Saying they had regrets, but without apologizing directly, the
federal government’s lawyers have admitted to the Supreme Court that the
partial victory they won in a case three years ago was based on flawed
information they had given to the Court. They filed a letter Tuesday “in order to clarify and correct” that information. The Court need not do anything about it, the letter suggested.
The problem with the information, supplied in the 2009 case of Nken v. Holder (docket 08-681), was not turned up by the government. Rather, it turned up in a federal court in New York City when immigrants’ rights attorneys demanded an explanation for a policy statement on which the Supreme Court had relied in deciding the Nken case. The policy that the goverrment had told the Court existed apparently did not exist. (This controversy over what the Justices had been told by the government was discussed on this blog in this post in February.)
In the new letter to the Court, Deputy Solicitor General Michael R. Dreeben did not concede that the information provided in the government brief in that case was actually wrong. Rather, it said, the information was designed to “encapsulate” information gleaned within the government as the brief was being prepared. “The government,” the letter said, “should have provided a more complete and precise explanation.”
The Nken decision came down three years ago this month. Lately, the government had been resisting — in a federal District Court in New York City — the forced disclosure of an exchange of e-mails that supposedly was in the background of the information supplied to the Justices in Nken. The District judge had ordered the government to hand over at least parts of those e-mails, and the government earlier this month challenged that ruling in an appeal to the Second Circuit Court.
Read more: http://www.scotusblog.com/2012/04/regrets-but-no-apology/
The problem with the information, supplied in the 2009 case of Nken v. Holder (docket 08-681), was not turned up by the government. Rather, it turned up in a federal court in New York City when immigrants’ rights attorneys demanded an explanation for a policy statement on which the Supreme Court had relied in deciding the Nken case. The policy that the goverrment had told the Court existed apparently did not exist. (This controversy over what the Justices had been told by the government was discussed on this blog in this post in February.)
In the new letter to the Court, Deputy Solicitor General Michael R. Dreeben did not concede that the information provided in the government brief in that case was actually wrong. Rather, it said, the information was designed to “encapsulate” information gleaned within the government as the brief was being prepared. “The government,” the letter said, “should have provided a more complete and precise explanation.”
The Nken decision came down three years ago this month. Lately, the government had been resisting — in a federal District Court in New York City — the forced disclosure of an exchange of e-mails that supposedly was in the background of the information supplied to the Justices in Nken. The District judge had ordered the government to hand over at least parts of those e-mails, and the government earlier this month challenged that ruling in an appeal to the Second Circuit Court.
Read more: http://www.scotusblog.com/2012/04/regrets-but-no-apology/
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