Category: 3-LawSometimeCommentary

President Trump REALLY wants to invoke the Insurrection Act. He’s fallen hard for this 200-year-old law that would allow him to deploy active duty military to enforce civilian law on American streets. On this week’s Amicus podcast, co-host Mark Joseph Stern is joined by Professor Steve Vladeck, a nationally recognized expert on the Supreme Court, federal courts, national security law, and military justice. They discuss what’s been stopping Trump from invoking the act so far, why he has no legal authority to do so right now, and what happens if he does it anyway.

Next, Mark talks to Julia Gegenheimer, former special litigation counsel in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division’s Criminal Section, and now a special litigation counsel at Georgetown Law’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection. Julia and Mark discuss the remaining paths to justice after the killing of Renee Good and examine what happens when the DOJ abandons its duty to seek accountability and vindicate civil rights. 

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We didn't get the tariffs decision this week, but we discuss two of the opinions we did get -- Bost v. Illinois Board of Elections, a decision about standing and election law, and Case v. Montana, a rare Fourth Amendment case -- in a remarkably efficient episode (after a brief detour into Grok's jurisprudence and the announcement of a major gift to the Constitutional Law Institute).

OA1226 - We begin with a review of the unprecedented lawsuit that Minnesota has filed against ICE with the extreme leftist radical demand that they obey the law and U.S. Constitution. How much power do states have to limit federal operations, and what are the chances a court order might put some guardrails on the largest enforcement operation in ICE history? We then consider the legal and political merits of articles of impeachment filed against Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. Finally: we honor the passing of civil rights hero Claudette Colvin, whose bravery as a 15-year-old on a Montgomery, Alabama bus nine months before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat put the final nail into the “separate but equal” justification for racial segregation established by the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson.

1. State of Minnesota v. Noem, complaint filed 1/12/2026

2. “House Resolution 935: Impeaching Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense for the United States for high crimes and misdemeanors,” Rep. Shri Thaneder (12/9/2025)

3. “House Resolution 944: Impeaching Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services  for high crimes and misdemeanors,” Rep. Haley Stevens (12/10/2025)

4. “House Resolution ___: Impeaching Kristi Lynn Arnold Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security, for high crimes and misdemeanors,” Rep. Robin Kelly (1/13/2026)

5. “Firm Tied to Kristin Noem Secretly Got Money from $220 Million DHS Ad Contracts,” ProPublica (11/14/2025)

6. “Impeachment: The Constitution’s Fiduciary Meaning of ‘High Crimes and Misdemeanors,’” Robert G. Natelson, The Federalist Society (6/19/2018)

7. “Claudette Colvin, who refused to move seats on a bus at start of civil rights movement, dies” (NPR, 1/13/2026) 

8. Browder v. Gayle, 142 F.Supp. 707 (1956)(aff’d per curiam by U.S. Supreme Court 12/20/1956)

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E19 - In the wake of Renee Nicole Good's murder, we've seen a terrible number of bad takes: from the events of that day, the overall purpose of I.C.E., and what the law says about where we go from here. Matt, Thomas, and Lydia come together to start with perhaps the biggest douchebag in the United States as part of our amuse douche (TM), followed by a pair of articles touching on why the Left was wrong about ICE in 2018 and is apparently at fault to this day for all horrors committed by ICE (eyeroll). Finally, we finish it up with questions from our amazing patrons!

Watch this episode on YouTube!

• "Abolishing ICE is a very bad idea" (Nate Bruggeman & Ben Rohrbaugh, The Philadelphia Inquirer), 3/23/2018

• "The Problem Isn't ICE. It's ICE Watch." (Dan McLaughlin, National Review), 1/10/2026

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A powerful and aggressive central government sends unwanted forces in huge numbers to a city where the residents oppose and resent this policy.  The undertrained forces unleash violence against the population in the form of an obviously wrongful death.  Minneapolis, yes - but also a seeming repeat of an important American historic event, that shaped a nation’s core beliefs, later reflected in the Declaration and the Constitution.  We tell those stories, and look at the values and basic laws that emerged from them; bring to light important Supreme Court cases  - and bring all this to Minneapolis for examination of how they apply, 250 years later.  CLE credit is available for lawyers and judges from podcast.njsba.com.

OA1225 - Jenessa is here to dig deeper into Van Buren v. United States as we explore the implications and meaning when legislative deliverables, legal analysis, work industry, and general common sense push and pull in different directions. We had a lot of questions and comments on the original Van Buren episode from the community, so we thought it would be fun to spend some more time and battle it out!

• Reviving Lenity - Daniel Harawa, SCOTUSBlog (Dec 26, 2025)

• US v Rodriguez, 628 F.3d 1258 (11th Cir. 2010)

• US v Nosal, 676 F.3d 754 (9th Cir. 2012)

• US v Nosal, 844 F.3d 1024 (9th Cir. 2016)

Further reading:

W. Cagney McCormick, The Computer Fraud & Abuse Act: Failing to Evolve with the Digital Age, 16 SMU SCI. & TECH. L. REV. 481 (2013).

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We're back with the first episode of the new year, breaking down the interim docket opinion/order in Trump v. Illinois, the national guard case, after first warming up with new Erie scholarship, state criminal jurisdiction over federal officers, and some recent online discourse.

Leah, Kate, and Melissa preview January’s major SCOTUS cases, including disputes over trans kids' participation in team sports, a concealed-carry ban in Hawaii, and Trump’s attempt to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. The hosts are then joined by Georgetown Law Professor Marty Lederman to break down the administration’s flimsy legal case for the regime-change operation in Venezuela, as well as the Court’s shadow docket ruling on the federalization and deployment of the National Guard in Chicago. Finally, some news: the horrific murder of Renee Good in Minneapolis, the Court’s opinion in an important habeas case, and an unhinged tweet from Trump’s Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights.

Favorite things:

• Leah: Jan Crawford’s attack on SCOTUS “corruption” narrative was its own substantive-free narrative, Chris Geidner (Law Dork); The Year America Broke Open, Sherrilyn Ifill (Sherrilyn’s Newsletter); State v. Johnson (Wyoming Supreme Court); Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid and on HBO Max (Game Changers series); Rally for America's Workforce: PAWA to the People on  Wednesday, 1/14/26 at 12:00pm at Upper Senate Park in DC
• Kate: Audition, Katie Kitamura; A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck, Sophie Elmhirst; The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann; The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, Robert Caro; FOTP Steve Vladeck’s Senate Judiciary Committee testimony
• Melissa: The Heir Apparent, Rebecca Armitage; Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin; Ziwe’s interview with Vince Staples
  
   

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Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2025! 

• 3/6/26 – San Francisco
• 3/7/26 – Los Angeles

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Order your copy of Leah's book, Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes

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You saw it. We all saw it. We all saw what happened in Minneapolis when an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good for the crime of being in her car. This week on Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern attempt to digest this week’s horrific events and wonder if there is even a possibility of justice. Dahlia recommends “They Didn’t Even Need A Deepfake” by Slate’s Molly Olmstead.

Later in the show, Mark speaks with Brian Finucane, a senior advisor to the International Crisis Group. He spent a decade in the U.S. State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser. Brian and Mark discuss the lawlessness of Trump’s foreign policy (cough cough, Venezuela), and how the administration’s approach embraces some of the worst aspects of tough-guy masculinity.

Want more Amicus? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes with exclusive legal analysis. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.

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OA1224 - In this episode recorded only hours after an ICE officer killed U.S. citizen Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis with extreme impunity, we contrast mirror-universe opposite views of immunity and impunity: the Trump administration’s response to this tragedy as opposed to everything that they have done to rewrite the history of January 6, 2021 for this week’s fifth anniversary of the insurrection. And in today’s footnote: will Lindsay Halligan be the first lawyer in US history to have a bar complaint filed against her for lying to a federal court about being a US Attorney?

1. “How Many People Have Been Shot in ICE Raids?” The Trace, 12/8/2025

2. Department of Justice’s new J6 website

3. “At least 33 pardoned insurrectionists face other criminal charges—but many are now going free,” Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (12/18/2025) 

4. Order re:  Lindsay Halligan in USA v. Jefferson, EDVA Judge David J. Novak (1/6/2026)

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