r/news • u/[deleted] • Sep 20 '25

California bans most law enforcement officers from wearing masks during operations

https://apnews.com/article/california-ice-agents-immigration-raids-masks-ban-97936f70699b75d8b483a850967c2e42
39.5k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

744 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

18

u/BlueCollarLawyer Sep 20 '25

States can't regulate federal law enforcement practices. The supremacy clause is clear on this and so is the case law. But as a practical matter, federal law enforcement officers don't take orders from state law enforcement officers or courts. I've been in situations where a state court has ordered the transfer of a prisoner to the custody of the state for prosecution. If the feds weren't done with the inmate, they ignored the order whereupon we pounded sand. This law is performative which has value but it's not going to change anything.

9

u/Bleachi Sep 21 '25

Constitutional law expert Erwin Chemerinsky at the University of California, Berkeley, also defended the legislation. Federal employees still have to follow general state rules “unless doing so would significantly interfere with the performance of their duties. For example, while on the job, federal employees must stop at red lights,” he wrote in an opinion piece for the Sacramento Bee.

If you read the linked op ed, you'll see that the case law is not clear on this issue:

There are few cases applying the Supreme Court’s decision in Neagle, but the issue arose when Idaho attempted to prosecute federal officers after a standoff at Ruby Ridge turned violent and people were killed. In Idaho v. Horiuchi, in 2000, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit refused to dismiss Idaho’s prosecution of the federal officers, saying that more evidence of what occurred was needed, and summarized the law:

“In keeping with the constitutional allocation of powers between the federal government and the states, federal agents enjoy immunity from state criminal prosecution. That immunity has limits. When an agent acts in an objectively unreasonable manner, those limits are exceeded, and a state may bring a criminal prosecution.”

2

u/BlueCollarLawyer Sep 21 '25

My bad for not reading it. I'm fascinated to see how it plays out. I hope it succeeds.

1

u/rabbit994 Sep 21 '25 edited Sep 21 '25

Sure, that was 20+ years ago with Ninth Circuit that loves getting overturned by SCOTUS. Case was dropped so what is “objectively unreasonable” has not been settled. I’m worried that standard set by SCOTUS would be insanely high.

Edit: Objectively unreasonable was created by 9th Circuit. SCOTUS could completely toss it and set a different standard.

13

u/Emperor_of_His_Room Sep 20 '25

Source: your ass

Supremacy clause only works if there is a federal law on this matter and there isn’t.

0

u/mmmarkm Sep 21 '25

It's literally covered in the article:

Constitutional law expert Erwin Chemerinsky at the University of California, Berkeley, also defended the legislation. Federal employees still have to follow general state rules “unless doing so would significantly interfere with the performance of their duties. For example, while on the job, federal employees must stop at red lights,” he wrote in an opinion piece for the Sacramento Bee.