I'm Elizabeth Slattery and welcome to SCOTUS 101, where we break down what's happening at the Supreme Court,

what the justices are up to, and other things related to our favorite branch of government.

It's a slow week at SCOTUS.

The justes released orders and just one opinion on Monday of this week, and they won't meet again until later in May.

So first up, the court released its decision in Thacker v. United States.

Justice Kagan wrote for the unanimous court, finding that the Tennessee Valley Authority,

which is a government-owned electric power corporation, might be immune from a lawsuit brought

by a boater on the Tennessee River who collided with a

submerged power line, but the TVA also might not be immune. The justices sent the case back

to the lower court with instructions to figure out whether the TVA's conduct giving rise to this lawsuit

was governmental or commercial in nature. If it was just plain old commercial activity, then the negligence suit may go forward.

From the orders list this week, there was one denial I'd like to highlight.

It seems the justices are not ready to hear a post-Janus challenge to unions quite yet.

The court denied review in Eradnik v. Inter-Faculty Organization, which asked the court to

determine whether exclusive representation laws, which allow a state-sanctioned labor union to

represent and speak for public sector employees, violate the First Amendment.

This case was brought by friend of the podcast, Robert Alt, and his Buckeye Institute in Ohio. But there are plenty of other

union-related cases awaiting in the wings. With that, we'll turn to this week's interview with

bank robber turned law professor, Sean Hopwood. Sean Hopwood is a professor at the Georgetown Law

Center. Welcome to SCOTUS 101, Sean. Thanks for having me. So while serving a

sentence in federal prison for robbing banks, you wrote a pro se petition for a fellow inmate,

John Fellers, and the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, which is just extraordinary. Tell me,

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