Yep -- USDC Judge Waverly Crenshaw Is Going To Dump The Noemites, In Nashville, Next Week. You Heard It Here, First.

I've said it repeatedly, here -- Sean Hecker and his team. . . are the most able immigration private plaintiffs' counsel. . . I've ever seen. [And I've seen. . . a lot of them, in my two decades of regular pro bono practice, here in Chicago.]

So do read this -- as it is a master-class, in a terse eight pager -- just filed:

. . .What is most significant about the government’s opposition to Mr. Abrego’s motion to suppress is what it concedes. It concedes that Trooper Brawner falsely stated that the speed limit was 65 miles per hour when it was actually 70. It concedes, too, that there is no evidence of any techniques Trooper Brawner used to measure Mr. Abrego’s speed—no radar, no vehicle data, no contemporaneous or subsequent report of Trooper Brawner’s stop of Mr. Abrego. Instead, the government offers justifications for the stop with no basis in the case law: That it was reasonable for a Tennessee Highway Patrolman to misread (or misrepresent) a posted speed limit; that it was reasonable to misapprehend Mr. Abrego’s speed when pulling him over for speeding; or that Trooper Brawner’s account of the stop will be credible merely because he bears no personal animus toward Mr. Abrego. . . .

So the question is simple: did Trooper Brawner employ the standard -- accurate, testable -- law enforcement tools to assess Mr. Abrego’s speed? If so, the omission of that evidence from the government’s brief is unusual; if not, then there was nothing “reasonable,” nor lawful, about this stop. . . .

Because officers’ authority to conduct pretextual stops is broad, it is “the responsibility of the courts to make sure that police officers act appropriately and not abuse the power legally afforded to them by, among other things, carefully scrutinizing” the justification for the initial stop. Hill, 195 F.3d at 267. The government must be held to its burden of proving, by a preponderance of the evidence, that this stop was “supported by specific and articulable facts.” (Dkt. 175 at 4 (quoting United States v. Blair, 524 F.3d 740, 750 (6th Cir. 2008))). The government offers no such facts.

For the foregoing reasons, Mr. Abrego respectfully requests that the Court suppress the traffic stop and all evidence deriving from it. . . .

Get 'em, Mr. Hecker! I love it. This whole house of cards is likely to fall in on itself, next week -- in Music City -- on the Fifth of November (after all the evidence is in, on the Fourth). See you there!

नमस्ते