Opening Arguments

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)
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OA1302 - Qualified immunity can be overcome! In the fifth circuit?! Come hear the good news, and learn some fourth amendment traffic stop rules along the way.
CHECK YOUR VOTER REGISTRATION. Deadlines for your state can be found here.
Cases discussed:
CHECK YOUR VOTER REGISTRATION. Deadlines for your state can be found here.
Rosales v. Terrell, 25-30650 (5th Cir. 2026)
Dashcam footage from the Rosales case
Milligan v Lewis
Reporting on trial of Lewis for alleged misconduct
Rosales v. Bradshaw, (10th Cir. 2023)
USPS v. California et al.
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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.

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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.

VR45 - Today on Vapid Response: 25 years after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, we look back on the Forrest Gump of monstrously bad legal takes: former DOJ lawyer and current UC Berkeley law professor (!) John Yoo. We go back to the primary sources to show how the Office of Legal Counsel explicitly authorized torture, indefinite detention in Guantanamo Bay, and warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens before giving Secretary of State Marco Rubio a chance to explain why the world should never hold the United States accountable for any of it.
Cases and sources discussed:
“Time to Think About Torture,” Jonathan Alter, Newsweek (11/4/2001)
“Is There a Tortuous Road to Justice?” Alan M. Dershowitz, LA Times (11/8/2001)
Memorandum for John Rizzo, Acting Counsel for the CIA, DOJ Office of Legal Counsel (August 1, 2002)
Possible Habeas Jurisdiction Over Aliens Held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Patrick Philbin & John Yoo (December 28 2001)
Constitutionality of Amending Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to Change the "Purpose " Standard for Searches, John Yoo (9/25/2001)
“Why We’re Dismantling the ICC,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio (July 14, 2026)
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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”

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