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Hi and welcome to Amicus, Slate's podcast about the U.S. Supreme Court.

I'm Dahlia Liffwick, Slate's Supreme Court correspondent.

And if you're a regular listener to this podcast, you know that I am a huge believer in the

principle that everyone, I mean everyone, can get a lot out of listening to oral argument at the Supreme Court.

It's just not as complicated as you think it is.

But this past Tuesday in a case called Montgomery v. Louisiana, the issue before the court, while it was fairly simple, was really complicated.

So complicated, we almost didn't hear about the core issue we want to talk about today.

Now, the question before the court was pretty clear.

In 2012, the Supreme Court decided that mandatory life without parole sentences for juvenile killers were unconstitutional.

The issue in Montgomery is simply whether that applies retroactively to juveniles who were sentenced long before. And in this

particular case, the juvenile in question is 69-year-old Henry Montgomery, who's been in jail

for a killing he committed 52 years ago. We didn't talk about Montgomery or even juvenile killers much this week

because the court was engaging in this battle royal over technical roadblocks.

Have a listen to Richard Bernstein, the oral advocate that was appointed to the court

to explain why the court shouldn't even be hearing this appeal.

In today's case, there is no jurisdiction over that question because the point of Section

1257 is to enforce the supremacy clause.

And the supremacy clause states that when, quote, the laws of the United States, unquote,

...