Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts Slate Podcasts

How did the conservative legal movement co-opt an academic theory and transform it into a radically revanchist policy tool for the Supreme Court? And what’s the liberal response?

In this bonus extended interview exclusive to Slate Plus subscribers, Dahlia Lithwick talks to Professor Jack Balkin about his book, Memory and Authority: The uses of history in constitutional interpretation.

This episode is member-exclusive. Listen to it now by subscribing to Slate Plus. By joining, not only will you unlock exclusive SCOTUS analysis and weekly extended episodes of Amicus, but you’ll also access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.

In this, the first part of a special series on Amicus and at Slate.com, we are lifting the lid on an old-timey sounding method of constitutional interpretation that has unleashed a revolution in our courts, and an assault on our rights. But originalism’s origins are much more recent than you suppose, and its effects much more widespread than the constitutional earthquakes of overturning settled precedent like Roe v Wade or supercharging gun rights as in Heller and Bruen. Originalism’s aftershocks are being felt throughout the courts, the law, politics and our lives, and we haven’t talked about it enough. On this week’s show, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern explore the history of originalism. They talk to Professor Jack Balkin about its religious valence, and Saul Cornell about originalism’s first major constitutional triumph in Heller. And they’ll tell you how originalism’s first big public outing fell flat, thanks in part to Senator Ted Kennedy’s ability to envision the future, as well as the past.
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Get your tickets for Amicus Live in Washington DC here.

In today’s bonus episode only for Slate Plus members, Jeremy Stahl gives Dahlia Lithwick a view from inside the courtroom of Donald Trump’s hush money trial.

This episode is member-exclusive. Listen to it now by subscribing to Slate Plus. By joining, not only will you unlock exclusive SCOTUS analysis and weekly extended episodes of Amicus, but you’ll also access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.

Get your tickets for Amicus Live in Washington DC here. 

This past week (that lasted about a year) at the Supreme Court began badly and only went downhill from there. By Wednesday, justices were trying to set aside the facts of women being airlifted out of states where they can no longer access care to protect their major organs and reproductive future, if that emergency healthcare indicates an abortion - in favor of pondering the spending clause. On Thursday, the shocking reality of the violent storming of the Capitol on January 6th 2021, and former President Trump’s many schemes to overturn the election and stay in power, were relegated to lower-case concerns as opposed to ALL CAPS panic over hypothetical aggressive prosecutors. 
On this week’s Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick is joined by leading constitutional scholar and former assistant Professor Pam Karlan of Stanford Law School and a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice. Slate’s senior legal writer Mark Joseph Stern also joins the conversation about the MAGA justices flying the flag in arguments in Trump v United States.

In today’s bonus episode only for Slate Plus members, Jeremy Stahl gives Dahlia Lithwick a view from inside the courtroom of Donald Trump’s hush money trial. 

Want more Amicus? Subscribe to Slate Plus to immediately unlock exclusive SCOTUS analysis and weekly extended episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.

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We are dropping into your feed with an extra episode exclusively for Slate Plus members to tackle some of the urgent items on Amicus’ beat. We are smack in the middle of a life and death, democracy-defining week at the US Supreme Court.
Wednesday morning, the court heard arguments in Moyle v. United States, the consolidated case tackling what levels of care pregnant patients can be provided in emergency rooms in states with draconian anti-abortion laws.
And on Thursday morning, the High Court will hear Trump v. United States, the case in which the former president - who is currently spending much of his time slouched at the defendant’s table in New York City - will claim a kind of vast sweeping theory of immunity that roughly translates as - “when you’re president, they let you do it. You can do anything”. In this extra episode of Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern dig into what happened in the EMTALA arguments Wednesday morning and then look ahead to Thursday’s arguments in the immunity case.

Get your tickets for Amicus Live in Washington DC here.

In today’s bonus episode only for Slate Plus members, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern welcome Justice Clarence Thomas back from his long weekend, with a close listen to the January 6th case that was argued before the court on Tuesday. Fischer v United States is raising more alarm bells about the conservative justices’ posture toward armed insurrection. They also dig into Justice Elena Kagan’s opinion in a potentially tricky TitleVII case that, miraculously for this court, went pretty well in terms of civil rights protections in the workplace.
This episode is member-exclusive. Listen to it now by subscribing to Slate Plus. By joining, not only will you unlock exclusive SCOTUS analysis and weekly extended episodes of Amicus, but you’ll also access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.