This is the Cater Daily Podcast for Wednesday, April 4th, 2018.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The Supreme Court this week threw out a request by a woman shot several times by police,

her request to show evidence against the cop to a civil jury.

The court didn't so much throw out the case as prevent the case from beginning.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor says that gives cops the ability to shoot first and think later.

Kato's Clark Neely comments on the opinion.

Before we get into the facts of this case, when the Supreme Court receives an appeal to have a case heard and they engage in a summary reversal or some sort of summary judgment, what is implied by that action?

Well, so mechanically what happens is that instead of having the parties brief and argue the case so

that the court can give the issue in the case it's full and considered attention,

the court instead uses a summary procedure where it doesn't even receive any

briefing beyond just the petition for certiorari that is the sort of application to have the case

heard, and as the name implies a summary

reversal is just that it's summary there's no briefing there's no argument the

Supreme Court just looks at the case and says the lower court so obviously got it wrong that we

don't even need to hear anymore about it and we're just going to reverse the case

without you know sort of a full-blown hearing an

argument on the merits on the basis of the kind of extensive briefing that the

Supreme Court normally receives when it wants to make sure that it gets the

you know the decision correct.

Now this in this case Kisella v. Hughes and I would I would commend to people to read both opinions issued here the one that was the summary reversal and the dissent from Justice Sotomayor, they even sort of

characterize the facts of the case dramatically differently about how this officer shot a woman who we can all agree was holding a knife

...