When a single federal judge can freeze a president’s policy nationwide, it raises big questions about checks and balances and democratic accountability. That’s one reason nationwide injunctions have become central to some of today’s most consequential legal battles—and why the Supreme Court’s rec...
When a single federal judge can freeze a president’s policy nationwide, it raises big questions about checks and balances and democratic accountability. That’s one reason nationwide injunctions have become central to some of today’s most consequential legal battles—and why the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Trump v. CASA matters.
At a live recording, Stanford Legal host Diego Zambrano sat down with Professor Mila Sohoni, one of the country’s leading scholars on federal courts and administrative law, for a conversation that moved from President Trump’s day-one birthright-citizenship order to the Court’s ruling in CASA, including how lower courts are now navigating the decision’s new, but murky, constraints on nationwide injunctions.
Sohoni breaks the protection these injunctions can offer when sweeping executive actions threaten millions, the risks of empowering individual judges to halt national policy, and the incentives for strategic forum shopping in a polarized era. She also explains how CASA reins in—but doesn’t eliminate—the nationwide injunction, leaving room for broad relief through class actions, universal vacatur, and “complete relief” findings.
The discussion sheds light on how the legal landscape is shifting after CASA, and why nationwide injunctions continue to shape major clashes between the courts and the executive branch.
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(00:00:00) The Scope of Nationwide Injunctions
(00:12:01) Epistemic and Democratic Arguments Against Nationwide Injunctions
(00:28:54) The CASA Decision
(00:29:37) Legal Basis and Impact of Executive Orders
(00:38:20) Conclusion and Audience Questions
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