U.S. District Judge William Young, appointed by President Ronald Reagan back in the 1980s, has a very conservative history. But when Young, now 84, mentioned the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial 6-3 immunity ruling in Trump v. the United States during a recent decision, he attacked it as flawed and “eschewing” history.
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The case, according to Law & Crime’s Brandi Buchman, didn’t involve former President Donald Trump or special counsel Jack Smith.
Rather, the case involved Caryn Strickland, a former public defender who sued the federal judiciary for, she alleged, mishandling her sexual harassment claim. But Young mentioned Trump v. the United States in passing during a 285-page opinion that rejected Strickland’s argument.
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“Caryn Strickland, a former assistant federal public defender in North Carolina, first sued in 2020 alleging that a quid pro quo sexual harassment claim she filed against supervisor J.P. Davis, was mishandled by officials, according to Reuters,” Buchman notes. “That mishandling cost her job, she claimed, and was an example of gender bias in the workplace and retaliation…. As a matter of law, (Young) found, in the August 9 opinion, the U.S. judiciary is exempt from lawsuits invoking protections under Title VII.
Young, Buchman observes, referenced a variety of High Court decisions that he agreed with. But when he brought up Trump v. the United States in passing, Young argued that it was at odds with history.
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The Reagan appointee wrote, “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).”
In Trump v. the United States, the High Court ruled that U.S. presidents enjoy absolut immunity from criminal prosecution for “official” acts but not for “unofficial” acts. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a Barack Obama appointee, vehemently rejected the GOP-appointed majority’s argument in her scathing dissent — warning that “the president is now king above the law.”
