Judge tears apart Trump official's excuse — and issues fine

Something happened on Wednesday that one civil rights lawyer called "inconceivable 18 months ago": A Justice Department prosecutor was sanctioned by a judge.

It may not seem like a big deal, after all, it was only $250, but Political legal reporter Kyle Cheney explained that it was after a prosecutor used a commonly heard phrase in court. For the past 18 months, the DOJ has been completely overwhelmed. American citizens and legal immigrants are being swept up in President Donald Trump's mass deportation efforts and the president is breathing down the necks of the DOJ to go after his political foes. Meanwhile, hundreds of career lawyers at DOJ have resigned or been fired over the past year. It has left the department so strapped for time that things are getting missed and lost.

In this case, before Chief United States District Judge Troy L. Nuley, "respondents’ counsel," Jonathan Yu, couldn't seem to meet deadlines in the court filings.

The case was about a person detained at a facility, which is happening to thousands across the U.S. The judge in the case ordered that the person be immediately released and asked for verification from the lawyer of the corrections facility. Yu didn't file anything "certifying compliance by April 6, 2026," the judge said. Yu also didn't ask for an extension. Yu simply ignored the whole thing. So, the judge asked the lawyer to explain why they shouldn't be sanctioned. Yu didn't respond to that filing either, though he did respond to other filings in that same case.

"Respondents’ counsel [Yu] describes that he has been assigned over three hundred immigration habeas cases in the last three months and as a result, dozens of responses and 'collateral responses' are due daily," the judge wrote. "Respondents’ counsel contends juggling the tasks and deadlines can best be described as triage, wherein getting Petitioners released from custody is the absolute priority, ensuring a response to maintain the government’s position in each case is the next priority, and 'court orders are also a high priority.' (Id.) Respondents’ counsel concedes he has certainly missed a few deadlines but argues each time was inadvertent."

Cheney noted, "The fine is mostly symbolic, but the reasons the DOJ attorney gave for the violations has become a familiar refrain: He's been assigned a crushing volume of immigration detention cases and can't keep up with the dozens of daily filings they require."

The judge made it clear that he was "not persuaded sanctions should not be issued. The Court issued a clear and unambiguous directive requiring Respondents’ counsel to certify Petitioner’s release from custody."

Further, the judge found out that it isn't "an isolated incident. Respondents’ counsel [Yu] does not contend he could not comply with the Court’s order but rather, that he had higher priorities. Thus, Respondents’ counsel’s noncompliance in this matter, and in others, demonstrates an unwillingness — not an inability — to adhere to basic procedural requirements."

Civil rights lawyer Joshua Erlich commented that this never would have happened before the Trump administration took over.

Appellate attorney Gabriel Malor found the excuse amusing, positng a laughing emoji on one excerpt he shared as a screen capture.

"On the one hand, yeah, I get it," Malor commented. "Getting successful habeas petitioners released should be [the] highest priority. But clearly the court heard that 'court orders are also a high priority' as the brush-off it was."

"Also, as has been noted many times now, the Trump administration has created the circumstances where its attorneys are so swamped they're missing deadlines," Malor added. "They wouldn't have this problem if they just started, y'know, behaving as if due process is a thing."

"The $250 fine is richly deserved, but this is not (as the order claims), civil contempt," litigator Sean Marotta wrote on BlueSky with a slight correction. "Civil contempt can be used only to compel compliance (like a per-day fine until an order is obeyed) or to remedy harm done by the disobedience. This is either criminal contempt or inherent-authority sanctions."

"And, of the two, likely inherent-authority sanctions because the noncompliance is not in the Court's presence, so would require full-dress criminal due process," he added.

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