Short Circuit

Michigan lawyer and YouTube legal sensation Steve Lehto joins us this week. We talk a bit about his career as a broadcaster, consumer protection lawyer, and host of an internet show with 300,000 subscribers. Then we get into some language he never got to “play on the radio.” All because a few police officers threw a man out of a $3 county fair for wearing a t-shirt with a famous saying of the grou...

Like owls? We've got owls. Two of them. But they don't like each other. Ben Field explains how the Ninth Circuit adjudicated with this Parliament of owls, and how a 12 gauge shotgun is involved. In addition, Evan Lisull tells a story of "chalking," the police, and the First Amendment. Both from another Ninth Circuit case, but also from his own brush with the law. Throw in some qualified immunity a...

As news followers over the last few years will know, grand jury records are super secret. But sometimes judges allow the word to get out, under certain narrow circumstances. Is one of them just that the records are old and historians find them interesting? Sorry, says the First Circuit, in the latest installment of a circuit split. Rob Frommer tells us all the history. Also, can the IRS get around...

Wanna get mad? This week we've got you covered. Two cases where the government plays by different rules from the rest of us. First Jaba Tsitsuashvili explains how the 11th Circuit went out of its way to excuse the Department of Justice's failure to raise a legal argument to do with a traffic stop search that private attorneys would not get away with. And Josh House tells us what the 8th Circuit th...

Following in the footsteps of last week's Super Bowl halftime show, we're keeping it West Coast today. Two cases from the Ninth Circuit that are Very Ninth Circuit. First, Bob McNamara explains how the overbreadth doctrine invalidated a restriction on speech related to violating immigration law. Then, Joe Gay describes the many ways the court found an Oakland, California ordinance to be just fine...

The Institute for Justice just issued a new report, 50 Shades of Government Immunity, about what happens when you go to state--not federal--court after the government violates your rights. The report grades every state for its access to justice as an alternative to the federal judiciary. Unfortunately, with just a couple exceptions, it doesn't paint a pretty picture. Two IJ attorneys, Anya Bidwell...

Divorce can be hard on the kids. Especially when the divorce was 40 years ago, the government doesn't believe it happened, and your U.S. citizenship depends on whether it did. New York litigator Alexandra Tseitlin joins Short Circuit to discuss an unusual immigration case she recently won in the Third Circuit. Also, ineffective assistance of counsel claims are difficult to win. But they're a bit e...

Sometimes when the government does bad things to you it violates the Constitution. And sometimes it just violates the contract. Jeff Rowes explains the difference, and how things went down with a development scheme in the Fifth Circuit. Also, Will Aronin brings his expertise he learned as a trial lawyer to examine some junk science that has now been put on trial. Plus he details why it would be ni...

Is it "on bonk" or "n bank"? IJ lawyers disagree on how to pronounce a full court of appeals considering a case. But whatever your Latin/Old French skills, the en banc Fifth Circuit said some things about the Dallas County jail that even your crack team of experts can't understand. But Sam Gedge does his best to explain what might be going on, and how the court needlessly addressed his favorite to...

Ever wondered when the police can pull you over and what they can do once you stop? Then this episode brings news you can use through a couple recent traffic stop cases. Wesley Hottot reports on the Eighth Circuit's blessing of a stop supposedly brought on by some pretty smelly weed (although not everyone is convinced of the story). Then, your host Anthony Sanders tells us of a new development in...

It's a new year but little is new with qualified immunity in the Fifth Circuit. Or is it? Easha Anand of the MacArthur Justice Center joins us to discuss a recent denial of qualified immunity in a police brutality case. IJ's Anya Bidwell joins in and reports on a couple other developments that demonstrate perhaps there's some "split second" thinking going on among those judges. Further, we ask our...

It's our 200th episode! We're taking this second century as an excuse to explore where Short Circuit came from and what it's done, both the podcast and the newsletter. We start things off at the very beginning with Short Circuit's editor and the podcast's original host John Ross. Then it's a blast-from-the-past with Clark Neily and Evan Bernick. We close things off with guest host Paul Sherman and...

In what may be the most obvious of examples of obvious constitutional violations, we discuss the right to not have the police put you in prison. Alexa Gervasi of IJ explains how this was too much even for qualified immunity to defeat, at least in the Third Circuit. And IJ's Ryan Wilson explains why a case involving a Greek boat accident can go forward in Boston. No, the captain's name was not Odys...

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 Windha...

Fans of the Hart-Fuller debate are gonna love this one. As will normal people who have no idea what that means. Legal philosopher HLA Hart asked whether a rule saying “no vehicles in the park” included bicycles, toy cars and airplanes. But now the D.C. Circuit has been asked, what about trailers? D.C. Circuit guru and IJ attorney Jeff Redfern explains what’s a vehicle and what isn’t according to t...

In addition to some other civil rights anniversaries, 2021 marks 50 years since the Supreme Court decided Younger v. Harris. There, the Court made it extremely hard for federal courts to stop an unconstitutional state prosecution. This “Younger abstention” doctrine has been with us ever since. Professor Fred Smith of Emory Law joins us to discuss what Younger’s impact has been and how it has espec...

What’s too hot a novel for a prisoner? Apparently “Pride and Prejudice: The Wild and Wanton Edition” meets that standard. The Eighth Circuit dug into this prurient issue and essentially said it violates the First Amendment to ban modern and Renaissance art in prison, but not to ban fan fiction. Rob Johnson takes us through a wild and lustful tale of free speech law, including the court’s bizarre d...

How can the government encourage us to keep our trees? In all kinds of ways, but not through mandating the replanting of trees regardless of the landowner’s mitigation efforts. At least that’s what Wesley Hottot reports the Sixth Circuit said last week. There’s also a little excessive fines talk, which is worth your time as Wesley is kind of “the excessive fines guy.” He’s also a birdwatcher, whic...

What did Alexander Hamilton tell the Marquis de Lafayette on July 21, 1780? Probably not that his letter would be the subject of a civil forfeiture case. Yet that came to pass in the First Circuit, and IJ attorney Bob Belden explains why it turns out the family that owned the letter were throwing away their shot. Meanwhile in the Second Circuit a fire on a movie set turns into a First Amendment re...

It’s taken five years, but the clients of IJ senior attorney Paul Avelar can now finally get their day in court thanks to a ruling in the Ninth Circuit. Paul joins us to explain why it takes so long to just try and vindicate your rights, and how Arizona’s (thankfully former) civil forfeiture system allowed prosecutors to keep people’s property over and over again, including, at first, his client’s...

Frustrated with the deeply complicated issue of homelessness on Los Angeles’s skid row, a district court took the law into its own hands and ordered a lot of stuff to happen. One problem (of many) with that was the plaintiffs didn’t ask for the stuff. So it wasn’t too hard for the Ninth Circuit to reverse, as Jeff Rowes explains. He and his colleague Diana Simpson also discuss their own work on ho...

Mike Chase, author of “How to Become a Federal Criminal” and the man behind the @CrimeADay Twitter account, joins us to lay out the Eighth Circuit’s take on Congressman Devin Nunes suing people he doesn’t agree with. IJ attorney Diana Simpson then explains how an especially talented prisoner has won two cases at the Ninth Circuit over the cold turkey tactics of his jailers. Mike also relates to us...

For the fifth year in a row the Center for Judicial Engagement travels to the University of North Carolina School of Law to preview the upcoming Supreme Court term. Once again there’s trivia, deep dives on a couple cases about to be argued, and a couple cert petitions. Professor Andy Hessick battles IJ attorney Justin Pearson for top SCOTUS trivia dog and your host Anthony Sanders enjoys the first...

Ever rolled your tires to try and cover up the meter maid’s chalk mark? No, me neither . . . But even if you haven’t, you might not have to worry about tire chalk marks much longer. Josh Windham explains how the Sixth Circuit has said that’s an unreasonable search. And out West it turns out there’s so much law in Yellowstone National Park (the Wyoming bit, at least) that a camper gets out of an as...

The Third Circuit allowed a Second Amendment case challenging Robinson Township’s new zoning ordinance to proceed. Did they town change their zoning laws just to prevent a gun club from fulling opening? Possibly, we’ll have to wait and see. But in the meantime, Andrew Ward walks us through this decision exploring just which level of scrutiny applies to Second Amendment challenges. And there was a...