and this came up from Democracy Docket
One of the most alarming developments in the second Trump administration is agencies’ apparent defiance of court orders barring them from implementing illegal executive orders. As agencies including the State Department have ignored, evaded or slow-walked judicial decrees, courts have issued increasingly stronger warnings that compliance with their orders is not optional, and litigants have urged them to hold the responsible government officials in contempt of court.
Courts’ power of contempt — the inherent power to compel compliance with orders and punish actions that obstruct the administration of justice — is ultimately backstopped by their ability to jail people who defy their orders. There’d be no issue if judges themselves made arrests, but the courts’ enforcement arm, the U.S. Marshal’s Service, reports to both the courts and the attorney general. The marshals’ position within the executive branch has led commenters to predict that, if a court orders the arrest of a defiant executive branch official, the White House or Attorney General Pam Bondi will revoke the order and the courts will “run out of options.”
As Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky argues, “the hard truth for those looking to the courts to rein in the Trump administration is that the Constitution gives judges no power to compel compliance with their rulings — it is the executive branch that ultimately enforces judicial orders.”
But do the courts really lack authority to jail contemnors — people who defy court orders — if the marshals go rogue? A close look at the courts’ enforcement powers makes clear that judges don’t need to rely solely on the marshals to ensure their orders are enforced.
https://www.democracydocket.com/opinion/if-the-marshals-go-rogue-courts-have-other-ways-to-enforce-their-orders/
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