OA1189 - The Supreme Court’s next term may not start until October, but their infamous shadow--sorry, “interim”--docket is in rare form as they issue snap decisions on everything from exactly where one 14-year-old boy can pee to just how openly racist ICE gets to be. Matt and Jenessa review which major precedents the conservative majority is ignoring to enable Trump’s worst policies this week before getting on to some Epstein-related legal updates and a radical new development from the Board of Immigration Appeals with massive implications for Trump’s mass deportation plans.

Finally, Matt drops a footnote to address one of our nation’s least pressing legal questions: is it really true that a wedding in Kentucky can be legally officiated by a dead bear once described as “filled to the brim with cocaine”?

1. SCOTUS order in Trump v. Slaughter (9/8/2025)

2. SCOTUS order (with Kavanaugh concurrence and Sotomayor dissent) in Noem v. Vasquez-Perdomo (9/8/25)

3. Matter of Yajure Hurtado, 21 I&N 216 (BIA 2025)

4. Kentucky Revised Statute 402.070

P.S. Matt messed up his audio and is very sorry about it!

Just because everything else is terrible out there right now, we treated ourselves to our second consecutive Law’d Awesome Movie. By popular patron demand: it’s My Cousin Vinny! We had a great time talking about this one. Actual New York Italian-American Jenessa Seymour joins to provide dead-ass balls accurate cultural context for one of the greatest Brooklyn couples ever put to film, and Matt shares his perspective as both an actual practicing courtroom lawyer and a guy who is weirdly obsessed with end credits songs that tell you about the movie you just watched.

Thanks again to patrons for this one!

1. My Cousin Vinny, Dale Launer (1992)(full script)(PDF)

2. “‘What is a Yute?’ An Oral History of ‘My Cousin Vinny,’” Andy Greene, Rolling Stone (3/7/22)

Continuing their "Good Law" series, Matt and Jenessa talk about Baggett v. Bullitt. This case held that "a State cannot require an employee to take an unduly vague oath containing a promise of future conduct at the risk of prosecution for perjury or loss of employment, particularly where the exercise of First Amendment freedoms may thereby be deterred." Jenessa gives a fascinating science breakdown on cognitive dissonance and what the effect of these vague oaths actually is. It's counter-intuitive and very interesting!