Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts

Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Mark Joseph Stern to tee up the final weeks of the Supreme Court term. Several blockbusters are still to come, from abortion to gun rights to religious liberty to climate action—and then there’s the shadow docket. Mark and Dahlia break it all down with insights into what to expect and what to watch for. Dahlia also spoke with former Attorney General Eric Holder this week, and he made the clear and urgent case that if you want gun reform, you need to work on democracy reform. Attorney General Holder will be back on Amicus in July to talk about his book for our summer reading series. In this week’s Amicus Plus segment, as the Supreme Court investigates clerks over the Dobbs leak, and in the wake of the revelations of Ginni Thomas’ involvement in efforts to overturn the 2020 election, Dahlia is in conversation with Noah Bookbinder of CREW about how to fix judicial ethics. Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In light of the Uvalde school shooting, we’re rebroadcasting a special audio presentation from Amicus that originally aired in 2018. Dahlia Lithwick spoke to three educators who survived gun violence at their schools. Heather Martin was a student at Columbine during the 1999 mass shooting; Mary Ann Jacob was library clerk at Sandy Hook at the time of the 2012 shooting; and Ken Yuers was a teacher at Rancho Tehama Elementary School when it suffered a school shooting in 2017. They discussed what they experienced, what it was like going back to the classroom, and what they want changed.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Ambassador Norm Eisen to discuss The Big Picture: democracy, the Rule of Law and the new volume he has co-written and edited, Overcoming Trumpery: How to Restore Ethics, the Rule of Law, and Democracy. Norm and Dahlia look back to January 6th 2021, and ahead to the coming hearings and the midterms. In this week’s Amicus Plus segment, Dahlia is joined by Mark Joseph Stern to talk about Ted Cruz’s victory at the Supreme Court, and what it means for what’s left of campaign finance law, the stunning decision out of the 5th circuit that questions the constitutionality of, well, pretty much the whole of the civil service… And Oklahoma’s new abortion ban law that picks up Texas’ vigilante reproductive regulation and runs with it.Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show. We'll be back with another episode of Amicus on June 4th, when we’ll start coming to you weekly as the Supreme Court’s term hurtles to its conclusion and we are deluged with consequential decisions. Hoping you can join us to try to navigate the last few weeks of the term, and its fallout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a special live panel discussion in partnership with the Crosscut Festival, this week’s Amicus tackles the post-leak landscape and potential post-Roe fallout from Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion in Dobbs. An all-star panel, featuring law professor and podcast host Melissa Murray, journalist and bestselling author Jessica Bruder, and Slate’s news director Susan Matthews—host of the upcoming Season 7 of Slow Burn focusing on the road to Roe v Wade—get together to discuss the past, present, and future of reproductive liberty. Podcast production by Sara Burningham. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a special episode for Slate Plus members, Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern for in-depth analysis of the stunning leaked draft opinion from Justice Samuel Alito in Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization, the abortion case that is poised to overturn 50 years of jurisprudence and Roe v Wade.Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show.Podcast production by Sara Burningham Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this episode of Amicus – in studio edition! – host Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Professor Lawrence O. Gostin, professor of global health law, at Georgetown University, among many other things. They talk about the federal district court in Florida’s decision to lift the mask mandate for public transportation. While it may seem like a small deal given that the mandate was set to expire in a few weeks anyway, the decision was built on a very labored and tortured interpretation of the word “sanitation.” Professor Gostin explains that this case could have a chilling effect on government agencies. They also discuss why the decision by the Biden administration to appeal involved a lot of political calculous.In our Slate Plus segment, Dahlia is joined by Mark Joseph Stern to talk about a death penalty decision at the Supreme Court and an upcoming case about school prayer.  Podcast production by Cheyna Roth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the great legal history episode of Amicus, host Dahlia Lithwick is joined first by David Gans, director of the Human Rights, Civil Rights, and Citizenship Program at the Constitutional Accountability Center. While GOP Senators used the Ketanji Brown Jackson hearings to take potshots at important ideas like unenumerated rights and substantive due process to score points with their base, the talking points became entrenched in political discourse. Does it matter? Of course it does.Later in the show, Dahlia is joined by Rund Abdelfatah co-host and producer of NPR’s podcast Throughline. The podcast explores the history behind current events. Dahlia and Rund talk about Throughline’s episode Pirates of the Senate to take a closer look at the history behind the filibuster, and explore why so many of our ideas about the filibuster are just plain wrong. In our Slate Plus segment, Dahlia is joined by Mark Joseph Stern on the Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmation, a case creating a new constitutional bar against malicious prosecution, and more shadow docket shenanigans. Podcast production by Sara Burningham and Cheyna Roth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It was a week: Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearings, Justice Clarence Thomas in the hospital, Ginni Thomas’ tweets in the hands of the Jan. 6 committee, and an out-of-the-blue redistricting decision on the shadow docket. First, Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Angela Onwuachi-Willig, dean of Boston University Law School, to discuss why the Senate Judiciary Committee is a terrible venue for a job interview and the ways in which Judge Jackson rose above it.  Next, Dahlia talks to Nate Persily of Stanford Law School about how the hearing interacts with the bigger picture of disinformation ecosystems, Ginni Thomas’ texts, and fills us in on the Wisconsin redistricting case. Finally, they discuss Prof. Persily’s almost 40-year friendship with Ketanji Brown Jackson. In our Slate Plus segment, Dahlia and Mark Joseph Stern dig into judicial ethics and what shocked them this week. Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show.Podcast production by Sara Burningham. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a Slate Plus-exclusive episode, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern look ahead to next week’s hearings and lend their expert opinions on what’s likely to come up, what really matters, and who’s got the whole thing upside down.  Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show.Podcast production by Sara Burningham. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Professor Anita Hill to discuss confirmation hearings past and future, the unfinished work of equality, and whether the current Supreme Court can be part of that work. In our Slate Plus segment, Slate’s senior jurisprudence editor Nicole Lewis and senior writer Mark Joseph Stern discuss the worrying news buried in a shadow docket “win” for redistricting, a unanimous decision Monday, and the judges who seem intent on threatening national security by meddling with the military. Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show.Podcast production by Sara Burningham. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices