Bound by Oath is a podcast series from the Center for Judicial Engagement at the Institute for Justice. It’s where the Constitution’s past catches up with the present. Article VI of the U.S. Constitution requires every judge to be “bound by Oath” to uphold “this Constitution.” But to understand if judges are following that oath, it’s important to ask, “What is in ‘this Constitution’?” Your host John Ross takes a deep dive into the Constitution’s text, history, and characters, and interviews…
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On this episode, we recover a lost part of the Fourth Amendment that the Supreme Court essentially erased in 1960. In the case of Jones v. United States , the Court ignored text, history, and tradition, and disfigured the Warrant Clause, allowing law enforcement to knock down doors based on mere hearsay and with scant consequences for lying or mistakes. Jones was wrong the day it was decided, and…
On this episode: the story of Pullman abstention, the first of several abstention doctrines the Supreme Court invented to let federal judges decline to decide cases that they have jurisdiction to decide. Click here for transcript. Railroad Commission of Texas v. Pullman Co.
Next week, the Supreme Court is going to hear a huge civil rights case that no one is talking about—because the legal issue before the Court is the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, an obscure and slightly treasonous doctrine that lets federal judges throw worthy cases out of court without reaching the merits. On this episode, we examine the doctrine’s impact as well as its origins, including the life and…
In our final episode of the season, we head to Indian Country and survey several strands of Supreme Court precedent that prevent Native Americans from putting their property to peaceful and productive use. Click here for transcript. United States v. Kagama Cobell v. Norton
The Fifth Amendment says that the government must pay just compensation when it takes private property for public use, a command that, regrettably, is often treated as a mere suggestion. On this episode, we take a look at a variety of gambits and flim-flammeries that let the government take property without paying for it. Click here for episode transcript. Agins v. Tiburon First English v. County…
In 1973, federal narcotics agents raided a pair of homes in Collinsville, Illinois by mistake. They didn’t find any drugs, but they did terrorize two innocent families. The incident sparked nationwide outrage, and in response Congress passed legislation crafting a legal remedy for victims of federal law enforcement abuses. Over the years, however, lower courts have chipped away at the law to the…
Government officials must obtain a warrant before forcibly entering a home (absent consent or an emergency). That rule goes back to the Founding. But in a series of cases, culminating in Camara v. San Francisco in 1967, the Supreme Court announced an ahistorical exception, holding that the Fourth Amendment is less protective when it is a health inspector, rather than a police officer, knocking at…
In 2020, a police SWAT team blew up Vicki Baker’s house after a fugitive barricaded himself inside. On this episode, we ask: who pays the tab when the government damages or destroys private property for the public good — the unlucky owner or the public as a whole? Click here for episode transcript. Pumpelly v. Green Bay & Mississippi Canal Company Armstrong v. United States
Civil forfeiture is a civil rights nightmare, allowing police and prosecutors to seize billions of dollars’ worth of property annually—cash, cars, houses, bank accounts, and more—without charging anyone with a crime, let alone obtaining a conviction. On this episode, we trace the rise of the modern forfeiture regime in the 1970s and 80s, and we look at forfeiture’s historic roots. Click here for…
In 2005, in the case of Kelo v. New London , the Supreme Court allowed officials to seize and raze an entire neighborhood of well-maintained homes and businesses in the hopes that someone else could build fancier homes and businesses. According to the dissenters, the majority’s opinion effectively deleted the provision of the U.S. Constitution requiring that takings be for a “public use.” On this…
