I (English lawyer) picked it up about 15 mins in.

Making due allowances for the fact that a legal hearing in which everyone has pre-read a lot of documentation, much of which is referred to only obliquely and with little explanation, my thoughts:

- It was what I'd call a fairly typical three-person appellate tribunal hearing. Lots of interaction and lots of testing of the advocates' arguments with nasty (ie difficult to answer) questions.
- the Govt's lawyer seemed to face an appreciably higher level of hostile questions, though as an appellant trying to overturn a decision one would expect that. Nevertheless the justices appeared to me fairly ill-disposed to the Govt arguments.
- The WA state lawyer opened weakly IMO. He had a procedural point which the court was (rightly, again IMO) not that interested in and they appeared impatient to move him onto his main substantive point.
- Clifton certainly probed the WA state lawyer the most. At one point the female justice (not sure of her name) came to his rescue after a particularly tricky Clifton question. The core Clifton question: why does this discriminate against Muslims if it only accounts for countries that produced 15% of Muslim immigration to the US was not well handled: the WA state lawyer was reduced at one point to saying that he hadn't thought of the case in those numeric terms.
- my overall view was that the TRO was likely to remain in place.

One things that occurred to me that I don't know the answer to and wasn't raised: to what extent can the court sever offending parts of an EO? Does it stand or fall in its entirety, or (for example) can the Court say: "the ban on these seven countries doesn't discriminate against Muslims on the basis of arithmetic, but the part that prioritises Christians from those countries over Muslims does and so we will put a red line through those parts and leave the rest".

It may be that the Govt didn't want to argue this for tactical reasons (the UK Govt made a similar tactical decision in the Brexit litigation) or perhaps it is simply an impermissible approach by the Court. Dunno.

Interesting stuff though, both as a lawyer and as a non US lawyer. It's striking both how similar and how different things are listening to a hearing in another common law jurisdiction.

I saw fragments of it - and some talking heads afterwards. The sense I get is if the court wants to deal with this more they will find the State of Wash. has standing - and they want it (the stay) to go away they'll claim no standing. I don't think they'll get into the constitutionality of the ban.

I saw fragments of it - and some talking heads afterwards. The sense I get is if the court wants to deal with this more they will find the State of Wash. has standing - and they want it (the stay) to go away they'll claim no standing. I don't think they'll get into the constitutionality of the ban.

Its being heard by the 9th Circus, er Circuit. This is going to the Supreme Court.

I saw fragments of it - and some talking heads afterwards. The sense I get is if the court wants to deal with this more they will find the State of Wash. has standing - and they want it (the stay) to go away they'll claim no standing. I don't think they'll get into the constitutionality of the ban.

I (English lawyer) picked it up about 15 mins in.

Making due allowances for the fact that a legal hearing in which everyone has pre-read a lot of documentation, much of which is referred to only obliquely and with little explanation, my thoughts:

- It was what I'd call a fairly typical three-person appellate tribunal hearing. Lots of interaction and lots of testing of the advocates' arguments with nasty (ie difficult to answer) questions.
- the Govt's lawyer seemed to face an appreciably higher level of hostile questions, though as an appellant trying to overturn a decision one would expect that. Nevertheless the justices appeared to me fairly ill-disposed to the Govt arguments.
- The WA state lawyer opened weakly IMO. He had a procedural point which the court was (rightly, again IMO) not that interested in and they appeared impatient to move him onto his main substantive point.
- Clifton certainly probed the WA state lawyer the most. At one point the female justice (not sure of her name) came to his rescue after a particularly tricky Clifton question. The core Clifton question: why does this discriminate against Muslims if it only accounts for countries that produced 15% of Muslim immigration to the US was not well handled: the WA state lawyer was reduced at one point to saying that he hadn't thought of the case in those numeric terms.
- my overall view was that the TRO was likely to remain in place.

One things that occurred to me that I don't know the answer to and wasn't raised: to what extent can the court sever offending parts of an EO? Does it stand or fall in its entirety, or (for example) can the Court say: "the ban on these seven countries doesn't discriminate against Muslims on the basis of arithmetic, but the part that prioritises Christians from those countries over Muslims does and so we will put a red line through those parts and leave the rest".

It may be that the Govt didn't want to argue this for tactical reasons (the UK Govt made a similar tactical decision in the Brexit litigation) or perhaps it is simply an impermissible approach by the Court. Dunno.

Interesting stuff though, both as a lawyer and as a non US lawyer. It's striking both how similar and how different things are listening to a hearing in another common law jurisdiction.