Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, Justice, And The Courts

Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Walter Dellinger to discuss impeachment, and the role of White House lawyers in “Ukraine-gate”. And James Zirin, author of Plaintiff in Chief: A Portrait of Donald Trump in 3,500 Lawsuits , breaks down the President’s history of weaponizing the law while trampling legal norms. donorschoose.org/AMICUS Podcast production by Sara Burningham. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Professor Sonja West of the University of Georgia School of Law and Professor Jamal Greene of Columbia Law School, both former clerks to Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. They discuss his life, legacy, and the lessons they learned from the late justice. donorschoose.org/AMICUS Podcast production by Sara Burningham. Follow Slate’s Amicus on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/amicuspodcast/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Julian Mortenson, Professor of Law at the University of Michigan to discuss his work to re-frame the conversation around “the executive power”. His paper, “Article II Vests Executive Power, Not The Royal Prerogative” traces the constitutional history of the three words that have grown to encompass so much.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Rebecca Sandefur, who turns a sociologist’s eye to civil justice. Civil justice problems can lead to bankruptcy, homelessness, illness, family separation and poverty, but Sandefur says what makes it to the courts is just the “tip of the civil justice iceberg”.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Michele Goodwin, Chancellor’s Professor of Law at the University of California, Irvine, for a wide reaching conversation about race and gender and the stories America tells itself so it can sleep at night. Starting with Trump’s tweets about Baltimore, Professor Goodwin offers an expert survey of centuries of racist and sexist narratives in the legal system and the country at large. This week’s show also features excerpts from a live discussion Dahlia moderated at the 92 St Y with Heidi Shreck (What the Constitution Means to Me) and Professor Laurence Tribe (Harvard Law School). Podcast production by Sara Burningham Slate’s Amicus on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/amicuspodcast/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a week marked by rising rancor, when racist rhetoric ricocheted out of the president’s twitter feed and into a chanting crowd at his reelection rally, the end of an era almost slid under the radar. Dahlia Lithwick reflects on the passing of Justice John Paul Stevens, and the more than symbolic shift from his jurisprudence, his character,  to our current state of affairs at the high court and beyond. You can read more here. And Dahlia is joined by Professor Mary Anne Franks of the University of Miami Law School to talk about her book, “The Cult of the Constitution”, how growing up among christian fundamentalists helped her write a book about constitutional extremists, and why there’s still hope for America’s faulty founding document. Slate Plus members get bonus segments and ad-free podcast feeds. Sign up now.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Frank Bowman, author of the upcoming book High Crimes and Misdemeanors, A History of Impeachment for the Age of Trump about the big question: Impeachment, its historical precedent, constitutional roots, and present day predicaments.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A round table round-up of the 2018 Supreme Court term with Dahlia Lithwick, Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern, Professor Pam Karlan of Stanford and Professor Leah Litman of the University of Michigan Law School. Analysis of the census case, the gerrymandering cases, and the down-docket items you might have missed, but whose repercussions you won’t.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dahlia Lithwick joins Trumpcast as a special guest co-host for an intimate conversation with journalist E. Jean Carroll, author of "What Do We Need Men For." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A flurry of decisions this week, but few big-ticket items. Mark Joseph Stern takes us through  the opinions and dissents in Flowers v Mississippi, Gundy v United States and American Legion v American Humanist Association. Dahlia Lithwick is also joined by Jed Shugerman and Andrew Kent of Fordham University Law School, two of the authors of the Harvard Law Review article, Faithful Execution and Article II, which examines whether the constitution holds the President to some higher standard than just not doing crimes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a 20 page concurrence to the Indiana abortion law case last week, Adam Cohen’s phone started blowing up. In making an argument linking abortion rights to eugenics, Justice Thomas repeatedly cited Cohen’s book, Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck Adam Cohen joins Dahlia Lithwick to explore the history of eugenics in the U.S. and to examine  Justice Thomas’ motives and logic for bringing the argument into the abortion debate.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A swathe of draconian abortion laws have been passed by states around the country in the past few weeks, but Alabama outdid them all. Legislators there are clearly hoping Justice Kavanagh will nullify Roe v Wade with a stroke of a pen, but there are quite a few other factors at play here and this week Dahlia Lithwick is joined by just the right women to explore those factors. Professor of Law Melissa Murray of NYU discusses the history and significance of Roe, and CNN legal analyst Joan Biskupic, who also authored the new book “The Chief, the Life and Turbulent times of Chief Justice John Roberts”, joins Dahlia to dissect Roberts’ record and reservations when it comes to reproductive rights.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Judges are at the center of every conversation on Amicus, but never as guests on the show. Until today. Dahlia Lithwick has a wide-ranging and illuminating conversation with Robert Lasnik, Senior United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington. Judge Lasnik answers questions about how cases are selected, where the judiciary has fallen short in response to #metoo, whether justices should hit back against criticism or maintain a lofty silence, and why Bob Dylan looms large in his courtroom  (more details in this 2011 LA Times article). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mark Joseph Stern guest hosts and digs into two cases in the Supreme Court this week. First, the court’s questioning if Title VII of the Civil Rights Act extends to LGBTQ protections. Then, the addition of the citizenship question on the 2020 census. Finally, Dahlia interviews Richard Rothestein, author of “The Color of Law”, about the history of residential segregation.  Podcast Production by Danielle Hewitt Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dahlia Lithwick is joined by former department of Justice spokesperson Matt Miller and Fordham Law Professor Jed Shugerman for a read of the (redacted)  Mueller report.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Harvard Law School Professor Carol Steiker, co-author of Courting Death: The Supreme Court and Capital Punishment to explore recent death penalty cases before the Supreme Court and why the 8th amendment has raised tensions among the justices. This episode is brought to you by The Great Courses Plus.  Get your free trial, plus 50% off your monthly plan at TheGreatCoursesPlus.com/Amicus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern unpack the arguments in the North Carolina and Maryland gerrymander cases heard by the Supreme Court this week, and Aaron Belkin of advocacy group Pack the Courts tells us why packing the courts is becoming a serious topic in the Democratic presidential race. Please let us know what you think of Amicus. Join the discussion of this episode on Facebook. Our email is amicus@slate.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dahlia Lithwick pans back this week to assess what’s holding and what’s buckling in terms of norms and institutions, two years and change into the Trump presidency. She’s joined by Ian Bassin of Protect Democracy, a new kind of litigation shop looking at global trends toward authoritarianism and trying to resist those trends in the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dahlia Lithwick is joined by conservative lawyer Stuart Gerson and finds common ground over the President’s declaration of a national emergency so he can build the wall.  And Leah Litman helps us take a lawyerly look at Michael Cohen’s testimony before congress this week. This episode is brought to you by The Great Courses Plus. For one month free, go to thegreatcoursesplus.com/AMICUS. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Simplisafe. Start protecting your home today at simplisafe.com/amicus. Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Dean Risa Goluboff and Vice-Dean Leslie Kenrick of the University of Virginia School of Law. Together, they tackle issues of race in government, gender in the law, plus religion and reproductive rights in the court. Please let us know what you think of Amicus. Join the discussion of this episode on Facebook. Our email is amicus@slate.com. Podcast production by Sara Burningham. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices