The Department of Justice filed its brief Monday afternoon on behalf of the Trump administration ahead of the 3 p.m. PT deadline at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, and the court has scheduled a hearing on the matter of the executive order banning travel from seven Muslim-majority countries for 3 p.m. PT Tuesday, as the San Francisco Chronicle is reporting. A ruling from the appellate court on whether to grant the administration's requested stay will set the stage for a final showdown at the Supreme Court in a case that could have broad repercussions for many years to come on the extent of the executive branch's power.

Sunday night a brief was filed on behalf of the states of Washington and Minnesota, which currently have joined forces to declare Trump's executive order unconstitutional following a ruling Friday by U.S. District Judge James L. Robart in Seattle, and a subsequent appeal by the Trump administration. That brief, as the New York Times reports, declares that "President Trump unleashed chaos by signing the executive order," and lawyers for the two states rejected outright that by staying the President's order some irreparable harm or security risk was being posed. "But that would mean that until the (Executive) Order was issued," they wrote, "Defendants were suffering some unspecified, ongoing irreparable harm. That makes no sense." And they added, "As this court has held, preserving the status quo against sudden disruption is often in the interest of all parties."

Further the states suggested they will be using some of Trump's anti-Muslim public comments against him, as CNN reports, writing it's "the duty of the courts to distinguish a sham secular purpose from a sincere one," and "Here, the sham of a secular purpose is exposed by both the language of the order and defendants' expressions of anti-Muslim intent."

Their brief was followed by multiple amicus briefs supporting the stay and opposing the President's appeal, including one signed by 97 major US companies, many of them Bay Area tech firms, and one signed by the attorneys general of 15 states including New York, California, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Virginia, as well as the District of Columbia. That latter brief stated, "If this court were to grant a stay, it would resurrect the chaos experienced in our airports beginning on the weekend of January 28 and 29, and cause harm to the states — including to state institutions such as public universities, to the businesses that sustain our economies, and to our residents."

A coalition of diplomats and former national security officials including John Kerry and Madeline Albright filed their own declaration with the court today as well, asserting that Trump's order "ultimately undermines the national security of the United States, rather than making us safer" and saying it "cannot be justified on national security or foreign policy grounds... [and it] offends our nation’s laws and values.”

CNN reports on the administration's brief filed Monday, which says, in part, "The Executive Order is a lawful exercise of the President's authority over the entry of aliens into the United States and the admission of refugees."

Acting Solicitor General Noel Francisco further argued on Saturday in the administration's appeal, "Judicial second-guessing of the President's determination that a temporary suspension of entry of certain classes of aliens was necessary at this time to protect national security would constitute an impermissible intrusion on the political branches' plenary constitutional authority over foreign affairs, national security, and immigration." She also said "judicial second-guessing of the President's national security determination in itself imposes substantial harm on the federal government and the nation at large."

I am no legal scholar, but doesn't it seem like there's going to be a great deal of very necessary judicial second-guessing to keep this administration in check, and to remind them that there are in fact three branches of government?

The three-judge panel who will be hearing the case are Judge William C. Canby Jr, a Carter appointee; Judge Richard R. Clifton, a George W. Bush appointee; and the most junior judge at the Ninth Circuit, Judge Michelle T. Friedland, a 2014 Obama appointee.

Trump, meanwhile, has remained quiet on the matter at least for the last 24 hours, though he had this to say yesterday on his personal Twitter account:

Previously: Trump Administration To Do Battle With Ninth Circuit Court In SF This Week Over Immigration Ban

As the California legislature moves closer to possibly passing the End of Life Option Act, which is modeled on Oregon's Death With Dignity Act of 1997, the organization Compassion & Choices has released a new video featuring a terminally ill Southern California woman who is joining in a lawsuit to fight for the right to physician-assisted suicide. The case of Christy O’Donnell is especially poignant because she is a Christian, Republican single mother from Santa Clarita with an aggressive form of lung cancer despite never having smoked a cigarette in her life, and being a vegetarian.

O'Donnell is a civil rights attorney who previously was a sergeant in the LAPD, as CBS 5 reports.

Compassion & Choices filed the suit on Friday on behalf of O'Donnell and two other terminally ill Californians, Elizabeth Wallner of Sacramento and Wolf Breiman of Ventura. They subsequently released the video above of O'Donnell, who was given a six-month prognosis a couple of months ago. The video was shot on March 4.

O'Donnell says that while she does not want to die, but after nine months of chemotherapy her cancer has continued to spread from her lungs to her brain, spine, ribs, and liver. She's facing an extremely painful decline in which her lung fills with fluid and she will have to make repeated trips to the hospital to have it drained, until she ultimately dies. Unlike Brittany Maynard, the 29-year-old Northern California woman who relocated her family to Oregon in order to die with dignity last November, O'Donnell is not talking about relocating, and will likely end up dying before the California law can take effect. But she says, "While we're waiting for... the legislature to pass it, people like me and my daughter are the casualties of the delay in passing these laws... Someday, when this law passes, my daughter... will know she played some small part in this, and when that law passes she will know that some other little girl will not have to suffer the way she suffered by watching me die."

The California legislation, SB 128, has already passed through several committee hurdles in the State Senate, and it has a deadline of June 5 to pass a vote of the full Senate. Compassion & Choices previously said that if the law fails to pass, they would be seeking a ballot measure.

Previously: New Face Of Death With Dignity Cause, Brittany Maynard, Dies At 29

Dr. Richard Pan, the pediatrician and Democratic Assemblyman who introduced and passed a law last year in the California Assembly that will force all chefs, sushi chefs, and bartenders to wear rubber gloves whenever handling food items, now says that that requirement was "not fully vetted," and he's trying to get it repealed before the law takes effect.

Pan has taken the bulk of the criticism for his food-handling safety law, which passed without opposition in 2013 and is set to take effect in June, much of it coming from the bartending community who have been really pissed off at the idea of having to put on and take off rubber gloves all night every time they want to squeeze a lemon. SFist alerted you to a petition circulating last month which gathered over 11,000 signatures attempting to get a bartender exemption for the law. That petition was put together by 15 Romolo bartender Aaron Smith who notes not only that he'd be forced to go through 175 gloves any given night and slow down his drink-making, but also, "Nobody wants to eat in a doctor’s office. It makes if feel a little more industrial—a little more institutional." Yes and anything that is going to lengthen artisanal-cocktail-making time is a horrible thing, indeed.

Also upset are sushi chefs, who take the craft of handling and cutting raw fish with bare hands very seriously, and other chefs who deride the law for its environmental impacts (a lot of wasted latex) and impracticality. Local chef Joshua Oakley of Tango & Stache noted also that so much quick changing of gloves is likely to result in "bacteria [trapped] beneath them, especially when you can't wash and quickly put on a new pair."

As CBS and Capital Public Radio report, Pan now admits his law may have had some unintended consequences. And while he first passed the buck to local health departments and told them to interpret the requirements themselves, he's now sponsoring an emergency measure that will repeal the glove-wearing requirement.

We'll update you if and when that passes.

[CBS]
[Capital Public Radio]

Here we go again. The Law Offices of Bornstein & Bornstein and Bay Property Group have invited you to learn the art of kicking out tenants. There's money to be made and those human beings won't fling themselves out to the gutter. Okay, that's a touch dramatic — two sides to every story, right? — but tonight's event, which helps landlords better understand how to kick out tenants, couldn't come at a worst/best time.

Topics will include: Rent Control v. Non-Rent Control, Just Cause Eviction Rules, The Eviction Process, Tenant Buy-Out Agreements, Owner Move-In Evictions, and Protected Tenant Analysis.

Broke-Ass Stuart covered this last year, when the same (popular) seminar went down in November. Even the Chronicle and 7x7 chimed in too.

Details. (Also, depending on which side of the fence you're on, Bornstein's YouTube channel is helpful/chilling.)

The California State Supreme Court unanimously ruled today that same-sex marriages can continue despite an emergency request from Prop 8 supporters to stop them.

"Backers of Proposition 8 had turned to the state's high court last week after Gov. Jerry Brown ordered all 58 county clerks in California to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples," reports The Chronicle. "Brown acted two days after the U.S. Supreme Court's June 26 ruling that the initiative's private sponsors lacked legal standing to defend it in federal court."

Equality California Executive Director John O'Connor had this to say:

"Yet again, detractors have failed in their attempt to halt marriage for loving same-sex couples in California. Committed gay and lesbian couples will continue to affirm their love for one another through marriage should they choose to. Marriage for same-sex couples is here to stay in California!"

California's 58 counties started issuing marriage licenses for gay couples on June 28, two days after the SCOTUS ruling. So, you know, get those wedding cakes ordered.

[Sacto Bee]
[Chron]

Last week, a three-year-old rape conviction in Southern California was overturned by the Second District Court of Appeals in Los Angeles because the court ruled that the state's law would have only considered the woman a victim if she had been married. Essentially, the woman wasn't considered a victim in the case because her attacker pretended to be her boyfriend. New legislation introduced by a Bay Area state senator would change that.

In the 2009 case, Julio Morales was originally convicted of sexually assaulting a sleeping 18-year-old woman while she slept after a party in Cerritos, California by impersonating her boyfriend. LAist filled us in last week:

Prosecutors thought that in this case they had two ways to convict him of rape: to prove that she was tricked into having sex with him or that she could not consent because she was sleeping. Morales' first trial ended in a hung jury, but he was convicted of the "rape of an unconscious person" the second time. The jury who convicted Morales was told that he could be convicted of rape under either theory, but the court says only one of those theories works in California.

Under the current law (which was written in 1870) a person can only be convicted of rape like this if they are impersonating the victim's spouse. Boyfriends, lovers, friends with benefits, significant others, and any other not-legally binding labels people put on their relationships don't count and the court "reluctantly" admitted that the state law doesn't protect the victim in this case.

Even a 1993 amendment to the spousal rape law, which made it illegal to trick or coerce a spouse into consent, only applied to a married woman. When the State Assembly again tried to fix the language in 2011, the legislation died because prison overcrowding legislation started by State Senator Gloria Romero back in 2007 held up any bill that might extend a felon's prison sentence.

Today, California Women's Caucus chairwoman Noreen Evans (D-Santa Rosa) introduced SB 59, which would update the language to exchange the word "spouse" to "sexually intimate partner" to match these less matrimonially inclined times. It is co-signed by the democratic senate public safety committee chair from Berkeley, among 11 other state senators.

"This is about equality in the law. This is about justice for all," Senator Evans (who is also in the news today because she has inherited Marin as part of her district) said in a press release. "And it’s past time this legislative body correct an arcane law that could let a rapist go free on an outdated statue that provides neither."

Previously: Court: It's Not Rape If You're Pretending To Be Your Victim's Boyfriend [LAist]
[Chron]

Could California Attorney General and former San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris be the next nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court? Maybe, says Tom Goldstein of SCOTUSblog who claims with certainty that Harris is a shoo-in for candidacy. Working on the assumption that Obama will want/win a second term (which seems likely), Goldstein says:

[O]nly one [possibility] truly stands out as checking every box: Kamala Harris. She is the recently elected (2010) Attorney General of California. Previously, she was twice elected as the District Attorney for San Francisco (2004-2010); the chief of the unit heading civil code matters in the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office (2000-2004); the head of the career-criminal unit in the San Francisco D.A.’s Office (1998-2000); and Deputy District Attorney for Alameda County (1990-1998). Her mother (a breast cancer specialist) is from India and raised her as a single mother; her father (an economics professor at Stanford) is Jamaican-American. She graduated from Howard University as an undergraduate and went to U.C. Hastings for law school. Coincidentally, Harris is profiled in yesterday’s New York Times.

Harris might not even want the very, very hypothetical gig especially if she's early in her second term as attorney general or, as Goldstein goes on to point out, she wants to sit pretty in the Governor's Office.

But the timing is likely to conspire against Harris. The odds are that, at the time of a hypothetical Ginsburg retirement in the spring of 2015, Harris will be in the very early days of her second term as Attorney General, after a hard fought re-election battle. (It seems unlikely that Jerry Brown, who has been running for office since birth, will pass up a chance at re-election and allow Harris to run for Governor in 2014.) In that event, I cannot see her walking away, particularly with the prospect of the Governor’s mansion four years away. The only way the timing fits is if Harris instead loses in 2014, either seeking re-election or seeking the governorship if Brown does not run again.

What do you think about Harris on the U.S. Supreme Court? (We'd be happy if only so we can say that we used to go to the same gym as a Supreme Court Justice.)

[via ABA, WSJ]

As we mentioned this morning, Barry Bonds is in court today to face accusations that he lied under oath way back in December of 2003 when he denied that he knowingly took steroids and performance enhancers. If courtroom drama is what gets you through your day, we might recommend you keep an eye on Joe Vasquez's twitter feed where the CBS5 reporter takes us inside the courtroom with haiku-like dispatches covering everything from the jury selection process to the cut of the former Giants outfielder's suit. For the full background on the trial, check the Bay City News report on the Appeal.

[@JoeCBS5]
[BCN/SFAppeal]

Just ten days after former Police Chief George Gascon was sworn in as the interim District Attorney, a lawyer at the Public Defenders Office is considering asking him to step aside from the high-profile officer-involved shooting of Randal Dunklin, the man in a wheelchair who stabbed an officer, on January 4.

The public defender cited the fact that Gascon had defended the police officers' actions to the media when he was still police chief, which could be deemed as a conflict of interest in his new role as DA.

Funnily enough, if Gascon is removed from the case, the state attorney general and former DA, Kamala Harris, would step in.

[Via The Examiner]

The California Supreme Court made a controversial 5-2 ruling yesterday allowing police to search arrestees' cell phones without a warrant. This finding is said to be in line with decisions made in the 1970s that items on an arrestee's person during an arrest, such as cigarettes or a wallet, can be seized and later examined without a warrant.

The two dissenting judges argue that smart phones are uncharted territory, as they contain information that isn't exactly part of the arrestee's person. The judges also bring up the point that the seized property could easily be searched after obtaining a warrant. Additionally, this ruling likely violates the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment.

Back in 2007, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston of San Francisco ruled that police had violated drug defendants' rights by searching their cell phones after their arrests. The Ohio Supreme Court reached a similar conclusion in December 2009. This will hopefully prompt the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the matter.

The House voted today to repeal the U.S. military's ban on LGBT service. Wednesday's vote, 250-175,"propels the issue to the Senate for what could be the last chance for now to end the 1993 law that forbids recruiters from asking about sexual orientation while prohibiting soldiers from acknowledging that they are gay."

"Now is the time for us to act," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and "close the door on a fundamental unfairness in our nation."

If the 'don't ask, don't tell' ban is not overturned this year, it "could relegate the issue to the back burner next year when Republicans, who are far less supportive of allowing openly gay individuals to serve in the military, take over the House and gain strength in the Senate."

[AP]

Alleged Christian groups all over the U.S. have incorrectly and abusively attempted to use the First Amendment to commit balls out acts of hate and discrimination. Take, for example, anti-gay group the Christian Legal Society, who, while attempting to bar UC Hastings members who happen to be gay, went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court claiming their free speech rights were being trampled on (not the case) because of the college's nondiscrimination policy.

Not so much, the Supreme Court ruled today. After the ruling, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had this to say:

"In requiring CLS — in common with all other student organizations — to choose between welcoming all students and forgoing the benefits of official recognition, we hold, Hastings did not transgress constitutional limitations," said Bader Ginsburg, who wrote the 5-4 majority opinion for the court's liberals and moderate Anthony Kennedy. "CLS, it bears emphasis, seeks not parity with other organizations, but a preferential exemption from Hastings' policy."

Yeah, even your average Orange County Republican knows that a public institution cannot and should not support any group's effort to practice discrimination. The "ideological" 5-4 judgment was, one could say, truly an act of justice with the love of God. See you in hell, CLS.