Gayle v. Warden Monmouth County Corr. Inst. — immigration / class action / jurisdiction — reversal — Krause

Today’s lone published opinion was issued by a panel comprised of Judges Fuentes, Krause, and Roth, which sat in February. It’s the third precedential opinion issued by that panel in the past week (Johnson and Hoffman are the other two), and all three are biggies. I went back and looked, and this is the ninth precedential opinion issued by that panel!  (Others include the kindergardener-abduction case, a criminal-sentencing appeal I described as “exceptionally aggressive,” and a big Fourth Amendment home search case.) I don’t normally track such things, but nine published opinions (and counting?) from one panel sitting has to be some kind of a record.

Anyway, today’s opinion arises from a class action suit challenging a federal statute imposing mandatory detention of aliens who have committed certain crimes. The facts and procedural history are complicated, but the gist of it is that the Court ruled today that the district erred by deciding the merits of the suit long after the class representatives’ claims had become moot, depriving both the district court and the Third Circuit of jurisdiction over the entire case except for a motion for class certification. (Oops.) The Court further held that the district court erroneously denied certification based on its view that a class action was “unnecessary” — noting a circuit split, the court held that necessity is not a freestanding basis for denying certification.

Krause was joined by Fuentes and Roth. Arguing counsel were Judy Rabinovitz of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project for the class and Elizabeth Stevens for the government.