations of each option and describes how Congress and a President Biden could implement meaningful court reform that could withstand review by the Supreme Court itself.

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Velasco Lopez v. Decker

Docket: 19-2284

Opinion Date: October 27, 2020

Judge: Barrington D. Parker

Areas of Law: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Immigration Law

The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of habeas corpus relief to petitioner, who was detained pursuant to 8 U.S.C. 1226(a), which provides for discretionary detention of noncitizens during the pendency of removal proceedings. The habeas petition challenged the procedures employed in petitioner's bond hearings, which required him to prove, to the satisfaction of an immigration judge, that he is neither a danger to the community nor a flight risk. The court held that the district court correctly granted the petition where petitioner was denied due process because he was incarcerated for fifteen months (with no end in sight) while the Government at no point justified his incarceration. The district court also provided the correct remedy by ordering a new bond hearing in which the Government bore the burden of showing by clear and convincing evidence that petitioner was either a danger or a flight risk.