Melissa, Leah and Kate break down some excellent recent SCOTUS reporting and look ahead to what fresh hell the Roberts Court has in store for us in its new term. While much is unknown at this point, the Court will hear cases on gender-affirming care for trans kids, “ghost” guns, and further challenges to the Environmental Protection Agency. In other words, time to take a deep breath.
Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2025!
In this week's Amicus, Mark Joseph Stern steps in for Dahlia Lithwick to preview the upcoming Supreme Court term and dive into the high-stakes case of Garland v. VanDerStok. This critical case examines the legality of 'ghost guns'—untraceable firearms that can be assembled at home from kits bought online. Stern talks with Eric Tirschwell, executive director and chief litigation counsel of Everytown Law, the litigation arm of Everytown for Gun Safety. Stern and Tirschwell discuss the profound public safety implications of this case and the dramatic decrease in ghost gun-related crimes following the Biden administration’s introduction of the rule at the heart of the case. They also uncover the role of dark money in funding lawsuits aimed at eroding gun safety laws, and how it compares to the anti-abortion legal strategies of the Christian right.
Want more Amicus? Subscribe to Slate Plus to immediately unlock exclusive SCOTUS analysis and weekly extended episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.
We begin by considering Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's claim that Israel's recent unprecedented operation against Hezbollah's pagers and walkie-talkies was a violation of international law. Was this one of the most sophisticated military intelligence operations in history or an indiscriminate act of terror?
Did the US Supreme Court just allow Missouri to execute an innocent man? We consider the evidence against Marcellus Williams as well as the many legal and Constitutional issues with his conviction--and just how much blood enemy-of-the-show Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has on his hands in his rush to push forward an execution that the same DA's office which convicted Williams 23 years ago was desperately trying to stop.
Finally, Matt drops a footnote to share his legal strategy for recovering 20 years of his digital life from the largest social media company on the planet. Do you really have to have (or be) a lawyer just to talk to Facebook's managers?
After a long hiatus, we're particularly unpredictable with an episode that isn't about the Supreme Court. We're joined by NYU law professor Daryl Levinson to talk about his exciting and important new book on constitutional theory, Law For Leviathan: Constitutional Law, International Law, and the State. Listen to learn why the Supreme Court's constitutional pronouncements on separation of powers might not matter as much as you thought—and along the way you'll find out what might happen to Will if he starts breaking into his colleagues' cars at the University of Chicago parking lot.
Law for Leviathan: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/law-for-leviathan-9780190061593?cc=us&lang=en&
Nebraska is no flyover state; its unusual electoral vote structure puts Omaha’s one electoral vote up for grabs - both as a contest for votes, and a legislative battle to possibly restructure Nebraska’s election law. We tell an originalist story form the early Republic that surprisingly echoes some of the issues in today’s situation. Meanwhile, other types of blue dots, and how the right to travel and to reside where one wishes can play a role in the election. We also try to proactively refute the inevitable accusations to come from predictable sources on these matters. CLE credit is available for lawyers and judges from podcast.njsba.com.
We are excited to welcome Georgetown law professor Steve Vladeck back to Opening Arguments for a look back at how the Supreme Court responded to the infamously unruly--and increasingly more extreme--Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in its last term. How did the 5th “win by losing,” and why is there still cause for future concern even after SCOTUS reversed all but three of the eleven cases it took up from them? What kind of messages are the high court justices trying to send back to the 5th, and why aren’t they receiving them?
Also discussed: Neil Gorsuch’s most recent not-quite-true statement, why the Supreme Court continues to tolerate the dumbest standing arguments on Earth, the 5th’s use (and abuse) of administrative stays, and what may or may not be wrong with Matt’s brain.
Chief Justice John Roberts has been labeled by some as the serious centrist at the court, and he seemed to embrace and internalize that. But the New York Times’ revelations about behind-the-scenes maneuvers favoring Trump in last term's insurrection cases shattered that illusion once and for all. The Chief’s stance in these cases surprised the Roberts-as-twinkly-eyed-institutionalist brigade, but did not, apparently, shock this week’s guest, Linda Greenhouse. Greenhouse was the New York Times Supreme Court correspondent for 30 years, and is the author of Justice on the Brink: A Requiem for the Supreme Court.
As we head into another pivotal Supreme Court term, Dahlia Lithwick and Greenhouse turn their expert SCOTUS watching lens on how the High Court got so leaky, why the Chief was so unprepared for the public backlash to his decision in the immunity case, and whether the Chief is so much Team Trump that we should worry about the election cases inevitably headed his way.
Want more Amicus? Subscribe to Slate Plus to immediately unlock exclusive SCOTUS analysis
and weekly extended episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.
We begin today’s show with updates on two small victories for the power of art against the Donald Trump legal-industrial complex before turning to our main story: the biggest leak of internal communications in Supreme Court history. We review what we can learn about how Chief Justice John Roberts has been managing his (and the Court’s) public image from the extremely unauthorized release to the New York Times of memos that we were never supposed to read.
Also, Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee has just eliminated three more counts from the Georgia RICO indictment against Donald Trump and the co-conspirators charged with their attempt to submit a false slate of Presidential electors to a federal court based on 134-year-old Supreme Court precedent. What’s going on here, and how safe is this indictment now?
Finally in this week’s Footnote Fetish, Matt explains why some scruffy-looking nerf-herder is trying to convince a British court that his legal rights were violated by Lucasfilm’s digital resurrection of the deadliest villain in Star Wars history.
