What is Short Circuit?
Short Circuit is your concise (and sometimes irreverent) source for important and interesting cases and legal stories you might otherwise have missed.
Launched by the Institute for Justice (IJ) in 2015, Short Circuit started off as a short weekly newsletter rounding up the most interesting developments in the federal circuit courts of appeal as well as a weekly podcast digging into a couple recent particularly noteworthy cases.
Today, as part of IJ’s Center for Judicial Engagement, and with the newsletter and flagship podcast still going strong, Short Circuit also includes our legal history documentary podcast Bound By Oath, now in its fourth season, and our monthly roundtable podcast Unpublished Opinions. We also hold live shows (contact us if you’re interested in hosting one) and other events. Wherever and whoever you are there’s plenty of options to get engaged.
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Recent Newsletters
Bogus traffic stops, cell-site simulating, and chain refoulment.
“Technology may make surveillance more convenient, but it does not make the Fourth Amendment’s protections any less important.” So said IJ legislative counsel Alasdair Whitney this week at a congressional hearing…
Cellphones searches, home searches, and strip searches.
Do Flock cameras actually reduce crime? The company says a new study shows it. But, looking at the same study, we see no statistically significant changes in car thefts and car-theft…
Backup groomsmen, weak sauce, and internment camps.
New case! IJ client Katy Duckstein is a former public school math teacher who opened Roots Learning Academy, an innovative hybrid homeschooling program that’s open three days a week and…
Fancy timepieces, traitors, and lengthy footnotes.
New on the Bound by Oath podcast: In 1966, Los Angeles officials tried to put a man in prison for handing out leaflets in protest of a fatal police shooting.