Transcript
A New Docket, A New Book And An Old, Quixotic Mission
Amicus: A Law Review · Sat Sep 6, 2025
You're listening to Civic Media.
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My name is Jim Santel.
I'm your host this hour and also next hour here on the broadcast stations of Civic Media coming to you from Radio Park.
in Racine, Wisconsin and joined in the studios of Civic Media by my outstanding producer, Greg, who joins me this weekend because we are, as always, soliciting, encouraging and taking your calls, your inquiries, your questions, your comments, your observations.
about those many issues that are once again on our chock-full docket this weekend, all things related to the rule of law, justice, the delivery of justice in Wisconsin, in America, and beyond, and the ways in which all of those kinds of things impact our lives and our livelihoods on a daily, sometimes hourly basis.
I thank you once again, as I always do, for your decision to spend some time this weekend in con-
conversation with me in discussion with me in examination and analysis of some of the major news stories of recent days that animate and describe our perspectives, our views.
are wrestling with these major issues having to do with the rule of law in America.
I thank you once again for your participation in our weekend broadcast, which as always takes its name from the notion of being a friend to the community, Amicus, which we will talk about with some particularity in just a few moments, Amicus meaning friend.
Amicus Curie, friend of the court,
When there are parties, frankly non-parties, who are interested in the resolution, the disposition of issues before a court, those parties can file what are called amicus or amicus briefs, providing the court with some perspective that the court may not have.
From the parties themselves, we take our name from the friend of the court approach, and the notion that by providing information
perspective insight into how all of this works and yes indeed it's a lot we recognize that it is a lot how all of this works based upon that you can better understand the world in which we are living these days including including our government presently in the past and in the future as well we'll talk about amicus briefs in just a moment in connection with what
with history, history of all things, historians making their place known before the United States Supreme Court.
In addition to that, we are also going to be talking inside the United States Supreme Court about a new book.
that has been or will be shortly issued by an associate justice.
Her name is Amy Coney Barrett.
We'll give you a preview of what she says about two major things.
That is his major abortion decision of a number of years ago, 2022, finding that Roe versus Wade is no longer the rule of law in America, replacing that with Dobs, finding there is no longer a privacy right in the Constitution to abortion and reproductive rights.
We'll talk about what Amy Coney Barrett says in her new book.
about that and will also give you some insight again based upon what she has said in the book coming out this coming week about how the court works.
Not a lot describing this emergency docket about which we have been complaining a lot in recent weeks and months and perhaps even years.
Not a lot there but some insight into the ways in which she is a member of the United States Supreme Court and how she interacts with other justices will do both of those things.
Historians
filing amicus briefs, Amy Coney Barrett writing a new book about the United States Supreme Court.
And then as promised, we will talk.
about at least eight, nine, maybe 10, 11, 12 different cases that are pending before the Supreme Court as it starts its new year, the 2025, 2026 docket in four short weeks from now, about a month from now.
First Monday in October, we'll tell you about four of the major cases pending and then additional cases also before the Supreme Court on its docket, which right now, which right now exceeds 30 in number.
We'll talk about two other cases.
know what they are.
They have to do with tariffs and they also have to do with arguably a review once again of the right to same-sex marriage in America.
Those things pending, pending on whether or not the Supreme Court will take those cases on.
likely that it will take on the tariffs case unlikely unlikely it will take on the other case involving again privacy rights but we will see and we'll talk about all of that in the context of the docket of the united states supreme court underway once again in one month from now we're going to begin however we're going to begin however talking about lawsuits lawsuits having to do with the environment and then in the second portion of our broadcast this weekend
Toward the end of the second hour, we'll talk once again about what we've called the injunction functions of federal and district and appellate courts.
Well, it has been a busy week in that area.
We'll talk about, yes, Harvard University, we'll talk about troops in LA.
We'll talk about the deportation of Venezuelans, Guatemalan children for an aid restoration, the Federal Trade Commission, a commissioner there, an investigation, and yes, Al-Gator Alcatraz.
All those things on the dockets of the federal appeals and trial courts just this past week, a lot of rule of law.
Thumbnail sketches of what those cases are all about.
All of that coming up on Amicus Law Review.
Once again, we invite your comments, your questions.
Greg always reminds me that you can call into our station at 855-752-4842.
That number once again is 855-752-4842.
You can also drop a comment, a question,
an inquiry and observation into our chat line here at Civic Media.
Again, honor that you've decided to spend some time in conversation with us about these many, many things on our ambitious but hopefully achievable docket this weekend.
Let's jump right into it.
Let's begin with the notion of lawsuits.
It is important as a civics matter to recognize again that none of these major issues that we've been talking about for years now here on this broadcast and in other broadcasts of civic media none of them springs just from the pens
of federal district court and appellate court and then Supreme Court justices.
None of them springs from state court just judges and justices because they wake up some morning and decide to pontificate to tell us about what the law should be.
All of them are based upon what are called cases and controversies.
Always has to be some challenge.
One party suing another, one group of parties suing others.
That's where the V comes in between those two.
And that is what animates.
That's what drives the way that we litigate cases in the United States, both at the federal level and also in the state court level to municipal cases as well.
And even other administrative proceedings.
in the United States all brought before courts.
and judges and justices based upon challenges between parties who have differing views about the facts about the law.
And in that connection, let's begin by talking about two new lawsuits of recent days brought by people with different views in the federal courts in America.
One of them is predicated upon something that we've talked about in great detail in the past.
And that is this recent announcement by the Environmental Protection Agency that, of course,
an agency of the federal government, that it is repealing this scientific determination made, yes, by experts, by scientists, way back in 2009, that climate pollution does in fact harm public health and welfare.
There was a finding made by scientists, by people who know what they're talking about, that assessment you may recall is known as the endangerment finding, the endangerment finding, and it was the predicate, the basis for much if not
not all of the decisions of the EPA when it comes to announcing rules and regulations that keep our air more clean, our water more clean, all kinds of things having to do with the preservation of the environment.
Now, why is that important?
Well, there is a DOE report that downplays the impact of climate change, and in fact, a new lawsuit brought by some environmental groups
suing over that DOE report downplaying climate change is back in the news.
His new lawsuit challenges the Trump administration and saying that it violated, violated the law by secretly recruiting a group of people who reject the scientific consensus, this notion that in fact endangerment is in fact compromising our lives and our livelihood.
A group of people who reject that scientific consensus on climate change and wrote a report downplaying
what they describe as global warming.
The parties in this case, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Union of Concerned Scientists, both of those plainly, plainly unmistakably environmental groups, you've probably heard about both of them, accused the Department of Energy, that's the DOE, and yes indeed the EPA as well, the Environmental Protection Agency of what they're called flagrant violations, flagrant violations, that's the word, words that they use in their civil
complaint.
And they seek the declaration that in fact these findings are unsupported.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S.
District Court, again a trial court in Massachusetts earlier this past week.
It alleges that in March, Chris Wright, who's the energy secretary, according to the allegations in the complaint, quietly arranged for five hand-picked skeptics
of the effects of climate change to form a group, to form a particular committee to analyze all this.
They're called the Climate Working Group.
And the fact group then authored a report that again, minimizes downplays the threat of rising greenhouse gas emissions.
That's what this notion of endangerment is all about.
The administrator of the EPA, his name is Lee Zeldin, Z-E-L-D-I-N cited the report to justify this plan to repeal this legal foundation.
That's the connection between what happened recently and this report.
The allegations, of course, are serious, with the most brazen violations of federal law on one of the most single consequential issues to the lives of millions of Americans.
That's the word of Vicky Patton.
She's general counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund.
That's what she says at the time of the filing of this lawsuit early this week.
The lawsuit goes on to allege that the agencies have sought to manufacture a basis to reject.
to reject to dismiss this widespread scientific agreement the consensus among scientists that burning fossil fuels is in fact the primary contributor to global warming and the swift immediate prompt action is needed to avoid the worst consequences so we have this report authored by this group put together by the DOE
that is, again, the predicate for rescinding what the EPA has announced since 2009, which are these regulations for cleaner air, cleaner water, a cleaner environment.
And that all of that now challenged by virtue of this lawsuit, again, brought in the U.S.
District Court Justice past week in Massachusetts, assigned to a federal district court judge there, seeking to repeal, repeal and rescind the work of this committee.
and block the administration from basically going forward with this rescission of the rules and regulations that we've operated under since 2000.
nine no no insignificant lawsuit there that having to do with the environment and then another environmental case also pending the introduction to this of course is the president during the course of the campaign and in his own continuing discussions as the president of the united states over the period of the last several months continues quite literally to attack windmills windmills that's right when we come back i'll tell you about windmills in the new
and the subject of litigation now pending in our federal courts, all of that as Amicus, a law review, continues here on Civic Media.
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It is our weekly weekend review of all things rule of law related, justice related, many of those, if not all of those involving the government.
And we are beginning our broadcast this weekend by going back to the start and talking about how cases reach the Supreme Court, reach appeals courts and also reach district courts.
And that is by parties filing lawsuits, filing lawsuits against each other.
seeking to challenge things that each other have done and asking judges to resolve those differences.
Every single case, every single civil case and indeed every single criminal case in America is premised upon that fundamental notion that you have a plaintiff and you've got a defendant.
And those people, those parties do not agree on something, and for that reason, we are in court.
Beginning, beginning our broadcast this weekend, talking about two cases that illustrate that very point, the initiation of lawsuits, this first one in the U.S.
District Court in Massachusetts, alleging that the Department of Energy and the EPA conspired together to put together a group of people who authored an unfounded report, that report then used by the EPA
to justify rescinding and holding back on many, many years of rules and regulations that affect our air, our water, the lives in which we live, that the Endangerment Finding Premise Report, the allegation in this particular lawsuit brought by Environmental Defense Fund and the Union of Concerned Scientists that the assembly, the recruiting of this group of people,
to put together this report is in fact, violative of the law.
And that as a result, it needs to be declared as such.
And therefore, the predicate for changing all of these rules and regulations
that rely on this unfounder report need likewise.
Likewise, all of that needs to be revisited and pulled back.
Interesting, fascinating case involving environmental case.
And here's a second one.
This one is filed.
This one is filed in the U.S.
District Court in the District of Columbia in our nation's capital.
Again, based upon allegations by a plaintiff and identifying the Trump administration
as the defendant.
There's a company called Orsted, O-R-S-T-E-D.
It is a Danish renewable energy giant, a huge corporation out there.
It is suing, it is suing the government, saying that the government's move to stop a nearly finished wind farm off of Rhode Island is unlawful.
and it was that decision issued in bad faith.
Now, where does this come from?
Well, you may recall, you may recall it didn't grab the headlines, but you may recall that just last month, this administration, the Trump administration, took what can only be regarded as a stunning step of ordering work to stop on something called Revolution Wind, a $6 billion offshore wind farm that was nearly 80% complete.
And of course, this comes in the wake of, in the midst of what?
Our president's continuing rallying, if you will, against windmills.
He talked about it during the campaign.
He continues to talk about the fact that, among other things, windmills are unsightly.
He doesn't like the look of them.
And so, last month, in a letter to Orsted, which, again, is this Danish company, the plaintiff in this lawsuit,
the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, alluded to national security concerns in deciding to stop work on this revolution wind project, a wind farm 80% complete.
to provide safe and secure and good energy for the United States of America, not elaborating, not elaborating exactly what the national security concerns for stopping that are, but Orsted did not take kindly to that decision, that letter that it received just last month.
And so this
group of people.
It's a joint venture between Orsted and Skyborne Renewables, another group, asking the U.S.
District Court in the District of Columbia, in our nation's capital, to prevent the administration, to prevent the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management from enforcing this stop work order, again, a stop work order that's justified on the basis of national security concerns that are not described.
The complaint, which again, the civil complaint is the thing that Orsted and Skyborne Renewables files in the court to begin this lawsuit says that this decision, this letter they received, the decision set forth in that letter, here's the language once again, it's arbitrary and capricious in part because it appears to be carried out under political pressure from the White House.
They're alleging that this is not in fact based upon national security interests.
This is political.
for some reason that the president doesn't like windmills and the the allegations are that that basis alone is not sufficient to issue this stop work order again a project.
revolution wind $6.2 billion invested in this already and now being stopped by it.
The 65 turbine revolution wind project obtained financing as well as all necessary permits from the Biden administration.
That may well be a reason for the president's dislike of this as well.
Construction began a couple of years ago in 2023.
Developers telling us that it was on track to produce enough electricity for more than
350,000 homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut in just a matter about nine or 10 months from now.
It's folks from the Interior Department, which is the overarching agency that houses the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management did not comment on the pending litigation, but there it is.
There it is filed in the Federal District Court, in the District of Columbia, another piece of litigation
in the environmental area, seeking to push back on what this administration is doing when it comes to not just our environment, but the ways in which changes in environmental policy are happening in America.
When we come back, we're gonna go back to the United States Supreme Court, talk about some things happening there, all of that coming up on Amicus, a lot of you.
This is Amicus, hello all of you.
My name is Jim Santel, your host this hour and next hour as well here on the broadcast stations of Civic Media.
I am joined in the Civic Media studios by my stellar producer, his name is Greg, and together we're taking your phone calls at 855-752-4842.
You can call, you can text, Greg also reminds me, you can drop a comment, a question into our chat line as well.
Be a part of our discussion here on Amicus.
law review, the invitation is not only sincere, but it's enthusiastic.
Be a part of our examination, our analysis of all things, rule of law related.
And that includes necessarily, as it often does in our weekend broadcast, an examination of the United States Supreme Court.
Couple of things before we dive into some recent developments there, and things that are on the docket for decision of the Supreme Court when it enters its next term.
in four short weeks from now, the first Monday in October of this year.
Let's talk first about amicus briefs.
And the role of historians, that is, again, people who should know what they're talking about, and for the most part, do know what they're talking about when it comes to authoring amicus briefs.
Now, how does this work?
Well, we've talked about this in the past, and indeed, as I indicated again this weekend, it is the word amicus that gives its name, its meaning, its content to the very focus, the mission of this broadcast, which is Latin for friend.
Amicus Curie I, friend of the court.
It is very clear you know this from process.
We hinted at it when we talked earlier about the very ways that litigation is initiated, that when parties to a lawsuit are bringing a lawsuit, they file things on behalf of their interests, typically through attorneys, but not always.
They file briefs, they make arguments, and they're parties to the lawsuit itself.
and they are not only expected to, they're invited by the courts to do just that.
There are others out there who plainly have an interest in the disposition of those cases at the district court levels, at the appellate court levels, certainly at the supreme court level as well.
People who may not be parties, may not be in what's called the caption of the lawsuit.
the parties on either side of the V, the versus portion of the caption, but to nonetheless look at a case and we've looked at many of them here on this broadcast and say, gee, that's something that I've got great interest in.
And oh, beyond that, not only do I have great interest in it, I also know something about the subject matter and it may well be with due respect to my own profession that those lawyers and the parties themselves may not have all of the insight
All of the perspective that the courts should have in resolving those challenges, those cases and controversies that we talk about, the court may not have all of the information, the perspective that it should have.
So I'm going to seek permission and I'm going to file what's called an amicus curiae brief.
A friend of the court brief, it is not necessarily a brief that is unbiased.
It's often a brief, a statement of position, some exposition of some information that does have a purpose behind it, does have a bent behind it.
I would even say it does have a bias behind it, advocating that the court do something in a certain way in favor or in opposition to what one or more the parties has said.
But premising all of that encouragement,
on what that particular amici, what their particular information basis is, offering to the courts some information that wouldn't otherwise be a part of that adversarial litigation process.
That's an amicus brief.
And most often courts will permit
outside parties like this to file those briefs, thinking, gee, maybe I will benefit as the judge from hearing from others who are not directly involved in the litigation.
It is a way of ensuring that the consequences of whatever the courts do fully understand and that parties have an opportunity not only to understand that in the course of a litigation, but also we all have some sense that the ultimate decisions by the courts, whether it's the Supreme Court, an appellate court, a district court,
It's premised upon the broadest possible understanding of what the world is all about out there, what the information base is, that may or may not be presented by the parties themselves.
And so, and so, we've got historians, we've got historians who are increasingly
filing amicus curiae amicus briefs before the united states supreme court and of course this is prompted by the fact that the united states supreme court as we have talked about at great detail focuses more and more on doing what looking to where
to history, right?
To history to determine what the court should do now.
We know that sometimes that is premised upon a legitimate interest in knowing what past is all about, sometimes an overwrought reliance upon history.
We've seen that from the pen, for example, of Justice Antonin Scalia, who looked back and for the first time in the history of our nation said that the history, long, long past of the Constitution and
of our nation supports the notion that he wrote about in that case called Heller that changed the geography of our nation, that case called Heller in which he relied upon history to say that the Second Amendment does indeed confer an individual right to gun ownership.
specifically in the home for self-defense of purposes.
There have been other cases, many cases, in which members of the Supreme Court on both sides of the political aisle, if you will, have looked to history to figure out what we have done in the past.
What are the predicates?
What are the bases in history for doing this?
We have seen that from the pen of Clarence Thomas from San Milito.
Virtually every justice in one way or another has looked to the past.
And so we have seen recently a huge spike, a huge
increase in the number of these supporting amicus briefs from historians and that rate has exploded as the influence of historians on the Supreme Court has grown.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor said back in 2023 that these kinds of filings historical amicus briefs which again lawyers call and rely upon as being somewhat important to the resolution of the cases.
She described as probably today the most important kinds of
briefing, considering, she said, the composition of the court and the direction it's been moving in and its jurisdiction.
She plainly is taking a bit of a shot there as some of her associate justices.
She was referring, of course, to originalism or maybe textualism, which seeks to determine the meaning of the Constitution when it was adopted, going back, asking the question, what in history, what did James Madison, what did George Mason think?
What was their intent?
What is their purpose at the time of the creation of the Constitution?
There's a very prominent federal appeals court judge, his name is Jeffrey Sutton.
We have talked about him from time to time on this broadcast, who frankly marveled at the beginnings of this phenomenon.
Way back in 2009, he wrote a law review article.
He noted this, that among the honest to goodness historians, as opposed to lawyer historians, these amicus briefs are significant.
supporting the decisions, supporting the arguments being made before the Supreme Court on everything from, yes, the Second Amendment, but also to combating terrorism, to understanding environmental laws, all kinds of things.
Again, Judge Sutton talking about the honest to goodness historians.
And that is important.
Why?
Because we anticipate that these amicus briefs will be written in good faith and premised by on research and historical
perspective.
that is written and codified in these briefs by historians who know what they're talking about.
Judge Sutton said, by my count, and he talked about it being rough, he said, historians filed more amicus briefs in the last four years than they filed in the preceding seven decades combined.
Seven decades, we have eclipsed that now in the last four years as well.
The Journal of American Constitutional History has also noted the same kinds of things.
And also,
that the rate at which the justices have read these, relied upon them, has sharply spiked as well over other sorts of supporting briefs from other people, other entities, other institutions out there, except for those filed by lawyers for the federal government.
Every so often, again, the federal government, your Department of Justice, will file its own amicus brief in which it may not be a party to the litigation, but it does that with some frequency.
Second, or first only, and second, are those from historians themselves.
There is a legal historian called, his name is Henry Ishtani, and he has conducted a lot of research in this.
He writes it with the rise of history-based arguments to the Supreme Court.
We've had a rise in briefs filed by real-life honest-to-goodness historians.
He said that the interaction between these two domains, history and the law, scholarship and advocacy,
There's not without challenges and yet there it is.
There's the world in which we live.
There's another entity, another institution that is the publisher of the Oxford Handbook of Legal History.
It is devoted a full chapter to this issue, this exploration of why historians often find amicus brief writing so important and also so vexing, so very challenging.
One of the authors of that, who's a law professor at the University of Michigan, his name is Sam Ehrman, said the rise
influence of historians was heartening he approves this he says courts take these briefs by historians very seriously for all the concern about how courts do bad history and that's the reason why we're talking about it on this broadcast for all the concern about how courts do bad history the professor writes
and never listen to historians.
Actually, they do listen to the historians to some degree and should do more of that.
What they hear is generally
a fairly liberal and the professor says a progressive message.
Self-described historians have overwhelmingly chosen to file briefs where they can support progressive causes and about 95% of the historians who signed supporting briefs make history-based arguments between 1987 and 2022 taking what we'd probably describe as liberal or progressive
positions.
That also is significant when it comes to this process.
Undoubtedly, Mr. Ishitani, again, he's one of the researchers in all this, he said, undoubtedly much of the discrepancy results from the demographics of a discipline
that reportedly votes around 80% Democrat and 4% Republican, at least at the academic level.
It is important to note that these amicus briefs being filed with increasing frequency spiking recently, written by historians, people again, who know what they're talking about, especially, especially if our Supreme Court justices, and yes indeed, historians are writing and authoring these amicus briefs at lower courts as well, when they see these issues.
percolating up there.
Historians coming forward and saying we want, we are interested in having the court get it right.
Don't do bad history.
Don't rely on something that's not the truth.
Let us file this brief which we'll expose and we'll describe for you accurately and completely what the history really is all about.
history, history before the United States Supreme Court, we'll see more of that in the future as well.
And then, and then in the present, we have this, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, one of the most significant justices of recent terms for a variety of reasons that we have talked about at this broadcast continues to be one of the most interesting and sometimes enigmatic associate justices, along with Katangi Brown-Jackson, the newest appointee, the newest member of the Supreme Court,
Supreme Court, just as Amy Coney Barrett releasing this coming week, a new book, it's called Listening to the Law.
It is both a reflection on her experiences at the United States Supreme Court, since she has been there, since she was in our circuit, that is the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
She talks a lot about the, not so much the ways in which cases are decided, although there's some of that, but she talks a lot about abortion and that major 2022 decision called DOBS.
She also talks a little bit, not enough to my sensibility about the emergency docket.
When we come back, we'll talk more about what Amy Coney Barrett is saying in this book to be released this coming week, what she said publicly, and what we should take away from what this Sitting Supreme Court Justice tells us about the highest court.
Here on Amicus, Allah Review.
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As we often do, we are spending much if not all of our time.
This weekend talking once again about the Supreme Court.
Why?
Because it has this huge influence, as you all know so very well on our lives and our livelihoods.
Amy Cooney Barrett, an associate justice of the Supreme Court, one of Donald Trump's three appointees to the court, has written a book and it's called Listening to the Law.
public with it at Lincoln Center in New York City just this past week, although probably you will not be able to get a copy of it until this coming week.
She talked there about the reasons for her authoring the book.
She gave us some insights into what she is talking about in that book.
And we've also gotten some galley sheets, if you will, of some of the text inside that.
book again called Listening to the Law.
She wrote that my office doesn't entitle me to align the legal system with my moral or policy views rather, but she said swearing to apply the law faithfully means deciding each case based upon my best judgment about what the law is.
She said, if I decide a case based on my judgment about what the law should be, should be, then she writes, I am cheating.
She went on to say in New York just this past week, thinking in those categories of left and right, it's just the wrong way to think about the law.
Well, again, we've got this transcript of the book as it comes out.
The court's role, the justice goes on to say,
The Supreme Court's role is to respect the choices that the people have agreed upon, not to tell them what they should agree on.
In this book, once again, called Listening to the Law, Barrett said she wrote the book to provide an accessible account for people in the nation, across the nation, on the face of the planet, of how the court operates.
We'll see if whether that promise comes true or not.
At the outset, she warns, she warns all of us, our readers of this book.
that she's gonna reveal absolutely nothing about the internal deliberations on specific cases and that's probably wise, although at some point down the road there may be some historical writings about this, nor use will she the names of her seven children or other family members for the sake of their privacy.
The justice goes on to say that she does not name, she does not name specifically
The circumstances and the case that gave rise to an awful lot of recent reporting about some champagne being uncorked in her chambers when there was a particular decision being announced by the court.
Apparently reporting that in her chambers, she and some of her law clerks were drinking some champagne, presumably to celebrate the result, the decision of the Supreme Court in some particular case.
She does not tell us what that case is.
Presumably it is not.
It is not this recent case.
This very important case in which the court found that it is not proper, it's not lawful for a singular district court judge to issue what's called a universal or blanket injunction.
Presumably not that, presumably because...
We know about the publication schedules of books like this, too recent to make it into this text, but she does talk a lot about Dobbs and about abortion in this case, this 2022 case in which by majority of the court, you may recall this five to four, it's a narrow majority back in 2022.
The United States Supreme Court reversed 49 years of constitutional history finding that there is no privacy right to abortion in the Constitution.
The case, of course, Dobbs versus Jackson Women's Health Organization in her forthcoming book, The Justice.
Amy Coney Barrett says she agrees with Sam Alito and his authoring that major opinion.
You may recall he was the one who wrote on behalf of the majority.
And she makes clear in her upcoming book that she believes that the court had no business way back in 1973 declaring abortion a constitutional right in the first place.
And she picks up on, she focuses on what Sam Alito specifically says in that 2022 Dobs opinion.
You may recall,
that he described Roe versus it established that posited in the Supreme Court's drudence and in our Constitution a right to abortion.
That decision back in 1973 amounted to an exercise of raw judicial power.
That's what Alito wrote and that's what Amy Coney Barrett ascribes to and subscribes to in her book.
She echoes that view for the majority that the court's unusual adherence to pressed
could be rejected because Roe, what?
It was wrongly decided.
It was wrongly decided in the first place.
This is not a matter of the circumstances, the history of the nation moving forward.
According to Amy Coney Barrett, like Sam Alito, 1973, when the court issued Roe versus Wade, it was wrong then, has been wrong in the half century since that time.
Elaborating in her book,
Amy Cotebert says the right to end a pregnancy was never deeply rooted in US history.
Again, this reference to history in our jurisprudence as were other other constitutional principles.
She said the evidence does not show.
that the American people have traditionally considered the right to obtain an abortion so fundamental to liberty that it goes without saying in the Constitution.
In fact, she writes, the evidence cuts in the opposite direction.
Abortion not only lacked longstanding protection to American law, it has long been forbidden.
And she goes on beyond that to talk about the dissenters in the recent case Dobbs as well.
She dismisses the views of those dissenting justices.
and notes that this is not about issues related to protected liberties or the equality for women.
She describes the fact that this is all about law in her perspective and that the complicated moral debate as she calls it about abortion distinguishes it from other rights more traditionally recognized as fundamental that enjoy some public support, including the rights to Mary,
to have sex to procreate and use contraception.
I would offer that that is an interesting and important thing for her to write because it does distinguish abortion from many other privacy rights that may also be the subject of future cases.
She also talks a lot about how the justices themselves operate.
And as we come back in our second hour, I'll tell you more about what Amy Coney Barrett writes.
And then we're going to take some colors and we're going to get into what is on the docket of this.
Supreme Court in just one month from now.
All that coming up on Amicus, Allah Review.
This is Amica Salah review and my name is Jim Santel this the second hour of our discussion about all things rule of law related Justice related government related spending some time talking about this new book Coming out from Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett called listening to the law She was in New York this past week the book to be released this coming week.
She's talking
Not with great clarity, but with some insight into some of the most significant decisions of recent time, including her decision to be all in on the Dobs ruling that found that the Constitution does not include a right, a privacy right to abortion adhering completely to the opinion written by Associate Justice Sam Alito.
She also talks, she also talks a little bit about how the justices themselves operate, how you get to those decisions.
She says that when she was on the outside, presumably when she was a professor at Notre Dame University and also in the Supreme Court, she says that she was sometimes frustrated.
She says, before I joined the court, I was sometimes frustrated by an opinion's cryptic language or it's favorite to resolve fairly obvious points.
Now, she writes, I better appreciate that glossing over issues
is often deliberate, she writes.
It's often deliberate, according to Amy Coney Barrett.
She goes on to say that if justice is agreed with a bottom line judgment in a case, but waver on some arguably ancillary issues, there's good reason to narrow the opinion and make it less expansive.
Yet, she said, this all can be vexing once again.
She said, skirting issues is sometimes the price of finding common ground.
though it's frustrating to delete points I'd like to make.
An interesting analysis of what we've talked a lot about here in the broadcast, which is the failure of the Supreme Court specifically inside its emergency docket.
to give us more specificity on the reasons for its decisions and the horrific consequences for the rule of law in that area.
She talks also about the mechanisms for getting majority when she is authored, just told to write an opinion on behalf of the majority or circulates an opinion.
She says that she waits with bated breath.
She and her law clerks to see who's going to sign on to it.
And that when that happens, they will in fact proceed sometimes, sometimes to
make changes in the word, sometimes even to expand it somewhat to get even more votes in support of majority opinion.
Significantly, she does address somewhat, although not with great detail, this emergency docket and the concerns that many Americans, I included, have with respect to the way in which the Supreme Court is resolving these major cases.
And again, not a lot of specificity and a fair amount of defense of it.
We know that other justices like Elena Kagan and Katangi Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor have also publicly bemoaned, bemoaned this emergency docket and the resolution of major decisions by the Supreme Court absent more than sometimes a sentence, maybe a couple of paragraphs, maybe a few pages in a good case.
Amy Coney Barrett says it as long as
litigants continue filing emergency applications, the court must continue deciding them.
And so she's minimizing the justices' control of the situation.
She concedes, however, that the judicial system functions better with the benefit of full briefing and oral arguments and deliberation.
Yes, indeed, it does a whole lot more in that book.
And we will perhaps make reference to in the future an awful lot of early criticism indicating it doesn't reveal a whole lot.
Certainly she is not talking about recent decisions aside from aside from Dobbs.
But she does give us some insight again into her own philosophy.
And it is significant that she's writing because she undeniably has become an historic figure even in contemporary times as she finds herself from time to time in the company of the so-called liberals.
She has
also found herself at odds with the Liberals, most notably recall well in this case, recent case involving nationwide injunctions that she and Ketanji Brown Jackson had at it.
And they had at it publicly and in writing the Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett calling Justice Jackson by name and Justice Jackson firing back.
And again, making both of them, making both of them the subject of an awful lot of attention inside a nine-member Supreme Court.
Amy Coney Barrett, not so much writing about that, but making reference blithely to it in her book.
As always, we appreciate tremendously the calls and the inquiries.
Let's go to the calls right now.
Let's begin with you, Kristen, from Waukesha.
And your comment about the...
The book by Amy Coney Barrett.
Kristen, thanks for joining us.
Good morning, Jim.
I am actually really concerned about the comments that she made in these books or in this book.
The one about abortion not being something that the people demanded.
I mean, I know she's one of the younger members of the court, but this is ridiculous.
How do you not know from history?
that it was only about 40 years from the time women even got the vote to when they started, you know, marching and protests and rallies and meetings.
And there was a huge wave of demand for abortion rights and civil rights and all of that all happened at the same time.
How she can claim that the people didn't want this and didn't ask for this is just straight up blindness.
And I'm also really concerned about her kind of tyranny of the majority decision-making skill.
It almost sounds like she just wants to take a poll of the people around her and then say, well, this is apparently what the people want or don't want.
So we're not going to go along with it.
I just am very frustrated.
This is exactly what we want the court to say is you do have this right or you don't have this right and it doesn't matter.
what the tyranny of the majority is.
We'd still have segregation if this was the
I mean, am I totally off
You are not off base.
And that's why I think there's going to be an awful lot of criticism as people digest this more and more.
The abortion decision, she says again, she is all in.
She is all in with Sam Alito and says that wrongly decided.
And at a time this particular broadcast this weekend where we're talking a lot about history, she is having very little of it.
You're absolutely right.
Kristen and she also takes on the dissenters.
I didn't spend a lot of time talking about this and she she disclares that that again that you may recall that that the dissenters had had cited Ruth Bader Ginsburg who herself is a supporter of abortion rights and that she takes on the dissenters for their their view their view that this is a protected right a protected liberty it's about a quality of women and that to the Constitution guarantee
that that there should not be controlled by the government of a woman's body or the course of woman's life all of that all that she is she is hunkering down on that absolutely and and beyond that this notion that the Supreme Court yes indeed should be deciding the law should be doing it as you just said Kristen based upon
History, yes, but also as we've often advocated in this broadcast, a living constitution, right?
We've got to understand the world in which we live today and the references to history and throwbacks to a time that did not have all of the issues and all the concerns and challenges, even the basic trappings of life.
can no longer, that's not a living constitution, that is a constitution deep-seated in the past that is not going to serve us well.
Appreciate, Kristen, very much the comment, the observation, and the question is, will you go out and buy the book and get an even more in-depth analysis of all of that?
Appreciate very much that comment.
I'm also calling in from Milwaukee.
Carmela, you've been on the line for a while.
Carmela, your comment or question, interesting, it's about how the court comes to these kinds of decisions.
Go ahead and talk with me.
about your thought or your concern?
Yeah, it started with when you were talking about the EPA and then coming back and like changing a decision.
And then I thought about the DOBS decision.
And when they came up with that, what, three years ago, reversing Roe v. Wade.
And I remember hearing at the time, I was very upset.
I'm like, how can they do this?
And I kept hearing, well, the law wasn't codified.
And I'm like, well, what does that mean?
When they passed the law, I thought it's the law of the land.
It's from the Supreme Court.
So how is it possible, in our all laws, do they need to be codified?
And what does that mean?
And how can they reverse it and come back years later?
I don't understand that process.
And Carmella, I think you'd be a wonderful law school professor because that's the kind of thing that law school professors engage with their students on all the time.
Here, what I'll do is I'll give you a very brief and abbreviated and therefore incomplete response to your very, very good question about all of this.
We know where the law should come from, right?
They're the legislature.
It's the people we send to Congress, to the state house here in the state of Wisconsin, in Madison, people who
Debate and then pass laws that usually are signed or not signed by an executive a governor or president That's how legislation is done and then we've got all kinds of other things that that prompt your question as well We've got plainly when the president or governor executes those laws We've got decisions made about how those laws are executed and those are at the administrative level and there's sometimes people who say that gee now we've got administrators and agencies that are defining what the law
And so that gets a bit more complicated.
My own view is that that's a necessary way of executing the laws passed by Congress.
But your focus, again, is on the involvement of the Supreme Court way back in the early part of the 19th century, in a case called Marbury versus Madison Supreme Court.
The Chief Justice said it's decidedly the purview and the prerogative of the Supreme Court to decide what the law is.
And that sure seems like it's taking on a legislative assignment, does it not?
And yet it does.
It does do that.
It interprets the Constitution.
It interprets legislation passed by the legislature.
And indeed, during the course of Supreme Court history, there have been more than a few, quite a few, as a matter of fact, situations where the Supreme Court has decided one case, Plessey versus Ferguson, for example, Dred Scott, those kinds of things, only to overturn it later on, case like Brown versus Board of Education, when the country moves on and their new perspectives and their new insights that give us a better
feel for what the Constitution in terms of rights and due process and equality and those kinds of things should mean.
But the Supreme Court does do it.
And they certainly did it here in Dobbs.
They changed the interpretation of the Constitution.
Can the Congress, to your very good point, Carmella, go back and institutionalize that and make and codify that position on abortion in the Congress, absolutely can do that.
And that's
why there have been pieces of legislation introduced in the House and the Senate to codify Roe versus Wade and basically overturn what the Supreme Court has decided in Dobs.
That can also happen.
And so the upshot of this breathtaking and very abbreviated analysis or description of the process is it's once again complicated, but all branches of government have some involvement in creating our laws and instituting and executing the laws.
Supreme Court, I would argue to your good point, has a much greater role today in defining what the law is than it should.
and the fact that it's deciding all of these issues when the legislature should be doing that predominantly and is deferring in many ways because of perhaps its own deadlock, Supreme Court necessarily deciding all these issues when it comes to privacy rights and environmental issues and education issues and even authority of the president issues, all those kinds of things.
Carmela could not thank you enough for your very good question and we'll continue to talk about those kinds of law school civics things.
As we go forward, going forward on this broadcast, we turn finally to some things before the Supreme Court.
Coming up in its next term, we'll talk about those as Amicus Allar Review continues right after this.
My name is Jim Santel.
This is Amica Sallaraview on the broadcast stations of Civic Media joined in the Racine studio by my great producer Greg.
Together, as always, we're taking your phone calls at 855-752-4842.
Going to be devoting the rest of this hour principally to the United States Supreme Court's upcoming docket, getting back in business.
They really haven't been out of business, but back in business in a big time way, the new term coming up 2025-2026 in four short weeks from right.
now.
When they begin oral arguments once again in Washington DC, you can attend those.
You can be a part of that process.
You can watch them as the Supreme Court entertains oral argument.
Right now, in about 30, 35 cases in which it has already granted a writ of certiorari, that's the legal, that's the Latin term for saying we're going to review a lower court case.
We know there are a couple of things that are pending and the Supreme Court may or may not take those up.
One of them, one of them almost certainly will take up because of the magnitude of it.
We have spoken before recently about this major decision coming out of the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, affirming a lower court's
Finding that Donald Trump our president does not in fact have this unlimited power under the law any implication invocation of it to impose these tariffs that have been one of the basic
Hallmarks of his presidency in recent months the Justices the judges of the federal circuit have delayed the the restrictions on that of his going forward for about 60 days until October To grant the administration time to seek that review by the Supreme Court and indeed just this past week the president indicated that yes indeed we're going to seek he said
expedited review of this decision by the federal circuit he said because it's so very important he said the new legal uncertainty surrounding his tariffs has contributed to a recent drop in financial markets and could lead he said to devastation for our country he says if you took away tariffs we could end up being a third
world country and so he presumably through the office of the solicitor general at the U.S.
Department of Justice is going to seek yes indeed shadow docket an emergency review of this decision by the federal circuit and again stealing the words of Amy Coney Berener book bemoaning the fact that we will not presumably have the great benefit of
briefing and argument and the exposition about which Amy Coney Barrett talks a bit in her book.
That should happen on something of this great importance.
The Supreme Court of the United States of America should give this major issue about the authority of the president.
Not at all clear, in fact, going in just the opposite.
It is article one of the Constitution that grants the legislature the capacity to negotiate and impose tariffs.
He has usurped that.
The Congress has not pushed back on it.
And so we've had all of this news about tariffs.
in not only our national conversation, but also in the jurisprudence of our courts, the federal circuit finding.
You can't do any of this or virtually all of it on the basis that the president has invoked here.
That's an issue that requires huge exposition before the Supreme Court.
They can expedite this, but they should in fact, they should in fact hear argument.
They should take briefs on this.
Maybe amicus briefs from economists, maybe even amicus briefs from historians who are deciding something of this consequence.
This should not fall into the same category with those many other about 23 cases right now that have been before the Supreme Court in the emergency or so-called shadow docket.
But that presumably is coming up before the United States Supreme Court, maybe before the start of its new term in about four weeks.
There's also this recent news about the case involving Kim Davis.
And recall, she is the former Kentucky County clerk who was jailed for a number of days back in 2015.
Why?
She is the one who refused to issue marriage licenses.
Remember this?
To a gay couple, she was doing it on, as she described it, religious grounds.
She was ultimately convicted and she is now appealing a $100,000 jury verdict for emotional damages plus $260,000 in attorney's fees.
She has filed a petition for a writ of certiorari last month and the Supreme Court's going to determine whether to take that case under normal circumstances.
They would not, they should not be.
become involved in a case like that.
But the reason why it's once again in our national focus is you know it well, that she also claims that her underlying conviction is based upon the case of Obergefell versus Hodges.
That is the case that extended marriage rights for same-sex couples under the 14th Amendment and the due process protections set forth there.
She maintains that Obergefell granting same-sex marriage rights under our Constitution
privacy rights, the kinds of things that Amy Coney Barrett suggests in her book that she would not disturb, interestingly, that she would write that.
Nonetheless, Kim Davis, through attorney, is saying you got to overturn Obergefell because that's the predicate for my conviction.
And if you overturn Obergefell for that reason, then my conviction goes away to the Supreme Court has not yet granted review of that.
They've got a hearing, an internal hearing coming up later in September.
Hopefully, hopefully not granting, not granting review of that case.
But it's back in the news once again and certainly with justices like
Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas suggesting that some of this should be revisited.
they will get at least some mileage from looking over Kim Davis's petition in the coming weeks and presumably deciding it sometime in late December.
We do know about many, many other cases that are pending on the docket right now.
The Supreme Court has granted certiorari in these many cases.
Let's begin to talk about some of those there once again in what we sometimes call the culture wars in America.
And that includes some of the Supreme Court data.
And the last days of its summer recess, they announced that they would hear a pair of challenges, two particular cases, regarding the constitutionality of laws that prohibit
Transgender girls and women from participating on girls and women's sports.
Yes, that issue is before the Supreme Court.
First case is Little versus Hecox, H-E-C-O-X.
When we come back, I'll tell you about Little versus Hecox and other cases pending on the docket of this Supreme Court in its upcoming term that coming up on Amicus, a law review.
you
My name is Jim Santel.
We are talking in this... The last portions of our broadcast this week and about the major cases on the Supreme Court term, the 2025-2026 term.
Let me tell you a bit about a case called Little vs. Hecox, H-E-C-O-S.
is a COX, the Supreme Court going to be hearing this case brought by Lindsay Hecox.
She is a transgender woman who wanted to compete, hoping to compete on the women's track and cross-country teams at Boise State University.
She asked a federal court there to bar Idaho from enforcing its ban against her.
The U.S.
Court appeals for the Ninth Circuit, not surprisingly agreed with her.
And so the law does in fact support her and the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.
does also support her notion that she should not be prohibited from participating as a transgender woman.
Much related to that, you've got a second case.
This one's called West Virginia versus BPJ.
And the reason why there are initials is because this is a minor, which is also often what happens in a case caption when one of the petitioners, one of the defendants or a plaintiff is a minor.
West Virginia versus B.P.J., the court's gonna hear a case by a 14-year-old transgender girl who has begun to receive puberty blockers and hormone therapy, and she is seeking to be able to compete on the girl's sports team of her middle school.
The U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled last year that West Virginia's ban violates Title IX, which, of course, is the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in educational programs,
and activities that are premised upon federal funding because it discriminates against the student based upon sex.
That issue, West Virginia versus BPJ coming up also before the Supreme Court, much related, much related to the Heacock's case as well.
A third matter involving our LGBTQIA community, this one involving conversion therapies.
Supreme Court agreeing to weigh in
on a challenge to the constitutionality of Colorado's ban on conversion therapy, that of course is this therapy discredited across the board by reliable and conscientious medical authorities to convert someone's sexual orientation or gender identity.
The plaintiff in Chiles versus Salazar is a practicing Christian.
So how identifies the the petitioner there says that she sometimes works with clients who want to discuss topics that she says implicate Christian values about human sexuality and the treatment of their own body.
She says, as a licensed counselor, she believes that clients can accept the bodies that God has given them and find peace.
And she says that the Colorado law violates her First Amendment right to free speech and to free the exercise her religion by barring her from helping them to do so.
Federal appeals court, in that case, coming out of Denver, upheld the Colorado law banning banning conversion therapy.
concluding there that the state has enacted a law to regulate the health care profession, and in particular, therapist conduct rather than therapist speech, describing the result there based upon the bucket, if you will, in which you identify the analysis.
Conversion therapy back on the docket of the United States Supreme Court now in this coming term.
Death penalty also back on the docket.
in November of 2020 for the court after about 20 conferences, sent the case of a Joseph Smith, Joseph Smith, who was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Dirk van Damme back to the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit for that court to clarify, to clarify this, how had the court reached its conclusion that Smith was intellectually disabled?
So that his execution would violate the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Gorsuch and Thomas have indicated that they would have gone ahead and granted the state's petition for review then without waiting for the Court of Appeals to take another look.
The case returned to the Court of Appeals and once again concluding there that Smith's death sentence should be set aside.
Smith had obtained five IQ scores ranging from 72 to 78.
His intellectual disability claim hinged in part on whether his IQ was 70 or lower, the 11th Circuit stressed that he had not thrown out Smith's death sentence simply because the standard range of error for his lowest IQ score would put his IQ test at 69.
Instead, the lower court had said that it would uphold the district court's ruling on Smith's favor.
based on the complete record including any relevant expert testimony there's a lot going on there the bottom line is the supreme court reviewing that once again and agreeing to decide how and whether courts should assess
A defendant's claim that he or she cannot be executed because of intellectual disabilities when, as Mr. Smith presents, the defendant has taken multiple IQ test death penalty and intellectual disabilities in front of the Supreme Court.
In Louisiana versus Calais, this is the big one.
This is the voting rights case where the Supreme Court may in fact, may in fact be taking another big whack at the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
This was this curious matter coming out of Louisiana having to do with its redrawing of congressional districts there.
Supreme Court had it on its docket, fully briefed, part of its regular merit docket.
argued the case and then sent it back and basically sent it back to their own chambers rather than to lower court.
And so we're gonna rehear this again and has directed that the parties come back for more, our oral argument on the implications of the Voting Rights Act here.
Curious, curious that among all of the 60 or so cases in the last docket of the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court picked this one up and said, we're deciding not to decide.
But instead, after 80 minutes of arguments way back in March, without a consensus among the justices on how to resolve this particular line drawing case in Louisiana, June 27th, before it was going out of business, at least on its official docket, the court said that it was apparently not able to resolve this dispute, and it issued a one-page order.
and it indicated the case we rescheduled with new questions which have since been issued, and we'll hear this in due course.
We'll review again whether or not the majority black districts that were designed there based upon court directive, in fact, violated the Constitution.
in fact, as a result of the petition made by some of the plaintiffs in that case.
And so again, voting rights, Louisiana versus Calais, C-A-L-L-A-I-S, it's a very, very big case.
Keep that name in mind.
This could be the one.
This could be the one, depending upon how the Supreme Court goes, that joins those other cases, including Shelby County and Bernovitch, that have dramatically limited the impact, the power,
capacity of the Supreme Court and other courts to decide Voting Rights Act cases, Calais, Calais, depending upon how the Supreme Court comes down on this, could deal a death knell, a death blow to the Supreme Court.
Hopefully, hopefully we anticipate it will not.
This is one of those times when the Supreme Court needs to hear from the public.
about the appropriate resolution of this major case that could, could compromise the Voting Rights Act going forward beyond resolving the specific issue about line drawing in Louisiana.
A major campaign finance case is called National Republican Senatorial Campaign versus Federal Election Commission.
Justices in the upcoming term consider their 2001 ruling
and that in a case called federal election commission versus colorado republican federal campaign committee that is a past two thousand one ruling there the court upheld federal limits on coordinated campaign monetary expenditures and those limits restricted political parties from spending money on campaign advertising
in cooperation with political candidates.
It's a very thorny issue having to do with campaign finances.
And of course, all of that, all of that coming back to the Supreme Court, the petitioners urging the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to overturn the previous decision arguing
that the court's 2001 decision, the Colorado case, should no longer apply because since then the Supreme Court has tightened the free speech restrictions on campaign finance regulations.
The Court of Appeals acknowledged the Sixth Circuit did attention between the Colorado case and the Supreme Court's later decisions.
The Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court now taking all of this up.
That is campaign finance money again in our campaigns before the Supreme Court.
Religion, religion on the docket of the Supreme Court in this coming term in a curious and interesting case.
This case is Landor, L-A-N-D-O-R versus Louisiana Department of Corrections and Public Safety.
An inmate, an inmate who filed a lawsuit seeking to hold a government official
Personally, individually responsible, rather than suing the government authority that he or she works for in an official capacity for violation of a federal law, that federal law intended to protect the religious rights of prisoners.
And that's called the RLU IPA.
The particular case here is premised upon
These facts, Mr. Landor was transferred inside the Louisiana prison system and was transferred one prison to another.
And when he explained to an intake guard that he was a practicing Rastafarian, Landor, and he had not cut his hair up to that point, at that point he had reached nearly to his knees after 20 years of growth.
The guards there, with a copy of a ruling by a federal appeals court striking down the straits policy prohibiting prisoners from wearing dreadlocks, the prisoners wore instructed guards
to restrain Landor in a chair where they forcibly shaved his head.
And Landor went to federal court, challenged that action, said that it's in violation of the RLU IPA, that is the religious land use and institutionalized persons act was enacted in 2000.
Part of the effort to strengthen prisoners' religious rights.
The U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit throughout his claims against the individual prison officials.
Holding that this particular law does not allow private plaintiffs to bring claims against individuals only only as to an official entity but nonetheless religion back on the docket of the Supreme Court under the RLU IPA What about copyright issues in Cox versus communication versus Sony music entertainment?
Justice is going to decide an important copyright issue specifically whether and to what extent an internet service provider can be held liable
for copyright infringement by its subscribers.
There are a group of music labels.
They're led by Sony Music, file a lawsuit, again initially in federal court against Cox, contending that some of its subscribers had repeatedly infringed the labels of copyrights.
Over a two-year period, a jury agreed, awarded the labels about $1 billion with a B dollars.
US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit tossed out that $4 billion award.
Nonetheless, agreed that Cox was liable for contributing
to the subscribers infringement of the copyrights copyright law now once again being reviewed by the united states supreme court a couple more also in the area of some technical issues it's a technical question but whether a federal court has the power to rule on a group's claim that new jersey's demand for information about its fundraising practices discouraged it from exercising first amendment rights
or whether, and the alternative, that group must instead litigate that claim in state proceedings.
The case, the case which is very technical in nature, as I just described it, basically has garnered a lot of significance because a question comes to the court involving First Amendment issues.
And again, specifically related to abortion.
When we come back, I'll tell you about more of that and one other matter.
Before we conclude with some other perspectives on the rule of law,
here in America this past week and here on Amicus, a lot of you.
My name is Jim Santel.
This is Amica Solaro on the broadcast stations of Civic Media, spending some time as promised talking about just a handful of the more than 30 cases on the docket of the US Supreme Court coming up.
to reinitiate its review of these cases in about a month from now as the new term begins.
And that includes this very interesting case that is arguably, although not directly, an abortion case.
The case involves First Choice Women's Resource Center.
It's a group of faith-based pregnancy centers.
that the New Jersey Attorney General's office contends may have misled women about abortion services.
Following all of that, it is a fundraising case.
It is a First Amendment case.
The Attorney General there in New Jersey had issued a subpoena to First Choice.
What was he trying to do?
He was trying to get, among many other things, information
about the group's donors.
And there's the First Amendment piece, right?
So that's the public-facing portion of this, the fundraising portion of it as well.
First choice went to federal court to challenge that subpoena issued by the state's chief state law enforcement officer.
District court concluded that it could not review the claims because only a state court has the power to enforce or quash a subpoena, not a federal court.
And a divided panel, a divided panel, means not a majority of the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, the Third Circuit, upheld the district court's ruling and dismissed the case.
First choice has now come to the Supreme Court.
which has granted review of this case.
It's called First Choice Women's Resource Center versus Platkin.
It is a First Amendment case.
It's a fundraising practice case and is arguably through some sort of interpretation, which is not too far-fetched.
Also an abortion case, which is back again before the Supreme Court because plainly that is what underlies the Attorney General's interest in this information about donors.
to this group, a faith-based pregnancy center offering services there in New Jersey.
There is a lot going on with the Supreme Court, abortion and copyright issues and religious freedom issues and other issues related to campaign finance and voting rights, death penalty issues.
Many things on the docket of the Supreme Court coming up in its upcoming term will continue as the Supreme Court takes on these oral arguments to tell you about what's coming up in a week-to-week basis before the Supreme Court.
We'll preview some of those cases as we have done before and give you some sense about how the Supreme Court based upon the oral arguments seems to be heading in these and many other cases.
It is important also to note
that the Supreme Court has not yet filled its entire docket.
Typically some are between 60 and 70 cases altogether.
About half of that has been filled up to this point.
Supreme Court will continue even as it starts its new term to populate its docket going forward.
And that could include many, many other cases that are out there, including the great variety of matters that we have spent a lot of time talking about here on Amica Solar Review.
Many of those involving the power, the authority of
this president to do what he is attempting to do in America.
And the lower courts, the lower courts almost, almost with complete unanimity finding that he is without constitutional authority, without legality to do them.
And indeed, this past week has been another time for courts around the country.
To find that our president is engaging in conduct that is illegal and unconstitutional, some or any of this, in addition to the tariffs case, may well make it to the Supreme Court.
Let me do some rule of law snapshots on these you've seen the headlines a judge Has ruled again in the district court in in in Massachusetts that the Trump administration illegally cancelled illegally cancelled huge amounts of research funding for Harvard and
In addition, during the course of this past week, another judge, this one in the federal district court in San Francisco, said that Donald Trump's use of federal law enforcement, federal military forces, rather, in the area of domestic law enforcement, is illegal.
Cannot go ahead and do that.
In other cases around the nation,
A federal appeals court found just this past week that an FTC commissioner, a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, was fired by Donald Trump.
Her name is Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, was illegally terminated without cause.
She is to be reinstated.
Also in the area of the FTC, another judge blocked an FTC investigation of media matters.
calling the inquiry a campaign of retribution waged on behalf of a fellow named Elon Musk and the Trump administration, that coming out of a federal judge issuing an injunction with respect to a federal trade commission investigation.
Another appeals court, this one, the Fifth Circuit, founded in New Orleans there, blocked Donald Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act.
to deport Venezuelans as a part of his work and his initiatives with respect to immigration, finding that this 18th century wartime law that we've talked about a lot here, the Alien Enemies Act, is inappropriately invoked by him.
Another judge, another judge, Judge Sparkle Suknenan, U.S.
District Court and District of Columbia, halted an effort by this administration to deport Guatemalan children.
as those planes were sitting on the tarmac, told them to stay there and not deport those children to Guatemala again as a part of the injunctive work of that judge.
And yet another judge, another judge, this one, Amir Ali, we've talked about him before.
He's in Washington, D.C.
He blocked Donald Trump's move to cut about $4.9 billion, $4.9 billion in federal aid as a result of the finding by that judge.
that the decision by the president to do this was something called a pocket rescission, basically a last-minute attempt to claw back money from the end of the fiscal year inappropriately done by this president.
It's a lot.
All of that happened this past week.
Any of that could ultimately make it its way to the United States Supreme Court.
And if and as it does percolate up, we'll continue to talk about that.
Here on Amicus Law Review, we continue to encourage your involvement in our discussion of the rule of law and of government and of justice in these United States of America.
Have a good weekend,
everybody.
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