Short Circuit

Constitutional rights protect everyone, even people we might not be terribly fond of. This week we discuss two defendants who perhaps don’t deserve a lot of sympathy but nevertheless had their rights vindicated in a way that protects those rights more broadly. First, an IJ alumna, Anna Goodman Lucardi, rejoins Short Circuit to update us on goings on in the Fifth Circuit where the court applied last year’s SCOTUS case about jury trial rights, SEC v. Jarkesy, to a similar situation involving the FCC and fines. The court found that the FCC’s system violated both the Seventh Amendment and Article III of the Constitution. This even though the well-known defendant, AT&T, is a “common carrier.” Then Jessica Bigbie of IJ reports on a Tenth Circuit matter where a warrant led to police finding some not-legal images on someone’s phone. But the warrant itself had some not-constitutional language under the Fourth Amendment. Language allowing the authorities to basically search everything for anything. Jessica applies her