Podcasts · Government · News

Strict Scrutiny

Strict Scrutiny

300 episodes

Strict Scrutiny is a podcast about the United States Supreme Court and the legal culture that surrounds it.

More about the show

Hosted by three badass constitutional law professors-- Leah Litman, Kate Shaw, and Melissa Murray-- Strict Scrutiny provides in-depth, accessible, and irreverent analysis of the Supreme Court and its cases, culture, and personalities. Each week, Leah, Kate, and Melissa break down the latest headlines and biggest legal questions facing our country, emphasizing what it all means for our daily lives.

Whether you’re a lawyer or law student, or you’re just here for the messy legal drama, Strict Scrutiny has you covered. New episodes out every Monday… plus bonuses whenever SCOTUS takes away another one of our rights.

Episodes page 1 of 6

  1. The DOJ is a Corrupt Clown Show

    · 1 h 43 min · S8 E4 · Explicit

    Leah and Melissa break down the administration’s latest lawsuits, from the DOJ’s fight over Alaska’s Senate candidacy, to its efforts to force California to turn over voter information, to Trump’s golf course fiasco.…

  2. Sex Trafficking Lawsuits, Privacy Rights, and a Court That Can’t Keep Up

    · 1 h 34 min · S8 E3 · Explicit

    The nation is on a fast-paced slide toward full-on fascism, but what else is new? Leah, Kate, and Melissa recap Matt Gaetz’s sex trafficking civil suit, Katie Zacharia’s first—and last—week as White House Press…

  3. Will SCOTUS Let Big Oil Off the Hook?

    · 1 h 34 min · S8 E2 · Explicit

    The first week of the new term has come and gone, and things are heating up… literally. Kirti Datla, director of Earthjustice’s Strategic Legal Advocacy Program, joins Melissa and Leah to discuss the term’s biggest…

  4. The Supreme Court Allows Third-Country Deportations to Continue

    · 1 h 25 min · S8 E1 · Explicit

    This Monday officially kicks off a new Supreme Court term, and the cases and controversies are already heating up. Leah, Kate, and Melissa dig into the Court’s decision to allow the administration to resume…

  5. We Need to Talk About Ethics Reform

    · 47 min · Bonus · Explicit

    In the fifth and final installment of our Hot Supreme Court Reform series, Kate speaks with Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court. What would a meaningful and enforceable set of ethics rules look like for the…

  6. A New Term of Supreme Chaos

    · 1 h 39 min · S7 E58 · Explicit

    It’s been a long summer, but Leah, Kate and Melissa are back together to break down the biggest cases and legal battles coming to the Supreme Court this term. Starting in October, the justices will hear challenges…

  7. We Need To Talk About Jurisdiction Stripping

    · 46 min · Bonus · Explicit

    In the fourth installment of our Hot Supreme Court Reform September series, Leah sits down with former FTC Chair Lina Khan and Lev Menand, both of Columbia Law School, to talk through ways to limit how much SCOTUS can…

  8. Trump’s Assault on the Free Press

    · 1 h 24 min · S7 E57 · Explicit

    Melissa and Leah cover this week’s legal horrors out of the Trump administration, including the President’s ban on certain media outlets from the White House, as well as his attacks on the Kennedy Center and the…

  9. We Need To Talk About Judicial Review

    · 51 min · Bonus

    In the third installment of our Hot Supreme Court Reform September series, Leah sits down with Daphna Renan and Nikolas Bowie to discuss how judicial supremacy became the default operating system of the federal…

  10. BREAKING: SCOTUS Blocks Trump's Mail-In Ballot BS

    · 33 min · S7 E56

    Kate, Leah and Melissa hop on to break down the Supreme Court’s decision to block the Trump administration’s Postal Service regulation announcing it would not deliver mail-in ballots unless states adopted a bunch of…

  11. How Trump is Using the IRS to Resegregate America

    · 1 h 35 min · S7 E55 · Explicit

    Melissa is joined by guest co-host Rashad Robinson, political strategist, media advocate, and former president of Color Of Change, to run through last week’s legal news, which involves SCOTUS’s latest shadow docket…

  12. Still Counting: Trump vs. The BLUE WAVE: A Midterm Extravaganza

    · 23 min · Explicit

    Nate Silver, Clare Malone, and Galen Druke discuss the most competitive Senate races heading into the midterms in this excerpt from their new podcast, Still Counting. To hear the rest, head over to Still Counting and…

  13. We Need to Talk About Term Limits

    · 37 min · Bonus

    In part two of our Hot Supreme Court Reform September series, Kate and the Brennan Center’s Alicia Bannon make the case for term limits for the Court. The idea has bipartisan support, but what would they look like in…

  14. We Need To Talk About Court Expansion

    · 45 min · Bonus · Explicit

    How do you solve a problem like SCOTUS? Kate kicks off our Hot Supreme Court Reform September series with the New York Times’ Jamelle Bouie. They dig into the ins and outs of expanding the Court: what the process could…

  15. SCOTUS Greenlights Trump's Ballroom

    · 34 min · Bonus · Explicit

    In this bonus episode, Leah and Melissa break down the Supreme Court’s decision to let Trump move forward with plans for a White House ballroom, despite lower courts finding that the project cannot proceed without…

  16. Is SCOTUS Letting Trump Meddle in the Midterms?

    · 1 h 30 min · S7 E54 · Explicit

    Kate and Leah break down last week's atrocious shadow docket order on the President's wildly illegal executive order concerning elections and absentee ballots, which furthers the administration's effort to, as Justice…

  17. Know Your Rights: Do You Have to Talk to Cops?

    · 37 min · S7 E53 · Bonus · Explicit

    In the second episode of our Know Your Rights series, Leah and Melissa sit down with NYU Law’s Daniel Harawa to break down what you do—and don't—have to say when law enforcement stops you. They cover the difference…

  18. What Does Peak Fascism Look Like?

    · 1 h 53 min · S7 E52 · Explicit

    Huge news for lawyers: You can now listen to Strict Scrutiny for CLE credits in California, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Washington, and Oregon! More info at…

  19. All the President’s Henchmen

    · 1 h 36 min · S7 E51 · Explicit

    Huge news for lawyers: You can now listen to Strict Scrutiny for CLE credits in California, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Washington, and Oregon! More info at…

  20. Know Your Rights: Copwatching 101

    · 39 min · S7 E50 · Bonus

    In part one of our two-part Know Your Rights series, Leah speaks with Brooklyn Law School’s Jocelyn Simonson about copwatching. They cover what the law says about filming police and federal officers like ICE agents,…

  21. Sometimes, These F*ckers Lose

    · 1 h 31 min · S7 E49

    Melissa and Justice Correspondent for The Nation Elie Mystal sift through the results of last week’s primaries, including good news from Missouri and Kansas, with a detour on why Michigan Senate candidate Abdul…

  22. Will Trump Succeed in Rigging the Midterms?

    · 1 h 31 min · S7 E48 · Explicit

    Huge news for lawyers: You can now listen to Strict Scrutiny for CLE credits in California, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Washington, and Oregon! More info at…

  23. Dude Process, Not Due Process

    · 1 h 29 min · S7 E47 · Explicit

    Huge news for lawyers: You can now listen to Strict Scrutiny for CLE! More info at crooked.com/strict_cle Friend of the Pod Emily Amick of Emily in Your Phone joins Leah to break down the week’s legal news, and the…

  24. How Bad Is Trump's Attorney General Pick?

    · 1 h 27 min · S7 E46 · Explicit

    Kate brings you a triptych of legal happenings this week. First, the latest news with friend of the pod Katie Phang, including a look at Todd Blanche’s Senate confirmation hearing, which certainly confirmed one thing:…

  25. Our Long Road Out of Autocracy

    · 1 h 28 min · S7 E45

    Kate is joined by returning guest and friend of the show, Kim Lane Scheppele, the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Princeton, and one of the world’s leading scholars of…

  26. Surveying the Wreckage of This Supreme Court Term

    · 1 h 32 min · S7 E44 · Explicit

    Melissa, Kate, and Leah take a look back on this Supreme Court term as a whole. The hypocrisy, the racism, the sheer stupidity... it's all here! Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE on November 6th in Washington, DC:…

  27. SCOTUS Just Barely Preserves Birthright Citizenship

    · 59 min · S7 E43

    In their second emergency episode in two days, Leah, Melissa, and Kate break down the Court’s final day of the term and folks, it’s a doozy. We’ve got America’s preeminent “father of daughters” Coach Brett Kavanaugh’s…

  28. SCOTUS Kills Independent Agencies, Expands Presidential Power

    · 54 min · S7 E42

    In this emergency episode, Leah and Kate break down today’s incredibly consequential decisions in Trump v. Slaughter and Trump v. Cook, which followed the Project 2025 playbook to rewrite almost a century of precedent…

  29. SCOTUS Keeps Rewriting Gun History

    · 1 h 21 min · S7 E41 · Explicit

    Melissa, Leah, and Kate briefly recap the Court’s two major immigration decisions last week (for a deeper dive, check out last week’s emergency episode), before digging into the Second Amendment case, Wolford v. Lopez,…

  30. BREAKING: SCOTUS Greenlights Trump’s Cruel Immigration Policies

    · 38 min · S7 E40 · Explicit

    In this emergency episode, Kate, Melissa, and Leah unpack the two major immigration opinions handed down by SCOTUS today. The brutal TL;DR, courtesy of Justice Sotomayor: “The consequences of today’s decision are…

  31. Why is SCOTUS Hoarding Opinions?

    · 1 h 27 min · S7 E39 · Explicit

    Leah, Melissa, Kate, and special guest Elie Mystal of The Nation speculate about why the Court is hoarding opinions this late into bad decision season before diving deep on the ruling in United States v. Hemani, which…

  32. The Malicious Incompetence of Trump's DOJ

    · 1 h 19 min · S7 E38 · Explicit

    Kate and Leah cover this week’s three Supreme Court opinions—one featuring a killer Ketanji Brown Jackson dissent—before turning to legal news, where bad behavior is everywhere. We’ve got a violent judge who can’t park…

  33. Affirmative Action for Mediocre Men

    · 1 h 24 min · S7 E37 · Explicit

    Leah and Melissa break down what may be a new low for the Court: granting Alabama’s request to reinstate racially discriminatory voting maps. Then, they turn to the big questions: how dead is Trump’s slush fund for…

  34. Ballrooms, ‘Bama and (Very) Bad Behavior

    · 1 h 38 min · S7 E36 · Explicit

    Leah, Kate, and Melissa recap another busy week in legal news, covering the continued fallout from the Voting Rights Act case, Louisiana v. Callais, the ongoing saga of the DOJ’s insurrectionist slush fund, wild twists…

  35. Trump's Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Grift

    · 1 h 35 min · S7 E35

    Kate, Melissa, and Leah try to wrap their heads around Trump’s nearly $2 billion DOJ slush fund, which they agree may be—despite extremely stiff competition—the biggest act of trolling and self-dealing of his second…

  36. How SCOTUS is Waging Electoral Warfare

    · 1 h 44 min · S7 E34 · Explicit

    Kate and Leah break down the Supreme Court’s extension of a stay allowing for continued mail-order access to mifepristone, from the Court’s unconscionable failure to meet its own arbitrary deadline to the unhinged…

  37. The Constitution (Melissa's Version)

    · 1 h 43 min · S7 E33 · Explicit

    Kate & Leah talk to Melissa about her new book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader, or, as we like to call it at Strict HQ, The Constitution (Melissa’s Version). Then all…

  38. Supreme Court Declares Racism Over

    · 1 h 32 min · S7 E32 · Explicit

    The 5th Circuit gave us a doozy late on Friday night by tightening access to the abortion drug mifepristone—Leah and Melissa break it down. Then, the full crew dives deeper into the Court’s catastrophic Voting Rights…

  39. BREAKING: SCOTUS Deals Another Blow to Multiracial Democracy

    · 33 min · S7 E31 · Bonus · Explicit

    Kate and Leah are joined by Democracy Docket’s Marc Elias to break down the Supreme Court’s shameful assault on multiracial democracy in its ruling on the Voting Rights Act case, Louisiana v. Callais. Get tickets for…

  40. How Low Can the DOJ Go?

    · 1 h 26 min · S7 E30 · Explicit

    From the DOJ’s targeting of the Southern Poverty Law Center for its anti-KKK work to Kash Patel’s outrageous lawsuit against The Atlantic for its reporting on his unfitness for office to the Fifth Circuit’s legal…

  41. SCOTUS Squabbles Go Public

    · 1 h 28 min · S7 E29 · Explicit

    Melissa, Kate, and Leah break down an absolute boatload of beefs: Trump vs. Pope Leo, Sonia Sotomayor vs. Coach Brett Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas vs. progressives, and Ketanji Brown Jackson vs. the shadow docket, before…

  42. War Crimes, Christian Nationalism, and the 25th Amendment

    · 1 h 07 min · S7 E28 · Explicit

    Even though the Supreme Court took a break from hearing oral arguments, there was still plenty of legal news breaking every day. Katie Phang joins Leah to recap that news, including Trump's threats against Iran, the…

  43. Birthright Citizenship + Bye-Bye, Pamela Jo Bondi

    · 1 h 16 min · S7 E27 · Explicit

    Last week saw oral arguments in the birthright citizenship case, Trump v. Barbara, and listeners, it finally happened: a legal argument so outlandish from the Trump administration that even this Court will have to rule…

  44. SCOTUS Not Cool With Colorado Ban on Conversion Therapy

    · 26 min · S7 E26 · Bonus · Explicit

    Today the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Chiles v. Salazer, the case involving a Colorado ban on conversion therapy. Leah is joined by Shannon Minter, Legal Director at the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, to…

  45. Will SCOTUS Join the GOP War on Mail-in Ballots?

    · 1 h 45 min · S7 E25 · Explicit

    Kate and guest co-host Ian Bassin of Protect Democracy kick off the show by covering the latest legal news, including developments at the Pentagon and Department of Justice, as well as Trump’s ominous threat to judges.…

  46. Absentee Ballots, Asylum, and Too Many A**holes to Count

    · 1 h 09 min · S7 E24 · Explicit

    Leah, Kate, and Melissa preview this week’s arguments at the Court, including Watson v. Republican National Committee, a challenge over when election offices must receive absentee ballots in order for them to be…

  47. Make America Grift Again

    · 1 h 21 min · S7 E23

    Leah, Melissa and Kate go on Corruption Watch to catch up on all the sketchy things happening in the judicial and executive branches. Then, they cover some recent oral arguments and opinions from The Court before…

  48. A Court of Drugs and Guns

    · 1 h 18 min · S7 E22 · Explicit

    Kate, Leah, and Melissa break down the oral arguments in United States v. Hemani, a Second Amendment case which challenges a law prohibiting “unlawful users” of controlled substances from possessing a firearm. Then,…

  49. The Conservative Push to Weaken Our Democracy

    · 1 h 51 min · S7 E21 · Explicit

    International law expert Rebecca Ingber of Cardozo Law joins Leah at the top of the show to talk about the US and Israel's war on Iran. Then, Leah welcomes guest co-host Chris Geidner of Law Dork to run through…

  50. SCOTUS Again Takes on the 2nd Amendment—What Could Go Wrong?

    · 1 h 19 min · S7 E20 · Explicit

    Kate is joined by Friend of the Pod Steve Vladeck (One First) to break down last week’s legal news, including developments around noncompliance in the lower courts and SCOTUS ethics. Then, Leah and Melissa join to…

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them. Explicit shows are for adult profiles only, and children’s profiles hear only children’s shows. More about this list.