Episode notes
Season 3 of Bound By Oath is coming soon! Click here for transcript.
Bound By Oath by IJ
by Institute for Justice · English · News
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 j
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S3 · E3 · 19 Jan 2024 · 37 min
A Lost World | Season 3, Ep. 3
On Episode 3, we journey back to a lost world: the world before zoning. And we take a look at a trio of historic property rights cases. In In re Lee Sing , San Francisco officials tried to wipe Chinatown off the map. In Buchanan v. Warley , Louisville, Ky. officials mapped out where in the city residents were allowed to live based on their race. And in Hadacheck v. Sebastian , a Los Angeles city councilman sought to use the police power to protect his real estate investments. Click here for transcript.
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S3 · E2 · 21 Dec 2023 · 1 hr 12 min
Groping in a Fog | Season 3, Ep. 2
In 1922, Scranton, Pennsylvania was said to be on the verge of collapsing into the vast coal mines beneath the city; residents, buildings, and streets alike were being swallowed up by “suddenly yawning chasms.” State legislators responded by unanimously passing a law meant to save the region, where about a million people lived, from total desolation. But when the law reached the Supreme Court, the justices struck it down, ruling that it would be an unconstitutional “regulatory taking” to force coal companies to leave their coal in the ground. On this episode, we go to nearby Pittston,…
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S3 · E1 · 8 Dec 2023 · 1 hr 6 min
Mr. Thornton’s Woods | Season 3, Ep. 1
In 1984, the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourth Amendment’s protections against warrantless searches do not apply to “open fields.” Which means that government agents can jump over fences, ignore No Trespassing signs, and roam private land at will. There are no limits. On this episode, we talk to Richard and Linda Thornton, whose property in rural Maine was at the center of the case. And we ask: Can the Founders really have thought the Constitution did not protect private woods, fields, farms, and more from warrantless invasions? Click here for transcript. Oliver v. United States Hester v.…
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S2 · E11 · 16 Mar 2022 · 1 hr 32 min
State Remedies | Season 2, Ep. 11
With the doors to federal court closing on civil rights claims, this final episode of Season 2 heads to new terrain: state court. Click here for transcript. Click here for Episode 1.
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S2 · E10 · 10 Nov 2021 · 46 min
Prosecutors, Perjurers, and Other Non-Persons — Part 2 | Season 2, Ep. 10
In 1983, in the case of Briscoe v. LaHue, the Supreme Court ruled that government employees who commit perjury at trial are absolutely immune from civil liability. On Part 2 of Episode 10, we dig into the Court’s reasoning and the backstory behind Briscoe. We also discuss a special category of officials whom the Supreme…
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S2 · E10 · 5 Nov 2021 · 59 min
Prosecutors, Perjurers, and Other Non-Persons — Part 1 | Season 2, Ep. 10
In 2005, Charles Rehberg annoyed some politically powerful people in his community of Albany, Georgia, and found himself facing serious criminal charges—charges that were completely made up by a rogue prosecutor and could only be sustained because an investigator committed perjury. In Episode 10, we explore the case of Rehberg v. Paulk, which reached the…
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S4 · E4 · 4 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
Younger abstention | Season 4, Ep. 4
In 1966, Los Angeles officials tried to put a man in prison for handing out leaflets in protest of a fatal police shooting. Today, we know the case as Younger v. Harris , which kicked off the doctrine of Younger abstention, the bane of many a civil rights plaintiff. On this episode, we examine the origins, the impact, and the relentless expansion of the doctrine. Younger v. Harris Click here for transcript.
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S4 · E3 · 29 Jun 2026 · 47 min
Oath or Affirmation. (And Treason.) | Season 4, Ep. 3
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 the Court should overturn it. Click here for transcript. Jones v. United States (1960) Mendenhall v. Denver
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S4 · E2 · 29 May 2026
Needless Friction. And Treason.
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.
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15 Apr 2026 · 1 hr 20 min
Rooker and Feldman and Treason | Season 4, Ep. 1
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 times of the litigants for whom it is named, William Rooker and Marc Feldman. Rooker was a big shot Indiana lawyer who represented lynching victims and Klansmen. And Marc Feldman was a professor of…
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