Some interesting developments ahead of an expected opinion later this month.
The original judge at the district level has just issued sanctions against the DOJ based on the fact that DOJ lawyers apparently lied during proceedings of this case. The DOJ has responded here.
The gist is that during the proceedings DOJ lawyers said that they were not in fact already engaging in the challenged conduct [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA)]. But the DOJ lawyers knew that this was not true and there were in fact deferrals already approved. Somewhere to the tune of 100K incidents.
The sanctions imposed by the judge are as follows:
[ul]
[li]DOJ must provide list of all 100K folks that were processed. The list to remain sealed until SCOTUS rules.[/li][li]Pro hac vice (ability for lawyer out of state to practice in state) status revoked for the counsel involved.[/li][li]Any D.C. based DOJ attorney who seeks to appear in any of the 26 states that is party to the suit must attend a legal ethics course.[/li][li]The Attorney General is required to appoint a person within the DOJ to oversee compliance[/li][li]The Attorney General is required to develop a comprehensive plan to prevent this type of unethical behavior in the future.[/li][/ul]
I think the last three of these overstep the authority of the district court judge. The pro hac vice status revocation is definitely okay. The list may be okay. The other three are hail marys. Volokh has commentary here.
Now is the time for last minute predictions.