Like most people outside the legal profession, I do not routinely read judicial opinions. In fact, until recently, the only judicial decision I had read carefully was in college, in a course on free speech taught by Professor Irving Younger. It remains the best class I ever took.
I have recently discovered that some judicial opinions are worth reading not only for their legal reasoning, but for their moral clarity and literary force.
On this page I will post excerpts from judicial opinions that deserve a wider audience. These are decisions that speak plainly, think logically, apply the law rigorously, and explain what is happening in our country. If you encounter one that belongs here, send it to me.
Hayward Zwerling
10 February 2026
Judge Fred Biery
US District Judge
Western District of Texas, San Antonio Division
CIVIL CASE NO. SA-26-CV-415-FB
January 31, 2026, Posted here on 2/10/26
Judge Biery’s two-page decision is a pleasure to read in its entirety. It concludes:
With a judicial finger in the constitutional dike, It is so ORDERED.
Judge Joseph Goodwin
US District Judge
Southern District of West Virginia, Charleston Division
CIVIL ACTION NO. 2:26-cv-00066
February 19, 2026, Posted here on 2/23/26
Judge Goodwin’s 34-page decision goes further; in that he highlights the federal government’s assault on our constitutional order. Below are excerpts:
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Antiseptic judicial rhetoric cannot do justice to what is happening. Across the interior of the United States, agents of the federal government—masked, anonymous, armed with military weapons, operating from unmarked vehicles, acting without warrants of any kind—are seizing persons for civil immigration violations and imprisoning them without any semblance of due process. The systematic character of this practice and its deliberate elimination of every structural feature that distinguishes constitutional authority from raw force place it beyond the reach of ordinary legal description. It is an assault on the constitutional order.
…
The overarching issue is whether the federal government may deploy anonymous agents to seize persons on American streets and highways for civil violations, without warrants, without identification, and without anyprocess before or after. The Constitution does not permit that.
……
IV. CONCLUSION
An anonymous government is no government at all. It cannot be held accountable. A masked agent freely uses force without justifying his actions, and the public cannot name him to challenge his conduct.
A regime of secret policing has no place in our society. Here, the Government’s power is derived by the People, and the People must be able to identify the Government when it acts to infringe on their liberty. Masks obscure government action and deprive the public of its Fourth Amendment protections.
Judge Brian E. Murphy
US District Court
District of Massachusetts
Civil Action No. 25-10676-BEM
February 25, 2026. Posted here on 2/25/26.
I find it so refreshing when a judge explains the case in plain English so any literate person can appreciate its essence and the arc of justice.
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER ON DEFENDANTS’ MOTION TO DISMISS AND ON PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR PARTIAL SUMMARY JUDGMENT
This case is about whether the Government may, without notice, deport a person to the wrong country, or a country where he is likely to be persecuted, or tortured, thereby depriving that person of the opportunity to seek protections to which he would be undisputedly entitled. The Department of Homeland Security has adopted a policy whereby it may take people and drop them off in parts unknown—in so-called “third countries”—and, “as long as the Department doesn’t already know that there’s someone standing there waiting to shoot . . . that’s fine.”
It is not fine, nor is it legal. Congress made it “the policy of the United States not to expel, extradite, or otherwise effect the involuntary return of any person to a country” where that “person would be in danger of being subjected to torture.” Congress decided that the Government “may not remove” someone to a country where her “life or freedom would be threatened” on account of her “race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” These are our laws, and it is with profound gratitude for the unbelievable luck of being born in the United States of America that this Court affirms these and our nation’s bedrock principle: that no “person” in this country may be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” U.S. Const. amend. V. (Emphasis add by me.)