Opening Arguments

OA1308 - The election is coming up fast, with early voting already underway in many states. With an administration that is, let's say "do we really need elections?" curious, how did we get here? Elections are running more or less as expected so far, because heroes are fighting for your right to vote across the country. Check out some pivotal lawsuits you probably missed in all the chaos. Cases and sources discussed: A comprehensive list of on-going election lawsuits hosted by Democracy Docket Unfortunately, right after we recorded, SCOTUS ruled to take that mixed result in New Hampshire and turn it into a big L Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do! To support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law! $2+ patrons also get a new Law'd Awful Movies every month.

VR48 - Today on Vapid Response Wednesday: the extremely believable backstory of some guy named Tommy who got publicly owned by Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, and the single worst take on the Cornell 7 case from within the Ivy League. Finally, we take our minds far, far away from Cornell to enjoy a galactically bad 1983 take on the most beloved film series in world history from one of America's crankiest critics. Cases and sources discussed: Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul Al-Syed answers a question posed by Tommy Teeple at a town hall in Caro, Michigan (Oct. 17, 2026) “The Cornell 7 Is Really About Liberalism,” The Sundial (Oct 13, 2026) Condemnation of The Sundial’s publication of “The Cornell 7 Is Really About Liberalism” from the editorial board of the Columbia Political Review, “Now It’s Really About Liberalism,” The Sundial, Shoshana Aufzien (10/18/2026) “Star Wars Nightline Discussion,” ABC News (1983) Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do! To support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law! $2+ patrons also get a new Law'd Awful Movies every month.

OA1305 - Matt's under the weather, so no normal Friday show this week. But don't panic, because we've got a treat instead: a crossover from Gavel Gavel where criminal defense attorney Liz Skeen joins Thomas to talk about the Cornell case, and she is PISSED. Liz has real, on-the-ground New York experience with how the system treats people who aren't privileged kids from an Ivy League school, and it shows. If you want the backstory first, Thomas and Lydia already went through the complaint in the previous two Gavel Gavel episodes. To support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law! $2+ patrons also get a new Law'd Awful Movies every month.

OA1304 - Qualified immunity does not strike again! In a case out of the 10th circuit, with the same plaintiff from last week's Rosales v. Lewis/Terrell, the court once again refuses qualified immunity to an officer who was wildly out of line. Learn about immunity for municipalities and standing rules, the multi-factor tests for excessive use of force against an armed civilian, and a unique alternative perspective on how qualified immunity should work from the concurrence. Cases and sources discussed: Check the deadlines and criteria to request a mail-in ballot. Check the dates and times of early voting. Rosales v. Bradshaw, (10th Cir. 2023) Governmental immunity by state Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do! To support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law! $2+ patrons also get a new Law'd Awful Movies every month.

VR46 - This week on Vapid Response Wednesday: A Bari Weiss double feature! We kick off with an amuse douche from CBS News's chill hang with a cool guy from Trenton. Samuel Alito grew up with a dream: doing incalculable damage to women's healthcare by destroying the Constitutional abortion rights previously guaranteed by Roe v. Wade, apparently because no one was really using them anyway? Does Samuel Alito even hear himself talk anymore? We then take up the closest thing the Trump era has seen to an intellectual case for mass deportation from one of its poshest warriors: "intellectual dark web" alum Douglas Murray, who outlines a completely new strategy so brilliant, so internally consistent, and so obviously rushed to print without a second thought for what he was actually trying to say that it could only have been published in The Free Press. Cases and sources discussed: “Extended Interview: Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito,” CBS News, Oct 5, 2026 “How the West Lost Its Will to Reverse Mass Migration,” Douglas Murray, The Free Press (9/24/2026) Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do! To support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law! $2+ patrons also get a new Law'd Awful Movies every month.

OA1301 - IT'S FASCISM RESPONSE FRIDAY, and it's a lot. DOJ just filed a complaint trying to get every single active federal judge in Minnesota booted off immigration cases, and the "evidence" is a judge telling the New York Times the truth. The Supreme Court just let deportations to countries people aren't even from happen again. And we cannot stop laughing about the executive order that just declared this the "era of superintelligence." There's good news too, but you'll have to listen for that. Cases discussed: Complaint Against Judges of the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota (filed under 28 U.S.C. § 351) D.V.D. v. DHS (Supreme Court stay on third-country removals) Trump v. Internal Revenue Service (11th Circuit, the "slush fund" case) CNN et al. v. Trump (White House press access) USPS v. California et al. Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do! To support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law! $2+ patrons also get a new Law'd Awful Movies every month.

OA1300 - The “insanity defense” might sound like a relic of a time when mental illness was viewed through the lens of demons and witches, and it turns out it is… but also maybe it’s kind of woke? Jenessa walks us through the history of Old English and Early American iterations of the defense, various tests that are applied today, and what happens afterwards that most people don’t get to see. Cases and sources discussed: Chris Liberati-Conant “It’s Time To Take ‘Hygiene’ out of the Mental Hygiene Law” Legal Information Institute summary of insanity defenses NY Criminal Procedure Law § 330.20 “Law and the Mental Health System” Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

Coyote vs. Acme is such a fun movie. Thomas and Lydia saw it with the kids, Matt tried to borrow some kids to see it with, and has some fun legal observations for us. BUT! Before that, it's a special series premiere of ACCOUNTING'ed AWFUL MOVIES! Because there is some real financial shenanigans with this movie. Everyone says it got shelved for tax reasons. But that's wrong! It's actually so much worse than that... $2+ Patrons already have the full episode at patreon.com/law. Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

OA1297 - This week on Rapid Response Friday: SCOTUS once again confirms the color of the sky, the latest failures in DOJ’s attempts to prosecute Trump’s political opponents, why the most important immigration agency you’ve never heard of has decided as a matter of law that Trump fixed Venezuela by illegally kidnapping its president, and how NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani is trying to stop Trump 2.0 from bringing new life to one of the worst failed immigration policies of 1.0. Finally, in today’s footnote: Kash Patel screws the pooch while trying to explain the FBI’s bizarre new hiring guidelines in some of the funniest Congressional testimony we’ve ever heard. USPS v. California et al, 609 U. S. ____ (2026) Audio from Fourth Circuit oral arguments in U.S. v. James (9/15/26) Matter of A-E-V-M-, 30 I&N Dec. 20 (BIA 2026) Complaint in New York et al v. Mullin et al, SDNY Case #1:26-cv-07978 (9/14/2026) Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

OA1296 - Dave Wedge is a veteran Boston reporter and New York Times bestselling author who covered (among many other things) hundreds of murder trials as a reporter for the Boston Herald and other local outlets. Dave joins OA to discuss his new book Blizzard of Lies, the definitive account of the prosecution and two unsuccessful attempts to prosecute Karen Read for the still-unexplained death of Boston police officer John O’Keefe. Beyond its excellent coverage of one of the most infamous prosecutions in modern Massachusetts history, Dave’s book takes an objective look at the case for a fascinating snapshot of how, among other things: so-called “forensic fandom” in independent and social media has driven public perception of the justice system-, Aiden “Turtleboy” Kearney’s aggressive and questionably ethical independent coverage propelled the trial into international news, and the “Free Karen Read” movement may have influenced the defense, the prosecution, and the outcome of a case which Dave convincingly argues may be an unfortunate turning point in American legal history. Blizzard of Lies is this month’s OA Book Club selection! Patrons at every level are invited to join at 4:30 PM EST on Sunday September 27th before we discuss the book. Dave Wedge’s website Blizzard of Lies: Karen Read, John O’Keefe, and the Shocking Unsolved Murder in Cop Town, USA, Dave Wedge (2026) Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

VR43 - Today on this special edition of Vapid Response: ICE boot enthusiast Milo Yiannopolous is not a particularly interesting person, but his recent unexpected removal to the UK makes for quite a teaching moment. Matt brings 20 years of instincts and experience as a deportation defense attorney to some of the more mysterious questions surrounding Yiannopolous’s recent encounter with the realities of immigration enforcement and ensuing swift removal to the UK. How did someone on an “extraordinary ability” visa (lol) who was married to a US citizen end up with a removal order? How did he hold down this status after being canned by Breitbart in early 2017? Why is he lying about having been a permanent resident? And does this man even actually have a lawyer at all? We then take a look at some of the funnier editor’s comments from the draft manuscript of his 2017 book Dangerous which was so bad that it was used as evidence by Simon & Schuster in their defense against his lawsuit for breach of contract when they refused to publish it. Milo Yiannopolous’s first post-deportation interview with Piers Morgan (9/1/2026) The Deportation Data Project’s website “The Elements of Vile,” Mitchell Ivers, Harper’s (March 2018) Complete manuscript of Milo Yiannopolous’s Dangerous as introduced into the record of Yiannopolous v. Simon & Schuster, with editor’s notes Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

OA1293 - In this extra-special Rapid Response Friday, Thomas visits Boston to record live in Matt’s office and talk out two very different legal stories in the news that the media aren’t quite getting right this week. THE TRIAL OF LINDSAY CLANCY: Why were the defense and the prosecution both talking past each other in their closing arguments, and what is everyone missing about why Massachusetts law makes it nearly impossible for Clancy to present the defense that most people seem to believe that she is putting on? THE DEPORTATION OF MILO YIANNOPOLOUS: How did a white British man who was one of Trump’s most obnoxious supporters in 2016 end up in deportation proceedings--let alone detained by ICEand swiftly deported? Did Milo Yiannopolous really buy a ticket to fly into the major airport closest to one of the country’s largest ICE detention centers without knowing that he would almost certainly be detained and sent back to the UK ASAP? Matt shares what he has pieced together beyond the headlines, with more to come on next week’s Vapid Response Wednesday. Finally, in today’s footnote: an upstart new social media platform is taking on Elon Musk’s X by calling itself... Twitter? Can they do that? Video and transcript of Lindsay Clancy jury instructions and closing arguments (8/28/26) “When Jurors Can Not Agree,” Massachusetts Jury Instruction #2.460 (2009 Edition) “The reidentification of Milo Yiannopolous’s court data,” Jonathan Gerhardson (8/30/2026) “Here’s How Milo Yiannopolous and White Nationalists Smuggled Hate Into the Mainstream,“ Joseph Bernstein Buzzfeed News (10/5/2017) Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

OA1292 - Jenessa takes us through the Supreme Court's 6-3 shadow docket ruling in Trump v. California, which lifted a preliminary injunction blocking Trump's executive order directing the U.S. Postal Service to gatekeep mail-in ballot delivery before the midterms. Is this a procedural technicality or a five-alarm fire for November? And what does it mean that the Postal Service published its final rule on a Friday night, in apparent violation of an injunction, right before the Court's Monday ruling? Jenessa walks through the chaotic docket, Judge Talwani's genius pivot, and why Justice Jackson's 20-page solo dissent might be the most important thing you read this election season. Cases discussed: Trump v. California (Supreme Court shadow docket, 8/25/2026) League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump, D. Mass. DSCC v. Trump, D.D.C. State of California v. United States Postal Service Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!