Greg Steube was so angry at a federal judge's ruling that he filed articles of impeachment to remove him from the bench. There was just one problem: the judge was already dead.
What happened
On July 8, 2026, Senior U.S. District Judge John E. Steele of the Middle District of Florida ordered the release of a man named Miakel Guerra Morales from ICE custody. Days later, as Law.com reported, Judge Steele died. Then Greg Steube introduced House Resolution 1431 to impeach him.
You cannot impeach a dead man. A judge who has passed away is no longer on the bench — there is nothing to remove him from. As one legal blog put it bluntly, Steube tried "to impeach the deceased Judge Steele." It was a press release dressed up as a constitutional act — sound and fury aimed at a man who could no longer answer it.
The ruling followed the Supreme Court
Set aside the fact that the judge had died. Even on the merits, Steube's outrage doesn't hold up.
Guerra Morales was convicted in a 2003 hijacking and served his sentence. When it came time to deport him, that deportation stalled — Cuba wasn't taking him back. Judge Steele released him from indefinite ICE detention by following clear Supreme Court precedent: the government "cannot lock individuals in a cell indefinitely as a workaround for a stalled deportation process."
That's not "activist judicial overreach." That's a judge applying the law the Supreme Court laid down — that you can't hold someone in a cage forever when there's no realistic prospect of deporting them. Steube called it exactly the kind of thing "the American people are sick of." What the American people should actually be sick of is a congressman who attacks judges for following the Constitution.
Attacking judges is the point
This is what makes the stunt more than a punchline. Steube isn't just wasting time impeaching a dead man — he's part of a broader Republican pattern of trying to punish and intimidate judges who rule in ways they don't like. That's an attack on the independence of the courts, one of the basic checks that keeps any one branch of government from running wild.
And Steube has a long record of putting his own party over the rule of law:
- He spread the "Big Lie" about the 2020 election, signed the Texas lawsuit asking the Supreme Court to throw out the results in four states Biden won, and — hours after the Capitol was attacked — voted to reject Biden's victory.
- He voted against impeaching Trump for inciting the January 6 attack, and against an independent commission to investigate it.
- He was one of just 21 Republicans who voted against awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to the police who defended the Capitol.
So when it comes to impeachment, Steube wouldn't lift a finger against a president who incited a riot — but he'll rush to file paperwork against a dead judge who followed the Supreme Court.
The bottom line
Impeaching a deceased judge accomplishes nothing except a headline. That's the tell: this was never about accountability or the law. It was about performing anger for the cameras, at the expense of a co-equal branch of government and basic common sense. Florida's 17th District deserves a representative who does the actual work — not one who files impeachment articles against a man who has already passed away.
