Short Circuit

Can the county foreclose on your house because you haven’t paid your taxes, and then just keep the rest of your equity? In Ohio, yeah, they can. That kind of sounds like a taking without just compensation, which is why Ohio attorney Emily White joined us to talk about her recent case at the Sixth Circuit. Then Kirby Thomas West of IJ takes us “up north” where a band of Native Americans argued their land is a reservation under some often-neglected, and often-dishonored, agreements with the federal government. It’s an all Sixth Circuit, all Big Ten, property rights edition of Short Circuit.

Transcript: https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/short-circuit-175_otter.ai-FINAL.pdf

iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/short-circuit/id309062019

Second Amendment scholar David Kopel sits down with us to set the stage for a big issue we’ll hear a lot about over the next year: What “keep and bear arms” means outside of the home. Whether it’s conceal carry or open carry, does the Constitution protect that right, and if so, how? There’s a case at the Supreme Court from the Second Circuit challenging New York’s conceal carry law, and another case waiting in the wings from the Ninth Circuit. We get into some history, some legal tactics, and some judicial speculation—although only of a healthy kind.

Transcript: https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Short-Circuit-174_otter.ai-FINAL.pdf

iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/short-circuit/id309062019

Legal raconteur and writer David Lat joins us for some underneath-their-robes hijinks. David talks a bit about his new venture and his battle with COVID-19. Then he examines a disability case from the Eleventh Circuit which tries to figure out the relationship between a “public accommodation” under the Americans with Disabilities Act and a website. After that, Bob McNamara tells us a tragic story from the Ninth Circuit involving some “Snaps” and how they relate to Section 230.

Transcript: https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/short-circuit-173_otter.ai-FINAL.pdf

iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/short-circuit/id309062019

What does Sir Walter Raleigh have to do with a Tennessee murder trial? You’ll learn from Rob Johnson, as he confronts his witness with a devastating cross-examination while presenting a unique habeas case from the Sixth Circuit. And does 50 years seem a long time for a case to last? Even in Cook County, Illinois it’s a bit of a stretch. But, as Jeff Rowes explains, given the county’s, and its most famous city’s, Untouchable history of corruption, the case can go on. For now.

Transcript: https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Short-Circuit-172_otter.ai-FINAL.pdf

iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/short-circuit/id309062019

On a special Short Circuit, professors Christopher Green and Evan Bernick join your host Anthony Sanders to examine one of the great questions of the Fourteenth Amendment: When courts apply the Bill of Rights to the States, should they give those provisions the meaning they had when they were adopted, in 1791, or how they were understood when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, in 1868? The question is important, argue our guests, both methodologically and practically. Among other things, using the meaning the Bill of Rights had in 1868 might better fulfill the promise of Reconstruction, which was largely lost when the Supreme Court buried much of the Fourteenth Amendment in the years following the Civil War.

And speaking of Reconstruction, click here to see our 150th anniversary celebration of Section 1983, that we held earlier this week! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlrAK4OXvPQ

Transcript: https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/short-circuit-171_otterFINAL.docx

iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/short-circuit/id309062019

What can a court say in 325 pages? So much that we don’t have much of a clue. Diana Simpson slices and dices the Fifth Circuit’s analysis of a challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act as it gets set for a highly likely trip up to the Supreme Court. And did you know you can sue the Federal Election Commission if they don’t investigate someone you don’t like? Well, you could, until the D.C. Circuit found some magic words. Adam Shelton pulls a rabbit out of a hat in explaining this prosecutorial discretion case.

Transcript: https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/short-circuit-170_otter.ai-FINAL.docx

iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/short-circuit/id309062019

If you’re not a major party candidate it can be really hard to get on the ballot. So hard it’s sometimes unconstitutional. Paul Sherman explains how a Michigan candidate fought the elections bureaucracy in the Sixth Circuit and won (well, at least got on the ballot). Plus, can the City of New York sue to stop global warning? Actually, no. Andrew Ward walks us through a case from the Second Circuit on federal common law, this thing lawyers call Erie, and international relations.

Register here for the April 20th event on the 150th anniversary of Section 1983, https://ij.org/event/outragelegislation/

iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/short-circuit/id309062019

Can the police stop and frisk your person based on their “training and experience?” Not if that training and experience is simply that drug dealers like to shake hands, says the Fourth Circuit. Ari Bargil provides the details of a drug dealer that the police were a tad too impatient to lock-up. And can an assistant football coach for a public high school publicly pray at the 50 yard line right after a game? The answer is it depends. Not every penitent man will pass the Ninth Circuit’s analysis. Plus, there’s a circuit split update on bump stocks and the CDC.

Register here for the April 20th online event on the 150th anniversary of Section 1983: https://ij.org/event/outragelegislation/

iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/short-circuit/id309062019

We get a little high-tech this week. Techdirt founder Mike Masnick joins us to explain how Section 230 actually works, and how it was somewhat unusually applied in a recent Second Circuit case. (Mike’s explanation may differ from what a multitude of “experts” have recently been saying in Congress and elsewhere.) And have you seen any drones above your house? IJ attorney Josh Windham tells a story about a drone that flew above someone’s property, and thereby committed a “search” under the Fourth Amendment (well, the government in charge of the drone did). This very interesting case from the Michigan Court of Appeals allows us to talk about drones, reasonable expectations of privacy, and whether the air above your house is an “open field.”

Transcript forthcoming: https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/short-circuit-167.pdf

iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/short-circuit/id309062019

The 10th Circuit just can’t make up its mind. You might say it doesn’t know a hawk from a handsaw. Listen to a tale from IJ attorney Jeff Redfern of judicial deference to the government, waiver (or not) by the government, and “vacation” of en banc review. Plus, the case is about machine guns (or not). Then IJ attorney Diana Simpson explains how the 5th Circuit packed an entire federal courts textbook into one little case about a ranch in Louisiana. The plaintiff scored a hit, but not a very palpable one.

Register for the April 20th event on the 150th anniversary of Section 1983, https://ij.org/event/outragelegislation/

iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/short-circuit/id309062019