Amicus

“The Gross Spectacle of a Divided Defense”

The case of the capital defendant who insisted “I’m innocent” while his lawyer told everyone “he did it” reaches the Supreme Court.

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We’re inside the chamber for the high-profile case involving a death row inmate from Louisiana who’s asking for a new trial after his lawyer told the jury his client was guilty, despite the client’s insistence that he was innocent. Jay Schweikert, a policy analyst with the Cato Institute’s Project on Criminal Justice and co-author of an amicus brief filed in this case, joins Dahlia Lithwick to sift through the arguments and legal principles at play.* Veteran Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse talks about shifting positions from the solicitor general’s office, tees up a key case at the intersection of abortion and free speech that will be heard by the high court this term, and gives her take on the status of the truth in the courts and the country in the age of Trump.

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Podcast production by Sara Burningham.

* Correction, Jan. 20, 2018: This article originally misspelled Jay Schweikert’s last name.