On this episode: the story of Pullman abstention, the first of several abstention doctrines the Supreme Court invented to let federal judges decline to decide cases that they have jurisdiction to decide. Click here for transcript. Railroad Commission of Texas v. Pullman Co....
Next week, the Supreme Court is going to hear a huge civil rights case that no one is talking about—because the legal issue before the Court is the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, an obscure and slightly treasonous doctrine that lets federal judges throw worthy cases out of court without reaching the merits. On this episode, we examine the doctrine’s impact as well as its origins, including the life and times of the litigants for whom it is named, William Rooker and Marc Feldman. Rooker was a big shot ...
Next week, the Supreme Court is going to hear a huge civil rights case that no one is talking about—because the legal issue before the Court is the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, an obscure and slightly treasonous doctrine that lets federal judges throw worthy cases out of court without reaching the merits. On this episode, we examine the doctrine’s impact as well as its origins, including the life and times of the litigants for whom it is named, William Rooker and Marc Feldman. Rooker was a big shot ...
This episode delves into the profound challenges faced by Native American tribes in establishing economic prosperity due to restrictive federal policies and Supreme Court rulings. It examines how concepts like "plenary power" and issues like fractional land ownership, state taxation, and limited tribal jurisdiction create immense "white tape," hindering business and self-governance. The discussion also highlights historic mismanagement of trust assets, such as the Cobell litigation, while contrasting these challenges with sophisticated indigenous property rights systems and robust trade networks that existed prior to European contact, ultimately advocating for greater tribal autonomy.
The Fifth Amendment says that the government must pay just compensation when it takes private property for public use, a command that, regrettably, is often treated as a mere suggestion. On this episode, we take a look at a variety of gambits and flim-flammeries that let the government take property without paying for it. Click here for episode transcript. Agins v. Tiburon First English v. County of Los Angeles...
In 1973, federal narcotics agents raided a pair of homes in Collinsville, Illinois by mistake. They didn’t find any drugs, but they did terrorize two innocent families. The incident sparked nationwide outrage, and in response Congress passed legislation crafting a legal remedy for victims of federal law enforcement abuses. Over the years, however, lower courts have chipped away at the law to the point where it has essentially been repealed: Last year, a federal appeals court rejected claims from...
Government officials must obtain a warrant before forcibly entering a home (absent consent or an emergency). That rule goes back to the Founding. But in a series of cases, culminating in Camara v. San Francisco in 1967, the Supreme Court announced an ahistorical exception, holding that the Fourth Amendment is less protective when it is a health inspector, rather than a police officer, knocking at the door. On this episode, we hear from Marshall Krause, who argued Camara on behalf of the ACLU of ...
In 2020, a police SWAT team blew up Vicki Baker’s house after a fugitive barricaded himself inside. On this episode, we ask: who pays the tab when the government damages or destroys private property for the public good — the unlucky owner or the public as a whole? Click here for episode transcript. Pumpelly v. Green Bay & Mississippi Canal Company Armstrong v. United States...
Civil forfeiture is a civil rights nightmare, allowing police and prosecutors to seize billions of dollars’ worth of property annually—cash, cars, houses, bank accounts, and more—without charging anyone with a crime, let alone obtaining a conviction. On this episode, we trace the rise of the modern forfeiture regime in the 1970s and 80s, and we look at forfeiture’s historic roots. Click here for episode transcript. Miller v. United States The Palmyra Bennis v. Michigan...
In 2005, in the case of Kelo v. New London , the Supreme Court allowed officials to seize and raze an entire neighborhood of well-maintained homes and businesses in the hopes that someone else could build fancier homes and businesses. According to the dissenters, the majority’s opinion effectively deleted the provision of the U.S. Constitution requiring that takings be for a “public use.” On this episode, we ask: what, if anything, is left of the prohibition on using eminent domain to take prope...
On this episode: Berman v. Parker , the Supreme Court’s decision in 1954 to abandon previous constitutional limits on the government’s power to take property from Person A to give it to Person B. The decision greenlit the era of urban renewal, which saw over a thousand cities across the country seize and bulldoze entire neighborhoods en masse. Click here for episode transcript. Berman v. Parker Schneider v. D.C....
On this episode, we take a break from case law and go way back to the beginning to examine the origins and justifications of private property. Click here for episode transcript. Tyler v. Hennepin County
On this episode we return to the subject of zoning. With the doors to federal courthouses barred shut, advocates for reforming zoning have turned to state courts and state constitutions. Most famously, in 1975, the New Jersey Supreme Court took a look at a zoning ordinance that made it illegal to build low- and moderate-income housing in the township of Mount Laurel and said in no uncertain terms: enough . But the story of the Mount Laurel doctrine, which calls for municipalities to do their fai...
In 1926, in the case of Euclid v. Ambler , the Supreme Court upheld zoning, giving elected officials and city planners vast, new, and largely unchecked power to tell people what they can and cannot do with their own private property. On this episode: the story of the lawsuit that changed everything for American property rights plus the personalities who made it happen. Click here for episode transcript. Euclid v. Ambler (Supreme Court opinion) Ambler v. Euclid (district court opinion) Nectow v. ...
On Episode 3, we journey back to a lost world: the world before zoning. And we take a look at a trio of historic property rights cases. In In re Lee Sing , San Francisco officials tried to wipe Chinatown off the map. In Buchanan v. Warley , Louisville, Ky. officials mapped out where in the city residents were allowed to live based on their race. And in Hadacheck v. Sebastian , a Los Angeles city councilman sought to use the police power to protect his real estate investments. Click here for tran...
In 1922, Scranton, Pennsylvania was said to be on the verge of collapsing into the vast coal mines beneath the city; residents, buildings, and streets alike were being swallowed up by “suddenly yawning chasms.” State legislators responded by unanimously passing a law meant to save the region, where about a million people lived, from total desolation. But when the law reached the Supreme Court, the justices struck it down, ruling that it would be an unconstitutional “regulatory taking” to force c...
In 1984, the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourth Amendment’s protections against warrantless searches do not apply to “open fields.” Which means that government agents can jump over fences, ignore No Trespassing signs, and roam private land at will. There are no limits. On this episode, we talk to Richard and Linda Thornton, whose property in rural Maine was at the center of the case. And we ask: Can the Founders really have thought the Constitution did not protect private woods, fields, farms, ...
Season 3 of Bound By Oath is coming soon! Click here for transcript.
With the doors to federal court closing on civil rights claims, this final episode of Season 2 heads to new terrain: state court. Click here for transcript. Click here for Episode 1.
In 1983, in the case of Briscoe v. LaHue , the Supreme Court ruled that government employees who commit perjury at trial are absolutely immune from civil liability. On Part 2 of Episode 10, we dig into the Court’s reasoning and the backstory behind Briscoe . We also discuss a special category of officials whom the Supreme Court has said are not entitled to absolute immunity, but to whom lower courts have granted immunity anyway. Click here for transcript. Click here for Episode 1. Click for Appl...
In 2005, Charles Rehberg annoyed some politically powerful people in his community of Albany, Georgia, and found himself facing serious criminal charges—charges that were completely made up by a rogue prosecutor and could only be sustained because an investigator committed perjury. In Episode 10, we explore the case of Rehberg v. Paulk , which reached the Supreme Court in 2012. On Part 1 of Episode 10: the doctrine of absolute prosecutorial immunity, where it came from, and why the Supreme Court...
On this episode, we take stock of developments in the courts and in Congress since this season began. There’s an update on the first case we talked about this season, Brownback v. King . We talk about exciting new cases that the Supreme Court is being asked to take up. Plus, some recent decisions in the lower courts that mean that federal officials are functionally—if not by name—entitled to absolute immunity from constitutional claims in D.C., Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Minnesota,...
Section 1983 says that “every person” acting under color of state law shall be liable for violating the Constitution. But in 1951, the Supreme Court began to rule that some officials weren’t “persons” within the meaning of Section 1983 and that those officials thus enjoy absolute immunity—no matter how malicious, corrupt, or unconstitutional their conduct may be. On Episode 8, we examine absolute immunity for legislators and judges. Click here for transcript. Click here for Episode 1. Available ...
In 1978, the Supreme Court held that individuals can sue local governments for constitutional violations in federal court. Indeed, the Court held that Congress had always intended for such suits to be available — ever since it passed the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. However, the standard that the Court says plaintiffs must meet to get their municipal liability claims before a jury is exceedingly high, and getting higher. On Part 2 of our episode on municipal liability under Section 1983, we find ou...
In 2012, Little Rock police officer Josh Hastings shot and killed 15-year-old Bobby Moore and lied about how it happened. Hastings had a long history of untruthfulness and so did many of the officers who trained him and supervised him. And the Little Rock Police Department had a history of turning a blind eye to excessive force by its officers. So when Bobby’s mother sued over his death, she didn’t just sue Josh Hastings. She also sued the City of Little Rock. But could she? On this episode, the...
In 1967, the Supreme Court invented qualified immunity. And in 1982, the Court transformed the doctrine into the one we have today. On this episode, we trace the development of the doctrine, and push back against the idea that immunities for executive branch officials, like the police, are deeply rooted in this country’s legal tradition. Click here for transcript. Available on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Google Podcasts , TuneIn , and Stitcher ....
In Chicago in 1958, over a dozen police officers barged into the home of a sleeping family with guns drawn. They didn’t have a warrant, and it turned out they didn’t have the right man. When the family’s civil rights claim reached the Supreme Court, it resulted in the landmark case of of Monroe v. Pape , which finally — 90 years after Congress authorized such suits — opened the doors of federal courthouses to victims of unconstitutional misconduct by state and local officials. On this episode, w...
Section 1983 is one of the most important civil rights laws on the books; tens of thousands of plaintiffs file Section 1983 cases each year seeking to hold state and local officials to account for unconstitutional conduct ranging from excessive force and false arrest, to violations of free speech rights and much else. But where does the law come from? In this episode, we explore the origins of Section 1983, or, as it was originally called, Section One of the Ku Klux Klan Act 1871. Click here for...
By any measure, the conditions that Lee Saunders endured in the psych unit at the Brevard County jail in Florida were shockingly inhumane. But when he sued over the overcrowding, abusive treatment, and denial of basic sanitation, the courts ruled that the officer in charge was immune from suit. On this episode, we explore the state of qualified immunity doctrine today and whether the Supreme Court’s justifications for its policy of shielding officials from suit—even when they have violated the C...
For victims of government misconduct, whether you can sue the officials who violated your constitutional rights often depends on whether the officials are federal, state, or local government employees. On Episode 2, we look at federal officials. We’ll head out to Wyoming where a rancher subjected to a 12-year campaign of harassment found out the hard way that all too often the Constitution simply isn’t enforceable against federal officials. Click here for transcript. Click for Apple Podcasts , S...
