SCOTUSblog By Kelsey Dallas 1/6/2026
As former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro prepares to fight drug, weapon, and narco-terrorism charges in the United States after being arrested in Caracas, Venezuela, early Saturday morning by U.S. military forces, legal scholars and analysts are putting a spotlight on past Supreme Court rulings about presidential authority, extraterritorial arrests, and the rights of foreign leaders while debating the legality of the Trump administration’s actions.
The cases they’re revisiting principally relate to two aspects of Saturday’s operation and the criminal case against Maduro: 1) Whether President Donald Trump had the authority to send U.S. forces into Venezuela to arrest Maduro; and 2) Maduro’s likely defense in U.S. courts.
Supreme Court precedent has less to say about the first question than the second. As Steve Vladeck noted, the Justice Department contended in a 1989 DOJ Office of Legal Counsel memorandum that the president may order extraterritorial arrests, even if these are in contravention of international law. Additionally, in a prior memo, the DOJ asserted that the president has “inherent authority … to use troops to protect federal functions.”
In making these claims, the DOJ drew on the 1890 case of In re Neagle. This case arose after David Neagle, a deputy U.S. marshal assigned to protect Justice Stephen Field while he was in California, killed a man who assaulted Field. California officials charged Neagle with murder, contending that Neagle was not acting as a federal officer – and therefore did not have immunity from state law – because the U.S. attorney general did not have the authority to provide Field with a bodyguard.
More:
https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/01/maduros-arrest-places-these-supreme-court-rulings-in-the-spotlight/
