Oral Argument

Holiday nonsense show part 2: on the upcoming Supreme Court arguments Dalmazzi v. United States, millennials and the punishing U.S. economic system, the presidency and the popular vote, and expertise and Twitter.

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Holiday nonsense show part 1: on compressors, the UFOs, nominations of trial judges without trial experience, feuds, listener Brian's question about our evolving balance of optimism and pessimism, listener Andrew's pointing out the public nudity and sex discrimination case Tagami v. City of Chicago, listener Joel's new podcast, the self, our show, conversation and other minds and double escape, humility, art and wilderness.

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How do presidents affect the law when they speak? Should courts consider what they say, defer to what they say, and find governmental intentions in what they say? What if a president says one thing, perhaps improvising during a speech, and an official communication of an agency, the Justice Department, or the White House says another? Kate Shaw joins us to talk about her theory that generally (but not always) courts should ignore presidential statements that are not consciously intended to stake out a legal position. Obviously, there's an 800-pound, tweeting gorilla in the corner of the room.

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Special Guest: Kate Shaw.

Sara Schindler returns to the show to talk about the phenomenon and problems of privately owned, publicly open spaces. We start, though, with a brief conversation about art and sexism. Then (12:23), we turn to Sarah's paper. What are POPOS? How are they created? Are they parks on the cheap or amenities of private businesses? Whether it's Balinese chanting in a corporate atrium, places to fly kites, or a spot to meet a new friend, we all need our third places.

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Special Guest: Sarah Schindler.

Constitutional and election law expert Franita Tolson joins us to talk about a little-known section of one of the most well-known parts of the Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment grants rights enforceable against states, not just against the federal government. And it gives Congress a role in enforcing those rights. But did you know that it also provides an apparently severe and mandatory remedy for abridgments by states of the right to vote? You will.

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Special Guest: Franita Tolson.

We talk with Greg Klass about the use of recent empirical studies to aid in the restatement of the law of consumer contracts - the one-sided, unread "agreements" that are ubiquitous in modern life. The conversation covers the purpose of restatements, the methodology of empirical legal scholarship, and more.

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Special Guest: Greg Klass.

We talk with Dave Fagundes about sharing, abandoning, and property law's role in promoting happiness. Topics include the usual nonsense, notions of happiness, consumption and acquisition, charity, and home ownership.

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Special Guest: Dave Fagundes.

We talk with Christina Mulligan about the salutary effects of smashing robots that have wronged you. Join us for a chat about revenge and satisfaction in the emerging human-robot social space.

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Special Guest: Christina Mulligan.

We returned this week to the annual Tech Law Institute meeting in Atlanta. We talk about data, law, and society: Joe and Christian's fight over data on the way to the conference, a new Supreme Court case involving cloud data and international boundaries, and the decisions that technology will force us to make. (Thanks to Jacob Davis for helping us provide written materials for the conference!)

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We talk with appellate lawyer Chris Landau who represented Puerto Rico in two cases before the Supreme Cost last term. We focus on one of them, in which Puerto Rican criminal convictions were challenged on double jeopardy grounds: that Puerto Rico could not prosecute the defendants because they had already been convicted in federal court on essentially the same charges. This in turn depends on whether Puerto Rico has the same separate sovereign status as the states, whether it itself is the source of its laws or whether the United States is always a silent but superior authority. At bottom this case raised questions about the very identity of this island nation. In the wake of a devastating hurricane and a controversial federal response, we talk about law and sovereign identity - in our usual fashion, going between theory, pragmatic litigation issues, and, in this case, a complicated and fascinating history.

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Special Guest: Christopher Landau.