Strict Scrutiny - The Pick-Me Boys and Girls of the Federal Judiciary

Episode Date: May 13, 2024

Victoria Wenger of NAACP-LDF joins Kate and Leah for an update on the four years of litigation trying to get fair voting maps for Louisiana residents. Then, a major update on a group of federal officials who plan to penalize a private institution for failing to censor certain speech-- you'll never guess who!If you would like to make a donation in honor of Brendan Jackson, Leah's student who recently passed away, you can do so at www.ruckercollierfoundation.com Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Threads, and Bluesky

Mr. Chief Justice, may it please the court. 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 legs. Hello and welcome back to Strict Scrutiny, your podcast about the Supreme Court and the legal culture that surrounds it. We are your hosts today. I'm Kate Shaw. And I'm Leah Littman. Melissa is away actually doing jury stuff in New York. That's all we're going to say there, leaving it vague and letting you fill in the blanks.

But here is what we have on tap for you today while she is away doing her civic duty. We are going to begin by covering a pending emergency application arising out of the continued efforts to enforce the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana. We will then bring you a pretty ample court culture segment because some federal judges in Texas are apparently desperately in need of attention. And we will end with a brief discussion of the two recent opinions the Supreme Court issued since our last episode. So for our conversation about the Voting Rights Act fight in Louisiana, we are delighted to be joined by Victoria, or Tori Wenger, an attorney at the NAACP LDF. Welcome to the show, Tori. Thanks so much for having me. It is great to have you. So as we noted up top, the matter that we are covering with you arises out of the

very lengthy efforts to try to enforce the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana. So we need to get our listeners up to speed before we can dive into the latest developments and wondering if you can help us do that. So this case starts in the wake of the 2020 census as Louisiana began redistricting as it was required to do. And can you tell us just to start what happened with the 2020 redistricting, just the map that Louisiana adopted and how that map was initially challenged? Certainly. So starting with the census is important because what the census revealed is that the Black population in Louisiana had grown in the last decade, while the white population had decreased. So there's the shift in the number of Black folks in the state,

in where folks are living geographically, the continued migration post-Katrina, and other shifts in terms of where these population centers were. There was a real opportunity to finally create a second majority Black congressional district. Louisiana has six. The Black population had grown to about a third of the voting age population by the 2020 census. And while the Voting Rights Act does not provide for proportional representation, it allows for Black voters to have an opportunity to fight for more districts where they can elect their candidates of choice if there are enough folks and they live geographically close enough. And so what we did after the 2020 census is work with our partners and help our clients and offer a variety of different maps that did exactly that,

that provided for two majority Black districts out of six. And we provided those to the legislature when they were touring the state. We provided those during the legislative session. We showed here's many, many ways that you can do it. And instead, the legislature passed a map that continued to only have one majority Black district, specifically one that essentially took the Black folks who live in New Orleans and the Black folks that live in the state capital of Baton Rouge and packed them all in that one district, District 2. Ultimately, the governor, then at the time it was John Bel Edwards, he vetoed the map after our movement and our organizing to ask for that. But the legislature still overrode that veto,

which was truly, in terms of state politics, unprecedented in recent decades. They all came together. They overrode the veto the same exact day we filed a Section 2 lawsuit. We moved for a preliminary injunction and were successful on that. In May of 2022, we had a five-day hearing in the Middle District. We later got a decision and were able to defend that decision even when defendants were calling for a stay in 2022 in that late spring, early summer. But everything came to a screeching halt when the Supreme Court essentially said, put the brakes on this. We're going to hold the case in abeyance until we figure everything out and the future of Section 2 litigation in Alabama, that Merrill v. Milligan

case. So let's take a pause there just so we can walk through the different steps in the litigation before we get to the Supreme Court's intervention in the midterms with the stay. So as you noted, you and your community partners were proposing different maps as the legislature is considering what to do in the wake of the 2020 census now that redistricting was required. And then you challenged the maps when they produced a map that only would have preserved one out of six congressional districts as majority minority, saying that constituted unlawful vote dilution and violation of the Voting Rights Act. So the court agreed with you, and the court found that Louisiana's map likely violated

the Voting Rights Act. And then what happened after the district judge decision finding that Louisiana's one out of six majority and minority congressional district map likely violated the Voting Rights Act? The state defendants moved to stay that decision in 2022. And the Fifth Circuit, a panel of three judges, did not provide for that stay. They essentially said that Judge Dick in the Middle District was valid in her findings and that the remedial process, the effort to choose a new map, should be able to move forward. And it was actually, it was on the eve of when I was in the air, I was flying over Atlanta when we actually heard that that remedial process could not start within the next 36 hours or whatever it was,

because the Supreme Court had intervened and held everything up. Okay. And then just for maybe one additional piece of kind of background or foundation laying, you mentioned Tory Alabama. So what is happening in the background is that there is a very similar process unfolding in Alabama. Alabama actually also has relatively similar population breakdown after 2020, real underrepresentation in the congressional delegation of the then current black population and voting age population in Alabama. And similarly, lower court finds that the Voting Rights Act requires the creation of a second black opportunity or a majority minority district. And the Supreme Court puts that process on hold and essentially requires the 2022 midterm elections in Alabama to move forward under a map, right, with people voting using a map that the lower courts have found illegal under the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court subsequently takes up on the

merits, the question of whether the lower court was correct in its finding about the Voting Rights Act and whether the original Alabama map complied with it, and sides narrowly but super importantly with the lower court and the Voting Rights Act and finds, yes, the Voting Rights Act did require the creation of a second majority Black district. And oops, says the Supreme Court, I guess we required an election to go forward using an illegal map. So that's an enormously problematic sort of backstory, although the ultimate result is an important one in Allen v. Milligan. You said Merrill v. Milligan, that's of course what the case is called below, but it's Allen v. Milligan by the time the Supreme Court hands down

its decision. And once again, that's a 5-4 decision in which the Supreme Court narrowly, but hugely importantly, reaffirms the vitality of the Voting Rights Act and finds the Alabama map was unlawful. Okay, so that is the background. While all of this is happening, the Supreme Court has put the Louisiana process on hold, held the case pending the outcome of the Alabama case. And am I right that importantly, as to the 2022 election, the Supreme Court did the same thing to Louisiana that it had done to Alabama? Tell the election to go forward using a map that lower court had found unlawful? Precisely. So now we are getting close to more recent events. So after Alabama voters prevailed in the Milligan decision, the Supreme Court lifted the stay in the Louisiana proceedings, thereby seemingly allowing the case to go forward with the next stage, which would have been the remedial stage where, you know, the parties and court fix the violation of the

Voting Rights Act in Louisiana. But Tori, what happened next after the Supreme Court kind of said, yes, this case out of Louisiana can continue to go forward as well? So we still had a pending appeal in front of the Fifth Circuit on whether or not the district court's determination that Louisiana's map enacted in 2022 violated the Voting Rights Act, while at the same time, the district court was moving forward with the remedial process, trying to do something about that. We also were going to be moving forward with a remedial hearing where the judge would be able to look at maps that we provide as plaintiffs, look at alternative maps that were also either brought by defendants or amici to be able to make a determination of, OK,

what map are Louisiana voters, politicians, folks going to be operating off of for 2024 or until any other dynamic changes. What happened is that the judge, the district court judge, set dates for a remedial process. We were readying our clients, getting our exhibits ready, exchanging expert reports, when the defendants filed for a writ of mandamus, essentially saying that the district court is overstepping here and the legislature needs a bite at the apple to be able to draw the map first. Mind you, this is the same legislature who had defied the court's suggestion before that they should enact a map that provides Black voters an opportunity in two districts. So there was this sudden, once again, screeching halt to our clients, to Black voters getting resolution and a fair map. And in the meantime, another three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit

says Judge Dick in the Middle District did not err. There is a likely violation of the Voting Rights Act here. Something must be done about it. And so what the Fifth Circuit did was say the legislature has until mid-January to choose a new map. Now, there's a lot of Louisiana politics going on in the background, including a huge statewide election last year. A new governor, new statewide offices like secretary of state, attorney general and the entire legislature was up for election. Inauguration day was January 8th. The earliest they could convene was January 15th. The hearings are in the fall 2023 and now we're in January of 2024.

So you have inauguration of all these new, is it the legislature and the executive branch, everybody turns over on January 8th? Okay. Yes. And that's when the session takes up, right, the question of what map they're going to adopt. Is that right? The governor called the legislature into special session. The earliest they could plausibly meet under their state constitution was January 15th. So Judge Dick actually had to grant them an extension and give the legislature more time to deliberate over a map. Okay, so then we were at this special session, and Louisiana is considering several different maps that would remedy the Voting Rights Act violation and create a second majority-minority

opportunity district. And they have, you know, different considerations that they are weighing and selecting, you know, some maps versus others, you know, some maps are a little bit more compact, that is the districts are, you know, kind of like, more, I don't know how to define compactness, but like square, right, and like less irregularly shaped. But some of the other maps like give particular advantages to incumbents, you know, that the legislature might want to protect. And so they weigh those considerations and they ultimately select, you know, one of the maps, again, that has the second majority minority district. And it is those maps, that new map that creates the second majority minority district to remedy

the Voting Rights Act violation that the Louisiana legislature passes in this special session that is now challenged. And that is the case that is now kind of making its way up to the Supreme Court. So it's this new map that is challenged. And we got a decision in the case challenging the map, which is the decision we want to talk about. So what did that decision on the new Louisiana remedial map do? Sure. So many things that don't necessarily abide by precedent or fully honor the facts that were adjudicated at our joint preliminary injunction and trial just a few weeks ago. So what the court did here was essentially say that number one, race predominated. That's the constitutional question. Now we'll pause there quickly because

on the facts, there's a lot of questions on whether or not that's a fair assertion. There are ways and there are maps that we provided that performed way better on compactness, what you just described, or on how many parishes, that's Louisiana for county, are split or all these other criteria that are taken into the process. There are ways to do that while achieving a second majority Black district where everything is balanced. They're trying to say here that race predominated inherently because the legislators were very clear that they understood they had been called into this session to draw a VRA compliant map, ergo one with two majority Black

districts. I want to make sure people understand like what the court did and the nature of the claim that the court ruled for before we actually get into unpacking, I think, like how the court elided the facts and adopted a reasoning that at least in my mind is a threat to the Voting Rights Act. But what the three-judge district court did is when you say the court concluded that race predominated, it's concluded these maps were unconstitutional. They violated the Equal Protection Clause because they amounted to what is called a racial gerrymander, where, again, the legislature drew districts with race in mind here in order to draw a second majority-minority district. And it was on that basis that the court concluded that these districts were unlawful, needed to satisfy a very demanding standard of

scrutiny, strict scrutiny, and could not do so. So we definitely want to unpack all of the different parts of that analysis. So we framed this as initially involving, as it did, a dispute about the Voting Rights Act. But as decided by this three-judge district court that we're now talking about, that's the decision at issue, we have the court finding that, you know, yes, these maps were drawn in attempt to comply with the Voting Rights Act. But actually, there's a separate and in some ways overriding problem with the maps, which is that the maps themselves, because they were drawn with race predominating, violated the Constitution. So the question being posed and answered here is one that seems to hold out some real existential threat to the Voting Rights Act. So let's get there, but maybe pick back up with what you were talking about before we jumped in,

which is the flaws in the court's reasoning and the role of politics and sort of how that, you know, actually is a way to understand what the legislature was doing here. The court essentially found that this map that the legislature enacted to comply with court orders and the enforcement of the Voting Rights Act now is a violation of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution because the legislature is considering race. And as this panel, at least the majority, found they were considering race predominantly over other considerations, whether it was politics or other traditional redistricting principles like compactness, contiguity,

keeping municipalities or parishes together. And when you get into that land of races being considered predominantly, then the map has to comply with strict scrutiny. It has to be for the purpose of complying and honoring a compelling state interest. Now, the court here assumed and precedent says complying with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Section 2 or other areas, is a compelling state interest. But that's where this case gets even more complicated and some of the heart of our appeal lies in, is how the court here, the district court, essentially did not take the legislature's word at, we have strong, good basis to believe that the VRA is relevant in our state, that the VRA requires two majority Black districts, because multiple courts have now told us that. The court said, you can't make that leap. You as a legislature essentially need to be doing

as exacting an analysis as plaintiffs bringing a Voting Rights Act claim to have that good basis. Yeah, so maybe I could just like take a beat on explaining that because this is an area of law that is really complicated and trying to learn this is definitely a thicket. But I think what the plaintiffs and legislature are saying is, look, once it was clear,

it was a Voting Rights Act violation in order for the legislature to draw the map that had one of the six congressional districts, then it was up for the legislature to decide kind of how to remedy that balancing all of these competing considerations that you alluded to, right? Compactness, traditional districting criteria, partisanship, and so on. Whereas the court that invalidated the map basically looked at the legislature's map and said, this map has to satisfy the most demanding standards that we hold plaintiffs who are challenging maps under the Voting Rights Act to do. That is, they have to show that all of these alternative possible maps satisfy compactness and other districting criteria, whereas here the court

said the legislature had to do that, and that kind of like inverts, you know, the traditional deference that is afforded to legislatures and the idea that you want the legislature to have a first crack at remedying a Voting Rights Act violation, while still having the latitude to consider the sort of traditional districting criteria that legislatures can. And again, here, as you noted, you had submitted maps that were more compact in certain respects, respected parish boundaries, but those maps did not give the legislature the partisan advantage it wanted, right, which was protecting certain Republican incumbents. And they decided that that mattered more to them than these other criteria. And the idea that that means they, it's just like a very complicated morass that the three judge district court seems to have kind of backed itself into and how it was considering these claims.

And can I just add one additional note? Am I right that one of the incumbents whose protection was at issue was the current speaker of the House? Mike Johnson's district is one of the districts that you guys that was sort of at issue in the various maps the legislature was considering. Right. And not only Mike Johnson, but also Republican Majority Leader Steve Scalise. Two lawmakers who had been, you know, vetted in that fight for new House leadership and who hold a ton of power in D.C. The actual decision here about why the lawmakers and Louisiana's new governor, Jeff Landry, preferred the map that they enacted in January instead of the one that we had proposed that had essentially already been rubber stamped by the Middle District, by the Fifth Circuit, was because that map would put Congressman Garrett Graves in jeopardy while protecting Congresswoman Julia

Letlow. Congressman Graves was a, you know, closely in the circle of Kevin McCarthy. He did not support Steve's police when he when his name was in the running. He was not as vocal in supporting Mike Johnson or in supporting the new governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry. He's a bit of a moderate in that field, and he's someone that maybe would be a rival to Governor Landry's political future. And so while there's this national narrative, there is some real Louisiana politics going on. The new governor, the Republican supermajority elected, had an opportunity to essentially put someone who has stepped out of line with the political establishment at risk through this redistricting process. really doubt that either. But they made this leap that was beyond the record to say, there's no world in which the Republicans would willingly forfeit one of their seats.

And framing it in these partisan terms, again, and we lose sight of the fact that our clients, Power Coalition for Equity and Justice, the NAACP, nine individual Black folks have been fighting for years, have already had to endure a 2022 election on a map that was deemed and essentially about to violate the Voting Rights Act, are now caught in this limbo land once again of what map are they going to vote on in 2024 and will it honor their communities and their voting rights? That's a ton of fascinating sort of local and national kind of political backdrop. So it sounds like this complex combination of everyone agrees that Voting Rights Act compliance requires a second majority black district. The fight is over which map. You all did not prevail in the map that you

had blessed and that you thought was the best. The leadership, Republican leadership in the state got a map they liked better, complied with the Voting Rights Act, but maximized the political advantage, which the Supreme Court has said the Constitution is totally fine with. So that is politics. Like, that's how map drawing is supposed to work. You know what's necessary to enforce the Voting Rights Act? Partisan pettiness. Partisan gerrymandering. Partisan pettiness, much better. So now we are at this moment where a court has invalidated the map that the Louisiana legislature has selected in order to remedy the Voting Rights Act violation. And now a group of voters and the Louisiana legislature ask the Supreme Court to put on hold the ruling of the three-judge panel that invalidates the

remedial map. Is that kind of like the next phase of the proceeding, like whether the Supreme Court is going to put on hold the decision invalidating the remedial map? Exactly. So when the legislature enacted this map, which was not our first choice, but did provide for a second majority Black district, that got to the core of our Voting Rights Act claim on behalf of our clients in Robinson. It is a group of, quote, non-African American voters who then challenged that map under the 14th Amendment. The state of Louisiana, the Secretary of State, the government, they are the defendants in both of these matters. But for our position representing Black folks in Louisiana, we went from being the plaintiffs winning a Voting Rights Act claim to now intervener defendants trying to make sure that the map

that the legislature chose, whether it was our first choice, second or third, that map is able to be used in 2024 and beyond because it provides that opportunity that's been denied for so long. So just to underscore that, because when you refer to the opportunity that has been denied so long, I think the point is that absent a stay, there is a possibility that Louisiana voters will have to vote not just in 2022, but also in 2024 under a set of maps that courts have concluded likely violate the Voting Rights Act because the three-judge district court decision invalidated the map that would fix the Voting Rights Act violation. And so if that map isn't

in place, then what set of maps are they using? Who knows? Or maybe the set of maps that violate the Voting Rights Act. And I think this is partially, I guess, now we want to have the conversation about what the Supreme Court's actions in this case could say about the Supreme Court and voting rights, as well as the future of the Voting Rights Act. One thing that is lurking in this case is this Purcell principle, just to kind of remind people. The Purcell principle is the ground that Brett Kavanaugh gave for putting on hold the lower court decision invalidating the Alabama maps, Purcell maintains that there can't or shouldn't be court-ordered changes to elections too close to elections. Now, we criticize kind of the application of that principle to the Alabama case because Alabama didn't actually have a set of lawful maps in place, and so it just didn't make sense to apply

Purcell. But the point is, is if the court is applying Purcell to these redistricting decisions, then what's good for the goose should be good for the gander. And here, if they don't think courts should be invalidating districting maps too close to the eve of the election, then courts shouldn't be invalidating districting maps too close to the eve of the election, whether that hurts Democrats or Republicans. You know, Nick Stephanopoulos, a Harvard law professor and former guest on the show, said on Twitter, like, is Purcell in any way a real principle or just a rule designed to benefit Republicans?

And if the court allows this district judge decision to invalidate a set of maps, again, on the eve of the 2024 presidential election, it's on the eve in the same way that the previous decisions in Alabama and Louisiana were on the 2022 midterms, then Purcell is just a joke. And can I just say one more thing on timing? Am I right? So we're recording this on Friday the 10th. And there is a mid-May deadline, right, for ballot preparation. Is that right, Tori? Right. So essentially the, well, one thing to point out about Louisiana that's a little bit unique

is that November is actually the congressional primary, and then they have runoff in December. So the kind of operative dates that we're working with, whether it's for purposes of Purcell or just the necessary speed of this litigation, are other administrative steps, like thinking about candidate filing and candidates actually knowing what district they live in, but also the Secretary of State going through the effort of reassigning where voters are within the voting system so that that can all be allocated. So there's all these different administrative steps, whether they genuinely need to start on May 15th, which is the deadline that the secretary of state's articulated, or can be extended a bit. It's not something that can be extended indefinitely.

So that is part of what we're up against here when we're talking about timelines. you all are asking the Supreme Court to do is to stay the opinion that just found unconstitutional, this map that has been the product of this complex and protracted litigation and legislative attention, and to let that map go into effect for the November election. And the question that Nick posed and that Leah was just describing, I think is like, is really presented in the starkest possible terms here, which is that is there anything consistent about the Supreme Court's application of Purcell and the court's purported concern with, you know, not mucking up the process of elections on the eve of the actual elections? If the court does care about that value, it would seem to me it has to grant the stay

here and let this map be used. And yet, you know, we just don't know. And I think it's going to be critically important as to Louisiana voters and their ability to exercise meaningful political power, but also as to what kind of a democracy we're going to have in this election and going forward. So it does feel like this is a shadow docket matter, but the stakes are extraordinarily high. And the stakes are also extraordinarily high for an issue that we have gestured at, but now I want to turn to frontally, which is the future of the Voting Rights Act. Because I think the three-judge district court decision that concludes

this map likely violated the Equal Protection Clause because the legislature was trying to remedy a Voting Rights Act violation. It just treats the focus on compliance with the Voting Rights Act and effort to create a second majority minority district to comply with the Voting Rights Act as kind of pretty clear evidence and potentially dispositive evidence of a possible constitutional violation. And I think the end of the opinion like has really strong overtones of this where they basically say like the real racists are the people trying to enforce the Voting Rights Act. So it has this like super long thing that I'm not going to be able to read in all of its entirety, but it refers to the long struggle for civil rights and equal protection

that has taken place in Louisiana and says to say now separate, divide, segregate is to negate the sacrifice of those previous voting rights, civil rights organizers. Again, this is equating the people seeking representation for black voters in Louisiana with the racoting Rights Act is the real racism and constitutional problem is, I think, the concerning aspect of Milligan that, you know, Brett Kavanaugh had not joined portions of the Chief Justice's opinion when the Chief Justice wrote in Allen versus Milligan, you know, in those sections that Section 2 demands consideration of race and that the whole point of the enterprise is an additional majority-minority district in Section 2. And I just, like, again, like, they are treating remedying the Voting Rights Act as a constitutional problem. And that is, I think, a big concern here.

Yeah. And let me maybe put this in like sort of direct terms. Obviously, we have been very concerned about an Equal Protection Clause challenge actually sort of toppling Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in at least redistricting cases for quite some time. So that is not obviously like a new concern. How concerned should we be that the court might move that project further in this shadow docket consideration of the Louisiana map? So essentially with their consideration of granting the stay or not, that doesn't inherently get us to the end of the road with this process and the fight for a fair map in Louisiana. If the Supreme Court weighs in and grants a stay, incredible. We get to the hard work of organizing,

of getting voters excited about the new opportunities in their state. But even if not, what the district court has provided for is an opportunity for the parties to present maps to remedy this issue. There should be no question that it is possible to create a VRA

compliant map, a great map on redistricting criteria, and also one that honors the 14th Amendment. So on the facts, this is not a case that should truly be putting in tension the 14th Amendment and the Voting Rights Act. And certainly if the Supreme Court takes this case up, we're going to need to fight vehemently to make sure that both of those protections are not somehow now being contorted against the same communities that fought and died in let's say worst case scenario, Supreme Court doesn't grant the stay, then you're saying the district court could proceed with the remedial phase and possibly do a court ordered map. Precisely. Fingers crossed, hopefully like in time for the 2024 election so that voters don't have to vote twice under a map that violates the Voting Rights Act. Exactly. So we owe maps, both all the parties owe maps to the district court by May 17th. And then if the legislature has not on their own accord enacted a map by the end of

this legislative session on June 3rd, then the court, the district court has indicated by June 4th, they will be picking a map. All right. Well, we will keep a close eye on all of that. Tori Wenger, thank you so much for joining us and shedding a great deal of light on this really important pending dispute. Thank you both so much. And now on to the court culture segment that we promised. And we will start with the latest plea for attention from the judges in Texas. So in an effort to broaden our appeal, we wanted to be sure to touch upon an issue that we know is near and dear to the hearts of right of center listeners. And that issue is the excesses of cancel culture.

So we wanted to bring you an update on our very own cancel culture watch. The update is this. A group of federal officials announced they plan to penalize a private institution for failing to censor certain speech. We can feel the hackles of cancel culture warriors everywhere rising and the cancel culture alarm bells going off left and right. Red light is flashing. Only, oddly or maybe not, it turns out that the cancel culture warriors are actually, and honestly, again, of course, the ones doing the canceling. And we are talking here about a group of federal judges, 13 of them to be exact, who announced last week that they were instituting a policy of not hiring any student who chose to attend either law school or college at Columbia,

beginning with the entering classes, based on the protests roiling the campus at Columbia, along with many, many other universities. It probably won't require a ton of guesses to figure out who were among the signatories. But among the signatories on the letter are Judge Jim Ho of the Fifth Circuit, as well as judge slash country's chief scientist slash chief financial policy determiner, Matthew Kazmierak. So I am sure students are weeping about the prospect of not clerking for the guy who cited anonymous blog posts in his ruling revoking a drug that has been in circulation for some 20 years from the market. But a part of me does wonder, who are the undergrads out there, as in current high school students, who are thinking, I so desperately want to clerk for Matthew Kaczmarek, I guess I won't go to Columbia for college. Like,

who are those high school students? Do not apply to us to intern is all we're saying. I mean, I'm not sure I would want to hang out with those people. I don't know how fun they are, like those high school students who are already scheming about their Kaczmarek clerkship. But there are so many things to say about this letter, hence the lengthy court culture segment. That's one of them. But another is, what exactly did the judges want Columbia to do in order to end the protests? I mean, Columbia had one of the more severe reactions, calling in the police and instituting draconian disciplinary proceedings. Like, do the judges think Colombia should be summarily executing the protesters? I just, I don't know. So that's one enormous problem with

the letter. And there's another, there are many others, but to tick on, and this is actually something that a number of conservative and kind of center-right folks have observed, it doesn't even make sense as a policy, setting aside what exactly they were seeking from Columbia beyond the really punitive reaction that Columbia has already demonstrated. So these are judges who typically hire from the FedSoc chapter of a law school like Columbia if they're going to hire at all. So what they're doing here is punishing FedSoc members for protests, disruptions as the letter calls them, that I have a very strong feeling these Fed Soc members are not, you know, really centrally involved with. But I guess these judges are A-OK with collective punishment. It is also honestly rich that these guys penned this letter, which is, I think, pretty clearly unconstitutional jawboning under, not that I think it is, but under the Fifth Circuit's own decision in the Murthy case. That's the case that's currently pending before the Supreme Court in which the Fifth Circuit held that relatively mild encouragement by government actors was unconstitutional.

And there it was like the federal government interacting with various social media companies. Though, interestingly, none of the judges from that panel, the Murthy panel of the Fifth Circuit, is on this letter. So at least maybe some of them understood there could be a little bit of tension between those two positions. But obviously, these signatories are aware of that decision. And the only way I think they could possibly have squared what they're doing here with what their colleagues, their court, some of them are not only some of them are on the Fed, some of them are on other courts. The only way I think they can make it make sense is to understand that these judges believe that they are just not subject to the same rules they think apply to others, that they are not maybe subject to law at all. They are law, but they are not subject to law.

There's a real through line between that mindset and I think what many of them believe about the president and complete immunity from the applicability of all law. So I feel like there are threads that connect. Oh, for sure. For sure. I mean, this is something we've talked about on the show before, how Justice Alito, for example, does not believe he is subject to the law. He is the law. Wanted to run through the other signatories of the letter in addition to Jim Ho and Matthew Kaczmarek so that people are aware of who the real pick-me-boys and girl of the federal judiciary are.

So the other signatories are Elizabeth Branch on the 11th Circuit. All of the nominees are Trump nominees, like Go Figure. Also Matthew Solomson on the Court of Federal Claims and Stephen Alexander Vaden on the Court of International Trade. Now for the judges who you might have heard about on the pod before. So there's Alan Albright, a district judge in Texas who encouraged patent owners to file claims in his district. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has actually mandamised cases. He has refused to give up, like ordering them away from him. And you had senators writing bipartisan letter to the chief justice asking the chief to investigate abuses

from judges from this judge in particular, as far as their docket manipulation. You have Judge Hendricks, another district judge in Texas. This is the guy who found that laws violated the quorum clause of the Constitution, striking down the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act based on a misreading of parliamentary procedure and misunderstanding of abbreviations like HR. There's also Judge David Counts, another Texas district judge. He hasn't really distinguished himself, you know, hence signing this letter, I guess, although he did strike down the federal law prohibiting people under felony indictments from buying guns. There's Judge Tillman Tripp E. Self III, always the best names. This is a district judge in Georgia. He enjoined the Air Force from imposing a vaccination

requirement. In the opinion, he had the following banger, quote, plaintiff's natural immunity coupled with other preventative measures begs the question, does a COVID-19 vaccine really provide more sufficient protection? This is especially curious, the judge continues, given the number of people who have been and continue to be infected after becoming fully vaccinated and receiving a booster, end quote. This is just such a great tour of the greatest hits. I think as we spend so much time talking about Matthew Kazmarek, I think we really sort of like underplay the number of other crackpots on the federal bench. And thank you for this corrective, Leah. It's important. Again, like new running segment, the pick me boys and some girls of the federal judiciary,

because the list continues. You have Brantley Starr, a district judge in Texas. This is the guy who ordered lawyers for Southwest Airlines to attend a training on religious liberty by the Alliance Defending Freedom. God, another classic. Totally. I know. Also have Drew Tipton, a district judge in Texas. This is the guy who enjoined or stayed, I can't remember like the precise procedural tool he used, but blocked Biden's initial immigration enforcement executive orders. The Supreme Court, this Supreme Court disagreed with him by eight to one. This reference is going to be wasted on UK,ate and so i'm sorry for using it but um this court looks at drew tipton and they're like me know that not real law and that is a reference

kate let me explain this to you no idea sorry nikki glazer's roast of tom brady um i injured my hand so i've been watching a lot of television so i watched like the three hours of the tom brady roast and nikki glazer had the like i did hear it was like uneven but had some good moments okay but so this is so yeah okay yeah um so, I didn't know there was such a roast. Wow. At least pull up and watch the Nikki Glaser five minutes or whatever it was. Okay. Anyways, there are other district judges on that list. But again, like, these are the great minds who decided it is the proper role of a federal judge and federal official to threaten to penalize private institutions for not censoring speech.

Yeah. So there are a few other things to note about the letter. One, it refers to the students involved in these protests as disruptors. It also says, quote, Justice William, I mean, they just are shameless in that they will seek to cite anything they think helps their case. Like they're citing William Brennan, who they don't think was doing law, I don't think. And yet they're like, oh, he did this thing and so somehow that justifies it. Like how about you cite a substantive opinion by Justice Brennan?

I think that would be more constructive than seeking some support in some kind of misrepresentation of his hiring practices. So they say, you know, he refused to hire clerks from Harvard Law School because he disliked criticisms of the Supreme Court by some of its faculty. A passing line from a book. But as to the law schools, like he did hire from Harvard, he stopped between 1966 and 1969 and I think continued to hire a lot for, you know, through his retirement. So I guess that's the best they could find as support for this brave and bold position that they were offering. So what do you think accounts for this for them, you know, sort of stepping out with this right now, Leah? Mercury is in retrograde, at least for the legally challenged. But, you know, I think getting at the segment of the pick me boys and girl, I mean, like, this is auditioning, right? Like people look around and they think like there is a chance Donald Trump is going to win a second term in office, I need to make my case for a promotion now. And the way to seek judicial promotions under a Trump administration is to be the most ridiculous cancel culture warrior that you can and be kind of like loud and nasty about it. So I think it's just auditioning. And I think we have a lot more of this to look forward to both in judicial opinions and in these ridiculous stunts. So again, we are

going to have, you know, I'm sure occasion to have another running segment. I mean, it brings me no joy to say that, but I think we're going to have to. Okay. So speaking of auditioning, while the Supreme Court didn't give us that many decisions in this past week, it is still time for another, it's time for some bad decision segment because you know who did give us a bad decision? Aileen Cannon. You know, so you can audition in judicial fora or non-judicial fora. There's lots of stages. So this one occurred on a stage. And specifically, so she is the judge overseeing the Mar-a-Lago documentary. They're double threats, right? Soon they're going to be triple threats. The acting, dancing, singing, non-judicial, judicial fora. Like, who knows what else they're going to expand to. The sky's the limit. But for now, Aileen Cannon has indefinitely postponed any trial date in the case in which Donald Trump is charged with wrongful retention of classified documents and obstruction of justice. This is, I guess, not surprising given her penchant for delay so far since the case was first brought. But it is still maddening.

She had been postponing even ruling on motions from Special Counsel Jack Smith's office, basically saying it was too far away from trial, but then specifically requested jury instructions very, very early, even though those are typically things that happen very late in the process, and now has nixed a trial date altogether. And I think the best way to understand all of this chaos is that she is just in way over her head and totally overwhelmed and has essentially frozen in kind of panic or paralysis and is saying like, I can't and so we're not. I don't know. Is that a fair read on what has just occurred? Yeah. I mean, she basically decided that like judging and doing law was just like a little bit too demanding on her schedule. So decided to take a vacay. I mean, I really think you manifested some of the current events like two weeks ago when you suggested that the brain worms that were, you know, infecting the dray matter of the male Republican appointees on the Supreme Court, you know, like there was a problem.

And then all of a sudden. That's right. And then, yeah. And then what do we learn? Worms are in the news. So I guess like more Republican appointees have been worm brained than we perhaps realized, you know, when we were just discussing those on the Supreme Court during the immunity argument, because you have the Columbia letter, Island Cannon. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and also, it turns out this is an actual real thing. And so it just may be that we have yet to learn that there are actual real worms that have infected the brains. And it's not just in fact, a metaphor. But these judges would like you to know, even though worms infected and ate part of their brains, they are still capable of being judges.

Completely. They still have the mental capacity. Totally plausible. Okay. So should we take stock on where we are in the various Trump cases? So where does this put us? Yeah. various Trump cases. Like, so where does this put us? Yeah, so in other, you know, kind of, I don't know whether to put this under the bucket of additioning or Trump buying more time to evade accountability, but the Georgia Court of Appeals allowed an immediate appeal of the trial judge's

order holding that DA Fannie Willis did not have to disqualify herself from the case. And that appeal will likely generate briefing and additional fights over what else can be appealed and can be encompassed within that appeal, likely, I think, potentially at least prolonging the case until after the election. So you have Cannon nixing the Florida federal case on obstruction and wrongful retention of classified documents. The Georgia case potentially tied up in some interlocutory orders, although the Georgia trial court said they were going to proceed with some matters. The Supreme Court doing who knows what with the federal January 6 election interference case. And that leaves the New York state case, right? Yeah. So that's, you know, that trial is proceeding. This last week has been fascinating. Lots of people in New York have been going. I have friends who are not even like in the press or even lawyers have gone and just like sat in the overflow room. You can do that and like listen to some of the testimony.

But we had Hope Hicks. We had obviously Stormy Daniels testifying. The general sense on the ground that I'm getting is that the case is going very well for the Manhattan DA, the prosecutor. But, you know, it's hard to say for sure. And in any event, hopefully Melissa will be back next week and can shed some more light on all of this unless she remains, again, tied up with jury duty things. Okay, so let's briefly touch on the opinions that the court gave us since our last episode. Thursday of last week was opinion release day, and we were, as is basically now going to be required on every opinion release day, between now and the end of June when they're likely to finish up, ready to go.

But all we got were two relatively low-key opinions we're going to discuss briefly, but we will mostly keep our powder dry for the opinions to come in the next few weeks. So the first opinion we got is Culley v. Marshall, an important civil forfeiture case. The holding in this case is that civil forfeiture proceedings, which we'll explain in a second, require timely hearings to determine whether the property can be forfeited, but don't require a preliminary hearing as to what happens to the property pending the ultimate hearing. Okay, so what happened in this case involved pretty standard civil forfeiture proceedings. You know, the petitioners in the cases loaned their cars to people, and then the people who were using the cars were arrested for drug-related offenses, and the police officers seized their cars. That places the cars in these civil proceeding, we conclude you violated some law that allows us to seize your property, we get to keep the property.

And so, again, in this case, two people lent their cars to other individuals who were arrested on drug-related offenses. The car owner said, look, we're not involved in these drug offenses, so you don't get to keep the cars, which we own. But it took a really long time for the police and the states to actually resolve those proceedings. And losing your car for any period, right, and the period that it actually takes to resolve these civil forfeiture proceedings is super costly and consequential. The hearings, that is the ultimate determination of the fate of the car can take a while which means law-abiding people are without their cars in that period and in many places might mean they are unable to get to work to school to doctors again in both of these cases the innocent owners did get their car back but it took over a year so the owners filed suit arguing that the

due process clause requires a preliminary hearing prior to the state retaining their cars during the forfeiture process. And as Justice Sotomayor noted in her dissent for the Democratic appointees, you know, it's low-income communities that are the most vulnerable to the process from unchecked prosecutors and abusive civil forfeiture proceedings. So look, the bottom line here is an enormous disappointment, especially after the argument and the fact that this categorical rule that the court announces that there is no requirement of a preliminary hearing before this kind of civil forfeiture, that just didn't even seem to be necessary to decide the case. But there, I think, are important kind of qualifiers to just how disappointing the outcome is,

which is that while the case, you know, it was a six to three holding, it was also really kind of four to two to three in important ways that matter. And specifically, Justice Gorsuch had a concurrence in which he was joined by Justice Thomas, in which he wrote, quote, but if all that, all these considerations that he walks through in the concurrence leads me to join today's decision, and he does join the decision, he says, I also agree with the dissent that this case leaves many larger questions unresolved about whether and to what extent contemporary civil forfeiture practices can be squared with the Constitution's promise of due process. I write separately to highlight some of them. And he goes through in tons of detail many of the abuses that local police departments have

been found to have engaged in. The dissent very much does as well with respect to the practice of civil forfeiture. You know, like cash-strapped police departments do way more civil forfeiture and way more targeted civil forfeiture against communities of color than flush police departments. Like, it is just like a revenue stream and an incredibly disturbing one that is very hard to square with basic notions of due process of law. And so he very much seems, I mean, Leah, tell me if you agree with this, open in a future case to revisiting that. So why does he not just join the dissenters, do you think? So I think part of it is just like Neil being Neil and like somewhat petulant. Like he, it was clear during the oral argument, was not into the question presented and the specific challenge to civil forfeiture proceedings.

We played part of this clip, you know, when we recap the oral argument, but we will play it here now. It seems very strange that we're asking which of two precedents apply rather than what the due process clause commands. I mean, it's just a weird question presented as far as I'm concerned. And basically, the case had been litigated and the court granted certiorari on the question of what case, that is, what prior Supreme Court case, the legal test from these two prior decisions, governed this particular challenge. That is, which legal case established the standard for arguing you are entitled to a preliminary hearing? And Justice Gorsuch, who basically doesn't agree with precedent, was like, I don't want to decide that question. I just want to decide what what the due process clause, you know, requires. And so it's possible right in some future case, as you were noting, he will conclude based on, you know,

his analysis of the relevant history or quote history, right, originalist vibes, that other aspects of civil forfeiture proceedings actually do implicate like his understanding of the due process clause, whether that is, as you were saying, the incentives for police departments or other abusive practices that are used in civil forfeiture proceedings, but he didn't ultimately conclude that a preliminary hearing was something that the due process clause required. And I think part of what was troubling about this decision is the court didn't have to ultimately resolve that bottom line question about whether preliminary hearings are ever required or required here, again, because the question on which they granted certiorari was just, what is the legal standard that should be used to determine whether a

preliminary hearing is required? And in this clip, which is from Justice Jackson, you have her making the case that, again, the court shouldn't be deciding the ultimate question, and yet they do so anyway. So we'll play that here. Are you asking us to decide that in this case, though? I mean, I guess I'm confused because I thought we were doing just Barker versus Matthews in terms of figuring out whether or not there is a procedural due process claim here. I didn't understand us to be answering the question how many weeks are necessary, but maybe I'm confused.

No, you understood correctly, Justice Jackson. The question presented is simply about which methodology, which test applies to determine whether a hearing is due. And whichever one we decide, we could remand it for the lower court to actually apply it in this case to determine whether or not there was a procedural due process violation, correct? Absolutely. So just to recap, bottom line conclusion, court holds preliminary hearings aren't required as part of civil forfeiture proceedings. But the upside is, you know, the three Democratic

appointees together with Thomas and Gorsuch signal some openness to the possibility of challenging other abusive civil forfeiture proceedings. We did kind of see this coming from the argument as far as where the justices' skepticism about civil forfeiture was coming through, but also seemed to think that this was not the case where they were going to do something. So we'll just play that clip here, because why the heck not? Predictions. You know, it seemed to me like Justice Gorsuch and the Democratic appointees want to do something to rein in civil forfeiture abuses. It's unclear whether they have a fifth vote to do so. And the technical question on which the court granted cert, you know, what legal test applies when a plaintiff argues the state's failure to provide an interim hearing before a final adjudication might not even allow the courts to resolve all that much anyways. We're auditioning, too, for what? I don't know. Like good podcasters, maybe.

I think we deserve some kind of soothsaying award for predicting that. But that's probably the best we're going to do in terms of our auditioning. That's fine. And that's fine. We can dream however we want to dream. Okay. So one other thing to flag before we move on in the Sotomayor dissent in this case, she cites a ProPublica report on the civil forfeiture abuses in Massachusetts. And that's some of the abuses that I was talking about a minute or two ago. And we wanted to mention this and also to link it to a really important development from the past week. So that was great reporting by ProPublica. It has been on a tear of just incredible reporting. And we are not the only ones who have noticed this because just last week, ProPublica won the public service Pulitzer Prize for the Friends of the Court series. The reporters on that series were Justin Elliott, who we had in the pod to talk about it, Joshua Kaplan, Alex Majerski, Brett Murphy, and Kirsten Bergish for Justice Sotomayor to have cited ProPublica after the award, many people and clear blood, sweat and tears that went into reporting that series was an incredible example of investigative journalism at its best. And we're really, really pleased to see it recognized this way. Yes. And Sam Alito will now refuse to hire anyone as a law clerk who wins a Pulitzer.

Got to punish, punish that speech. So let's briefly mention the one other case the court decided last week, Warner Chapel versus Neely. That was a 6-3 Justice Kagan majority opinion with Justice Gorsuch dissenting. At issue was a dispute about whether a claim of copyright infringement is timely. Here, there was a music venture that produced a few songs. They broke up. Later, one of the members of the venture licensed some of those songs to relatively high-profile places. And the other member of the venture found out years later and sued. So the statute of limitations under the Copyright Act is three years, and the issue in the case is whether you can get damages for infringing things that happened more than three years ago.

Justice Kagan wrote this very svelte majority opinion. It was like seven pages long, saying, yes, you can get damages for this old stuff. And in doing that, she noted that the court was assuming without deciding that a claim is timely under the Copyright Act if brought within three years of when the plaintiff discovered an infringement. In other words, that the Copyright Act has what is referred to as a discovery rule. So basically, if it's a three-year statute of limitations, that starts when you either find out about the violation or you should have known about the violation. So that was, again, nobody contested that. That was assumed. And yet Gorsuch wrote a dissent basically saying the court shouldn't do this, assuming without deciding business, because there is almost certainly no general discovery rule under the

Copyright Act. Rather, like traditional equitable practice should apply and there shouldn't be a discovery rule unless there was fraud or concealment. Just the only thing to say here is that he calls it a dissent, but like, is it a dissent? It's really weird. It's like he's not answering the question that the court is deciding. He's not addressing the question the court is deciding.

He's like, I think we should answer a different question that no one was asking the court to resolve. And I disagree with the assumption the court makes, but not a holding of the court. I thought it was a really weird like essay slash journal entry,

not really a dissent, but it doesn't ultimately matter. Maybe we should just continuously replay that clip every time Neil Gorsuch has a separate writing, right? An essay or a journal entry. An essay on something that doesn't really matter. So just a quick note on the opinions. They just released these two this last week. That leaves 40 some opinions to go with seven weeks left in the term. I mean, what are they doing? What is going on? And I think it's clear some of them are doing their job. So Justice Sotomayor has written four opinions at this point. The justices who have written the next most are Justices Kagan and Barrett tied at three. Sam Alito has written zero,

zero majority opinion so far this term. And we are in May. I mean, that definitely underscores it's about to be time for some bad decisions because his majority opinions are never good. But I also want to float another theory. Okay. So hypothetically, Kate, if you're president, and I'm White House counsel, and I come to you and I say, look, it's May, ma'am, and Sam Alito has not written any majority opinions, I think he's quiet quitting on his job and we should just replace him. Constructive resignation. I would say I'm constructive resignation. Look, if there's no confirmations in an election year rule that you can make up if you happen to have a majority of the U.S. Senate. Could the White House make up a constructive resignation theory and just appoint somebody to replace him? I love it. Quiet quitting.

I love Ed Siskal, the White House counsel. I don't know that he has quite this kind of energy that we're going to put somebody on the court and just have them sit on Sam Alito's lap until Sam moves. I'm not sure. But I kind of think maybe this from our lips to the White House counsel's office's ears. I hope I hope it travels. book is called overruled subtitle the human toll of too much law is neil just like too much law too many supreme court decisions we're just not going to do this anymore i mean what is this another constructive resignation there we go two supreme court appointments yeah they can't decide if they want less law or they just want to make sure that like the president controls all of it. Like sometimes there's a little bit of tension between those two. But it is – I just – I don't know if we have in us another hate read book review. But if we do, I think this is probably a worthy recipient of that attention. I just – I don't know if I have it in me. Do you? I don't want to rule it out. But I agree. I'm not necessarily hankering to do it. Yeah. And listeners, you'll know which which is the first shortly. That Indianapolis in exchange for doing this hate read. I'm potentially open to it.

But, yeah, I just don't know if it's in the cards right now. Yeah. Or maybe like a short form. If a magazine is looking for somebody to hate read, review this book, I think we would be open to it. Yeah. So, again, call us. Yeah. But, yeah, that book is really something to look forward to this summer.

Dropping, I think, in August. Is that right? Who knows? I hope to be out of the country. I wonder if Neil will be. Well, in any event. Okay. We've got a handful of additional things to flag for you before we go.

So let us tick through them. One of them is a request. And here is just a little bit of background. So at a conference at Yale a few weeks ago where I was actually talking about a paper that Leah, you and I wrote about Moore versus Harper, the independent state legislature theory case from last term. So I was talking about that paper. I was at a conference. But importantly, for purposes of this story, I met Nathan Herring, who is a young man working as a reindeer herder in Alaska. And yes, you heard that right. And he regularly listens to the pod while herding actual

reindeer. And he showed me pictures and it was extraordinary. So it was a delight to meet Nathan. And it got me thinking about where else people might listen to our show. And we've been doing this for nearly five years. We have grown a lot in that time. And we thought that a very fun way to mark our five-year anniversary, which is coming up at the end of June, would be to highlight some people like Nathan. So if you are a regular listener, we would love to hear from you. And if you're up for listener, we would love to hear from you. And if you're up for it, we'd love to hear from you in your actual voice. So you can record a voice memo telling us a little bit about yourself,

your name, maybe what you do, especially if it's something like reindeer herding. Where you tend to listen, any favorite episodes or guests or moments, send those to us at strictscrutinyatcrooked.com. That's strictscrutinyatcrooked.com. And again, you can just record yourself doing a voice memo. And if for whatever reason you don't want to send a voice memo, you can just send an email to that address and we can have Melody read some of them. And when

the term is done, because we're all going to be in desperate need of something to lift our spirits, we'll include some of them in a special five-year anniversary summer episode. I also wanted to take a quick moment to congratulate my old friend, Georgia Alexakis, who was confirmed last week to the district court for the Northern District of Illinois. And not only is she my friend, I wanted to flag it because her confirmation is the one that put Biden over Trump in judges confirmed. That's a lucky confirmation. It is a lucky confirmation. I was so delighted at that sort of fortuitous timing. But now we just need to see how far above the Trump record this

Biden term can get us. So hopefully there have been some new vacancies announced even in the last week. So let's keep the nominations and confirmations coming. On a slightly somber note, I wanted to just like take a moment to acknowledge something that has affected our community here in Michigan, which is Brendan Jackson, who was a member of the Michigan Law Class of 2024, unfortunately passed away after his battle with cancer. And Brendan was a beloved member of the community, a tireless advocate for disability rights, the rights of the LGBTQ community. He was helping me with the book I'm working on specifically on the chapter on queer rights. And he was just an absolute joy in every capacity. I remember, you know, I taught him the year that everyone was still wearing masks.

And we all met on the law quad. And Brendan and his friends were describing the concerts they went to, you know, even while they were in their first year of law school. So he was just really gifted at doing hard things while not letting them keep him down. And everyone is going to miss him terribly. We just had our graduation last week and Brendan was sorely missed. And yeah, I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge him and his family and James and dog Percy and all of his friends. And Brendan Jackson was never going to stop helping people.

He donated his tissue to research efforts to understand the cancer that took his life. And if you are interested and you can, you can donate to those research efforts as well. We will include a link to the research foundation in the show notes. It is the Rucker Collier Foundation, ruckerccollierfoundation.com, where you can donate in Brendan Jackson's memory. And may his memory be a blessing. Sounds like he's leaving quite a legacy. So let's end with some housekeeping. One, last week, we joined American Fever Dream, a podcast from Betches Media and Under the Desk News to talk about emergency care for pregnancy emergencies, along with a bunch of other topics. It was a great conversation.

So definitely check that out. New episodes of American Fever Dream are out every Tuesday. Also, you already know the stakes of the 2024 election. Want help but don't know where to start? Vote Save America has you covered. In 2020, Vote Save America mobilized over 300,000 people to take action. And this year, with the stakes still so high, they're going big, they're going bold, they're going East versus West. All you have to do is sign up and you'll be assigned a team and matched with

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with help from Bill Pollack. Audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Music by Eddie Cooper. Production support from Madeline Herringer and Ari Schwartz. And a huge, huge thank you to Rock D'Onofrio, who is graduating this month from Penn Law School. She's been a superstar research assistant to me and has helped out with quite a few things for the show. And we are so grateful to you and thrilled to

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