Opening Arguments

Episode 1022

Courts in Arizona and Florida have both ended abortion rights in very different (but both terrible) ways this month. Did Arizona actually resurrect a 160-year law passed decades before it was even a state? And how weird can it get when you go full originalist on a law that is younger than most people in Florida?

Before we get there, Matt opens by sharing his experience with the OJ Simpson trial at the age of 14 and how it shaped his understanding of US criminal law. We then make sure to pay appropriate respects to the violent domestic abuser who (do we even have to say "allegedly" anymore?) brutally murdered Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman on June 12, 1994.

Also, two different countries have committed extreme and unprecedented violations of international law involving embassies in the past week. How does the Vienna Convention protect diplomatic posts, and what actually happens when these international agreements are broken?

The first of the Trump trials will finally begin in New York in one business day! How does jury selection even work in a case where everyone on the planet has an opinion about the defendant?

1) Planned Parenthood v Florida (4/1/24)

2) In Re: TW, 551 So. 2d 1186 (1989)

3) Planned Parenthood of AZ v. Mayes (4/9/24)

3) The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961)

4) Judge Merchan's letter to the parties in NY v. Trump outlining jury selection process

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OA1079 - An OA Spooktacular! But also a normal episode.

We continue our ongoing series on fascism and the law with a fresh perspective on a familiar American legal horror story. Matt explains the terrifying legal context surrounding the 1692 Court of Oyer and Terminar which sentenced dozens of innocent Massachusetts colonists to hang for the extremely real felony of practicing witchcraft--and an unexpected defense strategy which could have spared them. What can the most terrifying run of wrongful executions in US history teach us about the dangers of governance by rumor, paranoia, and conspiracy theories 332 years later?

SOURCES:

• In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692, Mary Beth Norton (2003)
• “Salem Witchcraft Trials Research Guide,” Congregational Library (2024)(links to primary sources)
• 18 USC 611 (voting by aliens)
• Order granting preliminary injunction against Oklahoma’s anti-Sharia law amendment in Awad v. Ziriax et al, W.Dist. of OK (2010)(later upheld by 10th Circuit

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Can you believe it, it's T3BE8! You know the drill, we answer last week's questions, honor two winners, and then ask two more questions!

But Matt has a new bar exam book, and it's going to be quite fun, if these questions are any indicator. Deviously hard, needlessly complex, extremely silly... it has it all!

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