Judge Thomas Rice in the eastern district of Washington responded Thursday to government lawyers asking how they should comply with contradictory rulings on mifepristone that both came down Friday evening, one of which Rice wrote.
He told them that, regardless of the ruling out of Texas, the government must comply with his order to keep mifepristone available as usual in the 17 states plus Washington D.C. that are part of the case.
“That order is currently stayed and was not in effect at the time of this Court’s preliminary injunction,” he said of Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s ruling, which had stayed the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of mifepristone. Aspects of Kacsmaryk’s ruling were stayed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday morning. “Under these circumstances, because the Court has jurisdiction over the parties before it and limited its preliminary injunction only to the Plaintiff States and the District of Columbia, this Court’s preliminary injunction was effective as of April 7, 2023 and must be followed by Defendants.”
He added that “irrespective of the Northern District of Texas Court ruling or the Fifth Circuit’s anticipated ruling,” defendants are prohibited from “altering the status quo and rights as it relates to the availability of Mifepristone under the current operative January 2023 Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy under 21 U.S.C. § 355-1 in Plaintiff States and the District of Columbia.”
The 2023 Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) are the current restrictions on mifepristone, which the FDA has lessened in recent years. In the The Fifth Circuit’s Thursday morning ruling, a panel of judges broke with Kacsmaryk on his rejection of the FDA’s original approval of the drug, but upheld challenges to the loosening of mifepristone’s restrictions that the FDA has carried out since 2016.
Rice also infused his order with criticisms of judge shopping, the strategy by which right-wing litigants placed the case with Kacsmaryk, knowing that they’d likely get a friendly ruling from him and the Fifth Circuit. Sweetening the pot further, Kacsmaryk habitually hands down national injunctions, creating edicts for the entire country — at least until higher courts overturn him. Rice, in contrast, only ruled for the states and district that had actually joined the suit.
The Fifth Circuit would reimpose the more onerous restrictions on mifepristone of years past, an order that would apply nationwide and go into effect Saturday, barring intervention — seemingly in direct conflict with Rice’s order to preserve the drug’s availability as is.
The Department of Justice announced that it would appeal that Fifth Circuit decision to the Supreme Court, where it is seeking an emergency stay. Supreme Court intervention is fairly inescapable at this point, given the additional conflict between the lower courts.
Read Rice’s order here:
I guess it will not be a problem for most women in FL, after all the average age of women in St Petersburg is 58.
Note the contrast between the measured legal analysis of the 9th Circuit and the WA District Court in following those rules and the crap that comes out of the Fifth Circuit and the make it up as he goes along judge in Amarillo. Who are the activist judges? Who faithfully follow the Constitution?
Many thanks to Judge Thomas Rice of Washington State.
The ruling by Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of Amarillo is an abomination of justice. He should be summarily thrown off the bench.
All women must be guaranteed bodily autonomy, particularly when it comes to their health and their reproductive prerogatives.
Good.
This is a judge who is sticking to the rule of law, and making it clear the other decisions are not. He’s forcing the issue to go to the SC and for them to make a decision. The drawback is they may just go along with the obviously bad stuff coming out of Texas, but that shouldn’t change the judge’s path. And, really, if the SC is now going to go with judicial opinions that are just made up based on political considerations and based on outright lies, the nation really should know about it. It gives voters a chance to overturn the decisions at the ballot box at least, which is what’s been happening so far.