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Federal Judge Slams SCOTUS Immunity Ruling In Sex Discrimination Case

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Another day, another federal judge reading the Supreme Court for filth.

This time it’s Judge William Young, a Reagan appointee and former chief judge of the US District Court of Massachusetts, calling out how “a six-member majority, eschewing historical analysis sought fundamentally to redesign the relationship between the sovereign people and the first citizen of the Republic.” (Thanks to Fix the Court, which first flagged the ruling.)

Oddly enough, the slam came in a ruling in a sex discrimination claim against the federal judiciary filed by a Caryn Strickland, a former assistant federal public defender in North Carolina.

The federal judiciary is exempt from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, so Strickland, hoping to preserve her career, initially lodged a complaint under the murky mediation proceedings of the judiciary’s Employment Dispute Resolution Plan. But according to her suit, multiple members of the judiciary, including former Judge Roslynn Mauskopf of the Eastern District of New York, a named defendant in her capacity as Chair of the Judicial Conference Committee on Judicial Resources, conspired to thwart a fair resolution.

When Strickland sued, alleging various Fifth Amendment and civil rights claims, local jurists were conflicted out, for obvious reasons. So Judge Young, who took senior status in 2021, presided remotely over the trial. Strickland represented herself along with her husband, Cooper Strickland, who is also a lawyer.

Judge Young found for the defendants as a matter of law, although he heaped scorn on the federal judiciary for its reprehensible — if unredressable — conduct:

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[O]ne obdurate and inconvenient truth remains –- in this case, a young woman with significant professional qualifications made a good faith claim of sexual harassment. As a result, she saw her desired career in public service stunted and ultimately withered such that her services have been lost to federal public service. That she is without redress under the present legal framework cannot be a cause for congratulation on the part of federal judges or administrators.

But his proposed solution, articulated in the last five pages of the 285-page opinion, is more judicial intervention, not less. He regards mediation as a mere obstacle to resolution, and expresses the view that it should be optional in cases of sexual harassment. And then in an epic, final footnote, he offers “a brief commentary on trial advocacy,” with the caveat that it “has nothing whatsoever to do with the merits.”

He began by praising the legal skills of all the advocates:

Before trial Ms. Strickland and her husband told the Court that neither one had ever tried a case. Now you have. Quite an experience, isn’t it? I have been a trial judge longer than most of you have been alive and have taught trial advocacy and evidence for over forty years. Each one of you did a fine professional job.

He then encouraged Strickland and her husband to continue with trial practice because “We appear to be at a hinge moment where we need every trial attorney we can get.”

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The Supreme Court has just affirmed America’s long-standing reliance on our jury system in both criminal, Erlinger v. United States, 144 S. Ct. 1840, 1852 (2024) and civil cases, S.E.C. v. Jarkesy, 144 S. Ct. 2117, 2128 (2024); see id. at 2140 (Gorsuch, J. concurring), opinions which will stand for decades.

But even as he praised the Supreme Court for its wise rulings “which will stand for decades,” Judge Young felt the need to contrast them with the ignominious black mark of the Trump immunity decision:

But see Trump v. United States, 144 S. Ct. 2312 (2024) (a six-member majority, eschewing historical analysis sought fundamentally to redesign the relationship between the sovereign people and the first citizen of the Republic).

It’s a mic drop from an 84-year-old jurist who frankly acknowledges he won’t be presiding over any further proceedings. And it’s a stinging indictment of the highest jurists in the land, who’ve debased the entire judiciary with a clearly erroneous ruling.

We should all hope that Trump v. US will not “stand for decades.” But considering the age of the Court’s conservative justices, that seems pretty unlikely.

Strickland v. US [Docket via Court Listener]

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.

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