Smooth Stone in the River
From Divided Argument by Will Baude, Dan Epps
June 1, 2026 · 1h 11m · Season 6 · Episode 17
About this episode
The episode discusses recent Supreme Court decisions and developments, including the party presentation principle and cases related to compassionate release and redistricting in Alabama.
The Court has been busy, and we somehow manage to cover a number of developments with unpredictable efficiency. We talk about the Court's latest summary reversal on the "party presentation principle"; Justice Kavanaugh's vindication of his law journal student note in Pitchford v. Cain ; Rutherford and Fernandez, two related cases about the intersection of compassionate release and habeas; and the DIG in Hamm v. Smith , a case about capital punishment and intellectual disability. Along the way, we also get into backlash against a certain SCOTUS advocate's TED talk and further Alabama redistricting fallout. Key Topics [00:02:25] - The infamous tweet and TED talk [00:14:56] - Alabama redistricting developments [00:19:07] - Margolin v. National Association of Immigration Judges and the Court’s renewed emphasis on the party presentation principle [00:29:02] - Pitchford v. Cain and Batson [00:35:56] - Justice Kavanaugh’s Yale Law Journal note on Batson procedure and how it connects to the case [00:40:40] - Fernandez v. United States and Rutherford v. United States : compassionate release, retroactivity, and innocence claims [01:03:34] - Hamm v. Smith , the post-argument DIG, and the…
People in this episode
Hosts: Will Baude, Dan Epps
Topics covered
- Supreme Court developments
- party presentation principle
- compassionate release
- habeas corpus
- Alabama redistricting
- capital punishment
- intellectual disability
Keywords
- Supreme Court
- Kavanaugh
- compassionate release
- habeas
- Alabama redistricting
- TED talk
- Pitchford v. Cain
- Hamm v. Smith
- Batson
- Atkins rule
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: National Association of Immigration Judges, SCOTUS, SCOTUSblog, Divided Argument, Yale Law Journal, Alabama
Books & works: Hamm v. Smith, Batson, Atkins rule
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