The Supreme Court We Deserve?
Slate News
Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 16 September 2023
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Dahlia Lithwick is joined by award-winning documentarian and lawyer Dawn Porter for a conversation about two projects shining a light on the law and how we can shape it: Porter’s new Showtime documentary series Deadlocked: How America Shaped the Supreme Court, and the paperback release of Dahlia’s book Lady Justice: Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America.
Together they trace the political shifts and cultural earthquakes from the Warren Court to the Burger, Rehnquist and now Roberts Court, and they discuss how the courts current crisis of legitimacy cannot be cured with a moratorium on criticism. In both Lady Justice and Deadlocked a truth surfaces: when it comes to the rule of law, there is no “plan b”, so the challenge to Dawn’s audience, Dahlia’s readers and Amicus listeners is the same: to use the law as a tool for progress and justice.
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Dahlia’s book Lady Justice: Women, the Law and the Battle to Save America, is now out in paperback. It is also available as an audiobook, and Amicus listeners can get a 25 percent discount by entering the code “AMICUS” at checkout. https://books.supportingcast.fm/lady-justice
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I wanted to explain, this didn't happen because of Trump. |
| 0:08.9 | This happened over the last several decades and we need to understand that in order to |
| 0:14.4 | understand where we are today. |
| 0:22.3 | Hi and welcome back to Amicus. |
| 0:24.8 | This is Slate magazine's podcast about the courts and the Supreme Court and the Law and |
| 0:29.5 | the Rule of Law and I'm Dialithwick and I cover the courts and this week we're |
| 0:34.0 | actually bringing you an off-week special edition show to celebrate two new things. |
| 0:40.4 | The first is the release of director Don Porter's new four-part series, Deadlocked, How America |
| 0:47.0 | Shaped the Supreme Court, which will air on showtime starting next weekend and we're |
| 0:52.9 | also here to push out the boat for my book, Lady Justice, Women, the Law and the Battle |
| 0:58.3 | to Save America, which will come out this Tuesday in paperback. |
| 1:05.1 | We are all bracing right now for yet another term at the new 6-3 Conservative Supermajority |
| 1:12.5 | Roberts Court and at the same time there are still just so many stories to be told about |
| 1:17.8 | power and democracy and organizing and the arc of the moral universe and how everyone |
| 1:24.6 | still gets to pick it up and bend it and how they would do that. |
| 1:28.6 | And on this week's show we just want to tell some of those stories. |
| 1:31.9 | I'm also at this moment finding just a lot of hope and nourishment in the ways in which |
| 1:38.9 | so many women are exerting so much professional power to bring along so many other women and |
| 1:48.1 | vulnerable communities and so whether it's the Barbie movie or it's Fanny Willis or Taylor |
| 1:55.1 | Swift or in my case women lawyers, I just really wanted to spend this weekend thinking |
| 2:01.2 | about how women make political change. |
| 2:04.9 | Now I have been a huge Don Porter fan for a very long time. |
... |
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