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Left: President Donald Trump speaks outside the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, April 13, 2026, in Washington (AP Photo/Alex Brandon). Right: Chief U.S. District Judge Troy L. Nunley (U.S. District Court).
A leading federal judge in California has imposed sanctions on a Department of Justice attorney, citing the attorney’s repeated noncompliance with court orders, despite the heavy docket concerning the legality of immigration detentions from the Trump era. The judge emphasized that this influx of cases did not justify the attorney’s persistent oversights.
Chief U.S. District Judge Troy Nunley, presiding over the Eastern District of California, penalized DOJ lawyer Jonathan Yu with a $250 fine. The judge reprimanded Yu for misusing the court’s time and disrupting the judicial process in the habeas corpus case involving Eblis Alexander Yanez Tovar, drawing parallels to a similar occurrence in a federal court in Minnesota.
In a detailed four-page order, Judge Nunley described how he had mandated Tovar’s release from detention in Bakersfield on April 3 and instructed Yu to submit a “notice certifying compliance” within three days. However, Yu missed the deadline, filing on April 7 without seeking or receiving an extension. Consequently, Judge Nunley demanded that Yu provide a written explanation as to why he should not face sanctions for this delay.
The judge remarked, “The Court noted this is not Respondents’ counsel’s first failure to follow this Court’s orders.”
According to court documents, Tovar was released without essential identification documents, such as his passport and driver’s license. An April 7 motion elaborated on the challenges Tovar faced traveling back to Utah from Bakersfield, highlighting the risk of his potential re-arrest by law enforcement or the Department of Homeland Security during his journey.
Once again, Nunley said, Yu was given a deadline of April 10 to provide a “status update,” but that update did not come until three days later.
Yu’s eventual pitch against sanctions apparently rang hollow despite representing that he’s handled “over three hundred immigration habeas cases” in a three-month span, and that some matters are more pressing than others in a “triage” scenario.
Like judges in Minnesota, Nunley emphasized that it was the attorney’s responsibility to comply regardless or seek an extension.
“The Court is not persuaded sanctions should not be issued. The Court issued a clear and unambiguous directive requiring Respondents’ counsel to certify Petitioner’s release from custody. Respondents’ counsel failed to do so within the time required. Moreover, while the question of sanctions was pending before this Court, Respondents’ counsel again failed to timely file a status update as ordered, in the same case,” the order said. “The Court does not take such failures lightly. Compliance with court orders is not optional; it is a fundamental obligation of any attorney appearing before this Court. Respondents’ counsel’s conduct reflects a pattern of disregard for that obligation. Indeed, this is not an isolated incident. Respondents’ counsel does not contend he could not comply with the Court’s order but rather, that he had higher priorities.”
“Thus, Respondents’ counsel’s noncompliance in this matter, and in others, demonstrates an unwillingness — not an inability — to adhere to basic procedural requirements,” Nunley concluded. “While the Court recognizes that mistakes can occur, repeated violations of court orders cannot be excused as mere oversight. Such conduct wastes judicial resources, delays proceedings, and undermines the orderly administration of justice.”
Law&Crime reached out to Yu for comment and with a question about whether an appeal would come next, a distinct possibility based on recent similar courtroom encounters.
The DOJ is separately supporting special assistant U.S. attorney Matthew Isihara at the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, insisting a judge was wrong to hold him in civil contempt to force his compliance.
As Law&Crime reported previously, the lawyer with the Judge Advocate General’s Corps of the Army said he was sorry the issue fell “through the cracks” and that he did not file documents confirming the return of a released detainee’s Minnesota driver’s license and Mexican Consulate ID. Like Yu, Isihara explained he took on 130 cases in a month’s time while detailed at an office roiled by resignations amid Operation Metro Surge, when tensions were at their highest in Minneapolis.
The DOJ responded on appeal by claiming that the judge “held” the lawyer’s career “captive” and subjected him to potential “permanent professional consequences” in an “improper attempt to coerce the defendant federal agency into speedier compliance with an order against that agency.” That matter remains pending.