Judge Boasberg's contempt halted by appellate court!

2-1 decision by the D.C. Circuit court to halt the proceedings until the courts have chance to review the case.

Now on the surface, it might sound reasonable that if you ignore a judge's ruling that you could be held in contempt even if the judge's ruling is later overturned. There are times when an order is "stayed" pending appeal and times when it remains in place while it is appealed. Now the problem with this situation is the breakneck speed that things happened, as well as other factors involved that complicated matters.

To begin with there was much confusion as to what degree the "verbal" order given from the bench has to be followed and why there was no written order clarifying the situation. Part of the Administration's issue was that the order to turn around planes was not exactly well thought out. There are going to be issues with just reconfiguring flight plans as well as issues with fuel and pilot hours. Not to mention, there are specific limitations to what Judges have any say in when it comes to international military missions (which this was). Since there was no written order clarifying anything and no ability to actually question the judge after the fact, how can he expect planes in the air to truly turn around. There was limited time to "turn them around" and that time may or may not have passed by the time the order was verbally given, and there was no legitimate written order to clarify anything.

But the bigger issue with this sort of contempt is that a judge is basically requiring you to make his order right in order to avoid the contempt charge. But how can a judge expect anyone to make an order "right" that they had no jurisdiction or right to make in the first place? He was trying (in a roundabout way) to make his original order enforceable with the contempt charge, even after it was overturned. He also suggested (without any sort judicial authority to do so) that he would appoint a private prosecutor to prosecute the Government for failing to follow an order (after it was overturned). This is highly dubious, even for a judge like this.