Short Circuit
237 episodes - English - Latest episode: almost 2 years ago - ★★★★★ - 142 ratingsThe Supreme Court decides a few dozen cases every year; federal appellate courts decide thousands. So if you love constitutional law, the circuit courts are where it’s at. Join us as we break down some of the week’s most intriguing appellate decisions with a unique brand of insight, wit, and passion for judicial engagement and the rule of law. http://ij.org/short-circuit
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Episodes
Short Circuit 223 | Clerks and Harassment
June 10, 2022 17:27 - 33 minutes - 27.1 MBWe discuss a couple legal immunities, one listeners will be familiar with and one that’s pretty unknown. The second is being addressed by our special guest, Aliza Shatzman. She is the co-founder of The Legal Accountability Project, a new nonprofit whose mission is to ensure that as many law clerks as possible have positive clerkship experiences while extending support and resources to those who do not. Aliza had a harrowing experience as a law clerk and found that the laws that apply to other...
Short Circuit 222 | Live at IJ’s Law Student Conference
June 05, 2022 15:59 - 36 minutes - 28.9 MBRecording in front of a live audience at the 2022 Institute for Justice’s Law Student Conference, we look at some of the best, and some of the worst, from the Fourth Circuit. First, Justin Pearson explains why a restriction on “political” advertising on the side of buses was unconstitutional even though it recognized the side of a bus is not a “public forum.” Then, Michael Bindas gives us his best sommelier (or is it wino?) impersonation and discusses a tipsy opinion allowing North Carolina t...
Short Circuit 221 | The Big Mac
May 25, 2022 21:44 - 52 minutes - 42.1 MBA couple headline-grabbing, government-thumping constitutional-heavyweight cases coming at you this week. First, Rob Johnson explains how he filed a brief on the importance of the right to a jury trial when he checked the news to find the Fifth Circuit had just said the same thing in a different case. He details why this is a big deal (and a good deal) and not the end-of-humanity some people have been shouting about. Then, Dan Alban tells us of how the Eleventh Circuit just found almost all o...
Short Circuit 220 | Timing Is Everything
May 18, 2022 20:44 - 32 minutes - 25.6 MBWhen is a case over? As you'll learn, that depends on a lot of weird stuff. IJ attorney Will Aronin walks us through the Ninth Circuit's recent decision on everybody's favorite bedtime reading, Rule 68 and offers of judgment. Seriously, it's an untapped resource of the federal courts with some counterintuitive traps for lawyers who don't read the rules. Then Jeff Redfern of IJ tells us about the latest chapter in mask lawsuits, this time from the Eighth Circuit. The court says part of the cas...
Short Circuit 219 | Threading the Federal Courts
May 11, 2022 22:08 - 44 minutes - 35.7 MBShort Circuit is proud to present to you Professor Marin Levy of Duke University School of Law. She is a top scholar on the federal judiciary, including its history, how it has evolved, and how it actually works. Plus, she’s educated the world about the federal (and state!) courts through the magic of Twitter threads. We talk to her about what’s so interesting about the federal courts (with some “short” remarks about the “circuit” courts) and how she got started Tweeting them. After that Ki...
Short Circuit 218 | Because the Supreme Court Did Some Things It Did
May 06, 2022 18:33 - 39 minutes - 31.9 MBA couple issues near-and-dear to many of your hearts this week: Money and Facebook. First, if you win a case against the government are you a "prevailing party" deserving of an attorneys fees award? North Carolina officials argued you're not if you do so well that the law you're challenging actually disappears. Luckily the Fourth Circuit shot that argument down. Alexa Gervasi explains. But meanwhile the Sixth Circuit shot down quite a lot of the First and Fourth Amendments when a police depar...
Short Circuit 217 | Hunting for Free Speech Truffles
April 29, 2022 00:08 - 35 minutes - 28.6 MBIt's a First Amendment fiesta at Short Circuit this week! Tori Clark explains how in the Eighth Circuit it's hard to sue the government to protect your right to free speech when the law is privately enforced. And we're not talking about Texas here, but people not acting so nice in Minnesota. Further down the trail, things went a little berserk in Oregon, and a pro se legislator won himself another day in court in the Ninth Circuit. Sam Gedge has hunted through the briefs. If you're in Michig...
Short Circuit 216 | Sovereign Immunity and NIMBY Neighbors
April 20, 2022 19:24 - 42 minutes - 34.2 MBSuing the United States government is really hard. So hard that someone's family might not get to even if the government is at fault for that person dying in a flood. Adam Shelton explains why that luckily might not be true in this case, but all too often is. Then Diana Simpson walks us through a procedural pretzel of property rights preventing people from putting up homes. She also discusses some old cases you might not know about, but really should. Barron v. United States, https://www.ca5...
Short Circuit 215 | You Say Habeas I Say Mandamus
April 14, 2022 11:01 - 52 minutes - 42.3 MBWe focus in on two Latin words this week: habeas and mandamus. Both usually mean "you lose." But things somehow turned out differently in the Fourth Circuit and Fifth Circuit. Hear the story of a man trapped in prison for a small drug sale for almost a decade who fights his way through the state and federal courts and wins himself a new trial. IJ's Bob Belden tells that tale. And then there's a story about guns, the Internet, speech, the differences between Texas and New Jersey, and transfer ...
Short Circuit 214 | Short Circuit Live in the D.C. Circuit
April 08, 2022 14:34 - 1 hour - 49 MBShort Circuit Live returns with an all-star all-D.C. Circuit panel! IJ attorney Anya Bidwell hosts a discussion with three Supreme Court lawyers (and former D.C. Circuit clerks), Lisa Blatt, Kelsi Brown Corkran, and Paul Clement. They reminisce about their days clerking for D.C. Circuit judges and analyze three recent circuit opinions on liability under terrorism laws, executive privilege, and no-fly lists. Atchley v. AstraZeneca UK Limited, https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.ns...
Short Circuit 213 | Antitrust Smiles and Judgment Frowns
March 31, 2022 18:53 - 34 minutes - 27.7 MBSome property owners sued an arm of the State of Louisiana for damages and won a $10 million judgment. Wow, that's real money! Except, because the lawsuit was in state court they can't collect on it unless the legislature gives it to them. Which it doesn't want to do. So the money isn't so real after all. They then went to federal court, but the Fifth Circuit gave them some bad news. IJ's Jeff Redfern explains. When we move to the Ninth Circuit, however, it's all smiles. The court said an ant...
Short Circuit 212 | Lehto’s Law
March 24, 2022 12:00 - 39 minutes - 31.3 MBMichigan lawyer and YouTube legal sensation Steve Lehto joins us this week. We talk a bit about his career as a broadcaster, consumer protection lawyer, and host of an internet show with 300,000 subscribers. Then we get into some language he never got to “play on the radio.” All because a few police officers threw a man out of a $3 county fair for wearing a t-shirt with a famous saying of the group NWA. Or at least that’s what the Sixth Circuit said in denying the officers qualified immunity....
Short Circuit 211 | Cohen the Police
March 17, 2022 19:02 - 39 minutes - 31.8 MBLike owls? We've got owls. Two of them. But they don't like each other. Ben Field explains how the Ninth Circuit adjudicated with this Parliament of owls, and how a 12 gauge shotgun is involved. In addition, Evan Lisull tells a story of "chalking," the police, and the First Amendment. Both from another Ninth Circuit case, but also from his own brush with the law. Throw in some qualified immunity and admin law, and you've got a very festive St. Patrick's Day episode (minus anything Irish). Re...
Short Circuit 210 | Grand Juries and IRS Interpretations
March 11, 2022 20:10 - 41 minutes - 33.1 MBAs news followers over the last few years will know, grand jury records are super secret. But sometimes judges allow the word to get out, under certain narrow circumstances. Is one of them just that the records are old and historians find them interesting? Sorry, says the First Circuit, in the latest installment of a circuit split. Rob Frommer tells us all the history. Also, can the IRS get around the Administrative Procedure Act through some creative lawyering? No, says the Sixth Circuit. Jo...
Short Circuit 209 | Guilty Pigs
March 01, 2022 18:03 - 1 hour - 49.8 MBHow do you own a wild animal? Why are drug dogs given such a benefit of the doubt? Can bees "trespass?" Why did the Medieval French put pigs on trial for murder? And does the Queen of England really own all the swans? This is an episode for animal lovers, and lovers of legal mysteries more generally. Joining us are Professors Katy Barnett and Jeremy Gans of the University of Melbourne to discuss their new book "Guilty Pigs: The Weird and Wonderful History of Animal Law." It explores the ins ...
Short Circuit 208 | The Government Is Special
February 25, 2022 21:33 - 46 minutes - 37.5 MBWanna get mad? This week we've got you covered. Two cases where the government plays by different rules from the rest of us. First Jaba Tsitsuashvili explains how the 11th Circuit went out of its way to excuse the Department of Justice's failure to raise a legal argument to do with a traffic stop search that private attorneys would not get away with. And Josh House tells us what the 8th Circuit thinks about property when you don't pay property taxes. The result isn't pretty. Along the way, ho...
Short Circuit 207 | West Coast Hits
February 17, 2022 20:49 - 39 minutes - 31.3 MBFollowing in the footsteps of last week's Super Bowl halftime show, we're keeping it West Coast today. Two cases from the Ninth Circuit that are Very Ninth Circuit. First, Bob McNamara explains how the overbreadth doctrine invalidated a restriction on speech related to violating immigration law. Then, Joe Gay describes the many ways the court found an Oakland, California ordinance to be just fine constitutionally even though it forces people to pay a lot of money just to move back into their ...
Short Circuit 206 | 50 Shades of Government Immunity
February 09, 2022 20:38 - 46 minutes - 37.1 MBThe Institute for Justice just issued a new report, 50 Shades of Government Immunity, about what happens when you go to state--not federal--court after the government violates your rights. The report grades every state for its access to justice as an alternative to the federal judiciary. Unfortunately, with just a couple exceptions, it doesn't paint a pretty picture. Two IJ attorneys, Anya Bidwell and Patrick Jaicomo, and Professor Alex Reinert of Cardozo Law, join Short Circuit to discuss t...
Short Circuit 205 | Foreign Divorces
February 04, 2022 03:06 - 29 minutes - 23.8 MBDivorce can be hard on the kids. Especially when the divorce was 40 years ago, the government doesn't believe it happened, and your U.S. citizenship depends on whether it did. New York litigator Alexandra Tseitlin joins Short Circuit to discuss an unusual immigration case she recently won in the Third Circuit. Also, ineffective assistance of counsel claims are difficult to win. But they're a bit easier when the lawyer is just obviously wrong about what the law means. Tori Clark of IJ walks us...
Short Circuit 204 | Contracts and Blood Spatters
January 28, 2022 16:29 - 26 minutes - 21.3 MBSometimes when the government does bad things to you it violates the Constitution. And sometimes it just violates the contract. Jeff Rowes explains the difference, and how things went down with a development scheme in the Fifth Circuit. Also, Will Aronin brings his expertise he learned as a trial lawyer to examine some junk science that has now been put on trial. Plus he details why it would be nice for a criminal defendant to know if a witness testifying against him is known to "stretch the ...
Short Circuit 203 | I Have No Idea What's Going On
January 21, 2022 20:19 - 40 minutes - 32.2 MBIs it "on bonk" or "n bank"? IJ lawyers disagree on how to pronounce a full court of appeals considering a case. But whatever your Latin/Old French skills, the en banc Fifth Circuit said some things about the Dallas County jail that even your crack team of experts can't understand. But Sam Gedge does his best to explain what might be going on, and how the court needlessly addressed his favorite topic, Younger abstention. But before that Bob Belden tells a story of a renegade sheriff sticking ...
Short Circuit 202 | Rules for Traffic Stops
January 13, 2022 16:21 - 41 minutes - 33.4 MBEver wondered when the police can pull you over and what they can do once you stop? Then this episode brings news you can use through a couple recent traffic stop cases. Wesley Hottot reports on the Eighth Circuit's blessing of a stop supposedly brought on by some pretty smelly weed (although not everyone is convinced of the story). Then, your host Anthony Sanders tells us of a new development in Oregon where its high court has rejected the "automobile exception" to the requirement to get a w...
Short Circuit 201 | The Fifth Circuit: It's Complicated
January 06, 2022 20:34 - 45 minutes - 36.1 MBIt's a new year but little is new with qualified immunity in the Fifth Circuit. Or is it? Easha Anand of the MacArthur Justice Center joins us to discuss a recent denial of qualified immunity in a police brutality case. IJ's Anya Bidwell joins in and reports on a couple other developments that demonstrate perhaps there's some "split second" thinking going on among those judges. Further, we ask our listeners to send in your nominations for the "most beautiful" U.S. Court of Appeals courtroom...
Short Circuit 200 | Origins
December 17, 2021 13:10 - 44 minutes - 35.4 MBIt's our 200th episode! We're taking this second century as an excuse to explore where Short Circuit came from and what it's done, both the podcast and the newsletter. We start things off at the very beginning with Short Circuit's editor and the podcast's original host John Ross. Then it's a blast-from-the-past with Clark Neily and Evan Bernick. We close things off with guest host Paul Sherman and Short Circuit Live host Anya Bidwell. You've heard how Spiderman and Batman came to be, but do y...
Short Circuit 199 | The Right Not To Be Framed and It's Greek To Me
December 09, 2021 22:16 - 36 minutes - 29.5 MBIn what may be the most obvious of examples of obvious constitutional violations, we discuss the right to not have the police put you in prison. Alexa Gervasi of IJ explains how this was too much even for qualified immunity to defeat, at least in the Third Circuit. And IJ's Ryan Wilson explains why a case involving a Greek boat accident can go forward in Boston. No, the captain's name was not Odysseus. Dave Kennedy Fellowship, https://www.ij.org/opportunities/students Litigation Fellowship, ...
Short Circuit 198 | International Trade and Standing for Guns
December 02, 2021 19:36 - 44 minutes - 35.8 MBWhere do you go to challenge an illegal tax? Well, if that tax is a tariff your destination is the United States Court of International Trade. Learn all about this corner of the Article III judiciary, and how tariffs for once took a beating before it, from Eric Boehm, a reporter at Reason. Also, we return to a frequent subject on Short Circuit, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, with IJ's Josh Windham. That court just made it a little easier to challenge restrictions on gun rights, although it r...
Short Circuit 197 | No Vehicles in the Park Remix
November 19, 2021 11:53 - 31 minutes - 25.5 MBFans of the Hart-Fuller debate are gonna love this one. As will normal people who have no idea what that means. Legal philosopher HLA Hart asked whether a rule saying “no vehicles in the park” included bicycles, toy cars and airplanes. But now the D.C. Circuit has been asked, what about trailers? D.C. Circuit guru and IJ attorney Jeff Redfern explains what’s a vehicle and what isn’t according to that court’s recent opinion on fuel efficiency standards. Meanwhile out West, it’s hard to get on ...
Short Circuit 195 | 50 Years of "Our Federalism"
November 12, 2021 13:00 - 47 minutes - 38 MBIn addition to some other civil rights anniversaries, 2021 marks 50 years since the Supreme Court decided Younger v. Harris. There, the Court made it extremely hard for federal courts to stop an unconstitutional state prosecution. This “Younger abstention” doctrine has been with us ever since. Professor Fred Smith of Emory Law joins us to discuss what Younger’s impact has been and how it has especially made it difficult to fight state court systems that have become de facto debtors’ prisons. ...
Short Circuit 196 | 50 Years of "Our Federalism"
November 12, 2021 13:00 - 47 minutes - 38 MBIn addition to some other civil rights anniversaries, 2021 marks 50 years since the Supreme Court decided Younger v. Harris. There, the Court made it extremely hard for federal courts to stop an unconstitutional state prosecution. This “Younger abstention” doctrine has been with us ever since. Professor Fred Smith of Emory Law joins us to discuss what Younger’s impact has been and how it has especially made it difficult to fight state court systems that have become de facto debtors’ prisons. ...
Short Circuit 195 | Pride and Prejudice in Prison
October 28, 2021 13:36 - 35 minutes - 28.1 MBWhat’s too hot a novel for a prisoner? Apparently “Pride and Prejudice: The Wild and Wanton Edition” meets that standard. The Eighth Circuit dug into this prurient issue and essentially said it violates the First Amendment to ban modern and Renaissance art in prison, but not to ban fan fiction. Rob Johnson takes us through a wild and lustful tale of free speech law, including the court’s bizarre discussion of when overbreadth claims are moot. Then your host Anthony Sanders spins a yarn about ...
Short Circuit 194 | Arboreal Takings and the Sidewalks of New York
October 21, 2021 13:03 - 42 minutes - 34 MBHow can the government encourage us to keep our trees? In all kinds of ways, but not through mandating the replanting of trees regardless of the landowner’s mitigation efforts. At least that’s what Wesley Hottot reports the Sixth Circuit said last week. There’s also a little excessive fines talk, which is worth your time as Wesley is kind of “the excessive fines guy.” He’s also a birdwatcher, which comes in handy in this tree case. Meanwhile, there’s some trouble on the sidewalks of New York,...
Short Circuit 193 | Hamilton Singing Fire in a Crowded Theater
October 15, 2021 17:23 - 47 minutes - 37.8 MBWhat did Alexander Hamilton tell the Marquis de Lafayette on July 21, 1780? Probably not that his letter would be the subject of a civil forfeiture case. Yet that came to pass in the First Circuit, and IJ attorney Bob Belden explains why it turns out the family that owned the letter were throwing away their shot. Meanwhile in the Second Circuit a fire on a movie set turns into a First Amendment retaliation claim. Kirby Thomas West joins us not to warn of the dangers of shouting fire, but what...
Short Circuit 192 | Standing Up for a Dollar
October 08, 2021 19:08 - 31 minutes - 25.4 MBIt’s taken five years, but the clients of IJ senior attorney Paul Avelar can now finally get their day in court thanks to a ruling in the Ninth Circuit. Paul joins us to explain why it takes so long to just try and vindicate your rights, and how Arizona’s (thankfully former) civil forfeiture system allowed prosecutors to keep people’s property over and over again, including, at first, his client’s car. Meanwhile things got SALT-y in the Second Circuit where whatever you think about the state-...
Short Circuit 191: Judicial Activism for Reals
October 01, 2021 10:19 - 34 minutes - 27.4 MBFrustrated with the deeply complicated issue of homelessness on Los Angeles’s skid row, a district court took the law into its own hands and ordered a lot of stuff to happen. One problem (of many) with that was the plaintiffs didn’t ask for the stuff. So it wasn’t too hard for the Ninth Circuit to reverse, as Jeff Rowes explains. He and his colleague Diana Simpson also discuss their own work on homelessness issues at the Institute for Justice and how the law often prevents small solutions to ...
Short Circuit 190: A Crime a Day in Prison
September 23, 2021 20:45 - 35 minutes - 28.4 MBMike Chase, author of “How to Become a Federal Criminal” and the man behind the @CrimeADay Twitter account, joins us to lay out the Eighth Circuit’s take on Congressman Devin Nunes suing people he doesn’t agree with. IJ attorney Diana Simpson then explains how an especially talented prisoner has won two cases at the Ninth Circuit over the cold turkey tactics of his jailers. Mike also relates to us some of his experiences representing prisoners and how they often have very meritorious claims. ...
Short Circuit 189 | Supreme Court Preview, OT 2021
September 17, 2021 15:58 - 42 minutes - 58.5 MBFor the fifth year in a row the Center for Judicial Engagement travels to the University of North Carolina School of Law to preview the upcoming Supreme Court term. Once again there’s trivia, deep dives on a couple cases about to be argued, and a couple cert petitions. Professor Andy Hessick battles IJ attorney Justin Pearson for top SCOTUS trivia dog and your host Anthony Sanders enjoys the first LIVE Short Circuit since the world shut down. Cummings v. Premier Rehab Keller, PLLC, https://...
Short Circuit 188 | Chalked Tires and the Other ACA
September 02, 2021 21:26 - 44 minutes - 35.6 MBEver rolled your tires to try and cover up the meter maid’s chalk mark? No, me neither . . . But even if you haven’t, you might not have to worry about tire chalk marks much longer. Josh Windham explains how the Sixth Circuit has said that’s an unreasonable search. And out West it turns out there’s so much law in Yellowstone National Park (the Wyoming bit, at least) that a camper gets out of an assault charge because of a law called the ACA (just not the one you’re thinking of). The camper di...
Short Circuit 187 | How Binding Is Your Dicta?
August 26, 2021 23:00 - 31 minutes - 25.4 MBThe Third Circuit allowed a Second Amendment case challenging Robinson Township’s new zoning ordinance to proceed. Did they town change their zoning laws just to prevent a gun club from fulling opening? Possibly, we’ll have to wait and see. But in the meantime, Andrew Ward walks us through this decision exploring just which level of scrutiny applies to Second Amendment challenges. And there was a very colorful dissent in the Ninth Circuit from Judge VanDyke. Patrick Jaicomo explains this diss...
Short Circuit 186 | Chillin’ With Uber
August 12, 2021 13:49 - 26 minutes - 21.1 MBUsually a “chill” on your freedom of speech is the easiest constitutional injury to prove. But in the Tenth Circuit it seems if you speak too much you’re not “chilled,” and therefore not “injured,” even if you’re breaking an unconstitutional law. Adam Shelton walks us through this chilling brain teaser. Meanwhile, when is competition “unfair”? Alexa Gervasi explains that in Massachusetts it was not unfair for Uber to compete against taxicabs when its own right to operate was, shall we say, a ...
Short Circuit 185 | Guns and Football
August 05, 2021 12:41 - 36 minutes - 29.2 MBMore on two of America’s favorite subjects this week. Josh House rejoins us as we analyze six separate opinions about one football coach. Josh last came on in the spring when the Ninth Circuit said the coach didn’t have a prayer. Although that ruling stands for now, a number of judges recently exercised their freedom to speak differently. And maybe it’s because of the name, but there’s a lot of Second Amendment law firing out of the Second Circuit. Adam Griffin explains how the court was on t...
Short Circuit 184 | California Constitutional Dreaming
July 28, 2021 20:03 - 53 minutes - 42.7 MBOn a special Short Circuit we look at the Constitution, and the constitutional history, of the Golden State. With two state constitutions and conventions in its history, and a multitude of ballot measures amending the state’s highest law, the story of the California Constitution is a turbulent, dynamic, and fascinating look at how constitutions get made in this country. Joining us are two experts who run the California Constitution Center at the University of California at Berkeley, Dr. David...
Short Circuit 183 | Expectations of Surveillance
July 23, 2021 13:21 - 37 minutes - 29.7 MBThe Supreme Court has said a “search” occurs when the police invade your “reasonable expectation of privacy.” So what is a “reasonable expectation” to be free from video surveillance in a world where everyone has a camera, everywhere? Rob Frommer tells us the Seventh Circuit says there basically is no such thing as long as what you’re doing can be seen from a public place (or in this case, three cameras mounted on a utility pole for 18 months). But the court isn’t happy with the result and ut...
Short Circuit 182 | Putting the Protection in “Equal Protection”
July 15, 2021 19:13 - 37 minutes - 30 MBToday we think of the Equal Protection Clause as requiring equal treatment of the laws. But in addition to anything else it covers, at its core it’s supposed to protect, well, equal protection. Yet if you bring a claim that you’re not being protected equally the courts generally have little to offer. However, civil rights attorney Laura Schauer Ives just won an appeal at the Tenth Circuit in a tragic case where the court did take “protection” seriously, denying qualified immunity to police of...
Short Circuit 181 | Mandatory Associations
July 08, 2021 21:00 - 41 minutes - 33 MBIt’s not often that we get three different appellate opinions on the same issue in one week. But recently the Fifth Circuit (twice) and the Tenth handed down their thoughts on mandatory bar associations and the First Amendment. Those are groups that lawyers in some states must join—and pay for—in order to work as licensed attorneys. The Supreme Court has said a lot of things over the years on whether these kinds of requirements are constitutional, overruling itself but also not overruling its...
Short Circuit 180 | A Fifth of Qualified Immunity
July 02, 2021 16:09 - 33 minutes - 27 MBThe Fifth Circuit is not boring. In just one week they served up enough qualified immunity cases to fill an entire episode, and then some. Nicolas Riley of Georgetown’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection joins us to discuss a case he litigated where the circuit failed to apply the Fourth Amendment to some rather un-Fourth Amendment friendly behavior by school officials. IJ’s Anya Bidwell then sends us in the other direction where the circuit denied qualified immunity to a pa...
Short Circuit 179 | Taking Bees with the Police Power
June 24, 2021 18:53 - 35 minutes - 28.1 MBSomething that is not the bee’s knees is when the county mosquito sprayers forget to tell you to cover up your bees so they don’t get murdered. When the bee farmers sue, is that killing a taking under the Fifth Amendment? Jeff Redfern comes on to explain how the Fourth Circuit said no, but along the way made it easier for property owners to bring takings claims in other cases. And can federal employees go to court so they can feel free to Tweet #Resistance? Not any more, and perhaps not ever,...
Short Circuit 178 | First Amendment Home Design
June 17, 2021 14:56 - 32 minutes - 25.6 MBIf I express myself through designing a new house, is that expression protected by the First Amendment? Last week the Eleventh Circuit avoided that question through a couple dodges for which Paul Sherman takes it to task. And why do defendants enter into plea deals? We often don’t know, but Justin Pearson tells us about an Eighth Circuit case where a man may have had little choice to take one after (perhaps unwittingly) funding terrorist groups in Syria. Transcript: https://ij.org/wp-content...
Short Circuit 177 | When Are Judges “Too Cool?”
June 11, 2021 17:41 - 41 minutes - 33.3 MBHow many pop culture references can a judge make in an opinion before we start to cringe? “Dean” of #AppellateTwitter Raffi Melkonian joins us to give his thoughts on a recent Ninth Circuit case that perhaps broke the all-time record for “coolness,” perhaps to such an extent that it got in the way of its own underlying legal argument. Plus, Diana Simpson looks at another case from the Left Coast, trying to thread the needle on whether “Your right to remain silent” is a “constitutional right” ...
Short Circuit 176 | Conjunction Junction, what’s your function?
June 04, 2021 13:31 - 32 minutes - 25.9 MBThere’s this mysterious word in English that courts love to talk about, the Notorious A-N-D. Does it, in fact, mean “and?” Or does it mean “or?” The correction interpretation of the First Step Act—and a lot of years in prison for a lot of people—ride on the answer. Wesley Hottot explains how the Ninth Circuit and the Eleventh Circuit recently disagreed on this fundamental question. And can you sue over an unsolicited text message? Alexa Gervasi tells us what the Fifth Circuit said about this ...
Short Circuit 175 | Tax Takings and Reservation Creation
May 28, 2021 17:22 - 38 minutes - 30.7 MBCan the county foreclose on your house because you haven’t paid your taxes, and then just keep the rest of your equity? In Ohio, yeah, they can. That kind of sounds like a taking without just compensation, which is why Ohio attorney Emily White joined us to talk about her recent case at the Sixth Circuit. Then Kirby Thomas West of IJ takes us “up north” where a band of Native Americans argued their land is a reservation under some often-neglected, and often-dishonored, agreements with the fed...