Welcome to Amicus, the Slate Podcast about the US Supreme Court.

I am Dahlia Lithwick and I cover the courts for Slate.

This episode, which we've subtitled the Thin Rural Edition, is our third annual preview

of the big cases in the upcoming term, which opens this Tuesday.

We are calling it the Thin Rural Edition because, based on the cases that the court has

agreed to hear in the term that starts next week, there's just a whole lot of yawn

in store.

The eight remaining justices are eager to avoid any more controversial four-four splits,

which happened four times last year.

And as a result, there are either granting fewer cases, ducking the big cases, or taking

very narrow technical might even say boring cases, and generally pretending to be the

ferns between the other ferns in this unbelievable election year.

Those other ferns, of course, are quite happy to have all the attention, or so it seems.

In this past Monday's presidential debate, there was no shortage of sparks, singers, or sniffles.

We blame the microphones.

But one exchange in particular did catch our attention here at Amicus.

Donald Trump had just suggested taking another hard look at the police practice known as

Stop and Frisk, as an effective option for cutting down urban crime.

There's an exchange between Trump and Lester Hold, the moderator.

Stop and Frisk was ruled unconstitutional in New York, because it largely singled out

black and Hispanic young men.

No, you're wrong.

...