Touro Law Review Podcast

On this episode, Professors Laura Dooley and John Quinn discuss Royal Canin U.S.A., Inc. v. Wullschleger, a recent Supreme Court case involving federal subject matter jurisdiction. Royal Canin is a straightforward case: In a unanimous decision, the Court held that when a plaintiff amends her complaint to eliminate all federal law claims and include only state law claims after the case is removed to federal court, the plaintiff’s case canno longer be heard in federal court. There is no original subject matter jurisdiction because there are no federal law claims, and there is no supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state law claims. Accordingly, the case must be remanded to state court. As Professors Dooley and Quinn explain, Royal Canin is a helpful case for understanding all aspects of federal subject matter jurisdiction: original jurisdiction, removal, and supplemental jurisdiction. Along with moderator Rodger Citron, who also teaches Civil Procedure, they discuss how they plan to use the case with their students.

Professor Jorge Roig teaches Constitutional Law at Touro Law Center. On this episode of the Touro Law Review Podcast, Professor Roig discusses three recent Supreme Court decisions involving the application of the First Amendment in the context of social media. Initially Roig discusses TikTok Inc. v. Garland decision, in which the Court upheld a law making “it unlawful for companies in the United States to provide services to distribute, maintain, or update the social media platform TikTok, unless U. S. operation of the platform is severed from Chinese control.” As Roig explains, the Court rejected the petitioners’ First Amendment claim and held that the law was “facially content neutral” and “justified by a content-neutral rationale.” Roig then discusses Moody v. NetChoice, LLC and Murthy v. Missouri, in which the Court’s analysis of First Amendment issues is intertwined with procedural issues that led to remands back to the lower courts for further consideration of the social media platforms’ claims. In his conversation with Associate Dean Rodger Citron, Roig critiques as well as describes existing law and its application in each case.

On this episode of the Touro Law Review Podcast, Touro Law Professors Peter Zablotsky and Gabriel Weil, engage in a discussion about artificial intelligence and how this technology poses potential risks. As AI becomes more prevalent and its technical capabilities extend further beyond its current capacity, there is both a danger for misuse and for AI system failures. Professor Weil addresses how AI risk poses a problem for law and policy and further raises the argument that tort law is the best way to govern AI risk. Professor Weil further investigates potential AI liability under a negligence scheme, what precautionary measures can be taken, and whether this type of technology use can be categorized as abnormally dangerous which would require a lens of strict liability. Furthermore, Professor Zablotksy and Professor Weil contemplate the effectiveness of potential legislation and how judges may struggle to understand AI and its technical operations when applying the law. Professor Weil’s recent paper, “Tort Law as a Tool for Mitigating Catastrophic Risk from Artificial Intelligence,” will be of interest to anyone listening.

Alicia Bannon, Director of the Judiciary Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, discusses the politics of state judicial elections with Associate Dean Rodger Citron. In 38 states, judges are elected. As Bannon describes, judicial elections used to be “sleepy” – not much campaigning was done and not much money was spent. For a number of reasons, that has changed. In 2023, for example, about $51 million was spent on the election of a state supreme court justice in Wisconsin. Furthermore, as Bannon explains, state courts matter. The most notable example of the importance of state courts is that they very well may have the final say on laws allowing or restricting access to abortion after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in 2022. Bannon describes how judicial elections have become more politicized, what effect this has on the operation and perception of state judicial systems, and what, if anything, can be done in response to these developments.

Long before he became a federal judge, even before he went to law school in the early 1970s, Michael Ponsor wrote fiction. It was not until 2013, however, that Judge Ponsor published his first novel, The Hanging Judge. In this podcast, Judge Ponsor discusses his passion for writing as well as his experiences as a lawyer and judge that inform his third published novel, Point of Order. In his conversation with Associate Dean Rodger Citron, Judge Ponsor discusses the demands and challenges of being a judge and how he presents them in his novels involving Judge David S. Norcross. Among other things, Judge Ponsor says, it is necessary for a judge to “rule and roll” in order to do the job. Judge Ponsor also talks about how his experience teaching in Kenya as a young man figures into Point of Order as well. This podcast will be of interest to anyone who wishes to learn more about the relationship between law and literature.

Stephen Bright’s relentless pursuit of equal justice is at the center of Professor Robert Tsai’s most recent book. For nearly forty years, Bright led the Southern Center for Human Rights, a nonprofit that provided legal aid to incarcerated people and worked to improve conditions within the justice system. Among other things, Bright argued four death penalty cases at the Supreme Court and won each of them. As Tsai discusses with Associate Dean Rodger Citron, the story of these four cases illustrate inequalities in the legal system and legal strategies for combatting them. The discussion illuminates how race, economics, and politics influence the operation of the criminal justice system when the stakes are at their highest – that is when the defendant’s life literally depends upon the outcome.

In 2023, Supreme Court justices made news not only for the cases decided but also for their personal conduct. As David Lat and Zach Shemtob noted in an article for The Atlantic, the news stories often involved “financial entanglements between justices and wealthy benefactors.” As Lat and Shemtob discuss with Associate Dean Rodger Citron, the intensity of the public response to the justices’ behavior is more noteworthy than theunderlying conduct. They attribute the strong reaction to our current political era, which is not only hyper-partisan but anti-elitist as well. Lat and Shemtob discuss their article, the Supreme Court’s adoption of an ethics code in late 2023, and how concerns over the justices' ethics relate to the current Supreme Court term in this Touro Law Review podcast.