Opening Arguments

OA1306 - We're on a winning streak! ...because we picked the winners. This week we cover two cases where the little guy comes out on top against the big corporation, and learn some key torts concepts along the way. Maybe your neighborhood billboard personal injury attorney isn't such a bad guy after all.
Sources:
Election Protection Hotline
Brennan Center statement/information on ICE at the polls
The SALUTE reporting method
Civil litigation statistics
Sindell v. Abbott Laboratories
Mobil v Ellender
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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.
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VR47 - Federal agents raided Ilhan Omar's house this week, possibly over a decades-old conspiracy theory. Matt Explains what the media are getting wrong about the incident. Along the way we hear from Russian foreign correspondent Benny Johnson and his "deep research."
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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
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OA1303 - Rapid Response Friday kicks off with two major under-the-radar stories that you may not hear anywhere else about major federal decisions out of Florida and Massachusetts which may remove two important tools from Trump's fascist toolbox. We also explain how the subject of Matt's exclusive OA report from the front lines of deportation defense last July on how ICE was trying to rewrite the law of mandatory ICE detention has just become the single most important immigration case in the Supreme Court's coming term.
Finally, Matt goes gorilla mode for today's footnote to share the story of how the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service went ape on a Mexican zookeeper in one of the wildest cases of federal entrapment in American history.
Cases discussed:
Opinion and Order in Maria L and Nancy M. v. Mullin (9/30/26)
SDFL judge David Bernstein’s order dismissing U.S. v. Cox (10/1/2026)
Order in Barbosa de Cunha v. Freden, (2nd Cir., 4/28/26)
“ICE Just… Decided that Millions of People Are Ineligible for Bail. This is Bad. Like, Really Bad.” Opening Arguments, OA1174 (July 18, 2026)
“U.S. Agent in Gorilla Suit Catches Primate Smugglers,” LA Times (1/27/1993)
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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.