Please enjoy the latest edition of Short Circuit, a weekly feature written by a bunch of people at the Institute for Justice.

New on the Short Circuit podcast: Our old friend Brian Morris rejoins the show for exoneration litigation. And Belmont picks.

• Shortly after beginning his second term, President Trump, and later Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, announce policy changes barring persons currently or previously afflicted with gender dysphoria from military service. Current and prospective servicemembers challenge the policy change, and the district court issues a preliminary injunction. D.C. Circuit: The injunction is proper for current service members, but improper for prospective applicants. Concurrence: The injunction is proper for both. Dissent: The injunction is proper for neither.


• In 2022, the feds seized the superyacht Amadea in Fiji as part of Task Force KleptoCapture, targeting Russian oligarchs. Second Circuit: Cool.


• Man dies after jumping from a highway overpass. Philadelphia police officer, in violation of department policy, uses his personal cell phone to photograph the dead man lying on the road. Then, in "a poor attempt at 'humor,'" he sends it to several colleagues, one of whom posts it to social media. It is forwarded to the bereaved mother, who sues the officer. Third Circuit (unpublished): Qualified immunity. There is no clearly established right to control dissemination and exploitation of one's close relatives' death scene images. Dissent: Our history and traditions establish that it was so obviously wrong that he was on notice.


• Virginia inmate is accused of indecent exposure; he insists prison officials view video that he says will exonerate him. They decline and convict him. He asks them to preserve the footage. They delete it. Spoliation sanctions? District court: Summary judgment to the prison officials without ruling on that motion. Fourth Circuit: There are three ways a district court can abuse its discretion, and this decision "appears to abuse discretion in all three ways."


• Children in the West Virginia foster care system file class action, alleging a variety of abuses and rights violations. Following extensive document discovery and 45 depositions, the district court—without briefing or even notice to the parties—sua sponte dismisses the case with prejudice for lack of standing. Fourth Circuit: Undismissed. But we deny plaintiffs' request to reassign the case to a different judge (even though this is the district court's second erroneous dismissal of this case).


• Jackson, Miss.'s water system appears to be a disaster, and several residents sue over difficulties it's caused. Fifth Circuit (unpublished): The good news is that you have standing because you're seeking damages for the alleged injuries you suffered. The bad news is that you lose your due process claims on the merits because you prevailed in the city's administrative process for adjusting your water bills and you haven't meaningfully alleged anything more was wrong.


• New Orleans crime lab tech warns supervisors about safety and accuracy concerns with the lab's drug testing. Supervisors, officers show up at the tech's home to conduct a "wellness check" and insist that the tech accompany them to take a drug test (the very one whose accuracy he questioned). He demurs, the supervisors call their boss, who says the tech is "being ordered to come into work to take this test." He's searched, placed in the back of a cop car, and driven to take his blood test, where he resigns instead of being tested. Fourth Amendment violations? Fifth Circuit (2024): Qualified immunity for some, not all. Fifth Circuit (2026): No QI for the supervisors' boss, who ordered officers to bring the tech in without a warrant or exigent circumstances. (Both officers faced internal discipline: one suspended, one fired.)


• The Fifth Circuit gives an (unpublished) update on the matter alternatively known as "The Bleak House of arbitration," or, as one of the case's lawyers said on the Short Circuit 10th anniversary podcast, "A Final Arbitration to Rule Them All."


• Man struggles with, disarms suspect who'd broken into his house after a gunfight with Laredo, Tex. police. The man exits the house with one hand in the air and the suspect's AR-15 (pointed at the ground) in the other. An officer shoots him without warning or command. (He lives.) Fifth Circuit: As lamentable as that is …


• What's the worst story so far about AI-hallucinations in court? Perhaps not wearing the green jacket but this Seventh Circuit story nevertheless commands attention wherein counsel submits a brief "replete with false quotations, erroneous statements of law, and factual representations contradicted by the record." Plus, watching the guilty lawyers throw each other under the bus is entertaining in a Homer Simpson kind of way.


• Potential prison informant alleges detectives put him at risk by being too open about his potential cooperation against a fellow inmate. Seventh Circuit: But there's no clearly established right against such risk if you weren't actually attacked by another inmate. Instead, "the tradeoff between investigation and safety has been left to law enforcement agencies and the political process." Qualified immunity.


• Member of the Coast Guard Auxiliary is admonished to remove controversial posts on LinkedIn, as well as photos of himself in uniform. He demurs, sending a letter to his Commodore stating, "I disagree with your fake Letter of Caution, and am going to file a complaint against you for your racist and bigoted action against me because I am White. I find your behavior reprehensible." Following further noncompliance and incendiary posting, he's kicked out. He sues for First Amendment retaliation. Seventh Circuit: The Coast Guard Auxiliary deserves deference on this.


• Kansas City, Mo. police receive an anonymous tip that a felon has a gun. A squad tails him and his wife, makes a routine traffic stop with guns drawn, finds a gun in his wife's purse, and charges him with felon-in-possession. He claims the gun was his wife's. The "tipper" is never identified but the fact there was a tip is introduced at trial. A jury convicts. Eighth Circuit: There's this thing in the Sixth Amendment about confronting your accuser. Conviction vacated!


• Wanna see another AI-hallucination car crash? Cool, but you'll also want to consider the business model exposed in this Ninth Circuit sanctions opinion where a couple of guys get law grads who haven't passed the bar to write their briefs and then just file them without checking anything.


• Gov't: We took a million dollars from this guy at a traffic stop and we're going to forfeit it unless he provides an extremely detailed written explanation of exactly where it came from and how he earned it. This guy: I don't want to write you, like, a novel. I just want to argue that the traffic stop violated the Fourth Amendment and that you have to give my money back. Ninth Circuit (en banc): And he gets to do that.


• Children and young adults sue the president for executive orders they claim will exacerbate climate change. Ninth Circuit (unpublished): Big no from Article III, from the too-speculative link between the orders and alleged injuries to redressability issues and constitutional structure.


• The nonprofit Tallahassee Bail Fund posts bond for certain criminal pretrial detainees in Leon County, Fla., who, though eligible for bond, can't afford it. But even if detainees show up to trial and are acquitted, the county (per state law) can keep the bond to cover whatever outstanding fines and fees the detainee might otherwise owe. Tallahassee Bail Fund: This is crippling our mission, and it violates detainees' rights under the Eighth Amendment's Excessive Bail Clause. Eleventh Circuit (2-1) (weirdly unpublished): It might be crippling your mission, but the detainees themselves are the right people to vindicate their excessive-bail rights, and there are lots of ways they could do it, including in federal court. (Look forward, presumably, to a Rule 23(b)(2) class action brought on behalf of current and future detainees who would be beneficiaries of the Tallahassee Bail Fund's bond-posting program but for Florida's bond-snatching statute.)


• And in en banc news, the Fifth Circuit, 9-8, will not reconsider its decision that Ex parte Young allows plaintiffs to sue the Texas Secretary of State and the Texas Attorney General to challenge various bits of the state's Election Protection and Integrity Act of 2021. Oldham, J., dissentaling, likewise will not reconsider his view that Ex parte Young is bad and the Fifth Circuit's Ex parte Young precedent is worse.

Lightning victory! During the pandemic, botanist Laura Schaefer transformed her half-acre grass lot into an abundant garden with over 150 different kinds of vegetables, flowers, trees, and other plants, mostly all native to the area. Last week, however, Millstadt, Ill. officials issued her a bogus citation for "high grass or weeds" and gave her seven days to tear out the garden—or the village would do it and charge her for it. But after IJ sent a sternly worded letter and local news started to dig in, the village backed off. Illinois is one of three states that protects gardens specifically; indeed, the state's 2021 law is based on an IJ model bill, and we invite everyone else to have a gander. Click here to learn more.

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