Stanford Legal

In the heat of war, the legality of the U.S. bombing of Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagsaki in August, 1945 wasn’t questioned. But the devastation of those nuclear bombs, with hundreds of thousands of mostly civilians dead, spurred the international community to look for ways to prevent it from ever happening again. But today, 75 years later, the nuclear threat is more real than ever. In this episode, international law expert Allen Weiner joins Pam and Joe to discuss the law of war and the threat of nuclear weapons after Hiroshima.

The Supreme Court recently decided several important First Amendment cases—ones that asked big questions about the rights of religious intuitions to receive federal aid for education, to be held to federal employment discrimination protections, and to cover all employee medical expenses. Join constitutional law expert Michael McConnell for a discussion about religious liberty in the U.S. and these SCOTUS decisions.

Some residents of Tulsa, Oklahoma may be surprised to discover that they live on Native American land. What does that mean legally—for tribal people and others? Join Professor Greg Ablavsky, an expert on American legal history including issues of sovereignty, territory, and property in the early American West, for a discussion of the Supreme Court’s recent decision McGirt v. Oklahoma and important legal issues of Native American lands and governance.

As Covid-19 resurges across the country, it is hitting prisons hard and courts are more backed up than ever. Is the American criminal justice system, already stressed, now at a breaking point? Join Stanford criminal justice expert Robert Weisberg for a discussion of prisons, the courts, and criminal justice during a pandemic.

Join health law expert Professor David Studdert for a discussion of his extensive study of handgun ownership and suicides in California. David will also weigh in on the politicization of the Center for Disease Control particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Landmark Supreme Court ruling protects gay and transgender workers by federal law from employment discrimination.

Stanford Law Professor David Sklansky, the Faculty Co-Director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, is a former federal prosecutor who served as special counsel to the independent review panel appointed to investigate the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart Division scandal that formed in the wake of the Rodney King case. In this episode, Sklansky discusses race and policing in America and how we can reform policing to prevent another George Floyd death in police custody.

The recent killings of unarmed black men in police custody, including George Floyd in Minnesota, have once again sparked outrage and protests across the country and world. In this episode, David Owens, an attorney who has represented clients in several high profile police brutality cases, joins us to talk about the challenges that victims, their families, and their attorneys face when bringing cases against the police. David is a partner at Loevy & Loevy. His practice is national, representing clients from Washington and California, Wisconsin and Illinois, and throughout the South. He is dedicated to zealous, client-centered advocacy on behalf of those seeking vindication for the violation of their civil rights and focuses on cases involving wrongful convictions, police shootings and other excessive force, false arrests, free speech rights, race discrimination, and other violations of the U.S. Constitution. David is also a Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago, where he co-teaches in the school’s world-famous pro bono wrongful conviction clinic, The Exoneration Project.

As one of the first municipalities in the nation to declare a shelter in place order, San Francisco has been on the frontline as a public policy leader during the COVID-19 crisis. Join us for a discussion with Board Supervisor Matt Haney about the challenges facing the City by the Bay, from the decision to shut down, to controlling the disease for all citizens including the growing homeless population, to how to open up schools and businesses safely. Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 30, 2020.

On May 4, J.Crew became the first major American retailer to file for bankruptcy, with Neiman Marcus and Gold’s Gym quickly following. With unemployment at record levels and a wave of bankruptcies expected, the COVID-19 health crisis is quickly turning into an economic crisis—despite the CARES Act passed by Congress in April. In this episode of Stanford Legal, bankruptcy law expert and Stanford Law Professor George Triantis explains how current U.S. bankruptcy laws can help us through this crisis and offers his recommendations on what more the government can do.