Category: 3-LawSometimeCommentary

Justice Samuel Alito’s wife didn’t attend the January 6th 2021 “Stop the Steal” rally (unlike fellow SCOTUS spouse Ginni Thomas), but in January 2021, in a leafy Alexandria, Virginia cul-de-sac, the New York Times reports that the Alito household was engaged in a MAGA-infused front yard spat with the neighbors, even as the Justice was deciding  cases regarding that very election at the highest court in the land. Justice Alito told the New York Times his wife was responsible for the upside down stars and stripes flying from their flagpole and that it was in retaliation for an an anti-Trump sign.   

It’s unseemly. Undoubtedly unethical. But this intra-suburban squabble, and the very clear implications it has for a public already aware of the Supreme Court’s dwindling legitimacy, is unlikely to evoke shame, amends, or recusal from Justice Alito. On this week’s Amicus, American legal exceptionalism sliced three ways: Dahlia Lithwick on the Justice and the Flag, Slate’s jurisprudence editor Jeremy Stahl on how Donald J. Trump’s  criminal hush money trial ends, and Congressman Jamie Raskin on concrete steps to supreme court reform, how to get back the rights the Supreme Court has taken away, and what a binding ethics code would look like. 

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.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

OA1033

We begin with a quick check-in on Trump’s trial in New York, from the recent appellate ruling on his gag order Todd Blanche's bizarrely personal  start to his cross-examination of the most important witness in one of the most important criminal trials in US history. Matt then explains why it might be a felony to run for governor in Washington State if your name is Bob Ferguson. 

Then: Clarence Thomas just rejected an originalist 5th Circuit ruling to save the

Consumer Protection Finance Bureau on behalf of a 7-2 court--with Alito dissenting for totally different originalist reasons. What is going here?

We then stop in for a quick layover with the current state of the Boeing non-prosecution agreement before Thomas takes on a bar question about some extremely unpleasant fish.

• Unanimous order from the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York upholding Trump NY gag order (5/14/24)

• RCW 29A.84.320 (WA criminal statute addressing “Duplicate, nonexistent, and untrue names”)

• SCOTUS ruling in Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Community Financial Services Assn. of America, Ltd. (05/16/2024)

• DOJ letter to court overseeing Boeing nonprosecution agreement (5/14/24)

There's a new episode out on www.patreon.com/gavelpod!

If you’d like to support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law!

We follow up on feedback, puzzle over the Court's apparent continued lack of interest in Fourth Amendment cases, and then discuss two of the latest opinions—Culley v. Marshall (civil forfeiture) and Warner Chappell Music, Inc. v. Nealy (copyright).

And yes, we know Dan's audio sounds terrible due to a technical snafu, sorry!

Donald Trump’s New York trial - where a conviction would be federal pardon-proof - has proceeded apace. we are pleased to bring a report to you from the trial itself, introducing you to one of Professor Amar’s star students in the process. Are there constitutional issues stemming from the trial?  You bet, and we address some of them. Meanwhile, a number of listeners have asked similar questions recently, so we take that family of questions on, and sure enough, there’s a lot to discuss there as well.  CLE credit is available from pdcast.njsba.com after listening.

OA1032

We're very pleased to welcome Steve Vladeck on the show to talk about what's going on with the Supreme Court these days, and how shadowy their docket has been recently. We then dig into (and debate a touch) a recent piece he wrote regarding a different way to conceptualize about court reform, and what he personally sees as viable and appropriate among the various proposals for change.

Be sure to read The Shadow Docket, which will be released on paperback soon, and subscribe to One First to get more of Steve's great coverage!

Then we reveal the answer to last episode's T3BE; did Thomas successfully determine the fate of Rebecca the violinist? And who from the audience will be the lucky winner?!

Remember to head over to www.patreon.com/gavelpod to follow our Trump Trial coverage ahead of the public release of the show!

If you’d like to support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law!

Victoria Wenger of NAACP-LDF joins Kate and Leah for an update on the four years of litigation trying to get fair voting maps for Louisiana residents. Then, a major update on a group of federal officials who plan to penalize a private institution for failing to censor certain speech-- you'll never guess who!

• If you would like to make a donation in honor of Brendan Jackson, Leah's student who recently passed away, you can do so at www.ruckercollierfoundation.com

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

• 6/12 – NYC
• 10/4 – Chicago

Learn more: http://crooked.com/events

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

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

Get your tickets for Amicus Live in Washington DC here. 

In the second part of our series on Amicus and at Slate.com, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern are back on the originalism beat. This week they’re trying to understand the mechanisms of what Professor Saul Cornell calls “the originalism industrial complex” and how those mechanisms plug into the highest court in the land. They’re also asking how and why liberals failed to find an effective answer to originalism, even as the various “originalist” ways of deciding who’s history counts, what constitutional law counts, which people count, were supercharged by Trump’s SCOTUS picks. Madiba Dennie, author of The Originalism Trap, highlights how the Supreme Court turned to originalism to gut voting rights. In 2022, the US Supreme Court’s originalism binge ran roughshod over precedent and unleashed Dobbs and Bruen on the American people - Mark and Dahlia talk to a state Supreme Court justice about what it’s like trying to apply the law amid these constitutional earthquakes. 

In today’s Slate Plus bonus episode, Dahlia talks to AJ Jacobs about his year of living constitutionally, and she confesses to an attempt to smuggle contraband into One, First Street. 

Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

OA1031

First up, BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS!!! The Trump Trial Transcript readings will now only be available on patreon.com/gavelpod! Details inside.

Then: the Biden administration is moving forward with rescheduling marijuana to a lower federal classification--and Matt is not happy about it? Find out why this long-overdue acknowledgment of the over-criminalization of cannabis may not only be too little too late, but actually the wrong direction for criminal and social justice.

And speaking of justice gone wrong: Aileen Cannon. Fort Pierce, Florida’s best (and only) federal trial judge has once again put off Trump’s classified documents case, this time with no end in sight. We take a closer look at what she is actually doing here before checking in on Trump’s latest success in delaying his RICO trial for election interference in Georgia.

We finish up with Thomas Takes the Bar Exam, in which Thomas  find out how he did in the strange case of the arsonist who doesn't understand how fire works before wagering his eternal soul on a new question about a sick violinist.

• Formal HHS recommendation that cannabis be moved to Schedule III (8/29/23)

• “Legalize it All,” Dan Baum, Harper’s (April 2016)(source of 1994 John Ehrlichman quote as personally recorded by the author)

• Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1 (2005)

• The Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act (2022 Senate bill removing marijuana from federal drug schedules and putting it under FDA regulation reintroduced by Chuck Schumer on 5/1/2024)

• Judge Cannon’s Order Setting Second Set of Pretrial Deadlines/Hearings (5/7/24)

If you’d like to support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law!

On February 21, 2024, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Great Lakes Insurance SE v. Raiders Retreat Realty Co., LLC. At issue was whether choice-of-law provisions in maritime contracts are presumptively enforceable under federal maritime law.

Join us to hear Professor Andrew Hessick break down the decision and discuss its potential ramifications.

Featuring:
Prof. Andrew Hessick, Judge John J. Parker Distinguished Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Strategy & Planning, University of North Carolina School of Law

This week we continue with clips from the oral argument in the immunity case (Trump v. United States).  Most of this week’s clips come from attorney Dreeben (representing the Special Counsel, and therefore the people of the United States), and some of the Justices have at him, sometimes in way Professor Amar finds wrong-headed or worse.  Our own argument is brought to bear upon these controversies, and a consistent way of addressing these questions emerges.  Clarity on the argument emerges.  CLE credit is available from podcast.njsba.com.