Five Keker, Van Nest & Peters lawyers along with lawyers from the Santa Clara County Counsel's Office received California Lawyer of the Year awards from the Daily Journal for their immigration win challenging President Donald Trump's Executive Order that threatened to eliminate funding for "sanctuary jurisdictions."
In announcing the award winners, the Daily Journal wrote that this year's awards honor, “lawyers in California who used their considerable talents to bring about fairness. Yes, fairness for clients but also fairness for society ... their pursuit of justice was admirable.”
The Keker, Van Nest & Peters team included John Keker, Daniel Purcell, Cody Harris, Nick Goldberg and Ed Bayley.
Daniel Purcell said that despite the government’s legal contortions, Judge Orrick read the executive order as it was written and found it unconstitutional. “You don’t need to be a lawyer to understand that only Congress has the power of the purse,” he said.
While the case is on appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Cody Harris and Purcell said the major battle was over and the case was now much narrower.
“It’s no longer a case about, ‘Does the president have the constitutional authority to deprive states and counties of federal funding unless they get in line,’” Harris said. He added that the impact of the ruling would be felt outside of the debate over sanctuary jurisdictions.
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