JULIANA v. UNITED STATES

For nine years, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has aggressively filed motions to delay or dismiss this landmark constitutional climate case. On December 29, 2023, U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken ruled in favor of the Juliana 21, putting an end to the DOJ’s motions to dismiss the case, and allowing the youth plaintiffs to continue on the path to trial. The parties were set to receive trial dates from Judge Aiken on January 19, 2024.    

However, on February 2, 2024, the Biden Administration’s DOJ filed another motion for a stay and a petition for a writ of mandamus at the Ninth Circuit. This is an extreme legal tactic used by the Trump Administration to subvert the normal legal process, prevent the case from proceeding to trial, and silence the voices of young people seeking to highlight the injustice of climate change at the hands of the United States government. The Trump administration used this delay tactic a record six times, and now Biden’s DOJ has followed in their footsteps and filed it for an unprecedented seventh time.   

On April 19, 2024, Judge Ann Aiken rebuked the DOJs attempts to silence the 21 youth plaintiffs when she filed an answer to the DOJs seventh Petition for Writ of Mandamus and denied the DOJ’s motion to stay the case while the Ninth Circuit considers the mandamus request.  

“Trial courts across the country address complex cases involving similar jurisdictional, evidentiary, and legal questions as those presented here without resorting to interlocutory appeal or petitioning for a writ of mandamus,” Judge Aiken wrote. Quoting from an earlier case, she noted, “the proper place for the trial is in the trial court.”  

Despite the amicus brief filed by members of Congress and Judge Aiken's powerful filings in support of the youth plaintiffs, on May 1, 2024, the Ninth Circuit unjustly granted the DOJs outrageous seventh Petition for Writ of Mandamus. This decision offers a dire reminder that the courts are vital to a functioning democracy. The court’s opinion that declaring dangerous and discriminatory government systems unconstitutional doesn’t matter, is simply false.  

The youth plaintiffs are not backing down! On June 17, 2024, the attorneys for the youth plaintiffs filed a petition for en banc rehearing with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and a motion to vacate the panel’s order to put the case back on the path to trial. They argued that the decision to dismiss Juliana disregards Supreme Court precedent established by Cheney v. U.S. Dist. Ct., effectively upending the limited scope of mandamus. By doing so, the court has taken it upon itself to determine which cases are allowed to proceed to final judgment at the district court level.  

Then on June 27, 2024, Members of Congress, children’s rights scholars, law professors and world-renowned climate experts, once again filed amicus briefs in support of the Juliana youth plaintiffs. The youth plaintiffs are now waiting for the court's decision.