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

Recent Episodes

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 […]

Listen Now

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 […]

Listen Now