Humor and Universal Injunctions
I failed.
Good Morning:
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a restaurant named for a disease before. I like it.
Yesterday on #DogShirtTV, the estimable Ben Wizner joined me to reminisce about the good old days when he and I could argue about the limits of executive power and civil liberties, instead of fighting a rear guard action against tyranny together. We talked about Guatanamo, the Supreme Court, and the bottom of the slippery slope:
The Situation—Or Not
My columns don’t usually fall apart. It happens very rarely, but my Monday “The Situation” column fell apart and I never ran it. I repurpose the material in it here.
The idea was to write a humorous column about universal injunctions and the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. CASA. My past several columns had all been serious. It’s important to get a light one in the mix now and then.
It was an ambitious undertaking, however, because I had nothing funny to say on the subject, which doesn’t really lend itself to humor. Indeed, having spent some quality time with the subject of universal injunctions over the previous few days, I gotta say: They’re not very funny.
Hence the challenge.
The source material was unpromising. There are no good jokes in the opinion itself to riff on. Amy Coney Barrett’s majority opinion? Not a witty line in there. The concurrences? All very earnest. The dissents? Apocalyptic rhetoric galore, but not one laugh.
It actually was not just the justices. The commentary on this subject had been unusually devoid of humor as well.
I was going to break the streak. I spent some time thinking about something amusing I could write on the subject. Surely there was latent humor embedded in the subject. I found myself coming up pretty empty.
I consulted ChatGPT, asking it for jokes on the subject.
It responded cheerfully, “Absolutely—let’s wade into the comedy zone between universal injunctions and the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Trump v. CASA de Maryland. It’s a weirdly specific Venn diagram, but that’s what makes it fun.” All correct. That’s why I wanted jokes on the subject. But this bit of wisdom was the best the AI had to offer. It then proceeded to spew out a series of truly unfunny jokes on the subject.
Maybe Gemini could do better? Nope. “I'm still learning and can't help with that. Do you need help with anything else?” Anthropic’s Claude wouldn’t touch it: “I apologize, but I don't have any specific jokes about universal injunctions or the Supreme Court case Trump v. CASA. Legal topics like these are often complex and not typically the subject of humor. Additionally, I try to avoid making jokes about sensitive political or legal issues, as they could be seen as inappropriate or disrespectful.”
I realized that if were going to get jokes on this particular complex legal topic that involves a sensitive subject and could be seen as inappropriate or disrespectful and is not typically the subject of humor, it I was going to have to write it myself.
So I did—or at least I tried to. Here’s what I came up with:
Two Supreme Court justices, Amy Coney Barrett and Sonia Sotomayor, walk into a bar. They sit down and order beers. They are quietly drinking their beers together when a group of ICE agents storms in wearing masks and tries to detain Justice Sotomayor, whom they mistake for an undocumented migrant—apparently because she is Hispanic.
Justice Barrett protests: “You can’t detain her. She’s a citizen of the United States. In fact, she’s an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court.”
The lead ICE agent points out that Justice Sotomayor was not, in fact, party to any litigation in which any injunction restricts the authority of ICE to detain and deport people. Justice Sotomayor, the ICE agent suggests, can file her own habeas case if she doesn’t appreciate her detention.
“But wait,” Justice Barrett says, “you can’t just barge in here without a warrant. This is private property.”
The ICE agent responds that the bar in question is not party to any decision in the Supreme Court’s voluminous Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Nor does he know of any specific injunction in the Washington DC area that prevents him from barging in without a warrant. The bar owner can file a lawsuit on his own if he objects to the intrusion, he says.
“But hang on,” replies Justice Barrett. “Simply detaining her without cause is an unreasonable seizure. You just can’t do that.”
Again, the ICE agent responds that he knows of no injunction forbidding him from seizing Justice Sotomayor, in particular. Sure, the Fourth Amendment may prohibit that sort of thing in general, and she might sue him and might even win down the road, but in the meantime, she’s fair game. And if he can deport her to a dungeon in El Salvador before she gets into court, there’s really nothing anyone can do about it.
At this point in writing the joke, I was pretty pleased with myself. It’s a good setup. But I realized I had no idea where the thing was going. I had no punchline for it. I didn’t even know what the joke was making fun of.
So once again, I turned to ChatGPT to see if maybe it could help me deliver the bodyblow at the end. It began by congratulating me on what I had written so far:
Great setup—dark, absurd, and sharply satirical. Here are a few possible punchlines, depending on the tone you want to strike:
But then the AI fell down on the job again. Having gotten precisely what was good about the setup, it just couldn’t deliver the punch. Here’s what it came up with:
1. Dry legal absurdity (Kagan-esque)
Barrett sighs, sips her beer, and mutters:
“See, this is why we used to believe in universal injunctions.”
2. Kafka meets SCOTUS
As Sotomayor is dragged out, Barrett pulls out her phone and says,
“Hang on, I’ll file an emergency application.”
The ICE agent shrugs:
“Sure. But you’ll need to serve it on the El Salvadorian warden before close of business.”
3. Bitter realist ending
Barrett turns to the bartender and says,
“Can I get another beer? And maybe a limited injunction—just for the next round?”
4. Withering institutionalism
The ICE agent pauses at the door, then turns back and says,
“Don’t worry—she can still write the dissent from the detention center.”
5. Short and punchy
Barrett watches them leave, turns back to her beer, and says:
“Well, at least it wasn’t a shadow docket.”
6. For the cynical formalist crowd
Barrett: “You can’t deport a Supreme Court justice.”
ICE Agent: “Not yet.”
Would you like a version that builds to a philosophical or moral punchline instead? Or one rewritten as a mock SCOTUSblog summary?
With no useful help coming from the AI, I accepted that if this plane was going to get a landing, it was going to have to be human-piloted, and by me specifically. So here’s the punchline I wrote:
As he drags Justice Sotomayor away, the cheeky ICE agent, who turns out to be something of an amateur lawyer, points out to Barrett that he’s really only applying Justice Barrett’s own opinion in Trump v. CASA.
To which Barrett responds: “That was about district court judges.”
What, you don’t get it? The Trump v. CASA opinion is all about reigning in the power of federal district judges to issue nationwide injunctions and limiting the relief of any injunctions to the specific parties to the litigation. So in the joke, the ICE agent is taking very literally that he can drag off anyone who doesn’t have a specific injunction protecting him or her from the conduct. Justice Barrett, by contrast, is pointing out that the decision is really only about district judges, implying that dragging of a mere district judge would be fine.
Yeah, I didn’t think it was funny enough to run as a column either.
The Situation continues tomorrow.
Yesterday On Lawfare
Compiled by the estimable Mary Ford
A Based Deal: The Chagos Agreement is a Fourfold Win
Cornell Overfield argues that the May 22 agreement between the U.K. and Mauritania recognizing Mauritanian sovereignty in the Chagos Archipelago and granting an extension in the U.K’s lease of Diego Garcia presents an opportunity for the U.S. to deepen its security and economic partnership with the Indian Ocean island chain.
The agreement makes good on London’s promise that the deal would not undermine the long-term viability of the base on Diego Garcia. More than that, the treaty represents a just and pragmatic solution that lays the foundation for long-term U.S. basing with Mauritian assent. Once both sides ratify the agreement, possibly as soon as July when a British review period ends, the U.K. and the U.S. have an opportunity to build on the treaty’s momentum to deepen security and economic ties with Mauritius.
Is It Time for an AI Expert Protection Program?
Kevin Frazier maintains that the American pursuit of artificial intelligence (AI) dominance requires that the U.S. government and private actors address the relative lack of formal security measures for AI experts who increasingly hold profound economic and strategic significance.
Whether or not you regard today’s AI as a bubble or overhyped, these examples indicate that a small community of experts have tremendous economic significance and, likely, unique insights into AI development that, if undercut, could delay advances in the space. Put differently, even if it’s true that many AI startups are overvalued, a strike on their leadership could derail contracts between those companies and the U.S. military and cause widespread economic disruption. Consequently, this small community is very much of national security and geopolitical interest.
Podcasts
On Lawfare Daily, Tyler McBrien sits down with Director of Technology, Law, and Policy at the Human Rights Center, U.C. Berkeley School of Law, Lindsay Freeman, to discuss her latest Lawfare piece, “War Crimes for Fun and Profit,” why “war influencers” with connections to private military companies like the Wagner Group are posting evidence of their crimes online, and how self incriminating evidence of war crimes has led to little accountability.
Today’s #BeastOfTheDay, courtesy of Acting BeastMaster
. is a perfect cheetah:
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Dog Shirt Daily to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.
 | A guest post by
|