The Duke Law Podcast

Quincy Amerson, a client of the Wrongful Convictions Clinic at Duke Law, was released from prison on March 13 this year, after spending more than 20 years behind bars. He was convicted of first-degree murder in 2001 and had been sentenced to life without parole. After taking up Amerson's case, the clinic presented exculpatory evidence that led to the state dismissing the case. A Superior Court judge found that Amerson was denied a fair trial due and exonerated him of the crime.

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in favor of upholding a 1994 ban on persons with restraining orders having access to firearms. While the outcome in U.S. v. Rahimi wasn't entirely unexpected, it did offer our first glimpse into how the conservative-majority Court would handle gun rights cases going forward.

In the wake of a 2017 mass shooting at a concert in Las Vegas, the Trump administration passed a regulation to ban bump stocks – a device that enables a semiautomatic rifle to fire rounds much like a machine gun. Last week, the conservative-majority Court struck down that ban in Cargill v. Garland, stating the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives overstepped its authority in classifying bump stocks as machine guns.

This October, students from three North Carolina law schools gathered at North Carolina Central University to participate in the fourth annual Legal Design Derby focused on access to justice. Co-hosted by the Duke Center on Law & Technology and the NCCU Tech Law & Policy Center, this human-centered design sprint provided students an opportunity to contribute their ideas to the new Legal Aid of North Carolina Innovation Lab. (Transcript forthcoming)

In this episode of the Duke Law Podcast, the Duke Center for Firearms Law (DCFL) discusses the oral argument in U.S. v Rahimi, which was heard in the Supreme Court on November 7. Rahimi is a pending case regarding the Second Amendment to the Constitution and whether allows the government to prohibit firearm possession by individuals subject to certain domestic violence restraining orders. DCFL Executive Director Andrew Willinger is guest host for this episode and is joined by DCFL faculty co-directors Joseph Blocher, the Lanty L. Smith '67 Distinguished Professor of Law and Senior Associate Dean of Faculty and Research at Duke Law, and Darrell A. H. Miller, the Melvin G. Shimm Distinguished Professor of Law. Profs. Blocher and Miller are Second Amendment and constitutional law scholars and co-authors of “The Positive Second Amendment: Rights, Regulation, and the Future of Heller.”

​In this episode of the Duke Law Podcast, Andrew Willinger, executive director of the Duke Center for Firearms Law, discusses 'United States v. Rahimi' – the first major Second Amendment case to be heard by the Court since its landmark ruling in 'New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen last summer' – leading up to the Supreme Court hearing oral argument on November 7. The 'Rahimi' case has garnered national attention from gun rights advocates and Second Amendment scholars, as well as the general public, as it could potentially be the Court's first opportunity to clarify certain aspects of its 'Bruen' test that have since divided lower-court judges. The Court's decision in Rahimi may indicate how broad of an impact 'Bruen' will have in the years to come. 3L Sydney Colopy, a research assistant at the Center for Firearms Law, is the guest host. [Link to transcript forthcoming]

In 'Closing International Law's Innocence Gap,' Duke Law Clinical Professor Jayne Huckerby, Professor Laurence Helfer, and Professor Brandon Garrett argue that now is the time to close a gap in how national criminal legal systems address post-conviction claims of factual innocence. They build a substantive case for recognizing a new international human right and detail the advantages of doing such, offering derivative and freestanding approaches, as well as a framework for adapting the right to national models. Transcript available at https://bit.ly/42KpuVx

New research co-authored by Duke Law Professor Ben Grunwald, a scholar of criminal procedure, criminal law, and empirical methods, discovered a trend in law enforcement agencies' posts on Facebook that could be perpetuating the myth of Black criminality. Transcript at https://bit.ly/3MSDZCe.

In this episode of The Duke Law Podcast, Professor Nita Farahany, director of Duke Science & Society, discusses her new book, "The Battle for Your Brain," and her argument for a codified right to cognitive liberty with Clinical Professor Jeff Ward, director of the Duke Center on Law & Tech. Speakers: Duke Law Professor Nita Farahany at https://law.duke.edu/fac/farahany/, https://twitter.com/NitaFarahany, and https://www.nitafarahany.com/). Clinical Professor Jeff Ward at https://law.duke.edu/fac/jward/. Purchase and download the "The Battle for Your Brain" at https://shorturl.at/iEIKV. Transcript: https://bit.ly/3lDWShn

What is critical race theory and why has this decades old academic concept recently come under attack in the halls of Congress and local school board meetings? Three scholarly experts on race and the law provide answers: Part 1 provides an accurate definition of CRT and look back at when and why it began. We will also explore the contemporary attacks on CRT and the battlegrounds where these attacks are happening. In Part 2, our guests examine how CRT can used as a tool to better understand today's legal practices and policies, from policing, voting rights, and mass incarceration to social justice movement, the rule of law, and even the confirmation hearing of now-Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Transcript available at bit.ly/3gUx3qm.

What is critical race theory and why has this decades old academic concept recently come under attack in the halls of Congress and local school board meetings? Three scholarly experts on race and the law provide answers: Part 1 provides an accurate definition of CRT and look back at when and why it began. We will also explore the contemporary attacks on CRT and the battlegrounds where these attacks are happening. In Part 2, our guests examine how CRT can used as a tool to better understand today's legal practices and policies, from policing, voting rights, and mass incarceration to social justice movement, the rule of law, and even the confirmation hearing of now-Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Transcript available at bit.ly/3fkFjQa.

While the artist Prince rocked fans for decades, an upcoming U.S. Supreme Court case concerning a 1981 portrait of him could potentially rock America's copyright law and fair use doctrine.

How could the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn the 1973 case Roe vs. Wade last June -- effectively ending a constitutional right to obtain an abortion -- affect your right to privacy, with law enforcement using personal tech and surveillance data to enforce state laws prohibiting abortion? Our guest for this episode, Duke Law Senior Lecturing Fellow Jolynn Dellinger, answers this question as a scholar of privacy and ethics law and within the framework of her new readings class, Privacy in a Post-Dobbs World. Our guest host is Kelly Kegolovits '23, a third-year student who interned this summer at the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York and has held summer positions at the ACLU of Oklahoma and Planned Parenthood South Atlantic in Raleigh, N.C. --- Listen to Duke Law Podcast: - Apple Podcasts https://bit.ly/dukelawpodcastapple - Spotify https://bit.ly/thedukelawpodcastspotify - Google Podcasts https://bit.ly/dukelawpodcastgoogle - Soundcloud: https://bit.ly/dukelawpodcastsoundcloud Transcript available at https://bit.ly/3qfAzx7.

In this episode of the Duke Law Podcast, the Duke Center for Firearms Law discusses the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen on June 23, 2022. Join Profs. Joseph Blocher and Darrell A. H. Miller – both faculty co-directors of the Center – and Jacob D. Charles and Andrew Willinger – outgoing and incoming executive directors of the Center, respectively – for a broad-ranging conversation on the implications of the Court's decision and the unanswered questions that could lead to further litigation.

In this episode of the Duke Law Podcast, alumna Geovette Washington '92 charts her remarkable journey from Duke Law to a 13-year partnership, serving under the Clinton and Obama administrations, and her current position as senior vice chancellor and chief legal officer at the University of Pittsburgh. Fellow alumna and member of the Duke Law Alumnae Leadership Council Anne Harper '91 is guest host for this episode. Harper produces the 'State of the Bay' show at KALW radio -- an NPR affiliate -- in San Francisco. Subscribe to Duke Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts.

This episode of the Duke Law Podcast spotlights the Law School's Movement Lawyering Lab, in which students learn about how lawyers' history of centering themselves in social justice movements often perpetuates a problematic system of racial and gender hierarchy and leaves little room for innovative problem-solving. Speakers: Clinical Professor Anne Gordon, creator/instructor of the Movement Lawyering Lab course and director of externships at Duke Law; Clinical Professor Jesse McCoy, Supervising Attorney of Civil Justice Clinic (moderator); Vanessa Keverenge JD/LLM '23; and Evelyn Blanco '23.

In this episode, Professor Marin K. Levy treats David F. Levi, director of the Duke's Bolch Judicial Institute, to an inside look at her successful Twitter account. Levy's engaging and insightful threads spotlight hidden gems from judicial history and little-known facts about the bench, including firsts for women and people of color. Levy, a scholar of judicial administration and federal courts, shares how she's learning to navigate social media as a law professor and parent, the series of events that led to her growing popularity, and the unexpected community she's discovered online. ***Transcript forthcoming***

In this episode of the Duke Law Podcast, two of the most highly citied scholars on New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen – Duke Law Prof. Joseph Blocher and Prof. Darrell A. H. Miller – unpack what happened and what's at stake with the U.S. Supreme Court's November 3 hearing of its first major gun rights case since 2008. Duke Law Lecturing Fellow Jacob Charles, executive director of the Duke Center for Firearms Law, hosts this episode with the Center's faculty co-directors discussing a wide array of related topics including what the headline-making hearing revealed about the Justices' positions on gun rights and the Second Amendment; the “text, history, and tradition” framework; “shall issue” versus “may issue;” sensitive places doctrine; and localism. > Transcript: https://law.duke.edu/transcripts/TRANSCRIPT-Duke-Law-Podcast-SCOTUS-v-Bruen.pdf

In this episode of the Duke Law Podcast, Liz Wangu '16 stops by the booth following a lunch-time discussion at Duke Law, sharing her insights with students on pursuing a career in international project finance in today's legal market. Approaching her fifth year at Clifford Chance's D.C. office, Wangu is currently on secondment as a legal counsel at the International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group. At Clifford Chance, Wangu focuses her practice on international project finance (energy & infrastructure), corporate finance, and other cross-border development finance transactions. For this episode, Jabrina Robinson, director of LLM Career Development and Outreach at Duke Law's Office of International Studies, sits down with Wangu for a conversation that ranges from her well-traveled upbringing–residing in parts of Africa and Europe before emigrating to the U.S.–to how her desire to effect positive change through the law fueled her academic and professional aspirations. Wangu also reflected on her time at Duke Law, citing some of her most important faculty, peer, and course influencers. >> Listen to Duke Law Podcast: - Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-duke-law | Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/5KvBAK4hNfuYFLva7dtW1X. | Transcript https://law.duke.edu/transcripts/TRANSCRIPT-Duke-Law-Podcast-Interview-Liz-Wangu.pdf

'Hispanic,' 'Latino/a,' and Latinx--what do each of these terms mean? Who do they refer to? How do these terms show up in law classrooms and in legal practice? And, which is correct? Right now, these terms are being hotly debated across the United States and, in observance of National Hispanic Heritage Month, The Duke Law Podcast explores this discussion and attempts to provide some answers to the aforementioned questions. In this episode, Duke Law Director of Diversity Initiatives Ebony Bryant leads a roundtable conversation with the following guests providing very distinct perspectives: Sofia Hernandez '09: Duke Law Senior Lecturing Fellow & Senior Assistant City Attorney for the City of Durham, N.C.; Alyssa Reyes '23: Inaugural Fellow of Duke University's Race and the Professions Fellowship, President and 1L Representative of Duke Law's Latin American Law Students Association, and Vice-President and 1L Representative of Duke OutLaw; and, Alejandro Fallas Schosinsky LLM '21: Nearly 10 years experience employed as an attorney at BLP Legal, a leading full service law firm in Central America. --> Transcript: https://law.duke.edu/transcripts/TRANSCRIPT-Duke-Law-Podcast-Which-is-correct.pdf

LISTEN: Racial justice scholar Ian Haney López, the Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Public Law at the University of California, Berkeley, speaks to Duke Law's Spring 2021 'Race & The Law' class as part of its semester-long speaker series. Prof. López spoke on 'Race and the U.S. Constitutional Tradition: From “We the People” to Colorblindness. How has U.S. law contributed to understandings of race and racial hierarchy? How has racial (and nonracial) terminology shaped discourse and policy outcomes as a general matter, and more specifically in the 2020 election cycle?' Recorded on February 2, 2021, with an introduction by Duke Law Professor H. Timothy Lovelace, Jr., the John Hope Franklin Research Scholar at Duke Law School.

LISTEN: The Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke Law hosts a timely roundtable discussion about people with mental illnesses who are criminally accused and found incompetent to proceed in the criminal legal system; how competency restoration poses a challenge and costly management problem for state mental health and criminal legal systems; alternative pathways to community reentry for this population; the ethical-legal aspects; how mental health authorities and policymakers in different states are (or aren't) dealing with it, and what should be done. Panelists: Dr. Reena Kapoor, from Yale School of Medicine; Dr. Debra Pinals, from University of Michigan Law and Medicine; Larry Fitch, from University of Maryland Medical School; and Dr. William Fisher, who works with the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors. Dr. Jeffrey Swanson from Duke School of Medicine moderates.

How racial disparities in healthcare continue to make Black and Latinx people less likely to receive a vaccine, despite both communities being more likely to become sick from COVID-19, is the focus of this discussion with Duke Law Professor Kate Evans, Professor Thomas Williams and Durham-based physician Edith Nieves Lopez. Sponsored by Duke Immigrant and Refugee Project and co-sponsored by Duke Law's ACLU, LALSA, HLS, and the Immigrant Rights Clinic.

Formerly incarcerated individuals face many barriers when re-entering their communities. This Duke Law roundtable explores the barriers and the programs successfully addressing them with Alice Marie Johnson, a criminal justice reform advocate and former federal prisoner pardoned by former President Donald Trump; Dontae Sharp, a N.C. exoneree who now works at Forward Justice; and Elenore Wade, who teaches as a Visiting Associate Professor of Clinical Law & Friedman Fellow in The George Washington University Law School's Prisoner & Reentry Clinic. Discussion and Q&A moderated by Duke Law Professor Brandon Garrett. Sponsored by the Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke Law.

Curtis Flowers is a Mississippi man who was tried six times for the same crime and whose case was the subject of Season 2 of the APM Reports podcast "In the Dark." He spent nearly 23 years behind bars and endured six trials and four death sentences for four murders he has always maintained he did not commit. Four of the trials resulted in convictions, all of which were overturned on appeal. Flowers' case was one of three that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June 2016 were to be remanded to lower courts to be reviewed for evidence of racial bias in jury selection. He was finally freed in 2020 when the Mississippi Attorney General's Office dismissed indictments against him. In February, Flowers spoke at this Duke Law event with his attorney, Henderson Hill, sharing an inside look at his years-long saga and the injustices of a system zeroed in on convicting him. Wilson Center Director and Duke Law Professor Brandon Garrett moderated the discussion and Q&A that followed. Sponsored by the Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke Law.

This event examined what happened with GameStop's stock, the legal and regulatory implications, and what it could mean for the future of the stock market. Featured speakers include Professors Lawrence G. Baxter, Elisabeth de Fontenay, Jim Cox, Gina-Gail Fletcher, Lee Reiners, and Emily Strauss. Sponsored by the Global Financial Markets Center and the Interactive Entertainment Law Society. The saga of GameStop has attracted the attention of trading platforms, regulators and even the White House. In January, major hedge funds were betting big money against the success of GameStop in the form of short sales. But that didn't stop individual investors from taking those bets. Instead, a flood of retail investors joined forces on Reddit's WallStreetBets forum to send GameStop's stock soaring. The moves by some brokers to slow down trading in these stocks raised legitimate cries of unfairness to regular investors. View transcript: https://law.duke.edu/transcripts/TRANSCRIPT-Global-Financial-Markets-Center%20_%20GameStop-Explained.doc.pdf

In the past year, movements to address deep racial inequities embedded in the criminal system gained greater prominence and popular support. At the forefront of these movements are leaders in North Carolina fighting the cash bail system that incarcerates people based on poverty, the racially disparate disenfranchisement of individuals for unpaid fines and fees, and the dangerous conditions facing largely black and brown people in local jails. In this Duke Law discussion, Professor Brandon Garrett, director of the Wilson Center for Science and Justice, moderates a talk with Daryl Atkinson, who co-directs Forward Justice; Andrea "Muffin" Hudson, who founded and directs the NC Community Bail Fund; and, Leah Kang, staff attorney at the ACLU-NC, as they share their experience with innovative racial justice-related work in Durham and in North Carolina. View transcript:

As part of Duke Law's International Week, Aya Fujimura-Fanselow, Clinical Professor of Law and Supervising Attorney at the International Human Rights Clinic at Duke Law, moderated this discussion with Nanjala Nyabola, independent consultant and author,Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics: How the Internet Era is Transforming Kenya, and Maya Wang, China Senior Researcher, Human Rights Watch. This event is part of the Duke Law Human Rights in Practice series organized by the Center for International and Comparative Law and the International Human Rights Clinic. Co-sponsored by the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association; the Black Law Students Association; the Duke Human Rights Center at the Franklin Humanities Institute; the Duke Human Rights Center at the Kenan Institute for Ethics; the Human Rights Law Society; the International Law Society; the Latin American Law Students Association; the Middle East North African Law Students Association; the South Asian Law Student Association; and the Womxn of Color Collective. View transcript: https://law.duke.edu/transcripts/TRANSCIPT-Nanjala%20Nyabola%20%26%20Maya%20Wang%20_%20Digital%20Rights%20%26%20Discrimination.pdf

While immigration law is federal, the policies enacted by local elected officials can shape immigration enforcement measures and efforts to include and support immigrants and refugees. This Duke Law event featured a panel discussion with Spencer Bloom, Civic Engagement Organizer at El Pueblo in Raleigh, N.C., and Stefania Arteaga, Immigrants' Rights Organizer at ACLU of North Carolina. It was moderated by Gunther W. Peck, Associate Professor of History at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy. The discussion addressed the advances achieved through past local elections and the stakes involved in the 2020 local elections. This event was sponsored by the Duke Immigrant and Refugee Project and Duke Law's Immigrant Rights Clinic. View transcript: https://law.duke.edu/transcripts/Transcript-The-Importance-of-Local-Elections-for-Immigration-Policy.pdf

2020 marks the 30th anniversary of President George H.W. Bush signing the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) into law. This panel Q&A includes Jennifer Mathis, Director of Policy and Legal Advocacy at Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law; John Petrila, Vice President of Adult Policy at Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute; and Holly Stiles, Litigation Counsel at Disability Rights North Carolina. Moderated by Dr. Marvin Swartz, the panelists explored the past, present, and future of the ADA, and the extent to which it has increased access to services for an entire generation. Co-sponsored by the Wilson Center for Science and Justice, Duke Criminal Law Society and Duke Health Law Society. View transcript: https://law.duke.edu/transcripts/Transcript-30-Years-of-the-Americans-with-Disabilities-Act.pdf

Richard Cordray, former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), discussed his new book, "Watchdog: How Protecting Consumers Can Save Our Families, Our Economy, and Our Democracy." Growing problems in the increasingly one-sided finance markets blew up the economy in 2008. In the aftermath, Congress created the CFPB. Sharing the stories of individual consumers, Watchdog shows how the Bureau quickly became a powerful force for good, suing big banks for cheating or deceiving consumers, putting limits on predatory lenders, simplifying mortgage paperwork, and stepping in to help solve problems raised by individual consumers. Cordray also discussed recent developments, including the Supreme Court's Seila Law decision, as well as what consumer protection may look like under a Biden administration. Sponsored by the Global Financial Markets Center. View transcript: https://law.duke.edu/transcripts/Transcript-Watchdog-How-Protecting-Consumers-Can-Save-Our-Families,-Our-Economy,-and-Our-Democracy.pdf

At the heart of both Abolish ICE and Defund the Police is a conversation about who is incarcerated and criminalized. The movements share the belief that regardless of the badge, bad law enforcement practices and policies affect the safety and well-being of people across the United States. This discussion focuses on the increasingly intersecting coalitions between the movements and their impact in reframing the conversation around criminal justice reform with Tsion Gurmu, Legal Director of Black Alliance for Just Immigration and Founder of the Queer Black Immigration Project; Rinku Sen, former Executive Director of Race Forward; and Sejal Zota, Legal Director and Co-Founder of Just Future Laws. View transcript: https://law.duke.edu/transcripts/Transcript-The-Convergence-of-Movements-to-Abolish-ICE-and-Defund-the-Police.pdf

In the ongoing national conversations about policing, protest, racism, and violence, the role of guns plays an important part. And with gun purchasing, carrying, and brandishing increasingly in the news during the Covid-19 pandemic, the intersection of these issues takes on heightened importance. This online panel discussion shares insights into these issues. Panelists include Duke's own Darrell Miller, Melvin G. Shimm Professor of Law, Associate Dean for Intellectual Life, and Faculty Co-Director of the Center for Firearms Law; Kami Chavis, Associate Provost for Academic Initiatives, Professor of Law, and Director of Criminal Justice Program at Wake Forest University School of Law; Alice Ristroph, Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School; and Stuart Schrader, Lecturer and Assistant Research Scientist in Sociology at Johns Hopkins University. View transcript: https://law.duke.edu/transcripts/Transcript-Race,-Policing,-and-Guns.pdf