Opening Arguments

OA1189 - The Supreme Court’s next term may not start until October, but their infamous shadow--sorry, “interim”--docket is in rare form as they issue snap decisions on everything from exactly where one 14-year-old boy can pee to just how openly racist ICE gets to be. Matt and Jenessa review which major precedents the conservative majority is ignoring to enable Trump’s worst policies this week before getting on to some Epstein-related legal updates and a radical new development from the Board of Immigration Appeals with massive implications for Trump’s mass deportation plans.  Finally, Matt drops a footnote to address one of our nation’s least pressing legal questions: is it really true that a wedding in Kentucky can be legally officiated by a dead bear once described as “filled to the brim with cocaine”? SCOTUS order in Trump v. Slaughter  (9/8/2025)  SCOTUS order (with Kavanaugh concurrence and Sotomayor dissent) in Noem v. Vasquez-Perdomo (9/8/25) Matter of Yajure Hurtado, 21 I&N 216 (BIA 2025)

Just because everything else is terrible out there right now, we treated ourselves to our second consecutive Law’d Awesome Movie. By popular patron demand: it’s My Cousin Vinny! We had a great time talking about this one. Actual New York Italian-American Jenessa Seymour joins to provide dead-ass balls accurate cultural context for one of the greatest Brooklyn couples ever put to film, and Matt shares his perspective as both an actual practicing courtroom lawyer and a guy who is weirdly obsessed with end credits songs that tell you about the movie you just watched.  Thanks again to patrons for this one! My Cousin Vinny, Dale Launer (1992)(full script)(PDF) “‘What is a Yute?’ An Oral History of ‘My Cousin Vinny,’” Andy Greene, Rolling Stone (3/7/22)

Continuing their "Good Law" series, Matt and Jenessa talk about Baggett v. Bullitt. This case held that "a State cannot require an employee to take an unduly vague oath containing a promise of future conduct at the risk of prosecution for perjury or loss of employment, particularly where the exercise of First Amendment freedoms may thereby be deterred." Jenessa gives a fascinating science breakdown on cognitive dissonance and what the effect of these vague oaths actually is. It's counter-intuitive and very interesting!

For this week’s Rapid Response Friday we take up three major judicial rulings pushing back against executive overreach on three completely different topics: removals under the Alien Enemies Act, the use of the National Guard to conduct domestic law enforcement, and the  imposition of tariffs as an executive action under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Also: it turns out a DC grand jury really can't indict a ham sandwich, and why Brazil is so much better at prosecuting insurrectionists than the US is. Fifth Circuit's decision in W.M.M. et al (9/2/25) Judge Charles Breyer’s decision in Newson v. Trump (9/2/25) Federal Circuit’s decision in V.O.S. Selections v. Trump (8/29/25)

VR6 - For today’s Vapid Response Wednesday, Thomas, Lydia, and Matt review two examples from a newly-popular genre of lazy right wing op-eds: insecure white guys complaining about Supreme Court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. What is with these losers who are so obsessed with trying to prove that one of the most qualified nominees to the high court in our lifetimes isn’t fit for the job? We take dark-money sugar baby Josh Hammer up on the joke to compare his life achievements to someone who began her SCOTUS career with four times as much courtroom experience as John Roberts, Elena Kagan, Clarence Thomas, and Amy Coney Barrett combined--before moving on to trying to even understand what Federalist weirdo Shawn Fleetwood thinks he is saying. “Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is an Insult to the Supreme Court,” Josh Hammer, Newsweek (7/1/2025) “KBJ Could Learn a Few Lessons in ‘Professionalism’ From Justice Barrett,” Shawn Fleetwood, The Federalist (8/20/2025) Ketanji Brown Jackson’s career timeline from the S

OA1186 - We continue our series on some of our favorite Warren-era Supreme Court decisions with the one Warren-era decision--and very likely the only Supreme Court decision that is still good law--that most people can name from memory. The desegregation of American schools in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) stands today as one of the greatest moments of  justice in American legal history, but did you know that it was also an equally important moment for social science? Matt tees up the legal and historical context and Dr. Jenessa Seymour, Esq. brings her unique background as both a lawyer and a PhD in neuroscience to provide a singular perspective on the science behind Brown and what it has meant for both law and science in the 71 years since then. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy (Pivotal Moments in American History), James T. Patterson (2001)

OA1185 - The rule of law has never been put more to the test in this country, and we do our best to keep up with at least a few of the most important decent developments. We begin with a brief review of the current status of wrongfully-deported Salvadoran asylum seeker Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Why is the Trump administration desperately trying to re-deport this Central American man whom they already fully admit was deported to hell by mistake to… Uganda? Matt explains. Then: Did a federal judge really just shutter Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz”? We consider the history of this surprisingly significant swampland and why an environmental challenge to its existence was so much easier to win than one based in due process, while also celebrating a major win for native rights. Another major presidential first this week: for the first time in US history, the President has claimed the authority to fire a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Could this one decision really have global economic consequences? H

VR5 Part 2 - we continue our analysis of Ghislaine Maxwell's podcast interview on the Todd Blanche Experience. Make sure you caught part 1! Watch the video here! Complete enhanced audio of Ghislaine Maxwell's proffer session with DOJ deputy Todd Blanche on July 24-25, 2025 (Thomas's Version) Maxwell transcripts and source audio from DOJ US v Maxwell indictment

Due to unprecedented corruption not getting enough of a call out, Vapid Response has taken over the Monday slot this week! It's VR5 Part 1. The Trump administration's corruption of the US Department of Justice hit new depths last week when it released audio and transcripts from convicted Jeffrey Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell's so-called “proffer session” with current top DOJ deputy (and former Trump defense attorney) Todd Blanche. OA NYC bureau chief Liz Skeen joins to help us understand just how completely unprecedented everything about this interview and its public release have been, and we discuss why DOJ's flagrantly stupid efforts to minimize the President's well-known close ties with the most notorious sex trafficker in modern US history portends a new level of American authoritarianism. Watch the video here! Complete enhanced audio of Ghislaine Maxwell's proffer session with DOJ deputy Todd Blanche on July 24-25, 2025 (Thomas's Version) Maxwell transcripts and source audio from DOJ US v M

OA1184 - The saying pretty explicitly tells us to don't, and yet here they are not don'ting. This week on Rapid Response Friday: why is a Texas lawmaker filing a habeas petition asking a federal court to release her from the state capitol building? What’s the deal with redistricting, and is Texas’s plan to tip the balance in the U.S. House of Representatives actually legal? Jenessa brings her voting rights expertise to explain why this plan is so bad that state Democratic leaders had to go on the lam on threat of arrest to try to stop it. We then briefly discuss the import of Attorney General Pam Bondi pulling back from her attempt to take over DC’s entire police force before Matt takes on a couple of little-noticed immigration policy memos in which the Trump administration has given itself dangerously broad new powers to determine things like an immigrant’s “good moral character” and “anti-American” activities and associations. Finally in today’s footnote: it’s Columbia-on-Columbia violence as the West Coast

VR4 - It’s a Boston doubleheader for this Vapid Response Wednesday as Thomas, Lydia, and Matt take on two truly awful takes from the pages of Matt’s hometown paper last week within 24 hours of each other. But first: a vintage amuse douche from Tucker Carlson on the evils of the National Guard’s occupation of DC--in January 2021 (and apparently no other time)! Then in today’s main stories: (1) Conservative opinion-haver Heather Mac Donald on why she supports Trump’s absolute right to send American military personnel to occupy American cities just because he wants to. (2) Project 2025 collaborator Hillsdale College dispatches its finest journalistic mind to explain why Donald J. Trump (yes, that Donald J. Trump) is 2025’s best possible candidate for a Nobel Peace Prize (yes, that Nobel Peace Prize). Watch on YouTube! “Trump was right to send the National Guard to Washington,” Heather Mac Donald, Boston Globe (8/13/25) “Breaking down the White House lies about D.C.”, Radley Balko (8/13/25) “Trump deserve

OA1183 - We continue our ongoing look at some of our favorite Warren Court-era Supreme Court cases with this one-line 1958 decision finding as a matter of law that one of the most important LGTBQ magazines in U.S. history was not publishing obscenity. We begin by trying to find anything resembling smut in the archived pages of ONE magazine before Matt explains a bit more about the history of obscenity law in the U.S. and how Roth v U.S. changed everything just before ONE’s cert petition was taken up. Jenessa gets into the proven psychological benefits of being allowed to be who you are in public, and we consider the state of obscenity law today and who still might want to use it. Roth v. United States | 354 U.S. 476 (1957) ONE, Incorporated v. Otto K Oleson: Appellant’s Opening Brief – The Tangent Group One, Incorporated v. Olesen, 241 F. 2d 772 - Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit 1957 - Google Scholar U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on writ of certiorariin On e, Inc. v. Oleson immediately reversing 9th Cir

OA1182 - DC is under full federal occupation. California is putting the Trump administration’s unprecedented deployment of the National Guard to support federal immigration enforcement on trial. And a major challenge to a critical provision of the Voting Rights Act is on the line in front of the Supreme Court. It’s Rapid Response Friday, and we’re here for all of it. Finally, Matt breaks down THE BIG FREEZE--a new collective approach to stopping the rapid coming expansion of ICE which every decent person can do something to be a part of. Nothing is inevitable, and none of us are alone. DC Home Rule Act (President’s emergency authority over Metropolitan Police at p.85) Declaring a Crime Emergency in the District of Columbia – The White House Complaint in Newsom v. Trump (6/9/25) “THE AMERICAN GESTAPO IS HERE (and there is only one way that we can stop them now),” Matt Cameron, DEPORTNATION (8/15/25) Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

VR3 - It ’s Thomas, Lydia, and Matt versus the entire National Review editorial board! Join us as we take on the conservative magazine’s recent op-ed on why it is extremely rude to compare masked American federal agents of today who refuse to identify themselves as they grab innocent families off of the street and shove them into unmarked vans bound for concentration camps to masked Nazi German agents of 1933-1945 who refused to identify themselves as they grabbed innocent families off the street and shoved them into vans bound for concentration camps. Matt explains with historical examples why ICE is not NOT the Gestapo as we consider what we can learn from Nazi history. We celebrate the recent return of Maryland father Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the US after his illegal deportation to El Salvador with a take so bad that it is hard to believe that the whole thing wasn’t actually published in The Onion. What was the audience for this willfully obtuse Newsweek op-ed praising the DOJ for finding a way to bring Abr

OA1181 - In this episode recorded almost exactly six months into the Trump administration, we check in on the progress of the Heritage Foundation’s infamous playbook to remake every part of the federal government in the second Trump administration. What is Project 2025, and who was behind it? How many of its goals have already been accomplished, how many are in progress, and what’s left?   Mandate For Leadership: The Conservative Promise, The Heritage Foundation (2023)  Project 2025 Tracker Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

OA1180 - We begin with some much-needed reminders that good things are still happening and the rule of law is still (mostly) holding on before turning to a recent Trump executive order on homelessness which reads like something out of a (not very good) Batman movie. Jenessa explains how this development fits into the history of long-term institutionalization of vulnerable and unhoused people in the US as we work through what this thing is actually trying to do. In an unfortunately not-at-all-unrelated story, Matt then breaks down the situation with Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” (aka “Gator Gitmo”), the pending challenges to this completely new (and totally illegal) approach to state-based immigration detention, and where this is all going. Finally, in today’s footnote: has ChatGPT finally made its first hallucinatory appearance in a judicial opinion? We investigate not just one but two recent instances of federal judges who have now joined the many lawyers caught using AI to do their homework. “Ending Crim

VR2 - Vapid Response Wednesday returns live on video for another round of bad-faith legal takes from the American right’s leading--well, let’s just go with “minds.” We begin with a quick check-in on the divided state of the U.S. “sovereign citizen” movement via a short explainer video in which one of its leading grifters denounces a whole new set of grifters who are promoting the concept of an “American State National.” We then plumb new depths of dumbassery from Harvard Law school professor/crypto-theocrat Adrian Vermeule. In a recent New York Times op-ed, Vermeule has called out the true villains of the American judiciary: lower court judges who aren’t doing exactly what Adrian Vermeule imagines the Supreme Court has told them to do. Matt breaks down why this column doesn’t provide a single example of the trend it purports to be exposing, and Lydia has the details on one of MAGA’s favorite legal scholars. Who is Adrian Vermeule, what is “Catholic integralism,” and why is a man who has previously gone to so

OA1179 - Dr. Timothy Leary is best remembered today as the Harvard psychologist who told America to “turn on, tune in, and drop out” with psychedelics in the 1960s. But did you know that “the High Priest of LSD” was also one of the most famous people ever to bring a criminal case to the U.S.. Supreme Court?  Jenessa shares her scientific perspective on Leary’s “research,”  and Matt explains how a minor California marijuana possession charge led to Leary’s unbelievable life on the run as an international fugitive across four continents and his eventual association with not just one but three of the era’s most notorious radical groups. We then review Dr. Leary’s conviction under the Marihuana [sic] Tax Act of 1937 and how Leary v. U.S. changed everything about drug enforcement. (Also discussed: the unexpected origin of the Beatles song “Come Together,” the benefits of podcasting on acid, and what psychedelic research and regulation might have looked like in an alternate Leary-free timeline.) Leary v. US, 395

OA1178 - Our conversation with former San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin continues with a closer look at the accomplishments of his term, what progressive prosecutors can realistically expect to be able to do within the constraints of the current system--and why they are the last people who should expected to do it--and what was really behind the 2022 recall campaign which removed him from office.  Chesa Boudin’s faculty page at UC Berkeley Law Chesa Boudin’s academic publications, SSRN Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

VR1 - Welcome to Vapid Response Wednesday! Rather than explaining law in the news as we have for years on Rapid Response Friday, Thomas, Lydia, and Matt are going on the offensive in this live video series to respond and react to the stupidest takes that we can find--and we’ve got just the guy for our first pick! We begin with former Jeffrey Epstein defense attorney Alan Dershowitz’s recent piece in the Wall Street Journal in which he literally claims that “there is nothing more to see here” on the Epstein case while filling in the facts of what we know from reliable reporting and court records. What is Dersh not telling us here about his own involvement with Epstein, the unbelievably corrupt federal non-prosecution agreement which he secured for his client in 2007, and all of the other many reasons that he might not be a trustworthy source on this question? We then take on one of Matt’s all-time favorites: a well-known 1996 video presentation from far-right immigration restrictionist organization NumbersUSA