Melecia Baltazar-Sebastian v. United States
SocialSecurity Immigration JusticiabilityDoctri
Whether the executive branch can keep a person in civil detention despite an Article III court's release order
QUESTION PRESENTED The Bail Reform Act (BRA), 18 U.S.C. §3142(b), authorizes Article III courts to order individuals released from pretrial detention if they are neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community. In this case, as in many others, the executive branch declined to release petitioner as an Article III court had ordered. Instead, executive branch officials kept her in detention and changed the claimed statutory basis for her detention to immigration detention pursuant to the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 18 U.S.C. § 1226(a). The questions presented are: 1. Whether it violates the separation of powers for executive branch officials to keep a person in civil detention on the basis of factual findings that necessarily conflict with the factual findings of an Article III court. 2. Whether the BRA prohibits the United States from transferring a person into INA custody following a BRA release order except pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3142(d). (I)