Short Circuit

Vote early. But maybe don’t vote often? That’s the bottom line from Short Circuit’s biannual election special. With the 2026 General Election only days away, IJ’s Diana Simpson and your host bring you some of the latest cases from the federal courts of appeals on elections and political speech. There’s a polling place full of rulings on speech and paperwork burdens, what you can say about who can vote, the Founder’s fondness for anonymous pamphlets, the motor voter law, the Purcell principle, pr

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 interp

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

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 defendan

Our annual Supreme Court term preview, this year from Wake Forest Law and released today, First Monday, the first day of the Supreme Court’s new term. IJ’s Justin Pearson is joined by colleague Paul Avelar and Professor Wilson Parker of Wake Forest. After a bit of SCOTUS trivia they preview two cases—about fair trials and guns—and then two cert petitions—about electronic searches and guns. Along the way you’ll learn about a few other cases coming the Court’s way, letting all of us get our kicks

We’ve all seen the ads for prediction markets, like Kalshi, and some of us have even placed bets with them. But are they actually “bets”? That is, are they gambling? The Ninth Circuit addressed this issue as it relates to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and said that at least on the land of a tribe that operated its own gaming, what Kalshi does is gambling and is not allowed. IJ’s Kirby Thomas West takes us into the wild world of predicting vs. gambling and the related issues of whether federal