I think the reason this historical work is catching some people's attention is that we're presented maybe really for the first time in American history with the president who so often seems to act in a selfish or private interest rather than being kind of true to the oath to act for the benefit of the public and the public good.

Hi, and welcome back to Amicus.

This is Slate's podcast about the Supreme Court and the courts and the rule of law and the Constitution.

I'm Dahlia Lithwick, and I cover many of those things for Slate.

And we are creeping up on the last days of the Supreme Court's 2018 term.

It's a term that's been marked by a controversial hearing for Brett Kavanaugh. And then in absence of a lot of really big ticket cases, but a steady

drift to the right, a willingness to strike down precedent. And in recent weeks, some really

interesting departures from the standard 5-4 left-right narrative we've been using about this

court. We're going to talk about all that. But first, to the flurry of

decisions handed down just in the past few days, I'm joined by Slate's Mark Joseph Stern. Mark

covers the courts and the law for Slate, and it's always a pleasure to have you here. Welcome

back, Mark. Oh, thank you so much for having me back on. Always such a delight, especially in June, our favorite month of the year.

First, Mark, let's talk about Friday's big ticket case. This is Flowers v. Mississippi. It's a case we covered earlier this year on the podcast and also a case that was the subject of the award-winning podcast in the dark. So lots of folks know about it. And this essentially involves a sixth attempt by the same Mississippi prosecutor to get a conviction for a black man accused of murdering four people in a furniture store.

Maybe somewhat surprising. The court reversed Flowers' conviction, kicks him back if the state

wants to try him for a seventh trial. And it's a 7 to 2 decision written by Brett Kavanaugh that

essentially says, no dice. This is just way beyond the bounds of what can be a constitutional jury pool. Mark, is this surprising to you?

Well, I don't think this is a wacky or unpredictable lineup. You have Justice Kavanaugh writing for the court and only justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch dissenting. The other conservative justices joined

Kavanaugh's opinion, so did the liberals. And I think that is a fairly predictable outcome.

If there's any surprise, it's that Justice Samuel Alito joined Kavanaugh's opinion.

But he also wrote separately to say, look, this case is really weird. It's kind of a once-in-a-lifetime

thing. So don't think that I'm suddenly

going to be voting against racist prosecutors just because I'm voting for flowers here. And it is

...