Retired federal judge Andre Davis learned the Justice Department had decided to sue his former colleagues when he boarded a flight to Charlotte, N.C., to attend a judicial conference. His fellow passengers included several of the district court’s 15 judges, who now find themselves on the other end of an unusual court case. “It’s outrageous that they actually named individually in their official capacities all 15 judges on the court,” said Davis. “And so you have to ask yourself, ‘What is going on here? What kind of performance? What was the audience for this?'” Davis said what’s going on is an attack on judicial independence, at a time when federal judges are facing a rise in threats of violence and impeachment simply for doing their jobs. But the Justice Department says it’s trying to stop a case of judicial overreach. The case is likely to end up getting appealed to higher courts. The dispute in Maryland began in May, when the chief judge there ordered a 48-hour pause in every case where an individual migrant had petitioned to try to block their removal from the U.S. with a habeas petition. “The reason the court implemented it is because there have been so many requests for habeas petitions and so many people who are being subject to, to abrupt, precipitous deportation orders and courts need time to be able to consider these requests,” said Emily Chertoff, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center who closely follows immigration issues…Read more