Lawrence O'Donnell brought in Andrew Weissman, former FBI general counsel and former chief of the criminal division in the Eastern District of New York to analyze last night's SCOTUS order.
"Let's begin with the situation with Chief Justice Roberts intervening in this case of Mr. Garcia," O'Donnell said.
"People should not overread this," Weissmann said. "He is basically saying this is called an administrative stay, and it gives the court time to consider the government's application.
"And he set a very short deadline to hear from those people. My big point to our listeners is this. What kind of government admits that they mistakenly deported somebody, that this person should never have been scooped up and sent away without any due process, and then says, 'But we're going to not do anything to bring him back.'
"What the level of cruelty and lawlessness is really hard to understand when you are agreeing that you had no factual or legal basis to remove this person. The lack of humanity, leave aside the lawlessness, is just, it is unconscionable. And so that's the issue. That's what the Supreme Court will be dealing with," he said.
"And it is possible that, that Justice Roberts simply wants the Supreme Court to be the one that basically issues the same order that the appeals court has issued. That's a possibility here," O'Donnell said.
"Oh, absolutely. And to turn to the 5-4 decision, I think people are really misreading this. It's 5-4 on this issue of should this have been brought under a certain statute, or brought under habeas?" Weissmann said.
"Nine justices rejected the Trump administration position that they could deport people without a hearing. That that is the headline here, that the court said there has to be due process of law. You can't just scoop anybody up and not give them a hearing to contest the facts. If the government can prove the facts, so be it. But they need to have to comply with the due process. All nine justices agreed with that."
"And Mr. Garcia did not get the due process that this Supreme Court now says everyone is due. And normally when that happens, the American judicial system rectifies the denial of due process," O'Donnell said.
"Absolutely. And my point to you, Lawrence, is it shouldn't have to take a court to do it. The Department of Justice, the executive branch, they're supposed to uphold the law. That is true for Democratic and Republican regimes, where you would basically, after a decision like this, you would, of course, try and rectify it.
"This is a human being. and so that is what's really so shocking," Weissmann concluded.
