When Christian conservatives lost in Masterpiece Cake Shop back in 2018, they regrouped and picked up the trail of breadcrumbs from Justice Clarence Thomas’ dissent that suggested a freedom of speech approach. Next week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in 303 Creative v Elenis - another case that takes aim at Colorado’s anti discrimination laws. This time, arguments about whether a website designer has the right to advertise that she will not design websites for same-sex weddings, will be ...
Dec 03, 2022•58 min
When the New York Times built on previous reporting in Politico and Rolling Stone about an evangelical christian ministry that sought to sell access to and influence Supreme Court Justices with fancy dinners and donations, the Hobby Lobby leak dominated the headlines. But there is so much more to this story. To discuss how the headlines fit into a larger narrative of dark money and a captured court, Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. Senator Whitehouse is Ch...
Nov 23, 2022•33 min
“A Kitchen Sink Approach to Constitutional Claims” On this week’s Amicus, - the case that threatens the Indian Child Welfare Act, but also threatens domino effects on tribal sovereignty and land rights. Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Rebecca Nagle, a Cherokee writer, advocate & language learner. Nagle is host of This Land podcast. Season 2 of the podcast was a deep and broad investigation into the background of the case at hand. Maggie Blackhawk also lends her expertise to the discussion, Prof...
Nov 19, 2022•1 hr 4 min
Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Professor Cara McClellan, former counsel at NAACP LDF, and founding Director of the Advocacy for Racial and Civil Justice Clinic, at University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. Professor McClellan takes us through an extensive trial record largely ignored in oral arguments at SCOTUS this past week. Then, Dahlia is joined by David Rothkopf whose book, American Resistance: The inside story of how the deep state saved the nation, details the folks who stuck around and ...
Nov 05, 2022•1 hr 11 min
Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Judge Michael Luttig for the definitive conversation on a giant elections case now on the calendar at the Supreme Court. Moore v Harper is a North Carolina redistricting case that is also a vehicle for the Independent State Legislature Theory - a so-called doctrine that could radically re-order democracy in America. Judge Luttig - a stalwart of conservative legal circles for decades - will argue the case as co-counsel alongside former Acting Solicitor General under O...
Oct 22, 2022•57 min
Dahlia Lithwick is on the road with Amicus and Lady Justice. In this bonus episode, she’s joined by Loyola Law Professor, legal commentator and columnist Jessica Levinson for a conversation about what we can learn from the women lawyers who held the line during the Trump years, and how to respond to the steady drum beat of “Lock Her Up” threatening women around America today. The conversation is available in full for Slate Plus members. Dahlia’s new book Lady Justice: Women, the Law and the Batt...
Oct 18, 2022•11 min
Dahlia Lithwick is joined by two key players from this week’s consequential voting rights cases at the US Supreme Court. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund’s senior counsel Deuel Ross argued part of Merrill v Milligan at the High Court on Tuesday, and Evan Milligan of Alabama Forward is the named plaintiff in one of a pair of cases that argued that Alabama’s congressional maps are racially gerrymandered in violation of Section II of the Voting Rights Act. They take listeners inside the...
Oct 08, 2022•1 hr 6 min
Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern and Jay Willis of Balls and Strikes for a preview of the big cases headed our way this Supreme Court term. They tackle cases concerning voting rights, indigenous rights, environmental protection and affirmative action, before turning their attention to the tricky business of covering a court that is radically changed and how the traditionally deferential Supreme Court press corps needs to update its methods and reporting in response. Dahlia’...
Oct 01, 2022•1 hr 3 min
Dahlia Lithwick’s new book Lady Justice: Women, the Law and the Battle to Save America, tells the story of the women lawyers who stood up to Trump and stood up for those unseen and unrepresented by a brutal presidency, and the stories of the women who will fight on in the wake of life-altering decisions from a radicalized Supreme Court. Lady Justice is also available as an audiobook, and Amicus listeners can get a 25% discount by entering the code “AMICUS” at checkout. https://books.supportingca...
Sep 26, 2022•11 min
Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Mark Joseph Stern for a romp through the jurisprudential headlines. It’s been a week. Highlights include: Donald Trump’s legal woes in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents investigation, and at the hands of New York Attorney General Letitia James’ civil suit. Then, we’re live at Politics and Prose in Washington DC, with a conversation between Dahlia Lithwick and Professor Michele Goodwin about women, the law and the rule of law. They discuss Dahlia’s new book Lady Jus...
Sep 24, 2022•1 hr 1 min
Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Roberta Kaplan, who along with co-counsel Karen Dunn brought a successful civil suit against twenty-four neo-Nazi and white supremacist leaders responsible for organizing the racial- and religious-based violence in Charlottesville in August 2017. They discuss how the KKK Act of 1871 applied to discord channels and now January 6th defendants. And they explore the complicated relationship women find themselves in with the law in this moment, as defenders of rights but ...
Sep 17, 2022•46 min
Dahlia is joined by Mary Trump and Norm Ornstein to discuss how a single Trump-appointed judge’s attempt to stick a fork in the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into potential mishandling of classified materials is part of a systemic story about American justice. And they discuss the kinds of reform needed to protect democracy and repair the judiciary. And how to handle our collective trauma so we can get it all done. In this week’s Amicus Plus segment, Dahlia is joined by Mark Joseph...
Sep 10, 2022•48 min
Law Professor and former journalist Amy Gajda joins Dahlia Lithwick to discuss her latest book, Seek and Hide: The Tangled History of the Right to Privacy. They chart a course through early conceptions of privacy to today’s fraught battles over privacy and dignity in the age of surveillance capitalism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Aug 27, 2022•53 min
The quality of dignity is not strained. Judge Victoria Pratt presided for years over Municipal Court in Newark, New Jersey. Her experiences form the foundation of her book, The Power of Dignity: How Transforming Justice Can Heal Our Communities. In the third of Amicus’ summer season of big-picture conversations, Dahlia Lithwick and Judge Pratt explore what everyone, up to and including Supreme Court Justices, can learn from procedural justice, also known as procedural fairness. You can watch Jud...
Aug 13, 2022•1 hr 1 min
In the second of Amicus’ Summer Series of interviews that step out of the day to day of jurisprudence to look at justice and the Supreme Court through a wide-angle lens, Dahlia Lithwick is joined by actor and playwright Heidi Schreck. Schreck created and starred in the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award - nominated “What the Constitution Means to Me” and is a fierce advocate for abortion rights. Together, they try to locate the spot at the intersection of politics, law, culture, media and art that mi...
Jul 30, 2022•58 min
Dahlia Lithwick is joined by former Attorney General Eric Holder as Amicus begins its summer season while the Supreme Court is in recess. General Holder describes his feelings when, as President Barack Obama’s Attorney General, he realized he could not in good conscience take part in the long-held tradition of the AG arguing an “easy case” before the Supreme Court. The issue? That same court had just eviscerated the Voting Rights Act in a case that will forever bear his name: Shelby County v Hol...
Jul 16, 2022•50 min
Dahlia Lithwick hosts Amicus’ annual term-ending breakfast table conversation, featuring Slate’s own Mark Joseph Stern, Professor Katherine Franke and Professor Nikolas Bowie. They dig into the biggest decisions of the term, and step back to survey where the court is headed, and where it’s already been. Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jul 09, 2022•1 hr 8 min
The term is over, and the ground upon which all Americans stood, has fundamentally shifted. Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Professor Dorothy Roberts to discuss the reality of forced birth and family separation upon marginalized peoples in America. Dorothy is the author of Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families--and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World, and of Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty. Then, Dahlia talks to Amy Westervelt of D...
Jul 02, 2022•1 hr 20 min
Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern on Kennedy v Bremerton School District: a referendum on the status of truth at the high court, and another nail in the coffin of the establishment clause. Slate Plus members have access to the whole interview. 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
Jun 28, 2022•7 min
Well it happened, Roe v Wade has been swept away and Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, and the author of “Dollars for Life: The Anti-Abortion Movement and the Fall of the Republican Establishment.” And then we turn to the other blockbuster decision this week, in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v Bruen. Dahlia talks to the Duke Center for Firearms Law, Joseph Blocher. In this week’s Amicus Plus segment, Dahlia and Slate’...
Jun 25, 2022•1 hr 1 min
Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern react to the Supreme Court’s decision in Carson v Makin, a blockbuster religious liberty case that sees the court traveling a long way in a short time, and trampling the establishment clause along the way, Slate Plus members have access to the whole interview. 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
Jun 23, 2022•4 min
Dahlia Lithwick is joined by CNN legal analyst Joan Biskupic and election law Professor Richard Hasen for what could be called “Amicus: Wheels Coming Off Edition”. We’re still waiting for a bevy of blockbuster decisions, and despite Chief Justice John Roberts’ solemn wish to steady the ship, events at the January 6th select committee seem destined to scupper it. Joan, Rick and Dahlia talk about what’s to come in the most unusual last two weeks of June at the court that any of them can remember. ...
Jun 18, 2022•54 min
Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Ryan Goodman, professor of Law at NYU and co-editor-in-chief of Just Security. While we wait for the High Court to release opinions in a heaving pile of cases, the main constitutional action of the week was in Congress. Ryan Goodman has been piecing together the events of January 6th, and what led to it, for the past year and a half with colleagues at Just Security and Protect Democracy. Goodman leads Dahlia through what we heard from the January 6th select committee...
Jun 11, 2022•59 min
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...
Jun 04, 2022•57 min
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 t...
May 28, 2022•30 min
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 campa...
May 21, 2022•49 min
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, ...
May 05, 2022•54 min
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
May 04, 2022•5 min
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 “sanit...
Apr 23, 2022•40 min
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...
Apr 09, 2022•1 hr 19 min
