“Confirmed Judges, Confirmed Fears” is a blog series documenting the harmful impact of President Trump’s judges on Americans’ rights and liberties. It includes judges nominated in both his first and second terms.
What’s at stake in this case?
Residents of Jackson, Mississippi, sued the government for knowingly providing city water with dangerous levels of lead and then misleading residents about the dangers.
What happened in this case?
Residents of Jackson, Mississippi claimed that the city introduced lead into their drinking water, pumped it into their homes, and lied about whether the water was safe. Among other things, they claimed that this violated their right to bodily integrity, which is a fundamental liberty protected by the Constitution’s Due Process Clause. This is the same right that the Supreme Court has held protects a person’s constitutional right to refuse medical treatment. They also claimed that by exposing residents to a danger that the government itself created, the government violated their constitutional right to be free from “state-created danger.”
The city argued that even if every fact alleged by the residents were true, it still would not have violated the Constitution. In 2025, a 2-1 majority at the Fifth Circuit disagreed. They held that the residents have a right to a trial where they can prove their case. Trump judge Kurt Engelhardt dissented. Then the entire court took the matter into consideration en banc.
What did the full circuit decide?
In the September 2026 case of Sterling v. City of Jackson, Engelhardt’s panel dissent became the circuit majority’s position. The 10-5 opinion that he wrote was made possible by the circuit’s six Trump judges: himself, Don Willett, James Ho, Kyle Duncan, Andrew Oldham, and Cory Wilson.
Engelhardt wrote that “history and tradition” should be “guideposts” in determining if the Constitution protects a right that it does not explicitly mention. After describing the rights being asserted by the victims with great specificity, he concluded that there is no history and tradition of courts recognizing a constitutional right “to not be exposed to water that was contaminated as a result of the acts or omissions of public officials,” or “to truthful information from public officials about the presence of contaminants in municipally supplied drinking water.”
What did the dissenting judges say?
Judge Catharina Haynes, who was nominated by President George W. Bush, wrote the dissent, which sharply criticized Engelhardt’s majority opinion. She noted that “if one were to read only the en banc majority opinion, they could be forgiven for misunderstanding plaintiffs’ allegations” and therefore the rights being asserted. For instance, she wrote, the plaintiffs did not simply assert a constitutional right “to not be exposed to water that was contaminated as a result of the acts or omissions of public officials,” as Engelhardt wrote. Instead, they asserted that the long-recognized right to bodily integrity was violated when city officials made a “catastrophic” decision leading to a serious increase in lead in the city’s drinking water, then made “false and misleading statements” about the water’s safety.
How is this decision harmful?
Because of Engelhardt and the other Trump judges, the residents of Jackson have been denied their day in court. In addition, their narrow view of the liberties protected by the Fourteenth Amendment makes all people of the Fifth Circuit – Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana – less free.