Beyond the Brief Podcast

On a typical day, police officers pull over more than 50,000 drivers. If you’ve had a recent encounter with police, chances are good it was […]

The freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment is a foundational and cherished right that sets America apart from other constitutional democracies.    Many […]

As our listeners probably know, civil forfeiture is legal practice that lets the government take and keep your property by claiming it’s connected to a […]

Imagine a SWAT team raids a house—battering doors, breaking windows, and coating everything inside with tear gas residue.  Now imagine the SWAT team had the […]

In March 2021, people entered a private security-deposit box company in Beverly Hills, CA, broke open hundreds of boxes, and indiscriminately seized their contents – […]

We like to think of America as a land of opportunity and second chances. But what happens when a web of government restrictions prevents someone […]

If a federal official violates your rights, is it impossible to hold them accountable?  In this episode, we talk with IJ senior attorneys Anya Bidwell […]

Your home is supposed to be your castle. But what about the land your castle sits on?  We discuss why it is that most private […]

What can Americans do if the government retaliates against them for speaking out? Today we’re going to discuss real world examples of governments retaliating against […]

Does qualified immunity actually accomplish what the Supreme Court intended? Kim Norberg and co-host Keith Neely discuss qualified immunity and how it plays out in […]

Unbeknownst to parents, a portion of their baby’s blood remained unused after a standard screening was complete. And New Jersey had unilaterally decided that it […]

Deep Dive is now becoming Beyond the Brief.  We will still bring you the same great IJ-related content as before, but now in a studio […]

Why so-called Terry stops are a threat to essential Fourth Amendment rights

In Ohio, wildlife inspectors think that the law gives them permission to come into private businesses without permission—no probable cause or warrant required

In Virginia, any one of 176 so-called barrier crimes can disqualify a person from work in certain occupations for life—no matter how old the conviction, how unrelated it is to the work the person desires to do, or how little it reflects the person’s fitness today. These laws kept IJ client Rudy Carey from fulfilling work as a substance abuse counselor for people he is uniquely fit to help. In today’s show, we talk about what happened to Rudy and how he is fighting against collateral consequences laws that are irrational and unjust.

In Wilmington, Delaware, any car with more than $200 in outstanding fines can be towed by private towing companies. Vehicle owners have no way to […]

Before he was IJ’s president, Scott Bullock spent 25 years as an IJ attorney. In this episode, he recounts his years in the trenches as […]

Though Susette Kelo’s fight to save her home from her city’s efforts to take it for a private developer ended in 2005, the fight against […]

In March 2021, FBI agents broke into private safe deposit boxes at the Southern California business U.S. Private Vaults and—though no individual box owner was […]

In Episode 30 of Deep Dive, we talked about how fines for harmless property code violations could snowball into six-figure debt. All too often, municipalities […]

This term, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion in Caniglia v. Strom, a case about the “community caretaking” exception to the general principle […]

After Sandy Martinez got a ticket from Lantana, Florida, for parking her car with its wheels slightly outside her driveway and on the grass in […]

When IJ client Abdallah Batayneh tried to open a resort shuttle service in rural Colorado, his application was denied by a state regulatory agency at […]

What does it mean when courts apply “strict scrutiny” in their review of a law? Why do property, economic, and other vital liberties get only […]

Although Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are hitting the mainstream, the way the law will treat them is still undeveloped. In this episode, we talk about […]

When the Institute for Justice filed suit against the so-called predictive policing program in Pasco County, Florida, the Sheriff’s Office issued a statement saying that […]

Elizabeth Brokamp is a professional counselor who just wants to help people at a time when many Americans need it more than ever. But if […]

IJ Senior Attorneys Robert McNamara and Paul Sherman discuss amicus briefs: what they are, where they came from, and how IJ—and others—use them for maximum […]

Big technology companies like Google, Twitter, and Facebook have come under scrutiny for the ways they are—and are not—controlling speech on their platforms. In today’s […]

What should have been a routine dental appointment at his local VA took a frightening turn for 70-year-old Jose Oliva when security guards tackled him […]