Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts

Stacey Abrams, Ilyse Hogue, and Daphna Renan join Dahlia Lithwick in conversation for a live By The People finale.This is part five of our series on popular constitutionalism, the idea that the Constitution belongs to the people—and not just to nine justices. Our listeners showed up with stories: a 62-year-old heading to law school, an 8th-grade teacher emailing her senators, an artist drawing the court, and a woman literally knitting the Constitution. They also came with questions for our guests: What about court expansion? What about term limits? Is it just too late? Abrams argues we're not cooked, but “things are just really hot.” Renan walks us through the tools Congress has used throughout U.S. history to rein in judicial supremacy. And, Hogue shares the story she’s hearing at town halls across the country: Americans of all stripes still believe in the Constitution's promise—they just don't know how to claim it. Later: Our panelists offer clear and concrete steps for reclaiming the constitution. Stacey Abrams’ 10 Steps Campaign can be found here: https://10stepscampaign.org/Read about Ilyse Hogue’s work on her Substack: https://theallamerican.substack.com/Check out Daphna Renan and Niko Bowie’s new book, Supremacy: How Rule by the Court Replaced Government by the PeopleWant more Amicus? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes with exclusive legal analysis. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.

On Monday, the Justice Department raided a sitting congresswoman's D.C. home to build a denaturalization case. Andrew Weissmann joins Dahlia Lithwick to explain the new depths being plumbed by Trump’s DOJ. ICE executed an early morning search of Rep. Ilhan Omar's D.C. home—apparently targeting immigration statements made when she was 12 years old, by a father who is now deceased—all in service of a reported plan to strip her of her citizenship and deport her. Weissmann, lead prosecutor in Robert S. Mueller’s Special Counsel’s Office from 2017 to 2019 and chief of the Fraud Section in the Department of Justice from 2015 to 2019, walks Dahlia through what is shaping up to be another case of selective and vindictive prosecution, why it violates the department's own 60-day election rule, and what it signals when post-Watergate guardrails established to prevent exactly these kinds of abuses have been dismantled.Weissmann and Lithwick also discuss the administration's lawsuit against California over mail-in ballots—a case in which the evidence, like every prior non-citizen voting claim, collapses under scrutiny but serves its purpose before the courts can intervene. Plus: Trump’s ballroom grift, and why the only thing standing between another mid-term presidential pardon spree and total impunity for all the president’s men might be state criminal law.Andrew Weissmann is a professor of practice at NYU School of Law, legal analyst for MSNOW, and author of Liar's Kingdom: How to Stop Trump's Deceit and Save America.Want more Amicus? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes with exclusive legal analysis. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.

Donald Trump brags about his boundless freedom while the same Supreme Court that handed him that power has curtailed everyone else's. Confidence in the court has cratered to historic lows, and waiting for a justice to retire is not actually a plan. Could a “shadow court”––a body set up to critique and even to rival SCOTUS—rescue democracy?In her new book, The Shadow Court: Rescuing Democracy from the Supreme Court, Fordham law professor Julie Suk argues that the court isn't just making some bad decisions—it's working exactly as designed. Drawing on constitutional courts in democracies around the world that rebuilt the rule of law after falling to fascism and authoritarianism, Suk outlines a bold institutional answer: a shadow court that would issue advisory opinions on the same issues the Supreme Court decides, giving lawmakers and the public a concrete alternative to judicial supremacy.Dahlia and Julie also discuss how America’s legal and constitutional systems continue to fail women (also by design), from the stalled Equal Rights Amendment to Justice Alito's claim that women's reliance on Roe was merely "abstract"—and why the path to real change might run through state ratifying conventions, rather than state and federal institutions that have failed to reform themselves.Want more Amicus? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes with exclusive legal analysis. If you’ve been peering longingly through the steamed-up windows of the Amicus Plus smokeless cigar bar—your finger hovering over that “subscribe to Slate Plus” button—now is the time to join. For a limited time (like, until Oct. 16), you can join Slate Plus for 50 percent off and get bonus episodes of Amicus. You’ll also enjoy ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts and unlimited reading on Slate.com. Visit slate.com/amicusplus and use the promo code AMICUS50 to receive the discount AND get access wherever you listen. Support what we do and help us absolutely crush it during Slate’s 30th anniversary pledge drive!

This week, the Supreme Court blessed the torture of a condemned woman, and the court is set to kick off the new term by doing fossil fuel's bidding. So here at Amicus, we’re not really in the mood for a razzle-dazzle “curtain raiser.” Instead, we’re taking a clear-eyed look at the ways the Roberts court is pulling the constitutional rug out from under the American people. First, Dahlia is joined by Corinna Barrett Lain, author of Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection, to discuss the botched execution of Christa Pike. After the Supreme Court overturned a last-minute stay without explanation, Tennessee attempted to execute Pike by lethal injection—twice. She survived and was taken to hospital where doctors tried to save her life. She was unconscious and on a ventilator at the time of writing. Professor Lain explains how lethal injection's medicalized facade hides state violence, why the court keeps green-lighting botched protocols, and what Pike's case reveals about a system that executes the broken and the poor while sparing those who can afford good lawyers.Then, Dahlia speaks with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island about the Supreme Court's new term and its fossil-fuel patrons. They discuss the Suncor v. Boulder climate case, the flotilla of billionaire-funded front groups filing amicus briefs to signal the court's captured justices. Should we be optimistic that Alito has recused himself from the case that opens the term? Sen. Whitehouse says it is unlikely that decision reflects any sort of come-to-Jesus moment. It suggests instead that, if the Democrats take power in the midterms, the Supreme Court’s internal practices must be investigated. Although his peers are longing to return to regular, orderly government, the senator says “there has to be a reset.” Want more Amicus? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes with exclusive legal analysis. If you’ve been peering through the steamed up windows of the Amicus Plus smokeless cigar bar longingly, hovering over that “subscribe to Slate Plus” button. Now is the time to join. For a limited time (like, until October 16th), you can join Slate Plus for 50 percent off and get bonus episodes of Amicus, like this one. You’ll also enjoy ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts and unlimited reading on Slate.com. Visit slate.com/amicusplus and use the promo code AMICUS50 to receive the discount AND get access wherever you listen. Support what we do and help us absolutely crush it during Slate’s 30th anniversary pledge drive!

President Trump announced on Truth Social that he was banning CNN, Politico, and MSNow from the White House because he didn't like their coverage. Within days, a federal judge ordered the outlets be reinstated—but the White House dragged its feet. Hours later, reporters were still locked out and a state dinner with President Xi of China went ahead without them. Jameel Jaffer of the Knight First Amendment Institute joins Dahlia Lithwick to explain the First Amendment and due-process arguments at the heart of the case, why the administration's national security justification fell apart in court, and what it means when a president seems indifferent to judicial orders. Together, they trace the broader pattern of press intimidation, including this administration's recent bans on the Associated Press and on Pentagon reporters. And, they discuss something new: news organizations standing together in solidarity for the first time, and why Jaffer thinks we're already living in an authoritarian moment—whether we've noticed or not.Want more Amicus? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes with exclusive legal analysis. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.

You’ve seen the headlines about the lists, the claims, the THREE times this same executive order about voting by mail has gone to the Supreme Court. But is Trump’s interference with  mail-in voting settled—at least with respect to the midterms? Our go-to election law expert, Richard Hasen of UCLA School of Law, joins Dahlia to unpack what just happened and how this postal chaos alters voters’ sense of election security. We’re calling this discussion “information” and not “catastrophizing.” Hasen has this advice for listeners: get out there and vote in-person. Next, Sam Sankar of the environmental-law organization Earthjustice explains why SCOTUS’ longstanding skepticism towards the environment does not make him as pessimistic as one might expect. He also takes us behind the scenes in two environmental cases that will kick off the Supreme Court term in a few weeks, including an appeal over whether the Air Force may continue to blow stuff up over an historic beach in Guam.Want more Amicus? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes with exclusive legal analysis. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.

Capitulation under Trump 2.0 has been devastating to the rule of law. To review a couple of lowlights: One of the nation’s leading lawyers, Brad Karp, cut a deal with Donald Trump in the first days of the bully-in-chief’s second administration that turned out to constitute five flabby bullet points on an unsigned piece of paper. Chief Justice John Roberts is pretending the president is a generic Republican. Dahlia Lithwick talks to Jacob Weisberg about his new book, Profiles in Cowardice, which examines the flawed individuals leading institutions that were meant to hold the line in Trump's second term but instead gave up almost instantly. They unpack the law firm Paul, Weiss' capitulation in an "agreement" with Trump that protects nobody, Chief Justice John Roberts' fatal bet that the Supreme Court can preserve its prestige while the Justice Department defies federal judges, and Senate enthusiast Mitch McConnell's self-defeating legacy of remaking a judiciary that empowered a president to sideline the Senate entirely. Dahlia and Jacob also examine the first signs of a countervailing force, from Harvard's refusal to make a deal to the question of what Joint Chiefs chairman Dan Caine will do if tested around the midterms.Jacob Weisberg's book is Profiles in Cowardice: A Study of Collaboration in the Trump Era, published by Penguin Press.Want more Amicus? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes with exclusive legal analysis. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.

It’s past time to say it. This Supreme Court is helping President Donald J. Trump evade accountability. Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the Berkeley School of Law, joins Dahlia Lithwick to break down the conservative majority's procedural toolkit—standing, ripeness, the Purcell principle, and inscrutable rulings on the shadow docket —and how these doctrinal headfakes are being used to ensure Trump always wins in court, even when he loses. They dig into the White House ballroom case and Trump’s attempt to disrupt mail-in voting and the midterms, they explore what's different from Trump's first term, and ask which of the justices are worried about the court's legitimacy.Plus, we remember Gloria Steinem, who died at 92 this week. From co-founding Ms. magazine to her lifelong allyship with the civil rights movement, Steinem's legacy of building coalitions, lifting up others, and never letting anyone steal her joy carries urgent lessons for a moment in which so much of what she fought for is being erased. Dahlia talks with legal scholar and Ms. Studios executive producer Professor Michele Goodwin.Want more Amicus? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes with exclusive legal analysis. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.

With Amicus on a brief summer break, we’re bringing you the final installment of Slow Burn’s latest season, Becoming Justice Gorsuch. Host Susan Matthews enlists Slate’s jurisprudence team—Amicus co-hosts Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern—to discuss Neil Gorsuch’s key rulings to date, his unpredictability, and how this textualist will shape this court (and our country) for decades to come.In this week’s bonus episode: Susan, Dahlia, and Mark recently reconvened to record an update to this conversation, complete with analysis of how Gorsuch figured into the blockbuster, end-of-term decisions handed down in June. Want to listen to that update? If you’re not a Pluskateer yet, join Slate Plus to unlock this conversation—and other weekly bonus episodes with exclusive legal analysis. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.