Short Circuit

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shortcircuit@ij.org

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Short Circuit 447 | How Constitutional Are Your Claims?

September 25, 2026

We focus on a district court case that has appellate court explanatory power. As our special guest Professor Robert Steinbuch says, if you reside in Arkansas you must be living in a cave if you haven’t heard of the Malinowski matter. The lawsuit concerns the tragic death of a man who was shot by the police in a raid after he shot first. His widow alleges the man did not know the people breaking into their house were police as they did not properly announce themselves. Because the police were ...

Short Circuit 446 | SWAT Teams at the Supreme Court

September 18, 2026

Say a gaggle of police with military-grade toys fire a boatload of tear gas into a home and then run in and break a bunch of stuff, all the while looking for a fugitive with no connection to the family that lives there. Do the police have to pay for the damage? That’s an issue that’s at the Supreme Court’s doorstep in a couple of IJ cert petitions. And along with those IJ has just issued a report about how many claims are actually made against the police for the destruction of property, how m...

Short Circuit 445 | Crazytown

September 11, 2026

Time for The Big One. So many have so many takes on the Ninth Circuit that, as part of our #12Months12Circuits series, we at IJ had to add our own. It’s the mega-circuit that encompasses all of the West Coast, much of the Mountain West, Alaska, Hawaii, and even Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. IJ’s Paul Avelar, who lives in the circuit, and Ben Field, who clerked there, share some details and war stories about the circuit that’s just too darn big. After that they analyze a couple recent...