Opening Arguments

OA1069   Matt is doing a bit of blending of work and pleasure today, by sharing with everyone his footnote fetish. Let's all make this a safe place for Matt to share his more controversial proclivities. Joining us is the author of the book in the episode title, Peter Charles Hoffer. Professor Hoffer is Distinguished Research Professor of History at the University of Georgia. Unlike the justices, Professor Hoffer is an actual historian. Listen and find out not only the fascinating footnote history, but also yet more reasons why originalism and "history and tradition" are not good ways for untrained amateur historians like Samuel Alito to do jurisprudence. If you’d like to support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law!

OA1068 We begin with a quick review of some of the stranger legal issues raised in this week’s Presidential debate, including such mysteries as whether it is legal to murder babies upon delivery and the factual guilt of the Central Park Five 22 years after they were exonerated by DNA evidence and a third-party confession. In our main story, we review the chaos that the Supreme Court’s legalization of Presidential crime is already causing in Donald Trump’s hush-money case and discuss the relative merits of pushing his sentencing back until after the November election. Finally, Matt drops a footnote to explain an overlooked legal story in this week’s news involving a remarkably rare grant of a common defense motion. Filings from People v. Trump (NYCourts website) SDNY Judge Hellerstein’s order denying Trump’s notice of removal (9/3/24) Justice Merchan’s order continuing Trump’s sentencing hearing to November 26, 2024 (9/6/24) If you’d like to support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreo

The answer for T3BE39 is coming your way, and we launch our next Bar Prep question with Heather!  Right now, the best place to play (if you aren't a patron...) is at reddit.com/r/openargs! If you’d like to support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law!

OA1067 After some of the strangest post-conviction twists in US legal history, the Supreme Court of Maryland has just reinstated Serial killer Adnan Syed’s conviction for the murder of his high school ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee 25 years ago. We begin by revisiting Matt’s first-ever legal podcasting deep dive with Thomas on Serious Inquiries Only (SIO354) shortly after Syed’s conviction was initially reinstated by the Maryland Appellate Court last April. How accurate were his predictions for what Maryland’s highest court would do with this, as well as for the fallout which might follow if a new team of prosecutors were to be required to go before a new judge to actually present the evidence upon which they claimed to have brought the motion which freed Syed?  Matt then briefly breaks down the Supreme Court of Maryland’s lengthy decision and explains why this is one of the strongest statements for victims rights ever made by any US state court. What are the odds of the prosecution now bringing a legitimate motio

OA1066 Privyet, fellow citizens! We begin with a quick look at recent events following  Jack Smith’s new superseding indictment in Trump’s January 6th case in DC. Why are Trump’s lawyers saying that Clarence Thomas “directed” them to file a motion to dismiss? And does DC federal judge Tanya Chutkan even care that this defendant who happens to be charged with four counts of trying to overturn an election is running for President at all?  Then in our main story: In an indictment filed this week, the Department of Justice has charged two Russian state media operatives with funding an officially unnamed production company which is allegedly (but also definitely) Tenet Media, the home of mediocre anti-woke crusaders like Dave Rubin, Tim Pool, and Lauren Southern (among others). Thomas takes us through some of the most entertaining facts alleged in the indictment, including an extremely real investor who is definitely in Paris and not Moscow, the Tucker Carlson Russian propaganda video which was a little too much e

The answer for T3BE37 is coming your way, and we launch our next Bar Prep question with Heather!  Right now, the best place to play (if you aren't a patron...) is at reddit.com/r/openargs! If you’d like to support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law!

OA1065 (This episode first appeared on Gavel Gavel Aug. 18th) Three years ago, cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was fatally shot on the set of Alec Baldwin's film, Rust. Alec Baldwin (in addition to armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed) was subsequently criminally charged with involuntary manslaughter. Recently, Baldwin's counsel brought a motion for dismissal and sanctions, and after a shocking day in court, Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer dismissed the case with prejudice. Matt and Thomas walk through the events of that hearing and try to figure out what in the world the prosecutors were thinking. State of New Mexico v. Alexander Rae Baldwin III (Alec Baldwin) Defendant's Motion for Dismissal and Sanctions Under Brady, Giglio, and Rule 5-501 (pdf) Order Granting Defendant's Motion for Dismissal and Sanctions Under Brady, Giglio, and Rule 5-501 NMRA (pdf)

OA1064 One angry Matt brings us two stories from this week’s news: After taking some time to think about the Supreme Court’s decision that former US presidents can’t be prosecuted for anything involving--or in any way touching on--”official acts,” special counsel Jack Smith has returned to a grand jury to obtain a superseding indictment in his DC prosecution of Donald Trump. How has he retooled the charges relating to the January 6th conspiracy? How much weaker will this case be without the many federal government witnesses who would otherwise have been called, and what happens next? Here’s something everyone should know: AGs in 16 red states are now taking a bold and principled stand against--and this is 100% true--traditional marriage. In a suit filed in a Texas federal court last week, these staunch defenders of our most cherished family values argued that there are at least 550,000 US citizens who should be exiled from not only from their states but from the United States for ten years because they marrie

The answer for T3BE37 is coming your way, and we launch our next Bar Prep question with Heather!  Right now, the best place to play (if you aren't a patron...) is at reddit.com/r/openargs! If you’d like to support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law!    

Hey folks! Wanted to give you all a preview of the bonus we just released. If you'd like to hear the full thing, please head to patreon.com/law and pledge at the 2nd tier or above! Thanks! Yay LAM is back and booker than ever! Neil Gorsuck wrote an incredibly bland book and Matt read it for some reason. Let's find out how much suck can a Gorsuck suck if a Gorsuck could suck suck. PS yes I said I'd bleep stuff on the main feed but since this ended up being a bonus I'm just marking it explicit instead.

OA1063 We are excited to bring you a fascinating conversation with Attorney Diana Adams (they/them) of the Chosen Family Law Center, a New York City-based non-profit which advocates for LGBTQIA and other non-traditional families of all backgrounds and descriptions. Diana is one of the nation’s leading advocates for rethinking how governments, courts, employers, and other institutions can accommodate committed relationships beyond the norms of romantic and/or sexual monogamy, including those involving more than two people, platonic partnerships, non-traditional parenting arrangements, and the many other ways in which people can choose to be in family relationships. Topics include (among many other things) the surprisingly racist history of the term “nuclear family,” developments in local and state law since the Supreme Court’s monumental recognition of full marriage equality in 2015, and what an immigration system not fundamentally based in a 1950’s conception of white heteronormative marriage might look like.

OA1062 We begin with a brief update on Disney’s truly Mickey Mouse arguments in a Florida wrongful death lawsuit before discussing three other questionable legal claims from the week’s news: As expected, Hunter Biden has tried to use findings from a Florida federal court that special counsel Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed to have his own pending federal tax charges dismissed in California. Can this creation of Aileen Cannon’s imagination survive in the wild? Speaking of the BIDEN CRIME FAMILY: we review the final report from the House Republicans in support of impeaching Joe Biden--for, well you know. Something. If anyone wants to get around to it. What are we even doing here? News this week that presidential candidate Donald Trump may have discussed delaying a Gaza ceasefire agreement with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu until after the election has set off yet another round of online demands for prosecution under the Logan Act of 1799. What’s the deal with this 225-year-old law--and are

The answer for T3BE36 is coming your way, and we launch our next Bar Prep question with Heather!  Right now, the best place to play (if you aren't a patron...) is at reddit.com/r/openargs! If you’d like to support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law!

OA1061 This week Matt shares a mostly under-the-radar story which has completely changed his understanding of the events of September 11, 2001.  As the 23rd anniversary of the attacks approaches, a mountain of information emerging from lawsuits filed by 9/11 families has revealed far more extensive ties between both al-Qaeda and at least two of the hijackers to the Saudi government than were ever previously known. Why has justice taken so long? How does the law even allow this suit to proceed, and why did Congress have to override Barack Obama’s veto to allow it to move forward? Why has some of the best journalism about this lawsuit been from Golf Digest? And has the time come for a second 9/11 commission to re-evaluate everything we thought we knew about the day that changed everything? Complaint in Ashton v. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (filed March 20, 2017) Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Memorandum in Support of Motion to Dismiss (filed 5/10/24) Plaintiffs’ Opposition to Motion to Dismiss (filed 5/7/24)

OA1060 This week Matt breaks down four very different legal actions:  1. Donald Trump is suing the United States--yes, the same United States that he is running to be the President of--for $100 million based on the FBI’s alleged violation of the Florida common law tort of “intrusion upon seclusion” in executing a valid search warrant on Mar-A-Lago two years ago. Is Trump just spiking the legal football after his big win in front of federal judge Aileen Cannon in Jack Smith’s documents case, or is there actually something worth talking about here? 2. Is the Walt Disney Corporation actually arguing that signing up for a 30-day trial of its Disney+ streaming service protects them from the tragically fatal consequences of negligence at a restaurant in its Disney Springs shopping center? Could that really be a thing that licensed attorneys wrote down, printed, reviewed, signed, and filed with a court? We consider what might be one of the most bizarrely evil defenses ever raised in a wrongful death suit. 3. Soul si

The answer for T3BE35 is coming your way, and we launch our next Bar Prep question with Heather!  Right now, the best place to play (if you aren't a patron...) is at reddit.com/r/openargs! If you’d like to support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law!

OA1059 This week we welcome Rhode Island state senator Meghan Kallman for a conversation about the power of state lawmaking and ordinary people in elected office. Meghan is a professor of sociology at UMass Boston whose work in both the theory and practice of how people organize led her to a parallel career in politics. As the Democratic Presidential ticket coalesces around a woman and (for the first time since 1980!) a non-lawyer, we discuss the unique challenges which women still face in US politics at every level as well as what it is like for someone with no legal training or no political experience to run for and hold elected office.  Also: How can state and local governments make progressive change even when the federal government can't or won't act? What is it like for someone with no legal training to write laws? And why is Rhode Island the last state in the Union to take an entire day off to celebrate the US victory over Japan?  Meghan Kallman’s campaign website The Conceivable Future, Meghan Kal

OA1058 We begin with Neil Gorsuch’s recent appearance on Fox News. How normal is it for a sitting Supreme Court justice to go on Fox News, and did Gorsuch really just threaten the Biden administration over its relatively minor court reform proposals?  In our main story, we break down two major antitrust suits from the past week: Elon Musk’s ridiculous claim that corporations which refuse to advertise on a social media platform which has failed to regulate neo-Nazi and animal abuse content are violating Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, and District Court judge Ahmet Mehta’s extremely reasonable findings that Google’s anticompetitive practices are in violation of Section 2. Also, Matt has some nice things to say about Richard Nixon. White House announcement on Biden court reform proposals (7/29/24) About GARM (WFANet.org) "GARM's Harm" report from the House Judiciary Committee (7/10/2024) Complaint in X v. GARM et al (8/6/2024) “Is Google Getting Worse? A Longitudinal Investigation of S

The answer for T3BE34 is coming your way, and we launch our next Bar Prep question with Heather!  Right now, the best place to play (if you aren't a patron...) is at reddit.com/r/openargs! If you’d like to support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law!

OA1057 We’re giving ourselves a break this week from Trump, the Supreme Court, and all things 2024 to indulge in one of Matt’s all-time favorite subjects: CIA mind control experiments! In this extra-carefully-researched episode, Matt breaks down the history of the federal government’s MKULTRA  program to fund research in brainwashing, mind control, and LSD on unsuspecting U.S. and (for some reason) Canadian citizens, as well as the inherent legal issues in trying to sue the CIA for something you can’t remember and for which most evidence has been destroyed. Why was the CIA funding a sadistic mad scientist in Montreal, and is there any hope of justice for the families of his victims today?  BOOKS Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control , Stephen Kinzer (2019) The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: the CIA and Mind Control, John Marks (1979)(link goes to full text on CIA website) The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government: