The federal judge who blocked the Trump administration’s ouster of federal employees on Wednesday has a record of controversial rulings spanning from siding with environmentalists to presiding over the trial of baseball legend Barry Bonds.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston of the Northern District of California determined the administration’s Office of Management and Budget as well as the Office of Personnel Management “have taken advantage of the lapse in government spending-function to assume all bets are off and that the laws don’t apply to them.”

“It’s very much ready, fire, aim on most of these programs, and it has a human cost. It’s a human cost that cannot be tolerated,” she wrote in her opinion. 

Illston has been reversed by both the U.S. Supreme Court and the California Supreme Court on high profile cases during her 30 years on the bench. 

Here are six things to know about her.

1. A Clinton Appointee

Illston was nominated to the bench in January 1995 by President Bill Clinton on the recommendation of California Democrat Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein. 

She was confirmed in May of that year by a voice vote at a time when most lower court judicial nominations sailed through the U.S. Senate. 

She was previously in private practice for 20 years and was a partner at the firm of Cotchett, Illston & Pitre in Burlingame, California, which focused on labor and personal injury litigation. 

Illston was born in Tokyo in 1948 and graduated from Stanford Law School. 

2. Overruled on Stopping Federal Hiring Freeze

In July in a separate federal employees case, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 to suspend an injunction Illston had issued to stop a hiring freeze resulting from recommendations from the new Department of Government Efficiency. 

President Donald Trump had issued an executive order in February that included a federal hiring freeze and a large-scale reduction in force throughout federal agencies.  

The American Federation of Government Employees sued and was the lead plaintiff challenging Trump’s order. In May, Illston issued the preliminary injunction to prevent the federal government from carrying out the order. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals didn’t reverse her. 

The Trump administration went to the Supreme Court for an emergency ruling. On July 8, the high court issued a two-paragraph opinion siding with the administration. 

“Because the government is likely to succeed on its argument that the executive order and memorandum are lawful—and because the other factors bearing on whether to grant a stay are satisfied—we grant the application,” the high court said in its opinion. 

“We express no view on the legality of any Agency RIF [reduction in force] and reorganization plan produced or approved pursuant to the Executive Order and Memorandum,” the ruling read. “The District Court enjoined further implementation or approval of the plans based on its view about the illegality of the Executive Order and Memorandum, not on any assessment of the plans themselves.”

The high court’s decision to reverse Illston effectively cleared the way for the Trump administration’s reduction of the bureaucracy.

Only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.

3. Ruling Against Trump’s Immigration Enforcement 

In November 2020, Illston blocked the Trump administration policy preventing foreign asylum seekers from entering the country if they had a criminal record. 

The Trump administration attempted to add domestic violence, assault, re-entering the country illegally, identity theft, public benefits fraud, immigrant smuggling, and driving under the influence as disqualifying factors for those seeking asylum. 

Illston said the policy “sweeps too broadly” and sided with Pangea Legal Services, a legal service provider for immigrants.

She determined that since drug trafficking, money laundering, and counterfeiting already disqualified asylum seekers, additional crimes were not necessary. 

4. Scrapping Part of the Sex Offender Law

After just over a decade on the bench, Illston issued a temporary restraining order to a provision of a California law barring sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park she determined was unconstitutional. 

California’s Proposition 83, also known as Jessica’s Law, had bipartisan support in the state and was approved by 70% of voters. Shortly thereafter, an anonymous convicted sex offender sued specifically over the provision about living close to parks and schools. 

Key to the sex offender’s argument in challenging the state law was that it could not be retroactively applied to anyone convicted before Proposition 83 was in effect.  

Illston didn’t rule on the merits, and state courts took the case. In February 2010, the California Supreme Court ruled 5-2 that Proposition 83 can apply to all prisoners paroled after the law was passed, regardless of the conviction date. 

5. Siding With Environmental Groups

In September 2009, Illston knocked down a federal road management plan in California, siding with environmental groups. 

She determined the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s designation of about 5,000 miles of off-road vehicle routes did not consider the impact on public lands, archaeological sites, and wildlife.

She wrote that the plan, approved in 2006, was “flawed because it does not contain a reasonable range of alternatives” to reduce the number of miles of off-road routes.

The lawsuit was brought by a coalition of environmental groups that included the Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, and Desert Survivors.

6. Barry Bonds

In one of her highest profile cases, in March 2009, she presided over the steroid-related trial of Barry Bonds, a former baseball player for the San Francisco Giants.

Bonds had been indicted in 2007 for perjury and obstruction of justice.

She ruled a mistrial on the three perjury charges. A jury convicted Bonds of obstruction. However, the jury’s conviction was later vacated by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2015.

The next step in the current case where Illston is blocking the Trump administration from firing federal employees during the shutdown is likely the administration appealing to the 9th Circuit Court. Or it could seek an emergency ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court.

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