What We’re Watching This New Supreme Court Term

Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts

Slate Podcasts

News Commentary, Politics, Government, News

4.6 • 3.1K Ratings

🗓️ 5 October 2024

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Democracy had a pretty rough ride at the Supreme Court last term. Presidents have criminal immunity now! Agency experts aren’t the experts anymore! Sure, you can convert that rifle into an automatic weapon! And guess what? More horrors await us this term. But we are not going to spend this last episode before the start of a new term dispassionately picking over a smattering of cases for a lawyerly preview, or helplessly doom spiraling. Instead, we will hear from two women who refuse to blithely accept what the High Court is handing down—two women who have decided to do something, in very different ways. You’re going to find out why one of these women will head to SCOTUS on Monday in the suit she wore to argue before the High Court 44 years ago. Dahlia Lithwick will ask the other woman, Sky Perryman of Democracy Forward, about the legal theories, doctrine tracking, and litigation strategies her organization is deploying to fight for democracy in the courts –– even (and especially) in courthouses and cases far from One First Street, where until now, the conservative legal movement has had almost free reign. Because any honest preview of the new Supreme Court term needs to look wider and deeper than the handful of cases docketed for the coming weeks. Want more Amicus? Subscribe to Slate Plus to immediately unlock exclusive SCOTUS analysis and weekly extended episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi and welcome back to Amicus. This is Slate's podcast about the Supreme Court and the courts in the law. I'm Dahlia Lethway.
0:12.0	It's the weekend before the first month the law, I'm Dahlia Lethway.
0:13.0	It's the weekend before the first Monday in October,
0:15.9	and of course we're going to talk about the Supreme Court term
0:18.5	that is just about to begin.
0:20.1	But first, I want to introduce you to one of your fellow amicus listeners, Barbara Houseman Smith, Esquire.
0:29.4	A few weeks ago I received a letter from Barbara. The subject line was, I'm going to the
0:36.4	Supreme Court uninvited. Barbara's email began,
0:40.3	Here, Miss Liffith, I've been to Scotus before, 44 years ago when we called them the
0:46.3	Supreme and I was invited. 44 years ago, when she was a year out of law school, Barbara had argued a case at the US Supreme Court
0:55.2	challenging Louisiana's so-called head and master law on behalf of a legal aid client.
1:01.6	This Louisiana law had allowed the husband of Barbara's client
1:05.4	Joan Feenstra to sell Jones House out from under her in order to pay his attorney
1:10.6	after he was accused of molesting their daughter. The law allowed
1:14.3	Jones husband to sell that house without Jones knowledge or consent. Here is some of
1:19.7	that argument.
1:21.7	Ms. Houseman Smith. Mr. Hausman Smith.
1:23.0	Mr Chief Justice, and may it please the court.
1:27.6	Under the Louisiana laws it applied to her, the burdens were all on her to cure a basically unequal law and in no sense no matter what she did would she ever be able to proceed in the power that her husband has under Head and Master, and that would be having
1:46.2	total authority and managerial authority over the community property.
1:51.0	No matter what she did, would she be able to be in that stand in that position.
1:56.4	And I'm going to let Barbara take the rest of the story from here.
	...

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