Will SCOTUS Let January 6 Defendants Off the Hook? 01:18:30

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Mr. Chief Justice, may I please report?

It's an old joke, but when a man argues against two beautiful ladies like this, they're going to have the last word. She spoke, not elegantly, but with unmistakable clarity. She said, I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.

Hello, and welcome back to Strict Scrutiny, your podcast about the Supreme Court and the legal culture that surrounds it. We are your hosts. We're the chairwomen, if you will. I'm Kate Shaw. I'm Melissa Murray. And I'm Leah Lippman. And you can hear and see Melissa roll her eyes if you're watching us on YouTube.

Anyway, I know some people have been up since the earliest hours of the morn downloading new tracks. I am rested, however, because I slept in. And I am here to tell you what we have in store for you today because it is a big episode. First, we will recap the arguments in the cases that the Supreme Court heard last week. And quick spoiler alert.

The Supreme Court may be ready to blow up many of the January 6th prosecutions, including potentially two of the charges that Jack Smith filed against Donald Trump. So we will cover those developments first, and then we will briefly discuss the other arguments that the court heard last week. And after that, we are going to do a lightning round on some recent SCOTUS opinions. SCOTUS fired off a bunch of decisions and notably,

These decisions were relatively cohesive, coherent, not a lot of dissents. In other words, the court is at this moment donning its very, very moderate, totally cohesive, despite our many ideological differences, drag, which can only

mean that we are getting closer and closer to the time when this goblin court decides it's going to make some very bad decisions. So don't get lulled into a state of complacency. It is coming. Do not be fooled by these unanimous decisions. We'll say more about that.

And then finally, as is our want, we will dip into some court culture, including some shadow docket breadcrumbs that gesture toward the court's views of the constitutionality of laws banning gender-affirming care. And perhaps maybe even giving us an idea of what the court might ultimately say about those laws when those issues arise on the merits docket. And we'll also briefly note, likely multiple times, how Taylor Swift, honest to goodness, dropped some strict scrutiny Easter eggs on the tortured poets department.

Right. I feel like we didn't actually make reference for, I don't know, the 1% of our listeners who might have missed it at the time of the show, which is we are, I don't know if we're chairwomen or deputy chairwomen, but we were recording this episode mere hours after the release of the Tortured Poets Department. I think everybody thought that. I'm saying 1% of our listeners might not have, and it is for them that I am clarifying. I am that 1%. Oh my God.

But as Melissa just mentioned, first up, argument recaps. And we are going to start with the January 6th case, Fisher v. United States. This case involves one of the January 6th defendants, and it is also more broadly about whether the January 6th defendants were properly charged with violating a specific law, 18 U.S.C. § 1512c2, which prohibits corruptly obstructing an official proceeding.

The defendant in Fisher argued that the law did not apply to the January 6th defendants because the congressional proceeding to certify presidential votes was not the kind of proceeding that the law prohibits obstructing.

More particularly, the argument is that the law applies only to the sorts of proceedings that involve investigations or the collection of evidence, documents, records. But the defendant in this case, Fisher, as well as some lower court judges, had also offered different theories about why this law, 1512C2, might not apply to the defendant, Mr. Fisher, specifically or some smaller subset of January 6th defendants.

because they did not actually obstruct any proceedings since Fisher concedes that he was at the Capitol, but not at the time protesters were attempting to disrupt the certification of the electoral college votes, but instead after Congress had already recessed. So when we previewed the case, we weren't sure whether the Supreme Court was going to go big in this case and blow up a bunch of January 6 cases and potentially two of the charges against Donald Trump arising out of January 6.

As Leah suggested, we did not have really high hopes for how this argument was going to go. And I have to say, I think it's important to note that the court's decision to go small is not necessarily a good one.

I think it was even more alarming than even we expected. So at least three of the justices, let's call them the three horsemen of the apocalypse, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, all seem to be drawn to the view that the law just doesn't apply to January 6th, full stop.

because the certification of presidential votes doesn't count as an official proceeding or because the challenged conduct wasn't the kind of evidence tampering that the statute on their view was meant to cover.

Their view of all of this would undo many of the charges against many of the rank and file January 6th defendants, though we should say that many January 6th defendants have been charged for other crimes as well. So not everyone is off the hook entirely. But it does seem like if their reading of the statute prevails, it would wipe out a lot of the charges against many of these protesters. And some notes here.

I just want to make really clear here that in this statutory interpretation exercise, our favorite textualists on the court do not seem especially interested in getting some of that good textual healing, right? They do not seem interested in it at all. Instead, it seems that their concerns are really rooted in what the statute was intended to address. Like, what was the statute's purpose?

Purpose. Purposivism takes a seat on the couch next to me, which is really surprising because I was under the impression that we were all textualists now. So color me surprised. Who the fuck was that guy? Like what's textualism? When I get that feeling. Anyway.

I'm just also going to note that Justice Clarence Thomas did not show up at work the day before this oral argument. And incidentally, no one at the Supreme Court ever explained why that was the case. Although when other justices have been absent, they have given us an explanation. But nothing to see here. What is transparency? Nothing.

But you better believe that pinpoint Georgia's favorite son got his butt off the couch to show up for the January 6th defendants the very next day, as one does when your wife has been shown to send text messages to Mark Meadows'

Anyway, Justice Thomas wasn't going to miss the chance to let this go unspoken by him. So maybe his absence the day before was simply an attempt to hydrate and limber up so that he could be in full fighting form for the Fisher argument. And he sure was. First question out of the gate, referring to the January 6th defendants or the January 6th events as a protest, protesters. I mean, it was really sensational.

something for him to have been absent without explanation, which, as Melissa was suggesting, other justices say why when they miss a sitting. It's like pretty standard practice. And he's so contemptuous of pretty standard practice. And then to return and just hit the ground running, it really just felt like an F you to the critics. I mean, Kate, to his credit, you can't just say Harlan Crowe's plane was delayed. And so I couldn't get there. My bad. He couldn't say I was engaged in consulting services and wasn't able to make it. Right.

All right. Yeah. So we could probably spend a lot of time speculating about where he was. But he did return, you know, in fighting form to the bench on Tuesday. And again, together with Justice Alito and Justice Gorsuch, seemed really inclined to vote against the government and for Mr. Fisher. So that's three. Then there were two other justices, the chief justice and his fanboy slash personal assistant. I mean, maybe call him the deputy chairman or deputy chief. Yeah.

It also seemed pretty hostile to the government's interpretation of the law, although to me at least it wasn't clear as to these two whether and how they might embrace a narrower theory of 1512C2 rather than the government's interpretation of the law. So it's possible they would go with 1512C2.

The three horsemen, Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch, to say the law doesn't apply because this wasn't the kind of proceeding Congress contemplated when it drafted the law, that purposivism Melissa was just talking about. Another narrowing theory might focus on the defendant's state of mind. That is what the government has to prove about their mental state or intent during the obstruction. And that would turn on what the word in the statute corruptly means.

The concurring opinion in the case below in the D.C. Circuit said corruptly requires proof that the defendant knew that they were obtaining an unlawful benefit and that was the defendant's purpose.

purpose. But the government said that a corrupt plea actually isn't limited to those precise circumstances. So those are all ways that potentially those two, again, the chief and Kavanaugh, could join the three horsemen and rule in favor of Mr. Fisher. But I also think it's possible that the government ultimately does get their votes. I really wasn't totally sure where they were. And if it does, I think that is going to be entirely attributable to the superb oral argument of Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar.

Is it ironic that these guys are going to determine the meaning of the term corruptly and it's going to make the whole difference in this case? Like,

I mean, and this wasn't the only corruption case on their docket this week. This is what they are fixated on. They are the ones to determine like what is corrupt under current law. And this is what we were alluding to last week when we said like these issues, these cases keep arising and somehow some people delude themselves into thinking, and this will be the one where it's all going to be on the level and we should just trust them to approach this in completely principled ways. And yeah,

Karma is a justice bringing the law down on me. Anyway. Okay, so zooming out, there very well could be five votes to reject the government's theory of criminal liability here. And that would undo some uncertain number of January 6th charges here. And it would also throw into doubt two of the four federal charges against former President Donald Trump in Jack Smith's federal January 6th election interference case. So again, more to see here. Watch this space.

And there were, I think, a few notable moments in the argument we wanted to highlight, some of which underscore the ecosystem the justices inhabit and the worldviews that are informing their adjudication of these cases. So we'll start with Neil Gorsuch, who seemed to prove that Sam Alito is not the only Fox News grandpa on the court and that if you want to understand the justices, you also need to watch Fox.

news to understand what is being pelted at them day in, day out, and what is on their minds. So here is Neil floating out just some hypos. If I might. So what does that mean for the breadth of this statute? Would a sit-in that disrupts a trial or access to a federal courthouse qualify? Would a heckler in today's audience qualify or at the State of the Union address qualify

pulling a fire alarm.

before a vote qualify for 20 years in federal prison. And again, if you're like, where is he getting this? This is Neil Gorsuch asking about Representative Jamal Bowman pulling a fire alarm to delay a vote and whether that violates the law. He's also maybe asking about whether Marjorie Taylor Greene, Joe Wilson, who heckled Obama, or Sam Alito could be thrown in jail for violating this law as well as hecklers at the State of the Union. And

Also just wanted to underscore the false equivalencies between a sit-in on one hand and January 6th on the other. Like when people are sitting in in order to protest some law or some court proceeding, they're not bringing zip ties and threatening violence against the people in the proceeding and

Both Justice Kagan and Solicitor General Prelogar attempted to get at some of these differences, and they just completely bulldozed past them. Like, oh, these things are totally the same. You know, you mentioned Justice Thomas referring to this as a protest, Justice Gorsuch being like, oh, yeah, what about sit-ins? It was wild to me. No, they're positing an equivalence. Absolutely. Like, that was in their questions, even though Alito at one point tried to suggest he wasn't. They all were.

Well, I mean, I'm going to be fair to Sam Alito here because I think there was a moment where he might have been persuaded by the government's theory of the case. And that was specifically when he asked a hypothetical about protests at the Supreme Court itself and whether that was the disruption of an official proceeding. So let's hear that clip.

General, let me give you a specific example, which picks up but provides a little bit more detail with respect to one of the examples that Justice Gorsuch provided. So we've had a number of protests in the courtroom. Let's say that today, while protesting,

You're arguing, or Mr. Green is arguing, five people get up, one after the other, and they shout either keep the January 6th insurrectionists in jail or free the January 6th patriots. And as a result of this, our police officers have to remove them forcibly from the courtroom. And let's say we have to — it delays the proceeding for five minutes.

And I know that experienced advocates like you and Mr. Green are not going to be flustered by that. But, you know, in another case, an advocate might lose his or her train of thought and not provide the best argument. So would that be a violation of 1512C2?

Not really sure how this hypo cuts, because on the one hand, he seems like, I would really like to throw these protesters in jail under Section C-2. Me, personally. Like, he wants to jail them. He personally, Sam Alito. But then on the other hand, he was like, but the peaceful protesters of January 6th, that would be a bridge too far to criminalize their conduct. I mean, personally...

I find it very humanizing when the justices really seem to wrestle with the differing consequences of their ideological commitment. So I found this exchange really interesting, maybe even a little heartwarming. You know, Melissa, you, like Taylor, always write the worst men the best. Yeah.

That was truly a very sympathetic reconstruction of what was going on with Sam here. I just want it to be known, like in this age where we are lacking in ideological diversity, we give Sam Alito his due every single time. We get him. We do. We get him. Is he the smallest man? He's definitely in the running. He's in the running. But, you know, this fixation on...

Yeah.

Supreme Court. And this is just so clearly front of mind for him. The fact that people are saying mean things about him. This is definitely frontal lobe material. Yes, for sure. For sure. And the exchange about, well, could this law, this theory potentially allow people who protest the Supreme Court to be thrown in jail led to this exchange between Justice Alito and Solicitor General Prelogar that we wanted to highlight.

I could imagine defendants in that scenario suggesting that they thought they had some protected free speech right to protest. They might say that they weren't conscious of the fact that they weren't allowed to make that kind of brief protest in the court. And I think it's in a fundamentally different posture than if they had stormed into this courtroom, overrun the Supreme Court police, required the justices and other participants to flee for their safety, and done so with clear evidence of intent to obstruct. Oh, yes, indeed. Absolutely. What happened on January 6th was very, very serious, and I'm not equating this with that.

I wanted to highlight this one because I think you can literally hear Sam Alito gagging and choking on the words. January 6th was very, very serious. Like, it's like he knew he had to say it, but he didn't want to. Well, it reminded me of the Mifepristone case where he had to concede that obviously Article 3 is very important.

Can we play that? I just want to hear it. I love hearing it. I understand that. And Article 3 is important. So your argument... Again, this should be a t-shirt. Say what you want. I think it's great that Justice Alito and all of us can at least agree on these baseline premises. And with these points of agreement, where else can we go with more opportunities to engage?

I know. She just – a prelogger does these like triple axles around him and then he's like, okay, fine. Article 3 is important. Fine. January 6th was serious. Fine. Yeah. Yeah. But also in addition to the Mifepristone case, I was reminded in that exchange that we just played of another Alito prelogger exchange from NFIB versus OSHA, which is what we tend to refer to as the I'm not saying what I'm saying exchange. So let's play that clip here. All right. So it's different in that respect. And here's another respect in which it may be different.

And I don't want to be misunderstood in making this point because I'm not saying the vaccines are unsafe. The FDA has approved them. It's found that they're safe. It's said that the benefits greatly outweigh the risks. I'm not contesting that in any way. I don't want to be misunderstood. I'm sure I will be misunderstood. I just want to emphasize I'm not making that point. But is it not the case that these vaccines and every other vaccine of which I'm aware and many other medications are

have benefits and they also have risks, and that some people who are vaccinated and some people who take medication that is highly beneficial will suffer adverse consequences. Is that not true of these vaccines? And if that is, is that true? That can be true, but of course there is far, far greater risk from being vaccinated by orders of magnitude. Right. There is some risk.

Do you dispute that? There can be a very minimal risk with respect to some individuals. But again, I would emphasize that I think that there would be no basis to think that these FDA-approved and authorized vaccines are not safe and effective. No, I'm not making that point. I tried to make it as clear as I could. I'm not making that point. I'm not making that point. I'm not making that point. There is a risk, right? That's a deep cut, Kate. That's a really deep cut.

But all three are in the same spirit. Our one trick pony works his trick. He really does. Yep. Sure does. Yeah. All right. Just to underscore some of the dynamics here at the court and with repeat advocates, we should note that because this argument happened on a day that ends in a Y, Sam Alito once again tried to play gotcha with Solicitor General Prelogger, tried again to use her words against her, and won.

And once again, she bested him, which raises the question, is Sam Alito secretly a communist? Because it seems that he doesn't mind being publicly owned. Time and time again. Yeah. Let's roll the tape. I was struck by the contrast between your argument here that the court should read in a minimal exception with the argument that you made earlier

this term in Muldrow versus the city of St. Louis where the question was whether

an adverse employment action has to be significant or not. And you said, no, it doesn't have to be significant because, quote, the text likewise admits of no distinction between discrimination that results in a significant or insignificant disadvantage. So in Muldrow, you told us, no, don't read in an atextual response.

requirement of significance, but here you seem to be arguing, yes, you've got to read in an atextual requirement of something that's more than minimal. No, that is not our argument here. We are grounding this in the text. So we're not suggesting that there's a basic de minimis principle that applies throughout all the various legal statutes that are out there, not anything like that. Instead, we ground this in a particular understanding of what it means to obstruct and what that word conveys.

Yeah. I mean, he kept trying to best her and she just kept, again, like dancing away. They say the definition of insanity is, you know, doing the same thing time and time again. It's such Wile E. Coyote energy. She's like the roadrunner. I am not. But honestly, I'm not really upset about it. No, me either. Because it always results in the same. And he keeps owning himself every time. It's a self-own. I know. I know. So moving on to some of Alito's fellow travelers.

Barrett also may have revealed a Fox News habit of her own in addition to Alito, which we knew, and Gorsuch, who seemed to be giving some hints during this argument. At least I thought so with her invocation of the phrase stop the steal. So let's play that clip here. OK, let me ask you a question that kind of gets at some of the same points that Justice Alito's questions were getting at.

So what if on January 6th, the Capitol itself had not been breached, the protest is going on outside the Capitol, stop the steal, stop the steal, police are in megaphones saying disperse, disperse, they're too close to the Capitol, their goal is to impair, impede, stop the steal.

stop the proceeding, stop the counting of votes. Does that violate the statute in your view under this impede language? I don't know. Am I wrong that, I mean, the government does not use that phrase in its brief. It appears very like once I think in Fisher's brief, but it,

It did like seem to roll off the tongue. It is very MAGA forward. It did not feel like it was the only time she had said this. It is MAGA forward. On the other hand, it is kind of in the ethos. Like this has been bandied about in so many places just to describe the efforts to overturn the 2020 election. I mean, I agree it did seem to like roll off the tongue in a certain way. But I wasn't exactly sure how to read it. I'm going to need more. I'm going to need more from – yeah.

Okay, all right. Suggestive. That's all. Suggestive, but not determinative. Yeah. So quite a lot was made of the fact that, quote, this statute hasn't been used in cases that didn't involve the destruction of records, end quote. And I'm going to just note that it's not entirely clear that that's actually true. But as we know, there is a deeply rooted history and tradition of getting history and traditions wrong at this court. So all of this checks out. But anyway,

To give you an example of what we're talking about, here's Justice Thomas' opening question to Solicitor General Prelogar. General Prelogar.

There have been many violent protests that have interfered with proceedings. Has the government applied this provision to other protests in the past? And has this been the government's position throughout the lifespan of the statute? And then Sonia Sotomayor stepped in to pre-butt all of this in an exchange with the petitioner's lawyer. So here she is.

We've never had a situation before where there's been a situation like this with people attempting to stop a proceeding violently. So I'm not sure what a lack of history proves. All to say that Sonia Sotomayor is over history and tradition and wants everyone to know that the United States doesn't actually have a history and tradition of coups. So continue. Yeah.

So maybe we can just kind of talk loosely about predictions at this point. I agree it was a little bit hard to read, particularly the Chief Kavanaugh and Barrett, where they were leaning. I think it's possible there was kind of a narrower ground thrown out and about an argument that maybe the Supreme Court would say something about how they weren't adopting the government's broader interpretation of the law, but would say something like 1512c2 charges require some showing about records or what

not and allow the government to argue that obstructing the January 6th certification involved interfering with electoral certificates. The defendant resisted this reading, saying certificates aren't evidence in the hearing sense. But it's possible this theory could mean that while many rank and file January 6ers didn't violate the law, Trump may have since Trump was involved in generating the fake electors slate. But if that is the theory...

figuring that out is going to create additional delays pre-trial with pre-trial briefing. And so that's just another kind of aspect to note about the case.

And in terms of my sort of big takeaway, as I agree with everything you just said, Leah, and, you know, Melissa, you alluded to this earlier, it is just – it was so hard to swallow. You know, I was like, I'm going to have an aneurysm listening to this argument with these self-identified textualists. And all they wanted to talk about was how the preceding provision, C1, impacted the meaning of the words of C2.

Or how the Sarbanes-Oxley-Enron scandal origins of the statute had to inform the meaning of the statute and almost didn't seem to maybe treat it as an afterthought. The words of the statute itself, which just was so galling.

Oh, I guess there's one other thing they cared about. Whether the application of the statute in other cases might raise First Amendment or related concerns. But again, that's not about the text of the statute. Can I just say one thing about the text? So they were so fixated on this word otherwise that appears in 1512C2. And just to underscore to our listeners why that isn't textualist. So the justices were like, well, 1512C2 says otherwise. And so that must incorporate the reference to evidence and records from C1, right?

But C2 is a separate section. So that's one thing. And second is reading otherwise to incorporate some set of similarities with C1 inevitably devolves into assessments of purpose because it requires the judge to ask, well, how are the things in C1 similar or like what similarity was Congress trying to get at? Because one possibility is they just cared about obstruction by other means.

Another possibility is they cared about the destruction of evidence or records. And in order to make that determination, the judge is going to have to think about what was Congress trying to do.

Totally. And pre-Lager, I thought, had a beautiful description of what these two different parts of the statute did. The first one is about records and documents. The second one says otherwise obstructs or interferes with an official proceeding. Those are targeting different kinds of conduct. Like that should be the end of the analysis. And none of the textualists on the court seemed to be that interested in that theory. Although, again, I ultimately think there is a chance that she prevails. And I just wanted to maybe highlight one other thing. Leah, you just said this, but this is something that Melissa's colleague at NYU, Ryan Goodman, has highlighted extensively.

Even if Fisher wins, it is totally possible that wouldn't impact Trump at all as a bottom line matter with respect to these two charges against Trump because the evidence against him is really different than the evidence against Fisher in that it's not just about January 6th itself, but all of this involvement in the fake elector scheme and trying to induce and facilitate fake electors and fake certificates. And even if they do decide to impose some document requirement on C2, that's just not – you know, it's very possible the evidence against Trump could satisfy it. But –

timing is everything. And it could well mean that you have to build anew the case under C2. And I don't know at that point whether Jack Smith and his team would decide it's better just to pursue the other two charges if there is even a time for a trial. I mean, I think they're probably already thinking of that right now, how to streamline this case if they even get the opportunity to go to trial.

Given that it seems that there is a very good chance that the Supreme Court does not just affirm this conviction and follow the most natural textualist reading of the statute, we just wanted to note that

The outcome here seems to be very different from the court's treatment of other kinds of protests. And we are thinking specifically of the case involving DeRay McKesson. DeRay McKesson is an activist, an organizer who's been involved in the Black Lives Matter movement for more than a decade. He is also the host of Crooked's Pod Save the People podcast.

And he helped organize a protest near police headquarters in Louisiana after the police murdered Alton Sterling, who was shot six times despite being pinned to the ground. During this protest, someone, and we do not know who, threw a rock. The rock struck a police officer, severely injuring him.

and the officer sued McKesson for inciting a riot. McKesson organized the protest, but certainly didn't throw the rock, doesn't know who threw the rock, and did not ask anyone to throw the rock. And so McKesson raised First Amendment defenses. The defense he raised primarily relied on the Supreme Court's previous decision in NAACP v. Claiborne, which is an important 1982 decision in which business owners sued the NAACP for organizing a boycott of white businesses. And the business owners said that threats of violence against their businesses had cost them money –

But the threats were from other people, not from the NAACP. And the Supreme Court in that case said the First Amendment barred these claims against the NAACP. And still, the police officer pressed these negligence claims against DeRay McKesson.

And most gallingly, the lower courts have allowed these claims to continue without the Supreme Court lifting a finger. At an earlier stage of this litigation, the Supreme Court sent the case to the Fifth Circuit saying that the Fifth Circuit needed to clarify Louisiana tort law. Louisiana state courts purported to do that and said, yep, this claim can proceed. And the Fifth Circuit refused.

decline to dismiss the case so that under the Fifth Circuit's ruling, it is set to move forward. And the Supreme Court declined to disturb that ruling, almost as if they are saying like some mass protests are good and others aren't. I mean, Leah, we have never had a history and tradition in this country of Black Lives Matter. So, you know. Yeah.

That does seem to be a possible distinction. And it's part of what, to me, makes the justices indications of the parade of horribles about the government's theory under 1512 C2 so hollow and in some respects just...

disingenuous because right now people are using laws against black protesters and you Supreme Court are doing jack squat about it. And instead, you're raising the prospect of the government using this law against sit-ins and nonviolent protests as a reason to excuse criminal liability for the January 6th attempted insurrection and the

Again, like the dual treatment is quite striking. Now, we should say that Justice Sotomayor issued a statement in DeRay McKesson's case saying that the legal issue here, that is whether DeRay McKesson can be sued consistent with the First Amendment, is already clear. And she said the court can deny certiorari that has declined to intervene for many reasons, including that the law is not in need of further clarification. And she suggested that the Supreme Court's recent decision in Counterman v. Colorado on First Amendment and the true threats

kind of already resolved this issue. But still, the Supreme Court not stepping in to end the case now prolongs it. It requires more legal fees and time, all of which is a deterrent to protesters and organizers, whatever the ultimate outcome in DeRay's case ultimately is. Strict Scrutiny is brought to you by IXL Learning.

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Up next at Corruption Week at the Supreme Court is Snyder v. United States, the political corruption case about the law, Section 666, that criminalizes corruptly soliciting or demanding or accepting or agreeing to accept anything of value that exceeds $5,000 that is intended to influence or reward any business, transaction of an organization, or government that receives federal funds.

As we forecasted in our preview, the tenor of the oral argument suggested that the court seems inclined, perhaps even unanimously, to narrow the reach of this law. And it will perhaps say that unless there is some kind of quid pro quo agreement, that is, where there's an offer of money or reward that is explicitly tied to the commission of some official act,

then there can be no violation of this law. And there's some chance that they adopt some other limitation on this, but it's clear, at least to us, that they're not just going to affirm this conviction because, again,

This is a case that involves political corruption, and that's just not how they roll these days. Say no more. Well, you know, just to delve a bit more into the details of the statute, that is definitely the bottom line. But here are the facts. So this case involved a mayor who allegedly structured a bidding process to ensure a trucking contract would go to a particular company, Peterbilt. And then the company turned around and hired the mayor for, quote unquote, consulting services. Checks out. Sounds normal. Yep.

No, I mean, that's what the court basically said. The federal government, to the contrary, said these kinds of arrangements that involve these rewards, sometimes called gratuities or tips, violate federal law if they are done to influence behavior, sweeten the pot, things like that. Right.

Sorry, I just got in my head. Sorry, keep talking and I'll consider whether to offer this intervention later. I was like, I just realized the defendant is pressing the quote, just the tip theory of federal government and corruption. I can't get that out of my head now. I'm sorry. Sorry. I'm sorry to everyone. I've been listening to the tortured Poets Department for like endless hours. My mind is not well.

I think it's working great. I think that was great. How many hours of Cowboy Carter do I need to listen to get that out of my head? Like, seriously. What the fuck? Sorry. Okay.

All right, onward. So the federal government says that these kinds of rewards, gratuities, tips violate federal law if they're done to influence behavior. And the defendant says, no, these are just basically indistinguishable from thank yous. You get a bottle of wine or a thank you gift for a doctor after a successful surgery, which sidebar, like,

It's around the argument was this notion that everyone is giving enormous, lavish gifts to, like, the people in their lives who they pay for things like medical care. And, I mean, like, we give gifts to, like, research assistants and, like, friends and family members. Dormant. Things like that. Of course. Like, holiday gifts. People in our lives –

who are in all kinds of relationships with us. But the idea that it is sort of standard operating procedure to give a $1,000... $5,000. Or a $1,000 bottle of wine was invoked like a normal thing to give as a gift. Anyway, we will play some clips of Lisa. Well, I thought that was interesting because Justice Scalia was like, it was very definitely not $1,000 wine. I know. Remember that? That was a callback, I thought. I thought that was shady. At least that's what it made me think of. I know. I know.

But in any event, what the justices seem to be suggesting is that this is completely ordinary behavior. And the fact that this kind of completely ordinary behavior might be subject to some kind of threat of prosecution was an intolerable, you know, I don't know, constitutional concern. Obviously, this case was predicated on a statutory interpretation as opposed to some standalone constitutional theory. But, you know, concerns about the implications, broadly speaking, of justice.

allowing these kinds of prosecutions to go forward, permeated the argument. And there was zero concern voiced by a single justice on the bench for the kinds of cases that a narrow interpretation of the law might just let off the hook. So that's, I think, where things left off with the argument. So maybe just to play a handful of clips, here's Justice Kavanaugh with a hypothetical along the lines that we were just talking about. You're changing the hypothetical. The hypothetical is the actions taken by

and a citizen gives a thank you. And it could be a gift card to Starbucks, or it could be tickets to a concert or game, and just drops it off to the person. Thank you for all your hard work on this issue. Appreciate you.

Now, Lisa Blatt was arguing for the defendant, the petitioner in this case, which means we were treated to the Lisa Blatt show in the course of trotting out the possible downstream consequences of the government's broader interpretation of the law. So step right up, listeners, because we're about to play the Lisa Blatt game or show with this series of clips. Interesting.

The doctor who removes your wart, fine, but the doctor who takes your gallbladder out or does your face like my plastic surgeon? No, that's worth over $5,000. No, seriously, I'm not even joking. Snow removal is worth over $5,000. Writing a letter for your kid to get into college, that's priceless. I could go on and on and on.

And if you charge, again, I'm sure you will ask them what the jury should be charged, what common sense ethical rules are. I mean, the restaurant example alone, I don't know where it's, I'm pretty sure Chipotle would be okay and a little Washington wouldn't, but ask them about the Cheesecake Factory. Well, I'm not going to ask them about the Cheesecake Factory. Somebody else may. Okay. But I'm going to ask. I'll be here all week. That was chaotic. Yes. Side note.

Do we believe that Justice Gorsuch regularly goes to the Cheesecake Factory? I mean, like, first of all, like, full disclosure, I'm sorry if this sounds snobby, but I fucking hate the Cheesecake Factory. Like, I do not understand. I love the Cheesecake Factory. Okay, you and my husband can go together because I fucking hate it. Like, I do not understand a restaurant with a menu that is so varied that

That it actually has to be spiral bound. Like that seems excessive to me. Like absolutely excessive. It's enormous. It's a big, big menu. Seriously, is Neil Gorsuch like a basic restaurant bitch? No, I think this was just drawn from Lisa's hypotheticals. I don't think he was invoking the Cheesecake Factory in particular. But she was invoking back to the like – I don't know what world these people live in. Like the invocation of the inn at Little Washington, which is like –

a preposterously expensive DC area restaurant. I know. But also just like, hey, we all know what the In-N-Out Little Washington is. Like that, like really irked me, but I digress. So just to kind of take that.

take this home. It is clear where the court is leaning, and they are leaning that way against the government because of their apparent sense that the facts of this case are just kind of how we do things, indistinguishable from scenarios that they think just can't and shouldn't warrant prosecution, which came out in this clip that we've already alluded to. And so we'll just play here. Well, how about this? I mean, this statute applies to more than government officials. It applies to pretty much every hospital. It applies to pretty much every university. So

So let's say a billionaire patient comes to a hospital and gets extra special treatment. He gets appointments when nobody else would get it. He gets surgery scheduled when nobody else would. And it's all done because everybody knows he's a billionaire patient, and they're hoping that he'll give an eight-figure gift to the hospital. How about that? Does that fit? So it needs to be...

we walk through the statutory requirements. There needs to be the acceptance or the solicitation of money in connection with particular business or transactions. Well, they're definitely going to accept the eight-figure gift when it comes. Oh, sorry. Are you talking about they're on the promise of this eight-figure gift? What?

Well, a lot of people do not think it's good to give super rich people better health care than not so super rich people. So I could see a jury saying that's pretty immoral, but probably every hospital in America does it. It was just really interesting to hear probably every hospital in America does it and that that was their understanding of it.

the way things work. It's just like business as usual. Well, I mean, this goes back to your point, Kate. Most of these cases dealing with political corruption are unanimous or nearly unanimous. So this is, I think, where this one is likely headed. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think like the idea that everyone is doing this, like even the liberal justices seem to accept that. Yeah. I mean, I think it's deeply disheartening. I don't even think it's true, but I think it's likely to

This kind of conduct, right? Like all kinds of sketchy behavior because it's increasingly clear to officials and private individuals that most of what they do is going to be beyond the reach of federal criminal law. And I do think the result of that will be government services. And, you know, 666 can also reach the provision of private services by recipients of federal funds. So by all kinds of entities that can, you know, dole out their goods and services on a preferential basis is what the court seems to be saying happens and is fine. And just, you know,

Doesn't that obviously lead to kind of further stratification and a more profoundly distorted vision of democracy? I feel like that is the path that this court in this line of cases is on. And I just find it incredibly disturbing writ large. But as to this particular case, it's very clear this anti-corruption statute is going to be narrowed and possibly unanimously passed.

So briefly, we're just going to mention two other cases that the court heard argument in. One was Chia Verini versus City of Napoleon. This is the Fourth Amendment case we weren't able to preview at our last episode because we were attempting to give you a sense of the court's power by taking through a bunch of cases the court would be hearing throughout this entire sitting.

This particular case is about how an individual can make out a claim of malicious prosecution when they are charged with multiple offenses. So a malicious prosecution claim argues, as the name suggests, that you were charged, i.e. prosecuted maliciously, not because you actually violated the law.

But the twist in this case is how a malicious prosecution claim works when you're charged with one offense for which there is no probable cause, i.e. there's no reasonable belief that you committed the offense the prosecutors charged you with. But you're also charged with some other offenses for which there is probable cause. So sort of malicious prosecution on the one hand, but maybe you actually did the other thing. And hmm, so confusing. Yeah.

Yeah. So Isha Anand of Stanford's Supreme Court Litigation Clinic was arguing the case for the petitioner and was fabulous, as she has been in all of her arguments this year, her first year arguing at the court. And it seems like this is going to be, at least I thought, another win for her. Recall she got a unanimous win in the first case she argued this term.

Murray, the court of appeals below in this case, seemed to say that as long as there is probable cause for one of the charged offenses, you can't make out a malicious prosecution claim. And Isha was arguing for a different rule that you can make out a malicious prosecution claim if there wasn't probable cause for a charged offense and that resulted in a seizure of your person. Yeah. I mean, she also just had really good rapport with all the justices. I was like, she's going to fix them. They're going to come out reasonable. I can fix him. I know I can. Yeah.

Exactly. Except the end of the song, she can't. Yeah. Okay. Well, hope springs eternal. And she can't fix these guys either. But it felt like there were some – maybe as to this case, though. In terms of how she pitched it, she pitched it as one in which there was radical agreement, which echoed a decision the court issued the previous week in Sheets, which we're going to talk about in a little bit. She was supported by the lawyer for the federal government who agreed that the court below was wrong.

And the fight seemed to be about what else the court might say in this case. The Solicitor General seemed to want the Supreme Court to say a little bit more than the petitioner did. So, you know, the government wanted the court to say the petitioner is required to show that malicious prosecution caused the seizure, although the government didn't want the court to elaborate on how to establish causation or make rules for what happens if there is an uncharged offense or different variations.

Understandably, the respondent's lawyer here really tried to resist the suggestion that there was radical agreement on these issues. But I think if we had to guess, it seems like Isha is headed for another win. And the Supreme Court will say that it's not a defense to a malicious prosecution claim to charge someone with other offenses for which there might be probable cause. And

It will leave a lot of the details to be worked out down the road, but it will be, I think, a win for Isha and for this defendant. And maybe let's just play her closing here, which lays out the stakes that even though those stakes might seem small, given the agreement now, that is actually a misimpression. And she makes that clear here.

This court can do a lot of good by just resolving the question presented and saying that the any crime rule, as Justice Gorsuch said, you can always come up with some crime for which there's probable cause. And so the any crime rule allows police officers to entirely insulate their misconduct by just tacking on a charge for which there is probably probable cause for just about anyone. This court can do a lot of good by just saying that that rule is incorrect.

that a plaintiff can make out a malicious prosecution claim, even if some charges are supported by probable cause, and we'll fight about all the complexities that your honors heard about on remand. Thank you.

Right. The court also heard Thornell v. Jones, and this is an important Sixth Amendment right to counsel case. And we didn't have time to preview it in the last episode, but Kate did allude to it briefly. So in order to establish a violation of the Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel, defendants have to show deficient performance. That is, their counsel performed below an objective standard. And then they also have to show that

there was prejudice, which means that there's a reasonable probability that their counsel's deficient performance actually affected the proceedings. And this case is about how courts determine prejudice and how appellate courts review district court's determinations about whether there's prejudice. Here, the Ninth Circuit concluded that the district court erred by requiring defendants to effectively establish mitigating factors by a preponderance of the evidence,

and to show that it's more likely than not that the outcome of the sentencing proceeding would have been different, even though that's not how the prejudice standard is supposed to or typically understood to work. And there was a somewhat testy exchange on how to read the district court opinion and whether the Ninth Circuit interpreted it correctly along these lines. Let's play that here.

Did the district court ever say that it was applying a preponderance of the evidence standard? No, Your Honor. Is it a reasonable understanding of their opinion to think that it was doing fact-finding in the normal way?

This brought to my mind the kind of exchange between them from Alexander earlier in the term where they were disputing how to read Justice Kagan's opinion in Cooper. Exactly. But, you know, here in this particular Sixth Amendment case, the state says the Court of Appeals and Ninth Circuit did not properly consider the aggravating factors when it determined the

defendant was prejudiced. And this is a habeas case out of the Ninth Circuit where the habeas petitioner, the defendant, won. So, you know, the safe bet is this will probably end poorly now that it is at the Supreme Court. And the question seems to be how much the court is going to say about what district courts should do on the prejudice prong, i.e., like how much harder they're going to make it to establish a Sixth Amendment violation versus focusing on a narrow error of omission by the Court of Appeals, namely not considering the aggravating factors.

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Now for a lightning round of opinion recaps. First up, we got the opinion in Sheets v. El Dorado County. And this was a unanimous opinion holding that the Takings Clause doctrine doesn't have a firm cutoff between legislative and administrative land use permit conditions. And this was an opinion written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett where there were three concurrences. And this was an opinion written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett

And it was a very narrow resolution of the case. By the time the case got to the court, the parties had agreed on the fact that legislative permit conditions were not completely immune from Takings' challenges. And this clip from arguments indicates where they were going on that front. Here it goes. I think you're right about all that, that whether this is a tax is a really interesting question. Whether it's a user fee is a really interesting question.

But as I read the Court of Appeals below, they said, we're not even going to get into any of that because Nolan and Dolan simply doesn't apply to legislative enactments of any kind, whether it's a tax, whether it's a fee, whether it's something else. And I thought we had taken the case to address that question. And as the Chief Justice has pointed out, I think there's radical agreement on that question today.

I think if you leave — And so why wouldn't — what would be wrong with allowing both sides to go back and make their arguments, recognizing that Nolan and Dolan does apply to some legislative enactments? And then we can — you can go back to the courts below and talk about whether this is a tax, whether it's a user fee, or whether it isn't, but that there's just no categorical exemption from legislative enactments. Radical Exemptionist

All right. We also got the opinion in Macri Infrastructure Corp. versus Moab Partners. The court held there that pure omissions are not actionable securities fraud in violation of Securities and Exchange Commission regulations. Here, the company had allegedly failed to discuss a regulation by UN International Maritime Organization that capped the sulfur content of fuel oil. The company didn't discuss the impact of the rule in its public offering documents.

And this was a unanimous opinion by Justice Sotomayor. Again, as Melissa alluded to at the beginning of our episode, the court really seems to be in the posture of clearing the decks, getting the uncontroversial and mostly unanimous opinions out before the crazy really begins. Assume the position, gentlemen. Oh, dear. Everyone's spicy today. Yeah.

So we also got the opinion in Bissonnette versus LePage Bakeries Park Street, and it was a unanimous win for Jennifer Bennett of Gupta-Wessler on behalf of employees in a Federal Arbitration Act case. That is huge. You know, the Federal Arbitration Act makes it difficult for workers to challenge arbitration agreements in their employment contracts, and the Supreme Court has generally been very aggressive in expansively reading the FAA to make it hard for people to challenge arbitration agreements. But here, the Supreme Court agreed with

Bennett's clients that the Federal Arbitration Act exemptions for, quote, any class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce, end quote, applies to workers whose jobs involve transportation, even if they do not work in the transportation industry. So here the employees transported food items.

And so the group of employees, they are not subject to the FAA's rules, making it hard to challenge arbitration agreements. And this case, this win follows Bennett's previous wins in Federal Arbitration Act cases in Saxon and New Prime, which were cited in the short opinion in Bissonnette to explain the outcome, which I thought was a really nice capstone and a testament to what Bennett has been strategizing and able to do for employees seeking civil justice.

That's substantive. And it was so great. Why was the chief, this is completely superficial, but the chief asked Prelogger about this opinion in the Fisher argument and was like pronouncing it like it's boysen, boysen. Anyway, it was really weird. I don't think Bissonnette's hard to say. Wise men once read fake news and they believed it. That's a lyric. I don't know what song. See, you're so much more versed already than I am. I'm just hoping someone will ask me for my safe word.

I actually have a question, which is, Leah, I know you speed read and write, but how is it possible to listen to music faster than anyone else? No, I just start it nonstop at 6 a.m. And it's just going and no one can talk to me. Okay. So you've had like eight hours-ish of listening to it by now. Okay. All right. That explains it a bit. I thought you had some weird, you bent time in some way. Okay.

Okay. All right, Melissa, we're concluding this Taylor conversation. Let's move on. So we also got the opinion in Rudisill versus McDonough. And with all due respect to the lightning round, I am going to say a little bit more about this because I think the shakeout is really interesting here. So in this opinion, the court held that service members who accrue educational benefits under two versions of the GI Bill, the Montgomery GI Bill and the post 9-11 GI Bill,

can use both sets of educational benefits, not, as the federal government had previously argued, only one of the two sets of benefits. So this was a 7-2 opinion written by Justice Jackson in which she cited the so-called pro-veteran canon. And this is a canon of statutory interpretation that instructs courts to favor the rights and benefits of veterans when interpreting ambiguities in federal law.

As Justice Jackson explained in the opinion, quote, if the statute were ambiguous, the pro-veteran canon would favor Rudisil. But the statute is clear, so we resolve this case based on statutory text alone, end quote. A real textual healer here. But you might wonder, if the statutory text is clear on its face, why did she need to big up the veterans canon here, end quote?

Well, we think her choices might be explained by some of the separate writings in this case. There was a concurrence by Coach slash Justice Kavanaugh that Justice Barrett joined, as well as a dissent from Justice Thomas in which Justice Alito joined. And in both of these separate writings, the four justices seemed less tethered to the veterans' canons.

Indeed, Coach Kavanaugh noted that there might be, quote, constitutional questions about the justifications for a benefits-related canon, such as the Veterans Canon, that favors one particular group over others, end quote. He then went on to observe that, quote, the judiciary's role is to neutrally interpret those statutes, not to put a thumb on the scale in favor of or against any particular group, end quote. The major questions doctrine would like a word, sir, but go on, queen. What?

I'm glad you raised this. I wanted to flag these separate writings to underscore, one, that four Republican appointees, Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, wrote or signed on to separate opinions that would sideline the veterans' canon and make it harder for veterans to take advantage of the full scope of educational benefits to which they are entitled. And again, this is the patriotic party of America, people. So it's really interesting that they are on board for this.

Also interesting here is that this limitation of the veterans canon could easily apply to other statutory canons. And I could totally see the line here, the judiciary's role is to neutrally interpret those statutes being deployed to gut Chevron in Relentless and Loper Bright and Kavanaugh citing himself or something like that.

I just cannot believe these major question enthusiasts can say this stuff with a straight face. It's so outrageous. They're so inconsistent. Yeah. Like absolutely inconsistent. This is completely unsurprising. Like they will continue to step on their soapbox about how they are the only people engaged in principled textualism, notwithstanding everything they are doing in major questions cases, notwithstanding what they were saying in Fisher. It's just – yeah. Yeah.

Anyway. It's outrageous. Yeah. All right. But because we have other cases to get through, let's press on. So another opinion we got was Devolier versus Texas. And in this case, the Supreme Court ducked a question about whether the takings clause provides a cause of action that allows plaintiffs to sue if they say they haven't received just compensation for a taking. And the justices said they didn't have to resolve that question because Texas law authorizes those suits for takings without compensation. This was a unanimous Thomas opinion.

And although the Supreme Court ruled for the petitioner, that is the party other than Texas, and vacated a decision that had supported a judgment for Texas, for some reason, Attorney General Ken Paxton took to Twitter to proclaim that this was a win for Texas. Literally, quote, win. Today we secured a unanimous 9-0 win at the U.S. Supreme Court. Not on the top 10 of the most insane and outrageous things Ken Paxton has done. No.

And his career in public service. But that was so weird. No, just like the why are you saying this bald-faced lie? Like, it's just ridiculous.

But proceeding on with the lightning round, we also got the opinion in Muldrow v. City of St. Louis. This is a case we've talked about before on the show. It is the case about challenging employment transfer decisions. In the case, the court held that an employee who challenges a transfer decision under Title VII must show that the transfer negatively affected them or caused some harm to the terms and conditions of their employability.

but that the harm need not be significant. The lower courts, the Supreme Court said, had held that employees have to show a materially significant disadvantage from a transfer. This was an opinion by Justice Kagan that was effectively six to three, although the three justices not with the six agreed with the bottom line result of sending the case back down to the lower courts. There were separate writings, concurring opinions by Justices Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh. Justice Alito wrote

quote, I do not join the court's unhelpful opinion. Just the smallest man, the nastiest, you know,

Whatever. Whatever's going on with him and Kagan right now, it is getting worse. It just seems obvious to me. It is. And a part of me makes me think whether he is not getting what he wants in some of the bigger cases and that is producing some friction. So if that happens, I feel like these were the indications of that. But, you know, we'll see. Well, that's an optimistic loss. It is. It is. Right. The other one is that she's criticizing him, which, of course, we know he can't handle. And so that could also explain some of the third is just he's an abject misogynist.

Right. Yes. No. And any of these three could all be contributing. Why not all three? All three. Yeah. So this was a win for the employee and petitioner. We wanted to, you know, offer congratulations to Brian Wolfman of the Georgetown Appellate Immersion Clinic, who had, you know,

argued the case. The petitioner had argued for a standard that employees don't have to show any harm beyond the transfer, and the Supreme Court didn't go there, but instead went with, you know, they have to show some harm. And at least having listened to the argument and talked about this with you all, I think that is likely because this was the case where some justices had indicated they were interested in exploring possible implications of the case

for DEI programs and specifically whether they could use this case as a Trojan horse to bring them down. You know, that was kind of what Justices Alito and some others had been floating an argument. And that appears to have been warded off or at least put off for another day by the way that Justice Kagan wrote this opinion.

Yeah, I was going to say, like, hats off to Justice Kagan. This actually reminded me of when she dissented from the majority opinion in Ramos back in 2020. And was it 2020? I forget. I think it was 2020. 19 or 20, yeah. One of those terms. But that was a case where the question there was the non-unanimous jury rule in Louisiana. And the majority wrote this very long opinion about...

using racist origins as a justification for departing from stare decisis. And I think she immediately sort of saw the connection to Roe and was like, nope, and joined Alito and the chief to maintain the precedent and to uphold the rule. And so, you know,

She does, I think, sort of see the long view in a lot of cases. And I think this here, I mean, it would have been very easy to go with the no harm standard. And instead by inserting it, she, I think cabins this opinion in a really important way and safeguards DEI initiatives going forward. And to that point,

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund issued this statement, which sought to preempt any prospect that Muldrow might be used to gut workplace DEI measures by emphasizing the narrowness of the decision. As they wrote, contrary to what some have claimed, this decision does not directly implicate programs that create diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, DEIA.

Unlike the discriminatory transfer at issue in Muldrow, DEIA programs generally do not rely on race to determine the terms and conditions of employment, end quote. The NAACP statement called this, quote, an important victory for workers across the nation, ensuring that Title VII's protections against racial discrimination are fairly applied, end quote.

So good result, deftly constructed opinion by Justice Kagan. I mean, will she be able to control its potential future distortion by her evil colleagues? Probably not. But for a couple of years, exactly. The EIA lives. It's safe. No, that's true.

One more opinion in the lightning round. The Supreme Court decided McIntosh v. United States, a case holding that a district court's failure to enter a preliminary order before sentencing as contemplated by federal criminal rules about forfeiture does not preclude forfeiture later on. And this was another unanimous Sotomayor opinion. So we're done with the lightning round. Now it's time to bring the thunder because –

It's court culture time! Exactly. We're so excited because there's a lot of court culture to dig into. And the first thing we want to get into is something that we actually found to be a quite alarming development. So we're going to talk a little bit about Idaho's ban on gender affirming care. And this got before the Supreme Court recently through the shadow docket, and the court made a decision that allows Idaho to enforce its ban on gender affirming care for minors.

As to everyone but the plaintiffs who challenged the law. And again, the court did this on the shadow docket. It granted Idaho's request for a stay of the lower court decision that enjoined the care ban after finding it unconstitutional. And again,

I'm just going to say maybe the court's going to start making its bad decisions right now because this is a really bad decision. It doesn't definitively say the court's views on the merits of this case, i.e. about whether laws like the one in Idaho are constitutional. And most of the separate writings were devoted to fighting about the court's use of the shadow docket and whether the injunction in this case should be treated as a universal or nationwide injunction.

For context about the fighting over whether or not this was a nationwide injunction, it was an injunction issued by an Idaho district court. Idaho only has one judicial district, and that district covers the whole state. And the district court for the entire state of Idaho invalidated this particular state law on a pre-enforcement challenge. In that sense,

It's fairly anodyne relief, the kind of relief that you typically expect in most cases. So I'm not sure what the fight about the nationwide injunction was about, but they decided to have that fight anyway. So again, this is a court that's going to have lots of fights about lots of things, even when they're not obviously on deck in any particular case. Yeah.

And as Melissa mentioned, you know, this ruling does not definitively indicate how the Supreme Court will ultimately rule. It still does send a pretty strong signal. And that's in part because I think this is sort of implicit in some of what you just said, Melissa. The concerns about nationwide injunctions just aren't present in this case, despite some of the justices' efforts to insist that they were. Again, as a district court, its injunction just covered a state invalidating a state law.

And this case involved a pre-enforcement challenge. So there were not concerns about a lower court wiping a law off the books all of a sudden, which some of the justices have voiced by way of concerns about these injunctions. Rather, the Supreme Court here disrupted the status quo in allowing this law to go into effect.

And didn't really have any basis to criticize the district court for doing that because the law was not in effect in the first place. And as this passage from Justice Gorsuch's opinion suggests, quote, likewise, this court has held that there's always a public interest in prompt execution of the law absent a showing of its unconstitutionality. And that's really scary and concerning given the rash of care bans targeting the trans community, particularly trans minors. And just to maybe say one more word about the Gorsuch case.

writing and why it's so concerning, obviously there was a showing of unconstitutionality. The district court that took a very careful look at this law before it went into effect concluded, based on liberty and equality principles, that this law obviously violated the rights of these kids and their parents who were the plaintiffs in this lawsuit. And

Gorsuch is clearly signaling he's not substantively constitutionally concerned about the statute going into effect. And that is really terrifying. Yeah. Someone needs to send him the leave trans kids alone, you freaks t-shirt from the cricket store. So the vote in this case, the Idaho case, was positive.

probably 6-3, although technically the chief justice did not indicate his vote. The dissenters, of course, were the Democratic appointees. Justice Kagan noted she would deny the application. Justice Jackson, joined by Justice Sotomayor, wrote to explain the denial. Justice Gorsuch, as Kate was noting, issued a concurring opinion that was joined by Justices Thomas and Alito, you know, the three horsemen. And then Justice Kavanaugh, joined by Justice Barrett, also did the same, kind of explaining why they granted this stay.

And it did the same hemming and hawing about what is the status quo that Justice Barrett had done in her SB4 concurrence, even though, again, in this context, it's kind of clear what the status quo is because it's a pre-enforcement challenge to a state law. And then...

I don't know. I read this and I was very annoyed both by the Kavanaugh writing and the Gorsuch writing. And the Kavanaugh writing had this line where he's like, I fully agree with Justice Barrett's important insight that the Supreme Court should consider assertworthiness in assessing whether someone has made a likely showing of success on the merits. And it's just like, Brett, like she's smarter than you. You know, you don't need to say she made a good point. Like everyone knows she's smarter than you. And I don't know. It's just...

That little bit annoyed me. And then the Gorsuch writing did what I have like repeatedly just been so annoyed by, which is it conflates and equates like the injunction against the Idaho law here with the injunctions in Murthy, the social media case, the job owning case, and the...

Mifepristone case, Hippocratic Medicine saying like, oh, well, this court granted emergency relief in those cases, you know, where lower courts hadn't joined the federal government from literally talking to social media companies and had yanked an approved drug off the market. So sure, we can do so here. And just like the false equivalencies, that is their language and the decision making register in which they traffic. And it's just so annoying. Yeah.

Some other court culture, this time from Arizona, where the Republicans continue to block any effort to repeal the 1864 abortion ban, which I guess we could also equate to the Republicans

Republicans allow the face-eating leopards to eat their own faces over and over again. So you all will recall that in the wake of the Arizona Supreme Court's absolutely horrific decision to allow the enforcement of an 1864 ban on abortion, many Arizona Republicans seemed to be really opposed to the enforcement of this law, perhaps recognizing that politically this was a devastating thing to do for their party's prospects in the upcoming election. Again,

sensing that resuscitating a zombie law that was passed at a time when women could not vote and the age of consent was 12. These were not the makings of great politics. Even the national Republican Party had tried to distance itself from all of this nonsense with many prominent Republicans saying,

including Donald Trump and Senate candidate Carrie Lake signaling their disagreement with the court's decision allowing the 1864 ban to be enforced. Even though like this is just so maddening because Carrie Lake had been seemingly singing the praises of this 1864 law just last year and the year before. So pick a

fucking lame lady and Donald Trump appointed the justices who cleared the way for the Arizona Supreme Court to revive this 1864 complete total abortion ban. Like they own this. This is what you did. But Leah, consistency is only for Democrats. So, you know, they were for it before they were against it or they were against it before they were for it. Yeah. Right.

Anyway, despite all of these entreaties to save themselves politically, the Arizona GOP would much rather party like it's 1899 or even 1799 in this case. So it's very hard to tell. The state legislature, which is very narrowly divided, but where the Republicans have a slight majority, is

very tellingly decided to beat back a Democratic-led effort to repeal the 1864 law. Like, the Democrats were trying to help Arizonans out generally, but it would have helped the Republicans. And they were like, no, we actually want this zombie law. We want to hurt everyone, women and ourselves. Yeah.

Yeah. And just to underscore that, like they literally blocked an effort to hold a vote. Right. Like the perfect encapsulation of how this Dobbs line of like returning the issue to the political process and the state legislatures is just a joke because like they will bulldoze through democracy if democracy stands in the way. We only want democracy that is actually anti-democratic, like gerrymandered democracy. Yeah.

And democracy that subordinates women. And, you know, as you were alluding to, like, the decision to leave this law in place, like, might be good for electoral politics for Democrats in the sense that it seems likely that the move will activate progressive voters in the swing state, but it is...

Absolutely awful for pregnant people in Arizona who have to live under a law that literally allows for no exceptions unless a pregnant person's life is in danger. A medical assessment that can be second guessed by law enforcement. You know, just this past week, the Associated Press did a story about some of the people who miscarried in the lobby restroom of an ER after they were refused admission or, you know, the woman who learned that her fetus had no heartbeat and died.

You know, the day after a security guard turned her away from the facility, a woman who gave birth in a car after an ER like wouldn't offer an ultrasound like and the baby later died. Like that is what the Republicans in Arizona are like. Yes, that is our status quo. And the harrowing details of that AP piece. I mean, people really should read it because it just it's one absolutely horrifying account after the next. And that is what this has enabled.

Another piece to read about all of the misogynist that's happening in Arizona is an op-ed written in the LA Times by Arizona State University law professor Caitlin Malott. She's an assistant professor at Arizona State, and she's currently pregnant right now. And she talks about

how this is a high-risk pregnancy for her and the genuine fear that she feels right now living in a state where the only prospect for an abortion if something goes wrong is someone recognizes that it's a threat to her life and that may be a very sort of shifting calculus depending on the timing of things. It's a really terrific op-ed.

A really interesting perspective that we don't always get from the legal academy. So applause to Caitlin for what is a very personal and courageous writing. Yeah. Shout out to Caitlin for that. And also just a terrific up and coming scholar. Everyone should keep an eye on. Whose work we've mentioned on the show before. Yes.

And finally, because no court culture segment is complete without some mention of the Fifth Circuit, we need to cover Judge Jim Ho's audition for the next terrible, horrible, no good, very bad Supreme Court justice. And this audition came in the form of a speech to the Midland County Bar Association, which, of course, he allowed a volute conspiracy blogger to republish because this is what federal judges do these days. The speech is about judge shoppings.

and why it's good, actually, or at least why the judicial conference was wrong to try and take Matthew Kaczmarek out of the business of being chief everything for the United States. So why don't we just...

tick through a few highlights. Okay, I'll go first. Here's one that I actually love. This is a statement from Judge Ho in his audition slash speech. Quote, but lately, some critics of the judiciary have chosen to bemoan rather than celebrate the fact that many Americans across the country are served by a single local federal district judge, end quote. Talk about false equivalencies, like my goodness. Yeah.

Those elites with all of their different district court judges in a big district like the Southern District of New York just laughing at us down in Amarillo. Some of us, there's just one garden scene in which we can be painted with some of our closest friends. It's not like an enormously expansive garden. There's just one. There's just one fountain to perch in front of in the painting. Right.

Can I do another one? Yes, please, please. Quote, I spend many of my weekends in a small one-stoplight town in Texas. We have just one supermarket in that town. Now, do I immediately assume that something illegal or untoward has happened just because there's only one supermarket? End quote. Supermarkets are not federal courts. End quote.

Also, the liberals want to make your supermarkets illegal is what he seems to be saying. I really thought that this was his audition for a Harlan Crowe funded like biopic about him where he would say, I'm for regular stuff. I like the RVs right in the parking lots, you know, so they could play that line again.

I park my RV at H-E-B and I just end up at one supermarket in my small Texas town. I thought he lived in Dallas. Like, when is Dallas a small Texas town? Okay, can I do one final one? Please, please. Okay, all right, all right. So...

Quote, look, I get what the critics are doing. This isn't about forum shopping. It's about forum shaming. It's about shaming judges who won't distort their rulings to do their bidding while rewarding those judges who do, end quote.

My guy. Words do both start with S. So good job. But, you know, so he doesn't just go after the judicial conference. He decides to go after the chief justice as well in that speech. Again, I guess that's part of the audition tape. But I was preoccupied.

pretty startled by it. Okay, read it, Kate. It's also important to say what he went after the Chief Justice for doing. Okay, let me read it and then I'll explain. So, quote, many of us thought it was strange when back in 2018, the Chief Justice criticized a sitting president of the United States for criticizing a federal judge. Close quote. So what Ho is referring to here is Chief Justice Roberts back in 2018 actually went after then President Trump after Trump

lashed out at a district court judge in San Francisco who had ruled against his asylum policy. And he called that judge a, quote, Obama judge. And then someone called John Roberts and asked for a quote. What do you think about the sitting president attacking judges for ruling against him? And Roberts issued a very rare statement basically saying there are no Obama judges or Trump judges. We just have all these federal judges working hard trying to do their level best. And, you know, it was for a sitting chief justice a pretty sharp rebuke of a president that

And, you know, who's mad about that rebuke six years later will not let it stand. Jim Ho really, really trying to audition for a potential future President Trump and, you know, trying to make sure that if there's a vacancy that he's the next he's the next justice appointed to the Supreme Court.

It's a great audition. It was. It was a great audition. He was like, lights, camera, bitch, smile. I am ready. FYI, I mean, truly, I think if Donald Trump wins the presidency, Justice Ho is not a far-gone conclusion. Right. Even if there's no vacancy. Right? Pack the court. We need one more seat. 10th Justice, no legislation. Just put him on there and, you know, see who's going to stop him. Oh, God, I can't believe I said that. What if he doesn't? Ugh.

All right, let's move on. Let's end this.

And also the court is going to consider whether the president is absolutely immune and can never be prosecuted no matter what horrific crimes he commits. And, you know, and we're talking about possible prosecution after he has left office. So we will be watching and listening to all of that. Alternating at least a couple of us will be between those horror shows and the Tortured Poets Department. And we will feel we'll identify connections between the two and bring all of those to you in our next episode.

And that is a great segue. This is the final call to submit questions or topics of discussion for the Grab Bag episode. We are going to be holding strict scrutiny office hours where we answer your questions and discuss topics of your choosing. So please submit the questions today and we will do our best to answer them.

Listen to them. And I just want to say thank you to all of the listeners who have pointed out that Taylor Swift is indeed a strict scrutiny listener for releasing a track called Cassandra in which, you know, the lyrics are literally so they killed Cassandra first because she feared the worst and tried to tell the town. So they filled my cell with snakes. I regret to say, do you believe me now? Like this is literally about Cassandra.

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