This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, September 14th, 2012.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Can the federal government simply scream supremacy clause when its agreements with states don't produce happy outcomes?

Of course not.

But one case teed up for a potential Supreme Court hearing

might offer just that clarification.

Dave Koppel, associate policy analyst at the Cato Institute Thus that

the clarification, Dave Koppel, associate policy analyst at the Cato Institute, comments.

This case has a lot in it. There's the death penalty.

There is whether jurisdictions can abridge the death penalty for crimes that are committed

within their jurisdiction. And also there's a fight here between state power and

federal power and whether the federal government really has to abide by pieces of legislation that it has agreed to abide by.

Exactly. And that state federal issue is what brought the Independence Institute into the case in the

amicus brief we're filing to the Supreme Court urging the court to

grant certiorari.

So describe the case.

Jason Plow, P-L-E-A-U, is out on parole for crimes is already committed, was convicted of various crimes

sent to prison in Rhode Island, was out on parole, then robs a bank and in the course of the

robbery a innocent person is murdered. Rhode Island immediately revokes his parole, so he's back in prison in Rhode Island now for the remaining

18 years of his existing prison term for his previous crimes and Rhode Island wants to prosecute

him for this murder and robbery.

Rhode Island doesn't have the death penalty, but Plow has agreed to plead guilty to the

...