Short Circuit
The Supreme Court decides a few dozen cases every year; federal appellate courts decide thousands. So if you love constitutional law, the circuit courts are where it’s at. Join us as we break down some of the week’s most intriguing appellate decisions with a unique brand of insight, wit, and passion for judicial engagement and the rule of law. http://ij.org/short-circuit
Episodes
April 3, 2026 • 58 mins
When the police ask you for an I.D., when do you have to hand it over? That depends on a lot of facts and a lot of law, including whether a state has a statute allowing an officer to make you hand the I.D. over. Mike Greenberg of IJ reports on a ruling from the Alabama Supreme Court where a cop demanded a man watering flowers tell him who he was. The man said he was “Pastor Jennings” and lived across the street. That wasn’t good en...
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March 27, 2026 • 63 mins
With a baker’s dozen of circuits it’s hard to pick a favorite. Or is it? We sit down with three lawyers and scholars to ask what their favorite circuit is and why. Ben Field of IJ gives us his choice and we also bring on professors Tom Metzloff of Duke and Dawn Chutkow of Cornell. You’ll hear their impressions on how the courts work, what makes them special, and some behind-the-scenes stories (and even a conspiracy theory). But bef...
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March 20, 2026 • 48 mins
Evan Lisull of IJ tells us of a guy on probation who seems to have been pretty clever with his living arrangements. The police often don’t need a warrant to search the residence of a person on probation. In this case from the Fourth Circuit, the guy owned two properties, one of which he seemed to have lived at and the other of which he allowed his girlfriend to live in. But the girlfriend didn’t just hang out there, she had a lease...
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March 13, 2026 • 50 mins
We welcome on Sam MacRoberts of the Kansas Justice Institute for an inspection of the Fourth Amendment. Sam is the General Counsel and Litigation Director of KJI where he does things like sue the government. So he’s a perfect fit for Short Circuit. Sam tells us of a case he recently litigated about how his state’s inspection laws went to the dogs. Specifically, clients of his who ran a very small dog training business at their home...
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[Note: This episode was down for a couple days but has been reposted. It originally dropped on March 6, 2026.] If you’ve ever wondered if a sniff is a search, IJ’s Rob Frommer has you covered on this week’s episode. Well, he has you covered in explaining how the law is all over the place on the subject. Rob tells the story of a couple who were sleeping in their car in a Mississippi parking lot when a cop saw they had an empty bottl...
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February 27, 2026 • 48 mins
Litigation is a risky business. Borrowing tens of millions of dollars to win a lawsuit is even more risky. And it turns out makes settling a case especially difficult. Patrick Eckler, Chicago attorney and co-host of the Podium and Panel Podcast, rejoins us to detail a wild Seventh Circuit story about an antitrust chicken (and pork and beef) lawsuit that got a bit spicy. Anyone who has tried to settle a case will want to give a list...
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February 20, 2026 • 64 mins
In Colorado marijuana is legal under state law. In Kansas it is not. This had led Kansan police officers to stop a lot of cars with out-of-state plates. And after they stop the cars they come up with tactics to prolong the stops to buy time to look for weed. One of these tactics is the “Kansas Two-Step.” A lawsuit, on behalf of innocent people caught up in these stops, challenged the whole scheme, leading to a big-time injunction a...
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February 13, 2026 • 73 mins
An all-star conversation among Stanford professors, recorded live before Stanford students, about originalism and how it interacts with recent cases from the federal courts of appeals. Anya Bidwell hosts Jud Campbell, Jonathan Gienapp, and Orin Kerr on topics such as what originalism is, how to think about the Fourth Amendment when making originalist arguments, what levels of generality have to do with how courts are approaching hi...
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February 6, 2026 • 41 mins
If you own rights to movies or shows and would prefer them to not end up on YouTube for free this is an episode for you. Dan Knepper of IJ explains how the owner of some classic Mexican films tried to deal with the problem of the films ending up on YouTube. A recent Eleventh Circuit opinion tackled the Digital Millenium Copyright Act and how YouTube tries to deal with the problem of users putting copyrighted material on its site wh...
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January 30, 2026 • 73 mins
IJ’s John Wrench journeys to New Orleans to chat with some legal scholars on their recent work on all kinds of IJ-adjacent questions, especially as they relate to the American Founding. This includes economic liberty at the Founding, legal interpretation at the Founding, and “history and tradition” and constitutional rights. Between sessions at the Association of American Law Schools conference John reconnoiters with Kenneth Rosen ...
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January 23, 2026 • 50 mins
Lovers of municipal crime and corruption—and internal affairs departments not doing their jobs—may enjoy the stories this week from Detroit and Baltimore. First, Kirby Thomas West of IJ reports on a Sixth Circuit case where a towing company was a little too good at finding cars to tow after they had been stolen. It turns out the towing company was in contact with a ring of car thieves, who would give it a head’s up after a theft, a...
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January 16, 2026 • 39 mins
When you pay your bail money it’s a good practice to get a receipt. A woman in Mississippi found that out the hard way when she was arrested on pretty shaky grounds and then told she had to pay up or stay in jail. Her sister paid the $1,300+ the next day and then a long time later was never told to come back to court. She then sued for civil rights violations. But then the government claimed she had been found “guilty” and that mon...
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January 9, 2026 • 61 mins
What does qualified immunity have to do with Joan of Arc? Released on the anniversary of the start of her trial, this episode examines that question—from “the French perspective”—with two tales of qualified immunity. First, IJ’s Tahmineh Dehbozorgi presents a case from the Sixth Circuit where a police officer punched a mental hospital patient into a wall. The court concludes the punch violated the Constitution—but was it “clearly e...
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January 2, 2026 • 65 mins
IJ’s Anya Bidwell interviews two civil rights lawyers for a wide-ranging conversation about what it’s like to litigate on behalf of people behind bars. She welcomes on Sam Weiss of Rights Behind Bars and Elizabeth Cruikshank of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection (ICAP) to hear stories of qualified immunity, prison conditions, prisoners making their way in the court system without lawyers, and many other topics...
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December 26, 2025 • 44 mins
In the early days of the COVID pandemic, a county in Florida thought it was a good idea to keep people off of the beach. Even if they owned it. The beach owners were not able to access their beaches for weeks—although local police could. And did. The owners went to court and now, years later, the Eleventh Circuit has ruled that that was a taking under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. IJ’s An Altik takes us beachcombing...
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December 19, 2025 • 46 mins
Starting with a few lines from Shakespeare’s As You Like It, we are joined by two gentlemen of the stage, James Joseph, the first Assistant Director for IJ’s clinic at the University of Chicago, and Bob McNamara, IJ’s Deputy Director of Litigation. Both have theater backgrounds and both discuss how the skills you learn in theater play into being a good lawyer. It’s not just gesticulating to the jury, explains James, it’s also under...
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December 12, 2025 • 50 mins
The U.S. government seized over $600,000 from a business, tried to forfeit the money, never filed criminal charges against anyone, and then three years later said “nevermind!” and dismissed the case and gave the money back. At the same time, the business was trying to find out what was in the original warrant applications for the seizure. Is the case over, or can the business keep working to see what the secret documents say? Dan A...
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December 5, 2025 • 43 mins
What happens if you sue your employer and your boss’s boss is a federal judge? It’s kind of complicated. Aliza Shatzman of the Legal Accountability Project rejoins us to detail a recent Fourth Circuit case where an employee who worked in a federal public defender's office alleged she was sexually harassed and then sued about it. It’s the first case of its kind and gives a window into how employment complaints work within the Articl...
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November 28, 2025 • 68 mins
Can a city require you to get a permit if you’re having a few people over to pray? In an Ohio town it was a little unclear. As IJ’s Suranjan Sen explains, an Orthodox Jewish man wanted to have enough people over that he could hold a proper service for the Sabbath. There was no worry about traffic and parking because Orthodox Jews don’t drive on the Sabbath. But that didn’t prevent a neighbor from complaining anyway. Things got conf...
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November 21, 2025 • 47 mins
In a special episode, IJ’s Anya Bidwell interviews Matteo Godi of USC Law about his new article “Section 1983: A Strict Liability Statutory Tort.” Professor Godi provocatively argues that the basis of most modern civil rights litigation—originally part of the Civil Rights Act of 1871 and today known as “Section 1983”—should be interpreted as a strict liability cause of action. Anya has him discuss how the Supreme Court has erroneou...
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