Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, a Ronald Reagan appointee on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, has drawn praise for his blistering rebuke last week of the Trump administration’s resistance to returning a wrongly deported Maryland man despite a U.S. Supreme Court order.
The scathing ruling may be a sign that even judges with deeply conservative credentials like Wilkinson won’t look kindly on pedantic arguments from the U.S. Justice Department. And it has some court watchers wondering whether the Supreme Court will employ more forceful, direct language in upcoming clashes that potentially implicate separations of powers.