Not all heroes wear capes.
On Saturday, a New York federal court issued an emergency stay on US President Donald Trump's executive order banning immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries. A lawsuit was filed by legal organisations along with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of individuals who were subject to the ban and were detained by the US government with deportation while holding valid visas to enter the country. The ACLU said it would argue in US District Court in New York at 7:30 pm ET on Saturday for a nationwide stay to block deportation of people stranded in US airports because of Trump's order, Reuters reported. Donnelly ruled that sending travellers back home would cause ‘irreparable harm’
In the most sweeping use of his presidential powers since taking office a week ago, Trump signed an order on Friday suspending the entry of people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for at least 90 days. He said this would help safeguard the United States from terrorists. The travel curbs took effect immediately, wreaking havoc and confusion for would-be travellers with passports from the seven countries.
But who is the federal judge, who stood up to President Trump?
The judge’s name is Ann M Donnelly, who worked for years in the Manhattan district attorney’s office and her colleagues remembered her as an astute lawyer who didn’t care about the spotlight, reports NY Times.
The order came around 9 PM EST amid an intense day of protests across the country by opponents of the order. Donnelly was nominated to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York by President Obama and was confirmed by the Senate with a 95-2 vote in 2015.
In 1989, she was assigned to the Major Offence Career Criminal Program which focusses on repeat offenders and was recommended for federal court by Senator Chuck Schumer. She has worked as a senior trail counsel and as chief of the Family Violence and Child Abuse Bureau. In the past, she has served as a judge on the New York State Court of Claims and in the Supreme Courts in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan. She was born in Royal Oak in Michigan and received her law degree in the Ohio State University College of Law in 1984.
Her most notable case before this came in 2005 when she helped lead the prosecution of Dennis Kozlowski, the chief executive of Tyco who was convicted looting $100 million from the company.
Donnelly is married, and has two daughters, and when asked about the challenge of making the shift to federal courts: “"In my 25 years as assistant district attorney and during my six years as a state court judge, I've been very lucky to have been challenged by very complex cases and required to get up to speed quickly on issues I wasn't familiar with," she told the senators. "I am committed to hitting the ground running. I look forward to that challenge."
Based on her order, it’s clear she is up for it.
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