In a legal environment in which Federal district court judges routinely block President Donald Trump’s (R) initiatives and the Supreme Court, via Trump emergency appeals, overrule those judges (and the occasional appellate court ruling) more often than those lower court judges deem appropriate, we’re seeing increasing whining from those lower court judges: they’re getting quite cross over not being listened to, all the while pretending not to understand the Supreme Court’s stays of these lower court blocks while the underlying case works its way through the legal system. As The Wall Street Journal‘s news writer put it,

The court, has given Trump much of what he has asked for so far, but the brevity of its orders has flummoxed judges who say there is no way to interpret them.

This is the measure of the lower courts’ defiance of the Supreme Court. The Court lifts the stays explicitly to let the underlying cases concerning the Trump initiatives proceed pending a final judgment. Often, appellate courts and district court judges, in lifting a stay or HIAing one, will say they’re doing so because they think the relevant party to the litigation is likely to prevail in the underlying case. The Supreme Court cannot say such things without prejudicing its eventual ruling in the case while it’s before those lower courts. The Court does say, often but not always, that it’s staying a case while the case wends its way. Even in those cases where the Court does not say, though, that much is clear to anyone reading with objective eyes.

These district (and appellate) judges know that.

Here’s an example of lower court defiance in the judge’s attempts at obstruction:

“Whatever their own views, judges are duty-bound to respect the hierarchy of the federal court system,” Gorsuch wrote.
US District Judge Allison Burroughs in Massachusetts fired back at Gorsuch a couple of weeks later when she ruled the administration’s cuts to Harvard’s research funding were unconstitutional. In a footnote, Burroughs said it was “unhelpful and unnecessary” to criticize judges for defying the Supreme Court “when they are working to find the right answer in a rapidly evolving doctrinal landscape, where they must grapple with both existing precedent and interim guidance from the Supreme Court that appears to set that precedent aside without much explanation or consensus.”

What part of set that precedent aside is unclear to this judge? If it appears to her to be set aside, then from her perspective it is set aside. Is Burroughs really insisting she’s unable to follow a simple ruling without having in hand a long, detailed dissertation on why the ruling exists and why she must follow it? Would that ruling need to be written in words of one syllable or less? If so, she needs to find another line of work where her bosses have the time and inclination to hold her hand every step of the way.

On the other hand, it sounds like this judge is letting her disdain for Trump lead her to disrespect for and defiance of the Supreme Court. In that case, too, she needs to find another line of work, maybe with Bill Kristol.