A trailblazer in more ways than one. No one could have imagined when Dee Farmer filed a lawsuit challenging the conditions of confinement in a federal prison cell that her case would become one of the most cited cases in the history of American law. And certainly no one at the time could have imagined that Farmer was a transgender woman fighting for her rights in an era when her gender identity was considered a form of mental illness. ​​“In the past, it was more out of ignorance or lack of education,” Farmer says. “People were not out to intentionally make you suffer.” Now, she said, “it feels very deliberate and intentional.” TMP’s Beth Schwartzapfel has a new installment of our “Looking Back” series. The Marshall Project

A new police corruption scandal in Louisiana. Federal prosecutors have arrested four current or former Louisiana police chiefs, accusing them of involvement in a scheme to falsify police reports about immigrants in exchange for cash payments. The New York Times The reports were then sold to immigrants to help them secure a temporary visa. The Acadiana Advocate Two other people were also arrested as part of the scheme, officials say. WBRZ At $5,000 per copy, the police reports would falsely indicate that the immigrant was a victim, which would mean temporary protection from deportation. The Associated Press

Former judges don’t want a Trump ally on a federal appeals court. More than 75 former federal and state judges, including dozens of Republican appointees, called on the Senate to reject the nomination of Emil Bove as a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. CNN Hundreds of DOJ alumni also warned senators not to confirm Bove for the job. Reuters The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote later today on Bove’s nomination. Bove maintains strong Republican support in the Senate despite growing claims and new evidence against him. Roll Call Related analysis: Bove is patently unqualified for the job but perfect for what the White House hopes to achieve within the federal judiciary. The New York Times

A new wrinkle in the Epstein scandal. The Justice Department fired Maurene Comey, a veteran federal prosecutor and daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, without explanation on Wednesday. She worked on the prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein and Sean “Diddy” Combs in New York. The Associated Press More: Comey also prosecuted Ghislaine Maxwell, an Epstein associate who was convicted of sex trafficking and sentenced to 20 years in prison. The Trump administration is reportedly investigating James Comey for his role in trying to ferret out the Trump team’s ties to Russia during the 2016 election. Politico

Immigration nation. “We really feel like we’re being hunted,” says an undocumented farm worker in Ventura County, California. The Guardian “Nobody is safe from the system if they get pulled into it,” says an Irish man who was forced to spend 100 days in immigration detention after he overstayed his visa by three days due to illness. The Guardian The mayor of Orange County, Florida, says he will not allow undocumented immigrants held in the local jail to be transferred to the new immigration detention facility in the Everglades. WFTV Federal prosecutors considered charging Minnesota judges and lawyers over their efforts to protect some asylum-seekers and other migrants from deportations without due process. Reuters

Oklahoma’s attorney general reneged on a 2023 agreement to have Richard Glossip released from prison after his murder conviction and death sentence were overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, newly disclosed emails reveal. It’s not the first time that Gentner Drummond, the state’s top prosecutor, has been accused of violating an agreement in a criminal case. He is now running for governor. The Intercept

A federal grand jury in Minnesota has indicted Vance Boelter on murder and stalking charges for his alleged role in the assassination of state Rep. Melissa Hortman and the killing of her husband, Mark. NBC News Federal prosecutors have not announced whether they will seek the death penalty against Boelter. The New York Times

Another former high-ranking police official in New York City has filed a civil lawsuit against Mayor Eric Adams and other top officials. Former NYPD Commissioner Tom Donlon filed his complaint in federal court in the Southern District of New York. He accuses NYPD officials of operating an illegal racket that included leaks to the New York Post. Gothamist

Federal immigration agents arrested high schooler Marcelo Gomes da Silva on his way to volleyball practice in Milford, Massachusetts, in late May. Department of Homeland Security officials now say they never meant to detain the teenager, whose arrest galvanized many town residents into vocal opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Mother Jones

A pilot program on death row in Texas, hidden until now, is allowing some prisoners to leave their solitary confinement for a few hours each day. For some, it’s the first time in 25 years they’ve experienced face-to-face interaction with other prisoners. Houston Chronicle TMP Context: When wizards and orcs visited death row. The Marshall Project

The police militarization debate is over. It didn’t end well. “In six months, the Trump administration made that debate irrelevant. It has taken two-and-a-half centuries of tradition, caution, and fear of standing armies and simply discarded it. We are now in territory so uncharted that the framing of the police militarization debate no longer works.” The Watch

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi v. FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino. On the bright side, Justice Department “leadership consumed with attacking itself has less time to conduct inappropriate investigations, to engage in wildly unlawful management practices, and to instruct career officials that they might need to be prepared to say ‘fuck you’ to federal courts — and then to lie about it to Congress.” Lawfare Related: Bondi refused to answer questions this week about her role in the Jeffrey Epstein case. The Associated Press

Deporting people to countries to which they have no ties is, by law, an option of last resort. “[T]he idea is that the government would start sending people to places where they can effectively get lost, where people cannot find them anymore, where they have no status, where they have no connection, is a cruel way to operate a system of removals.” The New Yorker

New time, new place, same old cruelty. “Something beyond the raw politics of immigration lies behind the venomous cruelty on display, and I think it is this: To everyone involved, from the policymakers in Washington to the masked agents on the street, undocumented individuals are ‘the other’ — people who not only lack legal rights as a formal matter but who stand outside the web of connection that defines human society.” The New York Times

The new immigration detention facility in Florida is an environmental disaster on top of everything else. “Will other public lands offer detention zones? When it comes to penitentiaries in national preserves, they may not be a legal violation, but the idea violates our longstanding embrace of wildlands.” Washington Monthly

Treating migrant children as criminal suspects. Why is the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security collecting DNA samples from immigrants, including children, and putting those samples into the FBI’s criminal database? The feds won’t say. Wired More: The Trump administration has resumed third-country deportation flights, sending five migrants from Vietnam, Jamaica, Laos, Yemen and Cuba to the African nation of Eswatini this week. The New York Times The Pentagon is returning 2,000 National Guard troops from their controversial deployment in Los Angeles. There are still 2,000 more National Guard members, and additional U.S. Marines, patrolling the city. The Associated Press

A First Amendment trial in Massachusetts. Four Homeland Security officials who helped coordinate the detention and attempted deportation of pro-Palestinian students in the U.S. testified this week in a trial challenging the Trump administration’s deportation practices. Politico The officials said they received unusual orders from high-ranking Trump officials pressing them to target student protesters. The Boston Globe

An animal cruelty trial in New York City. Prosecutors say Ian McKeever illegally forced his carriage horse to continue their rounds on the asphalt on a hot summer day in August 2022. The horse eventually collapsed. McKeever faces up to a year in prison if convicted. The Associated Press

From chains to transdermal microchips. Be prepared for a future “law and order” advertising and marketing blitz pitching transdermal microchips that would be forced on incarcerated people as a way to track them. Corrections1

All in the family. What to do when you discover that your great-grandparents were counterfeiters? One family’s journey through the criminal justice system. The New Yorker

The absence of justice. More than two dozen people have been arrested in Florida under a new state immigration law that was illegally enforced throughout the state. A federal judge in April blocked enforcement of the law pending a trial over its constitutionality. That did not deter some law enforcement officials. One person, Juan Aguilar, was arrested following a minor traffic accident, charged with the new state immigration crime, convicted without an attorney, and deported, all within 10 days. A spokesman for the sheriff’s office now says the arrest was a mistake. Experts say the whole case was an obvious abuse of Aguilar’s due process rights. TMP’s Shoshana Walter, Jill Castellano and Daphne Duret have our story. The Marshall Project

No more bond hearings for undocumented immigrants fighting deportation, feds decree. The policy will apply to millions of people who will now be kept in immigration detention while they wait for decisions on their cases. The Washington Post Fifteen more immigration judges learned last week that they’ve been fired by the Trump administration. They were given no explanation and only weeks left to work. NPR More: For three months now, a federal appeals court has delayed a ruling on a trial judge’s plans to hold Trump administration officials in contempt of court over wrongful deportations to El Salvador. The New York Times More: The White House has ended protections for transgender detainees in ICE custody. The Advocate

A Justice Department in crisis. Nearly 70 lawyers in the unit responsible for defending the Trump administration in court have voluntarily left the unit or have announced plans to leave since President Donald Trump took office in January. Reuters The DOJ’s assault on civil service protection. The New York Times Another blow to the DOJ: Federal judges in New York have declined to appoint Trump ally John Sarcone to permanently serve as their district’s top federal prosecutor. Bloomberg Law Senate Democrats pressed for a hearing to examine new reports of misconduct by Emil Bove, the former DOJ official now nominated for a life-tenured federal judicial position. Republicans immediately rejected the request on Tuesday. Courthouse News

They hide their names and faces while they make deals to share private tax information. Immigration judges are now allowing ICE lawyers to hide their identities in open court. “Not identifying an attorney for the government means if there are unethical or professional concerns regarding” the Department of Homeland Security, “the individual cannot be held accountable,” says a law professor and immigration specialist. The Intercept The Internal Revenue Service is planning to turn over private, personal information submitted in tax returns and other filings to the Department of Homeland Security to be used for immigration enforcement. ProPublica

Immigration nation. This Arkansas man says he is opposed to illegal immigration, yet is married to someone who is living in the U.S. illegally. ​​“Everybody wants to enforce the law until it hits home with a personal story,” says a former Arkansas governor who helped with border security during the George W. Bush administration. The New York Times Federal immigration officials are now pressuring landlords to divulge information about their tenants gleaned from rental applications and other forms. The Associated Press More: House Republicans are raising campaign money by selling “Alligator Alcatraz” T-shirts mocking immigration detainees. HuffPost

Florida executioners killed Michael Bell by lethal injection on Tuesday evening for a double murder committed in 1993. The Associated Press It was the 26th execution of 2025, surpassing the total from all of 2024. USA Today

Opening statements began on Tuesday in Chicago, Illinois, in the case of 21-year-old Steven Montano, who is on trial for allegedly murdering Chicago police officer Andrés Vásquez Lasso in March 2023. Lasso was fatally shot while responding to a domestic violence call. Defense attorneys say their client did not commit first-degree murder. Chicago Tribune

A California judge last week ordered prosecutors in Los Angeles County to explain why the murder convictions of Erik and Lyle Menendez should not be reexamined given the discovery of new evidence supporting their claims. The Associated Press

Alabama state law protects police officers from having to show body camera videos to the families of police shooting victims. So cops routinely refuse to share that information. “This can and probably has led to situations where law enforcement will only voluntarily release footage when they think it makes them look good or supports their version of events,” says a lawyer for news organizations seeking access to the material. AL.com

The Red Clover Treatment Center in Vermont is supposed to be the state’s only temporary juvenile detention facility. But youths are being locked away for longer stretches than intended. VTDigger TMP Context: Your first time in solitary confinement at 16. The Marshall Project

Getting real about immigration and border security. “The border crisis is, to a large extent, an asylum crisis: Our broken immigration laws have increasingly incentivized economic migrants to claim that they fear persecution in order to start a lengthy administrative process that allows them to remain in the United States and work.” The New York Times

The Rosie O’Donnell rule. “Under current law, the Justice Department may not denaturalize an unwilling citizen simply because the department, or the president, does not like them — or even because of acts the citizen committed after naturalization.” Lawfare

Trump’s trouble over the Jeffrey Epstein file creates a rare opportunity to break the fever. “Democrats could use this moment to support the delegitimization of conspiracy theorizing, showing how Trump promotes wild accusations when they serve his political purposes, then pooh-poohs them when they don’t.” Washington Monthly

A dark future that includes dozens of concentration camps across the U.S. “There’s good reason to think more red state politicians will seek to create their own versions of ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ or get in on this action in other ways — and that more young Republican politicians will see it as a path to MAGA renown and glory.” The New Republic

Authoritarian, not criminal. “Despite the illegality of Trump’s attacks on law firms, the frivolity of his suit against Paramount, and the repugnance of the administration’s efforts to violate core constitutional protections, neither of these scenarios amounts to criminal bribery.” Lawfare

The fate of transgender federal prisoners during the second Trump administration. “[L]ife behind bars during the Trump administration has been marked by fear and uncertainty as their rights are stripped away.” Defector TMP Context: The legal fight over the Bureau of Prisons’ transgender care ban. The Marshall Project More: “Baseless claims against trans people have become increasingly common in the immediate aftermath of public mass shootings.” The Trace

Punishing journalists for refusing to censor themselves violates the First Amendment, experts say. Prosecutors in New Jersey have filed criminal charges against two journalists for refusing to remove a police blotter entry from a website. Freedom of the Press Foundation

Another deadly shooting linked to a domestic violence case. Guy House, the man accused of killing two women at a church in Lexington, Kentucky, on Sunday, was due in court on Monday for a domestic violence hearing. The victims were related to the mother of House’s children. The Associated Press

Another look at the rapid rise in police killings in rural America. At least 1,260 people were killed by law enforcement officers last year — the highest number in at least a decade. Why? “Sheriff’s departments that generally patrol more rural slices of America are killing more civilians.” The Wall Street Journal TMP Context: Why don’t rural police shootings make more headlines? The Marshall Project

An interstate stalemate. A county clerk in New York again invoked the state’s shield law in refusing to file a $100,000 civil judgment from Texas against a doctor accused of prescribing abortion pills to a woman in Dallas. The Associated Press

Fighting back against enforced disappearance. New data reveals that hundreds of people locked away in the notorious new immigration detention facility in the Florida Everglades have no criminal records. Miami Herald Is a friend or family member on the list the government won’t share with the public? Miami Herald More on immigration nation: Alina Habba, the former Trump defense attorney now interim U.S. attorney in New Jersey, has subpoenaed Gov. Phil Murphy following his comments about helping a migrant. The New York Times Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested a woman in California last month who was selling tamales outside a Lowe’s store. Then she had a heart attack. Los Angeles Times

Expect more third-country deportations. The Trump administration is now planning to deport thousands of asylum-seekers and other migrants to countries they are not from and have never visited. In some cases, officials will give people as little as six hours’ notice. The Washington Post The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for such deportations last month. The test case involved eight men who were deported to South Sudan even though they have no ties to that country. The New York Times People held in overcrowded, understaffed immigration detention facilities in seven states say they aren’t being fed properly. As of June, ICE had detained nearly 60,000 people, about 45% over capacity. NBC News

How many senators will vote for a judicial nominee who won’t denounce the Jan. 6 insurrection or rule out an illegal third term for President Donald Trump? Emil Bove, the Trump ally up for a life-tenured federal appeals court post, offered chilling responses to basic questions about the rule of law in his Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire. CBS News A Justice Department whistleblower (and longtime federal prosecutor) reiterates his allegation against Bove — the nominee was a key part in the current DOJ plan to ignore federal court rulings that block Trump administration priorities. The New York Times Why Erez Reuveni decided to blow the whistle on what he sees as a partisan attack on the constitutional norms. The New Yorker

What it means to teach men who will never leave prison. Many states block life-sentenced prisoners from rehabilitation programs, but such programs exist in states like New York. At the Great Meadow Correctional Facility, people with no hope of leaving prison alive were enthralled by the literature courses they took. And they, in turn, inspired the learned people who were taking the time to teach them. “[F]or some people, both on the inside and the out, cultivating the life of the mind is less transactional: it fulfills a profound spiritual need, as urgent as a religious vocation is for others,” writes Brooke Allen. The New Yorker

Video of the suicide death of a man held at the notorious Rikers Island jail in New York raises old questions about the ways in which jail staff fail to adequately protect or treat prisoners, even those who are bleeding out on the floor of their cell The New York Times TMP Context: I spent 40 years working in corrections. I wasn’t prepared for what I saw at Rikers. The Marshall Project

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has the chance to sign important reform legislation that would establish a statewide public defender’s office. The measure is intended to help perennially overworked and underpaid lawyers representing disadvantaged defendants across the state. Bolts

A federal judge in Los Angeles last week ordered LAPD officers to stop shooting nonlethal projectiles at journalists covering the protests against ICE roundups. The New York Times ICE raids in California have made it harder to rebuild neighborhoods destroyed by recent wildfires. Construction workers are afraid to go to work for fear of deportation. The New York Times

School administrators in Massachusetts are relying too heavily on police, prosecutors and the legal system to deal with the behavioral problems of students, the state’s child services watchdog reports. Court petitions in which judges are asked to intercede in difficult cases have been used disproportionately on poor and disadvantaged children. The Boston Globe

Republican officials in Texas are now working with the Trump administration to gerrymander more congressional districts in favor of the GOP in advance of the 2026 election cycle. The Texas Tribune

The Jeffrey Epstein scandal shines on among Republicans. “And if you wonder why MAGA turned on the F.B.I. and the Department of Justice, well, it’s not just about the Russia investigation or the F.B.I. search of Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago. MAGA America also believed the F.B.I. was protecting pedophiles to preserve the status quo.” The New York Times

Minnesota legislator Melissa Hortman, the victim of an assassination, cannot have died in vain. “We need a new political culture that denounces political violence in the strongest terms, with a consistent and enduring message that urges Americans to settle their disputes at the next election through peaceful means.” Washington Monthly

A tragic attempt to deport our way out of a problem. “We should be having a conversation about how we can get those people a process so that they can have the dignity and certainty to live their lives and contribute like everybody else.” The New Republic More: There’s no good reason for judicial deference to the Trump administration’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act as a justification for the detention and deportation of people without due process. Reason

Patterns and practices of a lawless regime. There’s always the “insistence that the administration can do whatever it wants irrespective or rules, laws, or court orders; the demand that career officials are all in or must get the heck out; the willingness to obfuscate or just lie about what the administration has done, is doing, or means to do — both internally and in litigation — and the indignant rejection of any checks or mechanisms of accountability…” Lawfare

We don’t need more conspiracy theorists among federal prosecutors. Trump ally Jeanine Pirro’s excuses for the Capitol rioters render her unfit to serve as U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C. The Bulwark

“I made every single one of those.” Speaking about his decisions, former President Joe Biden dispelled baseless theories about his use of an autopen for clemency actions. “They’ve lied so consistently about almost everything they’re doing. The best thing they can do is try to change the focus and focus on something else,” Biden told an interviewer. The New York Times

The purge continues at the Justice Department. Two more federal prosecutors who worked with special counsel Jack Smith were fired last week by Justice Department officials. NBC News Twenty people who assisted Smith have now been fired by Trump allies at the DOJ. The Washington Post More: U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi fired her ethics adviser last week without offering the 19-year veteran of the Justice Department any explanation. Joseph Tirrell was responsible for counseling high-level DOJ officials. Bloomberg Law

The effect of ICE raids on American industries. Add nursing homes to the list of businesses and industries reeling from the Trump administration’s roundup of working immigrants, the vast majority of whom have no criminal records and pose no threat to public safety. The Associated Press Add the U.S. horse racing industry to the list, too, as caretakers cower in fear on farms and along backstretches. The Washington Post

A new front in the war on science and medicine. The Justice Department has dropped charges against a Utah plastic surgeon accused of selling fake vaccination cards during the coronavirus pandemic and injecting saline into children instead of the COVID vaccine their parents wanted them to have. The Associated Press Despite these allegations, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said last week that the defendant, Michael Moore, had given “his patients a choice when the federal government refused to do so.” The Washington Post

The political moment that followed the murder of George Floyd seems far away. But “we’re still here. Still resisting. Still building. And we haven’t lost our belief that another world is possible, even when the system slides deeper into fascism.” The Guardian