Dahlia Lithwick wants to know what’s next in the impeachment process, so she asks Professor Michael Gerhardt, an expert on constitutional law and the relationship between congress and the president. Then, former Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano takes us through the details of the DACA arguments at the SCOTUS. Napolitano rolled out DACA under President Obama and is now suing the federal government for rescinding it on behalf of thousands of students at the Univers...
Nov 23, 2019•1 hr 10 min•Transcript available on Metacast Recorded at the Miami Book Fair, in partnership with the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press. Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Laura Moscoso from the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo in Puerto Rico; Norah Gamez-Torres, who covers Cuba for the Nuevo Herald and the MIami Herald; and Emily Michot from the Miami Herald, who worked with Julie K. Brown to break the Jeffrey Epstein story. This fascinating discussion serves as a timely reminder of the centrality of journalism to the health of...
Nov 16, 2019•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast Dahlia Lithwick calls former prosecutor Mimi Rocah for an answer to a question Amicus listeners often ask. She then asks Sen.Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, if all hope is lost for the federal judiciary. Finally, she revisits emoluments with Deepak Gupta and pulls on threads that extend right into the impeachment investigation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nov 09, 2019•1 hr 12 min•Transcript available on Metacast Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, to talk about the role of intelligence and counterintelligence in the Mueller probe, the impeachment inquiry, and the damage deep state fever dreams could do to law enforcement and oversight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 29, 2019•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Stuart Gerson of the conservative legal group Checks and Balances to talk about developments in the border-wall case he helped bring in El Paso, Texas; the view of impeachment from concerned conservatives; and the latest escalation in the Department of Justice’s investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation. Then Cyrus Habib, lieutenant governor of Washington state (and owner of the most impressive résumé of any guest ever on the show) shares a refreshin...
Oct 26, 2019•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast Dahlia Lithwick is joined by all-star SCOTUS experts to walk us through this week’s biggest legal and constitutional developments. First, Laurence Tribe answers the questions Amicus listeners have been asking about the next steps in the impeachment process. Next, Pamela Karlan takes us inside the chamber for Tuesday’s oral arguments in a trio of Title VII cases at the high court. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 12, 2019•1 hr 10 min•Transcript available on Metacast Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Dean Erwin Chemerinsky of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, who explains the biggest cases facing the Supreme Court this term. Then Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, explains why the justices have decided to take up June Medical Services v Gee, the first big abortion case of the Kavanaugh era. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 05, 2019•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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
Sep 28, 2019•1 hr 23 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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
Sep 14, 2019•1 hr 9 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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
Aug 31, 2019•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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
Aug 17, 2019•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Aug 03, 2019•1 hr 7 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jul 20, 2019•1 hr 2 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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
Jul 06, 2019•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast 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
Jun 29, 2019•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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
Jun 28, 2019•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 jus...
Jun 22, 2019•1 hr 7 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 abort...
Jun 08, 2019•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
May 25, 2019•1 hr 9 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
May 11, 2019•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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
Apr 27, 2019•1 hr 14 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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
Apr 18, 2019•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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
Apr 13, 2019•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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
Mar 30, 2019•1 hr 10 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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
Mar 16, 2019•1 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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
Mar 02, 2019•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 Sar...
Feb 16, 2019•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast Predictive policing technology is spreading across the country, and Los Angeles is the epicenter. A small group of LA activists are in a lopsided campaign against billions of dollars in city, federal, and Silicon Valley money using algorithms to predict where and when the next crime is going to occur, and even who the perpetrators are going to be. Today, AMICUS is here to introduce you to Hi-Phi Nation, a new podcast from Slate. In this episode, host Barry Lam embeds with the Stop LAPD Spying co...
Feb 09, 2019•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Sharon McGowan, legal director of Lambda Legal, to discuss how they’re fighting the trans ban following SCOTUS decision to lift the injunctions on the policy going into action. Also, Dahlia gets the latest on the Mueller investigation from Joyce White Vance, former US attorney in the Northern District of Alabama, including why Mueller didn’t charge Roger Stone with conspiracy. Please let us know what you think of Amicus. Join the discussion of this episode on Faceboo...
Feb 02, 2019•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast UPDATE: On the evening Friday January 18th, after production of this episode of Amicus had wrapped, special counsel spokesman Peter Carr issued the following statement: "BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate.” Ben Smith, editor-in-chief of Buzzfeed News says the publication stands by its reporting. Dahlia Lithwick is ...
Jan 19, 2019•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
