Short Circuit visited the Tenth Circuit Bench and Bar Conference in Colorado Springs. Between gin and tonics at the Broadmoor hotel we heard from a number of Tenth Circuit experts about some interesting circuit cases and what makes their court a Perfect Tenth. You’ll hear about qualified immunity, gun rights, prisoner conditions litigation, the continuing ramifications of the McGirt decision for the federal courts in Oklahoma, law students arguing on appeal, and what goes on at the Tenth Circuit Historical Society. Get your Rocky Mountain High, feel the wind come sweeping down the plain, and learn that in some matters you actually are in Kansas anymore.

Tenth Circuit Historical Society

McGirt v. Oklahoma

The OG Tenth Circuit

If you’ve ever seen the 1971 flick “The French Connection” you may know a bit about hiding illegal drugs inside the bodies of cars. Someone else had the same background knowledge and so had installed a secret compartment in his minivan. The problem for him was the police already had a warrant to search his home and while they were executing the warrant they took his van. After taking it away they got another warrant and found the drugs and then took the van through civil forfeiture. The defendant argued there was no warrant for the van’s initial seizure and that it therefore violated the Fourth Amendment. Unfortunately for him, the Second Circuit upheld what the police did because of the “automobile exception.” Robert Fellner of IJ tells us the story and discusses the weird world of civil forfeiture, cars, and searches, that should trouble us even when it crosses paths with the not most sympathetic of folks. After that, IJ’s Andrew Ward tells us of an Eleventh Circuit matter addressing the right to raise one’s child and substantive due process. The opinion allows us to have a fascinating discussion about general matters of constitutional law but please be warned (especially parents with children listening) that some sensitive subjects come up.

RSVP for Short Circuit Live in Cambridge, Mass. on October 19!

U.S. v. Acevedo

Henry v. Sheriff

Short Circuit 369

The French Connection

John Wrench is joined by Diana Simpson and Patrick Jaicomo to discuss the truly frightful! Like, what to make of the Supreme Court’s latest refusal to address whether the government needs to pay innocent people when it destroys or damages their property, and what can be distilled from the justices’ insistence on further “percolation” of the issue? Speaking of which, the Court will weigh in on a challenge to the federal ban on distilling spirits at home; might it rein in horrifyingly broad interpretations of the Necessary and Proper Clause? Finally, they speculate about law’s experiences with the spectral, including witness testimony about ghostly encounters and the practical challenges of selling a haunted house.

Diana’s Chicago impound case

IJ’s SWAT takings cases

McNutt at SCOTUS