Author: Opening Arguments Media LLC

OA1148 - We interrupt your regularly scheduled T3BE to bring you three stories of why Immigration and Customs Enforcement is the worst. Matt starts off by reporting on how ICE disappeared one of his detained clients shortly before his scheduled bond hearing this week. On that theme, you might have seen the viral video of an attorney confronting deportation officers at his minor client’s home. What in the world was that? Matt has the brekadown. We then try to understand why the Supreme Court has just agreed that the President can kidnap and throw pretty much any non-citizen* out of the country so long as he calls them “alien enemies”  and ICE mumbles something about due process first.

*citizens TBD

UPDATE: ICE has confirmed since the time of this recording that Matt’s client is in New Mexico, 2200 miles from where he was supposed to have a bond hearing on April 7th.

• U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 per curiam order in Trump v. J. G. G. (04/07/2025)

• Video of Virginia attorney James Rivera confronting ICE at his minor client’s home (@7jimmie77) | TikTok

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OA1147 - It’s the retrial of the century, and Matt’s bringing his local perspective for the single most-requested story in OA history. Jury selection is underway for the second trial of Karen Read for her alleged responsibility in the death of Boston police officer John O’Keefe in the same Massachusetts courtroom where a mistrial was declared last July, and we’ve got everything you need to know to follow this case which has become a global phenomenon. We review some of the basic facts as revealed at the last trial and take a closer look at the legal issues. Where did both the prosecution and defense go wrong last time, what has happened between the trials, and what should we expect now? 

• Burnside Fountain (Turtle Boy) - Atlas Obscura

• Defense attorney David Yanetti’s opening statement in Commonwealth v. Read (April 16, 2024)

• READ v. COMMONWEALTH (SJC-13663) (2025)

• Independent audit of the Canton Police Department (April 2, 2025)

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This content is CAN credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm on their hotline at (617) 249-4255, or on their website at creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org.

OA1146 - We begin with a quick review of SDNY Judge Dale Ho’s scathing 78-page (!) order dismissing all federal charges against NYC Mayor Eric Adams at DOJ’s request to see how it compared to our recent predictions. Then in our main story, Matt breaks down a true legal nightmare from this week’s news and goes beyond the headlines to explain why ICE’s recent admission that it accidentally sent a man on a one-way ticket to hell with no intention of ever returning him is actually even worse than it sounds. 

Also featured: Trump and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem face actual for-real legal consequences for their bigotry against Venezuelan immigrants, 1,000 UK artists combine to form the world’s most boring supergroup to protest the legalization of AI art theft, Matt yearns for the open road, and Congressional Republicans assert the power to stop time itself.

• Judge Dale Ho’s order dismissing all federal criminal charges against NYC mayor Eric Adams with prejudice (4/2/25)

• Docket in Abrego Garcia v. Noem (filed 3/25/25)

• “Imposing Duties to Address the Flow of Illicit Drugs Across Our National Border” (2/1/2025)

• NDCA Judge Edward Chen’s order in National TPS Alliance v. Noem (3/31/25)

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OA1145 and T3BE65 - Lydia joins this Wild Card Wednesday to discuss the awful, inhumane HHS layoffs. Workers were lined up around the block to wait hours to find out if they were fired or not. These are human beings. The people responsible for this should be imprisoned.

(awkward transition) and then it's time for a bar exam question!

If you'd like to play along with T3BE, here's what to do: hop on Bluesky, follow Openargs, find the post that has this episode, and quote it with your answer! Or, go to our Subreddit and look for the appropriate t3BE posting. Or best of all, become a patron at patreon.com/law and play there!

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To support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law!

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OA1144 - Professor Jack Lerner joins us for a follow up to OA1055 as we dive deeper into case law surrounding the usage of rap music in litigation, including discussion of the fight for lyrics to be admitted as evidence in the Young Thug trial in Fulton County, Georgia, and what mechanisms are being explored to address this at the state level in places like New York.

• End Rap on Trial

• Rap on Trial: A Brief History (6/4/2024)

• Rap on Trial: A Legal Guide, Second Edition (2024)

  • Case Compendium

  • Brief Bank

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To support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law!

This content is CAN credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm on their hotline at (617) 249-4255, or on their website at creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org.

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OA1143 - In the past month, Donald Trump has issued a series of truly fascist orders targeting some of the country’s best-known law firms for crimes ranging from hiring people Trump doesn’t like personally to doing some favors for special counsel Jack Smith to flagrantly hiring non-white non-men. What is actually in these orders, and how bad is it that one of leading litigation firms in the country gave in to Trump’s demands without  a fight? And what will it mean for the already-overloaded immigration court system when they start going after immigration lawyers as they have also promised? Former NYC Biglaw associate (and current NYC public defender) Liz Skeen joins to help us to understand this uniquely un-American moment in American legal history.

(UPDATE: This episode was recorded shortly before news broke about the Trump administration taking action against major US law firms Wilmer Hale and Skadden Arps.)

• Addressing Risks From Jenner & Block (3/25/25)

• Addressing Remedial Action by Paul Weiss (3/25/25)

• Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and the Federal Court (3/22/25)

• Addressing Risks From Paul, Weiss (3/14/25)

• Addressing Risks from Perkins Coie LLC (3/6/25)

• Suspension of Security Clearances and Evaluation of Government Contracts (Covington & Burling LLP)(2/25/25)

• “Complicity in the Perversion of Justice: The Role of Lawyers in Eroding the Rule of Law in the Third Reich,” Cythnia Fountaine, St. Mary’s Journal of Legal Ethics (2020) 

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OA1142 and T3BE64 - The State Bar of California wanted to save a buck or two, so they switched from paying a company to administer a real bar exam to a company that... didn't do that. It's an absolute fiasco. Heather is pulling double duty today on Wildcard Wednesday (tm) as she is our expert on this nonsense, in addition to giving us the usual Thomas Takes the Bar Exam treatment!

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OA1141 - Are Republican AGs really trying to have some of the most important federal protections for disability rights declared unconstitutional? Attorney Jenessa Seymour joins to explain the history and purpose of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the pending challenge to a Biden-era regulatory update intended to protect trans health care rights. 

• Texas v. Becerra docket

• Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973

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OA1140 - The Trump administration has openly defied a court order--and that’s only the third worst thing about today’s main story. Also: what exactly does it mean to “sign” something into law? What is actually in all of these articles of impeachment which Republicans keep filing against federal judges who have defied Trump? And is there a First Amendment right to communicate with monkeys?

• 50 USC Ch. 3: ALIEN ENEMIES

• Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act Regarding the Invasion of The United States by Tren De Aragua, March 15, 2025 (3:53 PM)

• Docket in J.G.G. v. Trump (filed 3/15/25)

• Articles of Impeachment filed against Judge James Boasberg by Rep. Brandon Gill (3/18/25)

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OA1139 and T3BE63 - Lydia's back this week to walk us through Trump's very fashy takeover of The Kennedy Center. She watched it unfold in real-time and while it is obviously disturbing, listening to some leaked audio from the first board meeting provides a lot of laughs. It's somehow real, folks.

And we've got Professor Heather Varanini as always to walk us through the answer to T3BE62, and to set up the question for T3BE63!

If you'd like to play along with T3BE, here's what to do: hop on Bluesky, follow Openargs, find the post that has this episode, and quote it with your answer! Or, go to our Subreddit and look for the appropriate t3BE posting. Or best of all, become a patron at patreon.com/law and play there!

Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

To support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law!