First of all: PARENTAL ADVISORY! If you have children nearby you might want to save part of this episode for later. It doesn’t happen until just after 32 minutes into the episode, but the naughty language the Seventh Circuit quotes in one of this week’s cases forces IJ’s Sam Gedge to choose between dishonest modesty and, as he puts it, revealing the un-expurgated truth. Like a gentlemen, he goes for the latter while discussing a qualified immunity case about a “kung fu cop” with “multiple blackbelts” who gets a little punchy with a man who had a few too many. After that things just get weird a ..read more

How does history inform our interpretation of the Constitution? In all kinds of ways, it seems, and perhaps in too many of them. We once again look at how history and the Second Amendment are mixing together, in a case from the Eighth Circuit. The opinion lets us do a bit of digging into a less-well-known founding father, Benjamin Rush, and his enthusiastic embrace of putting people behind bars. But before that IJ’s Bobbi Taylor details some of the latest class-action shenanigans in the Seventh Circuit. For the first time we address “mootness fees,” settlements extracted in some disclosure lit ..read more

We take a break from the federal courts of appeals and look into a brave new world—or is it an Orwellian one? Our thoughts—our inner mental processes—are the one aspect of our lives that is completely private. Right? Well, emerging technology is making that not so true anymore. IJ’s Anya Bidwell welcomes Professor Nita Farahany of Duke University to Short Circuit to discuss her recent book The Battle for Your Brain: Defending the Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology. They talk about how neurotechnology works and how it has many potentially transformative implications, including ..read more

We’re gonna read you the Riot Act. Again. An old friend of Short Circuit returns, the Anti-Riot Act. Perhaps (?) named in homage to its 18th century predecessor, the Congressional statute received a facial test at the Seventh Circuit, and IJ’s Kirby Thomas West tells us how it fared in the face of a guy who requested that everyone bring their family and a brick to a “riot.” He did not do so well in court, but perhaps the Anti-Riot Act has problems anyway? Then we go for a drive down a Houston freeway where Sam Gedge makes a citizen’s arrest of a qualified immunity claim while drinking at a loc ..read more

Stories we hope our listeners can relate to this week: borrowing cars and lousy neighbors. First, from the Sixth Circuit, IJ’s Rob Frommer details how a man sitting in the passenger seat of a running car somehow lost his Fourth Amendment standing. And went to prison. And then in the Second Circuit your host explores what can be done when your neighbor is an embassy. It’s an all-too-familiar tale of a building project gone awry but with a twist of sovereign immunity.   Register for the May 10 open fields conference! U.S. v. Rogers Harvey v. Sierra Leone Neighbors 1980’s opening song Fawlty ..read more

It’s been a while but we’re back with an episode of Unpublished Opinions. Herein IJ attorneys Anya Bidwell, Patrick Jaicomo, and your host talk about . . . Anya’s recent Supreme Court oral argument, how SCOTUS is surprisingly a friendlier place to argue than many other courts, the recent FTC rule about non-competes, why we still have a “Lawyers’ Edition” for SCOTUS cases, how perhaps lawyers can learn from magazine covers . . . and more! Judge Posner liquidated damages case Rob Johnson’s Tweet on FTC’s & non-competes Anya’s SCOTUS argument No Fly List case ..read more

We can neither confirm nor deny the existence of this podcast. But if we could we’d tell you all about the CIA’s involvement in a prison at Guantanamo Bay. At least that’s what some Freedom of Information Act litigation is trying to figure out in a case at the D.C. Circuit. Michel Paradis, a national security lawyer and expert on much else, joins us to share his impressions of a recent oral argument in this case and the underlying relationship between FOIA and agencies like the CIA. There’s also a story about Howard Hughes and a submarine. Then IJ’s Ben Field takes us to the Fifth Circuit for ..read more

We revisit an issue that’s really coming into focus: cameras on poles and how they stand up to the Fourth Amendment. Mike Greenberg of IJ comes by to tell the story of a veteran who received disability benefits when, it seems, he wasn’t exactly disabled. Things get interesting when the feds put a camera on a pole (on a school) and point it at his house 24/7 for months. Is that a search? The Tenth Circuit says it isn’t and uphold his felony conviction. But, as Mike explains, other courts have disagreed. Then your host brings us some zoning plus standing plus the Establishment Clause in the subu ..read more

Two wild stories this week, one biblical and one of a more secular nature—but still wild. Jeff Redfern of IJ tells of a Texan judicial shootout in a fight between credit card companies and the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. The companies got tired of waiting for the trial court to rule on an emergency motion so they appealed it—but around the same time the trial court transferred the case to a court in Washington, D.C. Was that wrong? Can anything be done about it? Opinions differ. Then Keith Neely of IJ takes us underwater to the Sixth Circuit for perhaps our first case involving baptism ..read more

An all Seventh Circuit, all Chicago episode. IJ attorney Andrew Ward drops in to tell a tale of online support for terrorists. Or at least FBI agents posing as terrorists. This recent case does not weigh in on, but raises the issue, of whether computer code is speech. Then we turn to the nitty gritty of unions, small employers, pension plans, and legalized cartels. Things are a bit topsy turvy in this area—and often sound pretty unfair. Your host gives a bit of a lay of the land as it’s been expressed by Judge Easterbrook of the Seventh Circuit over the years. IJ conference on the Open Fields ..read more