Cheryl Ann Krause
How Judge Krause decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
A close textualist, she reads a statute's operative words against its neighboring provisions and draws a negative inference from what Congress said elsewhere but omitted here: when a related subsection contains an express exception, the omission of a comparable exception is treated as deliberate rather than accidental.
“The silence here, however, speaks volumes, given the express exception to the material support bar for aliens who “demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that [they] did not know, and should not reasonably have known, that the organization was a terrorist organization.””
She applies ordinary canons of construction with rigor, including the presumption of consistent usage -- a term used in several places in a statute or the Sentencing Guidelines is read to carry the same meaning throughout -- to resolve disputed terms and to distinguish text from mere commentary.
“A term appearing in several places in a statutory text is generally read the same way each time it appears.”
Procedural preferences
She is unmoved by unsupported floodgates and administrative-burden arguments, testing them against the actual record rather than accepting them at face value; a predicted deluge that the facts do not bear out will not drive the outcome.
“But we deal in facts, not hyperbole, and, on inspection, the purported flood is actually a trickle.”
She invokes equity to excuse rigid procedural requirements when inordinate, unjustified delay has trapped a litigant -- shifting the burden to the government to justify the holdup before a case is dismissed for failure to exhaust -- reflecting a strong preference that claims be heard on their merits.
“But there comes a point when justice delayed becomes justice denied, so when inordinate delay has stymied a petitioner’s state case, we will excuse the exhaustion requirement unless the government can adequately justify the holdup.”
Cautions
She holds district courts to a record-anchored exercise of their discretion: even a wide-ranging equitable or remedial power may not rest on guesswork, so an award (for instance of a defendant's profits) must trace to some concrete support in the record rather than a bare, unadjusted figure.
“A district court’s discretion, wide as it may be, is not unbounded, and a bare showing of gross sales is not sufficient to fashion an equitable award without some anchor in the record to support a reasonable estimation of actual profits.”
She reads procedural-exhaustion and access rules through a lens of reciprocity and fair dealing: just as a prisoner must comply with the grievance system his jailers built, the institution must honor the rules of that same system, so misleading instructions from staff can render a remedy 'unavailable.'
“just as “prisoners [must] comply with the procedural demands of a system created by their jailors[,]” “[n]o less must prisons comply with the demands of the system they created.””
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“For these reasons, we will affirm that portion of the District Court’s order granting summary judgment and striking 8 C.F.R. §§ 204.5(m)(4) and (11) as ultra vires, will reverse the portion granting Alencar’s petition, and will remand to the District Court for proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
“The BIA correctly held that Sesay is ineligible for asylum or withholding of removal for having provided material support to a terrorist group, and his petition for review therefore will be denied.”
“For the reasons stated above, we affirm the judgment of the District Court.”
“Accordingly, we conclude that the District Court’s jury instructions and in limine ruling properly placed the burden of proof on Green Tree, and we will affirm.”
“For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the District Court’s Order.”
“For the foregoing reasons, the District Court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of the Appellees for alleged violations of RICO, the PFCEUA, and the UCC, and its judgment, to that extent, will be vacated and the case remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
“For the reasons stated above, we will affirm the sentence imposed by the District Court.”
“We therefore reverse and remand to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
“For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm in part and will vacate and remand to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
“For the foregoing reasons, we will reverse the District Court’s order granting Oliver discovery and remand the case for proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
“For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the order and judgment of the District Court, and by extension the Bankruptcy Court.”
“For the foregoing reasons, we will reverse the District Court’s denial of qualified immunity and remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
Put Judge Krause's record to work
Ezel drafts and answers grounded in this exact profile: how Judge Krause actually rules, not a generic AI guess.
Opens in Ezel Pro. Every answer is grounded in Judge Krause's own signed orders and cites them.