Where do you go to challenge an illegal tax? Well, if that tax is a tariff your destination is the United States Court of International Trade. Learn all about this corner of the Article III judiciary, and how tariffs for once took a beating before it, from Eric Boehm, a reporter at Reason. Also, we return to a frequent subject on Short Circuit, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, with IJ's Josh Windham. That court just made it a little easier to challenge restrictions on gun rights, although it really shouldn't have been that hard in the first place.
Solar Energy Industries Assoc. v. U.S., https://www.cit.uscourts.gov/sites/cit/files/21-154.pdf
Firearm Owners Against Crime v. City of Harrisburg, https://casetext.com/case/firearm-owners-against-crime-v-city-of-harrisburg-1
A Judge Just Did What Biden Wouldn't: Dump Some Trump Tariffs, https://reason.com/2021/11/17/a-judge-just-did-what-biden-wouldnt-kill-some-trump-tariffs/
Eric Boehm, https://reason.com/people/eric-boehm/
Josh Windham, https://ij.org/staff/joshua-windham/
Anthony Sanders, https://ij.org/staff/asanders/

Short Circuit 198 | International Trade and Standing for Guns

The Supreme Court decides a few dozen cases every year; federal appellate courts decide thousands. So if you love constitutional law, the circuit courts are where it’s at. Join us as we break down some of the week’s most intriguing appellate decisions with a unique brand of insight, wit, and passion for judicial engagement and the rule of law.  http://ij.org/short-circuit

News

Government

News Commentary

We revisit an issue that’s really coming into focus: cameras on poles and how they stand up to the Fourth Amendment. Mike Greenberg of IJ comes by to tell the story of a veteran who received disability benefits when, it seems, he wasn’t exactly disabled. Things get interesting when the feds put a camera on a pole (on a school) and point it at his house 24/7 for months. Is that a search? The Tenth Circuit says it isn’t and uphold his felony conviction. But, as Mike explains, other courts have disagreed. Then your host brings us some zoning plus standing plus the Establishment Clause in the suburbs of New York City. There, some residents don’t like how their village has let their Jewish neighbors open more houses of worship and claim it will “radically transmorgrify” things. Do they have an “injury”? The Second Circuit doesn’t think so.



Register for the May 10 open fields conference!



US v. Hay



Citizens United to Protect Our Neighborhoods v. Chestnut Ridge



Episode on 7th Cir pole camera case



Episode on 1st Cir pole camera case



End of The Usual Suspects (SPOILER ALERT!)

Short Circuit 320 | Spy Cameras

Two wild stories this week, one biblical and one of a more secular nature—but still wild. Jeff Redfern of IJ tells of a Texan judicial shootout in a fight between credit card companies and the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. The companies got tired of waiting for the trial court to rule on an emergency motion so they appealed it—but around the same time the trial court transferred the case to a court in Washington, D.C. Was that wrong? Can anything be done about it? Opinions differ. Then Keith Neely of IJ takes us underwater to the Sixth Circuit for perhaps our first case involving baptism. An officer was ready to charge a driver with marijuana possession, but then offers to give her a lesser charge . . . if she lets him baptize her in a lake that night. Which, after she grabs some towels, goes forward. And in the ensuing lawsuit qualified immunity is denied because, well, this is pretty obviously unconstitutional. Right? Also, Keith gives a preview of IJ’s new show Beyond the Brief. Check it out!



Beyond the Brief



In re Fort Worth Chamber



White v. Hamilton County



Mark i:6-8

Short Circuit 319 | Baptism By Venue

An all Seventh Circuit, all Chicago episode. IJ attorney Andrew Ward drops in to tell a tale of online support for terrorists. Or at least FBI agents posing as terrorists. This recent case does not weigh in on, but raises the issue, of whether computer code is speech. Then we turn to the nitty gritty of unions, small employers, pension plans, and legalized cartels. Things are a bit topsy turvy in this area—and often sound pretty unfair. Your host gives a bit of a lay of the land as it’s been expressed by Judge Easterbrook of the Seventh Circuit over the years.



IJ conference on the Open Fields Doctrine (May 10)



Cato conference on the right to earn a living (April 18)



U.S. v. Osadzinski



Bulk Transport Corp. v. Teamsters No. 142 Pension Fund



Central States v. Gerber Truck

Short Circuit 318 | Is Coding Speech?

The Short Circuit roadshow comes to UVA in Charlottesville, Virginia, where we finally focus on the Fourth Circuit. Fresh off her Supreme Court argument last week in Gonzales v. Trevino, Anya Bidwell turns back to the federal courts of appeals with some local guests. They are Professors Rachel Bayefsky and Lawrence Solum of UVA and Greg Cui of MacArthur Justice (and UVA). They discuss recent Fourth Circuit cases about cruel and unusual punishment in prison, a non-immune judge on a search, and the rational basis test turned up to 12 (that is, Rule 12(b)(6)) in a land use dispute.



Jones v. Solomon



Gibson v. Goldston



SAS Associates 1 v. Chesapeake



Video from Gibson case



Legal Theory Blog



Bayefsky on Judicial Institutionalism



Bayefsky on Public-Law Litigation



Solum on Legal Personhood for AI

Short Circuit 317 | Live at the University of Virginia!

Is qualified immunity a narrow doctrine focused on protecting the police when they make “split second decisions”? If you listen to its defenders you would get that impression. The reality is far, far different. And IJ now has the stats to back that up. In this special episode, we welcome on IJ’s Bob McNamara and data scientist Jason Tiezzi to discuss a new report Unaccountable: How Qualified Immunity Shields a Wide Range of Government Abuses, Arbitrarily Thwarts Civil Rights, and Fails to Fulfill Its Promises. It presents an analysis of over 7,000 federal appellate decisions over an eleven-year period and tells us a lot about how qualified immunity actually works in practice. We dig into many of its findings, such as that only 27% of appeals where qualified immunity was at issue involved excessive force. And that almost one in five qualified immunity appeals involved First Amendment claims. Listen in to hear the details, including about how this massive study was put together. And click below in the show notes to read the report itself.











Unaccountable



Unaccountable finds qualified immunity hobbles victims of government abuses like these and fails to accomplish the goals supporters claim it’s needed to achieve, strengthening the case for ending the doctrine.




read report

Short Circuit 198 | International Trade and Standing for Guns

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