Botched Protocols

For some, 2022 was the year Roe v Wade was overturned. For millions more, abortions rights had been functionally inaccessible for decades. Beyond shaky precedent, Roe was a vessel into which America threw all sorts of hopes, beliefs and fears. But how did this legal decision become a symbol of so much? On this week’s show, host Dahlia Lithwick is joined by abortion law expert Mary Ziegler, who’s new book, Roe: The History of a National Obsession, tries to find the roots of Roe’s incessant pull, and to unpack the meaning from the meta.  In this week’s Amicus Plus segment - the worst of jurisprudence 2022. In a year marked by quite a few legal gut punches, Dahlia is joined by Mark Joseph Stern to run through the most bonkers rulings from the most out-of-control federal judges. They also find a path to hope for justice in 2023.   Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show.  Want a behind-the-scenes look at how we create the show? Check out Slate's Pocket Collections for research and reading lists, as well as additional insights into how we think about the stories behind the episodes.  Dahlia’s book Lady Justice: Women, the Law and the Battle to Save America, is also available as an audiobook, and Amicus listeners can get a 25 percent discount by entering the code “AMICUS” at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

31 Dec 202251min

The highest court in the land has ignored the need for standing, the trial record, and of course precedent this past year––and it matters.  Host Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Sherrilyn Ifill, former president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and a senior fellow at the Ford Foundation. They discuss Sherrilyn’s thought-provoking piece this month in the New York Review of Books, which opens out into a big-picture discussion of what this Supreme Court’s tendency to reach out and grab cases, and erase trial records, or fill in the blanks on standing, even on claims, means for whose voices are heard at the highest court in the land, and who merits consideration in its decisions.   In this week’s Amicus Plus segment, Dahlia is joined by Mark Joseph Stern to talk about oral arguments in the big elections case concerning the Independent State Legislature Theory (Moore v. Harper), and in the Oregon wedding website case that threatens civil rights public-accommodations law (303 Creative), plus the Washington right-wing party circuit’s special guest du jour, Justice Brett Kavanaugh.  Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show.  Want a behind-the-scenes look at how we create the show? Check out Slate's Pocket Collections for research and reading lists, as well as additional insights into how we think about the stories behind the episodes.  Dahlia’s book Lady Justice: Women, the Law and the Battle to Save America, is also available as an audiobook, and Amicus listeners can get a 25 percent discount by entering the code “AMICUS” at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

17 Dec 202256min

When Christian conservatives lost in Masterpiece Cake Shop back in 2018, they regrouped and picked up the trail of breadcrumbs from Justice Clarence Thomas’ dissent that suggested a freedom of speech approach. Next week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in 303 Creative v Elenis - another case that takes aim at Colorado’s anti discrimination laws. This time, arguments about whether a website designer has the right to advertise that she will not design websites for same-sex weddings, will be focused on freedom of speech. But as this week’s guest, Hila Keren, argues, excluding people from the marketplace and humiliating them in the process is not a matter of free speech, and it is a matter progressives have been largely silent about. Together, Dahlia Lithwick and Professor Keren dig deep into a case that hasn’t been given the attention its potential wide-ranging consequences demand.  In this week’s Amicus Plus segment, Dahlia is joined by Mark Joseph Stern to talk about another big case - this past week’s arguments in US v Texas, including brazen judge-shopping, nationwide injunction-slapping, and President Biden’s immigration policy. Then Mark explains exactly what is - and isn’t - in the same sex marriage bill that’s making its way to President Biden’s desk.  Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show.  Want a behind-the-scenes look at how we create the show? Check out Slate's Pocket Collections for research and reading lists, as well as additional insights into how we think about the stories behind the episodes.  Dahlia’s book Lady Justice: Women, the Law and the Battle to Save America, is also available as an audiobook, and Amicus listeners can get a 25% discount by entering the code “AMICUS” at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

3 Dec 202257min

When the New York Times built on previous reporting in Politico and Rolling Stone  about an evangelical christian ministry that sought to sell access to and influence Supreme Court Justices with fancy dinners and donations, the Hobby Lobby leak dominated the headlines. But there is so much more to this story. To discuss how the headlines fit into a larger narrative of dark money and a captured court, Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. Senator Whitehouse is Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights and co-author of The Scheme: How the Right Wing Used Dark Money to Capture the Supreme Court. See also: The Supreme Court Ethics and Recusal Transparency Act.  Want a behind-the-scenes look at how we create the show? Check out Slate's Pocket Collections for research and reading lists, as well as additional insights into how we think about the stories behind the episodes.  Dahlia’s book Lady Justice: Women, the Law and the Battle to Save America, is also available as an audiobook, and Amicus listeners can get a 25% discount by entering the code “AMICUS” at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

23 Nov 202231min

“A Kitchen Sink Approach to Constitutional Claims” On this week’s Amicus, - the case that threatens the Indian Child Welfare Act, but also threatens domino effects on tribal sovereignty and land rights. Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Rebecca Nagle, a Cherokee writer, advocate & language learner. Nagle is host of This Land podcast. Season 2 of the podcast was a deep and broad investigation into the background of the case at hand. Maggie Blackhawk also lends her expertise to the discussion, Professor Blackhawk (Find du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe) is professor of law at NYU and an award-winning interdisciplinary scholar and teacher of constitutional law, federal Indian law, and legislation, Together, they delve through a veritable grab bag of constitutional challenges from the plaintiffs in Brackeen v Haaland. Listen up, you’re about to learn a lot, we did.  In this week’s Amicus Plus segment, Dahlia is joined by Mark Joseph Stern to talk about how a Georgia judge overturned that state’s abortion ban, President Biden’s record and prospects for confirming judges, and death penalty cruelty on the shadow docket again.    Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show.  Want a behind-the-scenes look at how we create the show? Check out Slate's Pocket Collections for research and reading lists, as well as additional insights into how we think about the stories behind the episodes.  Dahlia’s book Lady Justice: Women, the Law and the Battle to Save America, is also available as an audiobook, and Amicus listeners can get a 25% discount by entering the code “AMICUS” at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

19 Nov 20221h 3min

Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Professor Cara McClellan, former counsel at NAACP LDF, and founding Director of the Advocacy for Racial and Civil Justice Clinic, at University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. Professor McClellan takes us through an extensive trial record largely ignored in oral arguments at SCOTUS this past week.  Then, Dahlia is joined by David Rothkopf whose book, American Resistance: The inside story of how the deep state saved the nation, details the folks who stuck around and tried to hold the line during the Trump years, and what we can learn from them.  In this week’s Amicus Plus segment, Dahlia is joined by Mark Joseph Stern to talk about the judges pushing back in gun cases post Bruen, and the lower courts defying Supreme Court precedent as they seek to curtail LGBTQ rights.  Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

5 Nov 20221h 10min

Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Judge Michael Luttig for the definitive conversation on a giant elections case now on the calendar at the Supreme Court. Moore v Harper is a North Carolina redistricting case that is also a vehicle for the Independent State Legislature Theory - a so-called doctrine that could radically re-order democracy in America. Judge Luttig - a stalwart of conservative legal circles for decades - will argue the case as co-counsel alongside former Acting Solicitor General under Obama, Neal Katyal.  In this week’s Amicus Plus segment, Dahlia is joined by Mark Joseph Stern to talk about the blossoming of bonkers gun cases in the wake of last term’s SCOTUS decision in Bruen, a big case concerning consumer protections and much more…  Dahlia’s new book Lady Justice: Women, the Law and the Battle to Save America, is also available as an audiobook, and Amicus listeners can get a 25% discount by entering the code “AMICUS” at checkout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

22 Okt 202256min

Dahlia Lithwick is on the road with Amicus and Lady Justice. In this bonus episode, she’s joined by Loyola Law Professor, legal commentator and columnist Jessica Levinson for a conversation about what we can learn from the women lawyers who held the line during the Trump years, and how to respond to the steady drum beat of “Lock Her Up” threatening women around America today.  The conversation is available in full for Slate Plus members.  Dahlia’s new book Lady Justice: Women, the Law and the Battle to Save America,  Lady Justice is also available as an audiobook, and Amicus listeners can get a 25% discount by entering the code “AMICUS” at checkout. :https://books.supportingcast.fm/lady-justice If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get an ad-free experience across the network and exclusive content on many shows—you’ll also be supporting the work we do here on Amicus. Sign up now at slate.com/amicusplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

18 Okt 202211min