Unwritten Law

In this episode of Unwritten Law, NCLA Senior Litigation Counsel John Vecchione is joined by NCLA Staff Attorney Andreia Trifoi to discuss a major Fourth Amendment case before the U.S. Supreme Court involving the use of geofence warrants.
Geofence warrants allow law enforcement to obtain location data from companies like Google identifying every device within a specific area during a defined period of time—potentially sweeping in dozens or even hundreds of people with no connection to any crime. Andreia explains how these warrants work, why they often capture innocent bystanders, and how they were used in a bank robbery investigation in Virginia.
The conversation focuses on the constitutional question at the heart of the case: whether geofence warrants are modern-day general warrants, the very abuse that helped inspire the Fourth Amendment. The discussion also explores how the Supreme Court’s decision in Carpenter v. United States applies to modern location tracking, the challenges courts face when adapting older doctrines to new technology, and the growing tension between privacy rights and expansive digital surveillance.
John and Andreia also examine the fractured opinions in the Fourth Circuit, the role of the good-faith exception, and why this case could shape the future of Fourth Amendment protections in the digital age.

In this episode of Unwritten Law, NCLA President Mark Chenoweth and Senior Litigation Counsel John Vecchione welcome Caitlin Moyna, Senior Litigation Counsel at the New Civil Liberties Alliance, to the podcast for the first time.
The conversation focuses on the controversial “disparate impact” liability rule in housing law and HUD’s effort to rescind it. The rule allows liability for housing practices that unintentionally affect one group more than another—even when there is no intent to discriminate.
Caitlin explains how this doctrine emerged from a series of Supreme Court cases, beginning with Griggs v. Duke Power and later extending into the housing context through Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project. The discussion explores how disparate impact liability shifted discrimination law away from intentional conduct and toward statistical outcomes.
The episode also examines how agency interpretations and judicial deference helped expand this doctrine over time—and why recent Supreme Court decisions curtailing agency deference may put its legal foundations into question.
Mark, John, and Caitlin discuss the implications of HUD rescinding the rule, why private lawsuits could still continue under the statute, and what a broader reevaluation of disparate impact liability could mean for housing, employment, lending, and other areas of federal regulation.

In this episode of Unwritten Law, NCLA President Mark Chenoweth and Senior Litigation Counsel John Vecchione are joined by NCLA General Counsel Zhonette Brown to discuss a petition for certiorari asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take up a major separation-of-powers case involving the Environmental Protection Agency.
The case, Choice Refrigerants v. EPA, challenges how the agency implemented Congress’s AIM Act, which created a cap-and-trade system to phase down certain refrigerants. According to the petition, Congress provided virtually no guidance on how market allowances should be distributed—leaving EPA with sweeping discretion to decide which companies would keep their market share and which would lose it.
Zhonette explains why this case presents a “clean vehicle” for the Supreme Court to revisit the nondelegation doctrine, which holds that Congress cannot hand over its legislative power to executive agencies without providing meaningful direction. The discussion explores the “intelligible principle” test, the D.C. Circuit’s reasoning, and why the Court may finally confront the limits of congressional delegation after nearly a century without striking down a statute on nondelegation grounds.
The episode also highlights the real-world stakes for small businesses like Choice Refrigerants, founded by entrepreneur Ken Ponder, whose patented refrigerant products were affected by EPA’s allocation decisions.

In this episode of Unwritten Law, NCLA Senior Litigation Counsel John Vecchione and NCLA President Mark Chenoweth are joined by Andy Morris to discuss the Supreme Court’s 6–3 decision rejecting the claim that the President has unilateral authority to impose, raise, or lower tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
The conversation unpacks Chief Justice Roberts’s majority opinion, which relies on careful textual analysis to reaffirm that tariff authority belongs to Congress—not the Executive. John, Mark, and Andy explain why the statute’s language does not authorize revenue-raising measures, how the Constitution’s prohibition on export taxes reinforces that conclusion, and why decades of practice confirm that “regulating importation” does not mean imposing tariffs.
They also examine the dissents, including Justice Kavanaugh’s reliance on prior cases like Algonquin, the role of the Major Questions Doctrine, and why emergency powers do not justify bypassing Congress’s exclusive taxing authority. The episode closes with a broader discussion of separation of powers, the dangers of discretionary tariff regimes, and why this decision represents a major win for constitutional limits on executive power.

In this episode of Unwritten Law, NCLA Senior Litigation Counsel John Vecchione is joined by NCLA Senior Litigation Counsel Kara Rollins to discuss Sripetch v. SEC, a securities law case scheduled to be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in April.
The case asks a critical question: must the Securities and Exchange Commission prove that investors suffered actual financial harm in order to obtain disgorgement in a civil enforcement action? John and Kara explain how recent Supreme Court decisions, including Kokesh and Liu, narrowed the SEC’s disgorgement authority while leaving this issue unresolved.