Show Cause - A Memphis Law Podcast

Today's space industry is a more than $500 billion dollar enterprise, with commercial spaceflight, governmental contracts, telecommunications, mining, solar power, and overall space tourism all making up the many facets of the field.

But as governments the world over, as well as billionaires like Elon Musk and Richard Branson are racing to carve up outer space and establish a presence there, what rights and obligations come along with that?

How do we protect this new frontier of pristine and uncharted territories? Who has a right to what and how will we even draw the lines that dictate such things?

Today we are joined by Memphis Law Professor Jennifer Brobst, who has written extensively on the issues involved here, and recently published a book chapter entitled, “The legal strategies to preserve the natural and cultural heritage of space,” in the book “Space Tourism.”

On today’s episode of Show Cause, we’re focusing on one of Memphis’ extremely important non-profit legal services provider in the Community Legal Center, or as most everyone in the legal community here refers to it, the CLC.

2024 is the CLC’s 30th anniversary and as such, it seemed a great time to have some of their folks come on to talk about the important work that they are doing in the Mid-South, as well as what they have lined up for the year.

This episode features two guests from the CLC, Executive Director Diana Comes and Immigrant Justice Program Director Colton Bane.

Both Colton and Diana lend some amazing insight into the work that the CLC is doing here in Memphis and why the organization is so important, not only just in Memphis but regionally and even across the state. Colton gives some really great insight into the massive amount of immigration related work that the CLC handles and how that area has greatly expanded over the years and its impact on the community.

This episode focuses on our upcoming Law Review Symposium entitled "The Path of Least Resistance: How Marginalized Communities are Targeted by Harmful Infrastructures and Land Uses." For anyone interested in issues such as water access, housing, wastewater, and other infrastructure that impacts the well-being of communities, as well as the disparities in how low-income communities fare in these situations, this episode will contain a plethora of interesting items for you!

We're joined by Symposium editor Ashlie Gozikowski, who will go into more detail about the symposium itself and why she chose the topic, as well as attorney Sarah Stuart, of Burch, Porter, and Johnson, who is a featured Symposium speaker on a panel focused on the Byhalia Pipeline, where she'll discuss the community involvement, eminent domain issues, and other items related to the successful halting of construction of the Byhalia Pipeline through a low-income South Memphis neighborhood.

Earlier this year, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that individuals with orders of protection against them must be allowed to keep their guns. This overturned a federal statute that prohibits firearm possession by individuals who a court determined pose a credible threat to the safety of an intimate partner or child.

This episode of Show Cause focuses on United States v. Rahimi, the first major Second Amendment case that the Court has taken up since its notorious decision last summer in the case of New York State Rifle and Pistol Association vs. Bruen, which stated that restrictions on the right to bear arms are presumptively unconstitutional unless they are, in a judge’s opinion, consistent with the nation’s “historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

From the moment the Court agreed to hear the Rahimi case, advocates hoped it would provide an opportunity for the court to limit the sweep of last year’s blockbuster decision expanding gun rights.

We discuss the ramifications of the case with Sara Beth Myers, a Nashville-based attorney who has been a prosecutor at the federal, state, and county levels, who also has a long history of specializing in domestic violence cases at every level.

In this episode, we take a look at a number of international news items that have received alot of attention lately. We're joined by our own resident international law expert, Professor Ronnie Gipson, as he becomes the podcast's most frequent guest on his 3rd visit on the show.

He goes over issues and news items regarding the recent helicopter crash in Russia involving Wagner military group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and how that affects Vladimir Putin's efforts in Russia and the war against Ukraine. We also take an in-depth look at the recent coup d'état in the African country of Niger and how the international community has dealt with the matter compared to that of other recent coups, specifically the 2021 coup in Myanmar. Finally, we examine the international environmental matters related to Japan's recent release of treated wastewater from the Fukishima nuclear plant and how neighboring nations are reacting to the matter. In all of our discussions, China came through as an interested or involved party, showing just how intricate and overlapping these matters can be.

Marijuana and cannabis-based products are everywhere these days.

Even in states like Tennessee, where marijuana and THC-derived products are still recreationally and medically illegal, weed is still making waves, both legislatively and from a consumer perspective.

Here in Tennessee, the most recent to-do about marijuana centers around Delta-8, which is sort of the gentler, and more importantly, legal, cousin of your traditional marijuana.

More and more states across the country are legalizing the once scary drug, gaining huge sums of money in the form of taxes and fees at the same time. At the same time, more than 14 states have either banned weed-adjacent things like Delta-8, so it is understandably a very confusing time for anyone looking at the larger state of affairs in the cannabis industry.

In an effort to understand the market and legal landscape a bit better, I’ve invited Stephen Galoob, a professor at the University of Tulsa College of Law on to the show today to go into a bit more depth about how states are regulating the marijuana market and how the landscape is changing across the country, at both the state and federal levels. From the effects of criminal record expungement in states like Minnesota to the jobs created by the marijuana industry, we touch on a lot of interesting points across the weed spectrum.

This episode takes a look at Tennessee's Adult Entertainment Act and the recent ruling from a Federal District Court judge in Memphis which found it unconstitutional. Memphis Law professor Regina Hillman joins the show to discuss a wide array of LGBTQ related topics, from the ripple effects from legislation like the Adult Entertainment Act and how it plays out across our culture, as well as the history of the LGBTQ community’s fight against various laws throughout the country over the past few decades. We also delve into the larger legal and cultural issues at the heart of many of these cases and ways education has had an impact on America’s viewpoints surrounding them.

Today’s guest has an incredibly timely book addressing the differences, and some surprising similarities, between these two pillars of the Court, and the still unfolding impact of the transition from Justice Marshall to his replacement on the bench in Justice Thomas.

Our very own Professor Daniel Kiel has authored the forthcoming book, “The Transition: Interpreting Justice from Thurgood Marshall to Clarence Thomas.”

These two Justices may have been a generation apart in life, but they both spent the majority of their lives confronting the questions of race, the Constitution, and American Citizenship.

Professor Kiel makes the case that this particular transition was one of the most momentous shifts in power in the judicial branch of our lifetime. Not only did it shift the ideological balance on the Court; it was inextricably entangled with the persistent American dilemma of race. He explores the lives and writings of the first two African American Justices on the Court, touching on lasting consequences for understandings of American citizenship as well as the central currents of Black political thought over the past century.

The consequences of this transition are still unfolding today, both on the Court and in society. Take a listen to today’s episode to hear Professor Kiel tell us more about how their unique perspective as Black justices – the lives they have lived as African Americans and the rooting of their judicial philosophies in the relationship of government to African Americans – that makes this succession echo across generations.

In this episode of Show Cause, we are joined by two of our very own Memphis Law professors (Associate Dean Jodi Wilson and Professor Jennifer Brobst) to talk about the fears, implications, applications, ideas and future of AI programs like ChatGPT and the broader concept of technology’s impact in the classroom.

ChatGPT is a new chatbot program developed by OpenAI and which is capable of writing convincing essays, solving science and math problems, and producing functional computer code. It’s already caused quite the stir in the world of higher education, with students using it to write their assignments, passing off AI-generated essays as their own and professors and administrators scrambling to keep up. There has been an initial wave of widespread concern among academics about the impact this has in the classroom and what it means for the future of teaching, learning, ethics in the classroom, and much more.

But, as with all new technologies, there is more here than just the initial fear.

Within weeks of ChatGPTs unveiling, new anti-plaguarism programs were developed and adopted across the country. Many teachers went from feeling hopeless to utilizing the new AI programs as tools for idea generation or conversation starters. In short, a middle ground seems to be forming. But the technology is still new and it’s repercussions are still being felt out, especially in the worlds of legal education and the larger legal industry, where change has been traditionally slower to take hold.

Take a listen as we learn more about a variety of different elements that pertain to the crossover between new tech and our students education in today's world. 

How do abortion access, FAA enforcement of airline refunds, airplane crashes, pilot arrest and detainment, and the history of the airline industry and international airline standards all tie together? Find out in episode 11 of Show Cause as we're joined by International Law and Aviation Law expert, our very own Professor Ronnie Gipson. 

As the travel season ramps up again, everyone can relate to the stress and hassle associated with flying and the airline industry, but there are a lot more things happening in the world of air travel, the aviation legal arena, and international law than you might think. 

Join us as we examine issues related to the FAA crackdown on airlines to issue passenger refunds for canceled flights, the history of the airline industry and international sets of standards brought to the forefront due to a recent airline crash in Latin America, and the unique way private pilots and a small non-profit have teamed up to help patients access abortion related healthcare services in states that have enacted bans after the reversal of Roe v. Wade.

In this episode, we take a deep dive into the history of the building we call home, with a focus on the massive undertaking that was its redesign and modernization. Our guest is Bill Nixon, the lead architect and project director for the project that saw our historical home transform into what it is today. 

He joins us ahead of an upcoming event at the law school on Friday, November 4th in our Historic Courtroom where he will give an in-depth look at the redesign of our historic home and walk the audience through what it took to pull off this massive undertaking, with stories, anecdotes, and behind-the-scenes glimpse into what it took to pull off a project of this scale.

In our podcast today, we just scratch the surface of his stories, and it hopefully gets anyone in our audience interested in historic preservation, renovation, and redesign, the impetus to come learn more at the event itself later this Fall.

So, take a listen and learn about a fascinating bit of historical architecture and what it took to transform a piece of history into what is now the (four-time) Best Law School Building and Facility Award Winner in the country.

The US Supreme Court recently announced that it would hear a case this Fall that could radically reshape how federal elections are conducted. It could give state legislatures independent power, which would not be subject to review by state courts, to set election rules that could be in direct conflict with their own state constitutions. In short, it could give state legislatures unchecked power to determine the outcome of federal elections and could essentially make gerrymandering legal.

The case, Moore v. Harper, originated in North Carolina and concerns a voting map drawn by the North Carolina legislature that was rejected as a partisan gerrymander by the North Carolina Supreme Court. Politicians there have based their argument against this ruling around the "Independent State Legislature Doctrine."

The case, and the Supreme Court’s decision, could throw nearly every facet of our country’s electoral process into chaos.

On today’s episode of Show Cause, we’re joined by Election Law expert and author of the book “Rethinking US Election Law: Unskewing the System,” Professor Steve Mulroy. He has published over 25 works on constitutional law, criminal law and procedure, and election law and is the past winner of the Democracy Innovator Award from the national FairVote organization for his work on voting rights and election law issues.

Professor Mulroy goes into detail with us about the monumental importance of this case and the implications it could have on our entire foundation of democracy.

In this episode, we take a look back at the landmark United States Supreme Court case in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage in the U.S. Our very own Professor Regina Hillman was a part of the legal team that took this case to the Supreme Court, and she joins us in this episode to take us behind the scenes a bit and explain what it was like to be a part of such a monumental moment in history. Professor Hillman was an organizing member of the Tennessee Marriage Equality Legal Team that challenged the state's constitutional and statutory bans on the recognition of valid out-of-state same sex marriages. She'll discuss the early days of the case when she represented one of the couples in Tennessee, Val Tanco and Sophy Justy, in the Tanco v. Haslam lawsuit, which eventually became a part of the larger Obergefell v. Hodges case alongside case from Michigan, Ohio, and Kentucky, alongside the Tanco case in Tennessee. Professor Hillman also weighs in on how things unfolded at the national level as history was made via the Supreme Court's decision to legalize same-sex marriage in America. 

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the President Nixon's "Week That Changed the World" trip to Communist China that effectively ended the United States’ long isolation from the People’s Republic of China. The status of Taiwan and U.S.-China relations have never been the same since.

For today’s episode of Show Cause, we spoke with Memphis Law professor Ronnie Gipson about the fallout from that trip these many years later and the current situation with Taiwan and China as it relates to the U.S. and the entire international community.

With the focus of the world dialed in on China during the recent Olympics, it seems like a very timely opportunity to examine this issue. Additionally, the current international situation surrounding Russia and the Ukraine has shifted many people’s attention to the realm of international disputes, and while the Ukraine matter may be currently overshadowing Taiwan and China, it may also be a preview to how China will handle the issue on the international stage in the coming months or even years. In a way, what happens in the Ukraine and how the international community reacts to it might determine how China decides to operate going forward. It’s an interesting situation with worldwide repercussions and one that I found extremely interesting to get to know more about, both historically and looking forward.

At the start of the pandemic, especially during the quarantine phase, we all saw the constant posts on social media about all of the free time people had for new hobbies, exercising, cleaning, and random projects. But those individuals trying to juggle being an all of a sudden 24/7 parent and young professional with a career often felt like they were drowning in an environment of constant kids and work.

Fast forward two years or so and things may be normalizing for many people, but young professionals with children are still having to live in their ongoing covid-induced purgatory of career stress, parenting and childcare.

The pandemic has drastically changed the way the legal world works, but it’s also radically altered the way young attorneys with children make their way through balancing their careers and family life. Constant childcare closures, adapting to evolving health and safety parameters, family health concerns, court closures, virtual court appearances, and the never-ending string of surprises that having a young child entail, have all combined to make it a challenging time to be a young legal professional and parent.

The pandemic offers a crossroads opportunity: Firms can take what they’ve learned from the COVID-19 work experience and adjust practices to accommodate working mothers, or they can revert to the status quo that continues to threaten retention rates and their bottom lines.

In this episode of Show Cause, our guest is Sarah Stuart, an associate at the Memphis firm of Burch, Porter and Johnson, and the mother of an 18-month-old little girl.

She’s a 2016 Memphis Law graduate, and prior to joining Burch Porter in August of 2018, she served as a law clerk to both the Honorable Bernice B. Donald and the Honorable Sheri Lipman. She and her husband Reed found out they were pregnant at the very beginning of the pandemic and with the majority of their family residing out-of-town, have since braved the world of pandemic parenting as best they could, with a bit of luck, help, and stretching the limits of patience.

Take a listen and learn more about what it’s like to be a parent and young attorney in these trying times. And what lessons can be learned from it going forward.

In episode 5 of Show Cause, we're joined by Professor Daniel Kiel to discuss the long and ongoing history of the Pervis Payne case, in which he has played several parts over the course of his career, both in the private sector and as an academic.

Pervis Payne has spent the last 34 years on Death Row in Tennessee for a double murder in Millington, TN in 1987.

Ironically, COVID-19 might be the reason he’s no longer there.

He was supposed to be executed on December 3rd, 2020, but on November 6 of that year, all executions in Tennessee were suspended due to the pandemic.

That delay allowed Payne’s attorneys to pursue several legal angles geared towards permanently removing him from death row.

When Payne's case went to the Supreme Court in 1991 on a technical criminal procedure question about sentencing, he was represented by attorneys at Burch, Porter, and Johnson. When Professor Kiel started working at Burch Porter early in his career, the firm was still affiliated with the case and assigned him to handle a request to pursue DNA testing for Payne under a newly-enacted statute that enabled convicted defendants to get DNA testing if it might impact their conviction.  He argued the case at the TN Court of Criminal Appeals in 2007, but sadly came up unsuccessful.

However, he continued to follow the case through its evolution over the years, and when Payne's execution date was set in early 2020, he was put back in touch with the current legal team. Throughout the summer and fall of 2020, he worked to generate scholarship on the unusual constitutional position into which the Payne case fell, dealing with his intellectual disability and the unconstitutionality of his status on death row as a result.  He went on to publish several pieces raising awareness of this situation as part of a larger campaign to get the previously mentioned statute passed and fill the gap between the US Supreme Court’s decision and the implementation of it in Tennessee. As the legislature considered that statute, he testified in front of the House committee considering the bill.  And as you may have seen in the news lately, the statute eventually passed, ultimately resulting in Payne’s removal from Death Row.

Enjoy the show as you learn more about the case itself and more of Professor Kiel's history with it!

This episode of Show Cause welcomes our very own Steve Mulroy, the Bredesen Professor of Law and a member of the Memphis Law faculty since the year 2000.

He’s not only the law school’s resident Star Trek aficionado (and self-proclaimed biggest “trekkie” in Shelby County) but also a nationally regarded expert in the areas of Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Civil Rights, and Election Law. 

As a law professor, he has participated in the litigation of over a dozen cutting-edge cases in areas which inform his scholarship. Amongst many other areas of expertise, Professor Mulroy has written and spoken extensively on election related issues, voting rights, first amendment cases, and a wide range of civil rights related items.

He joins us on the podcast today for a wide-ranging conversation about a variety of things he’s involved in, weighing in on topics such as COVID mask and vaccine mandates, recent cases he’s been a part of as a pro bono attorney, upcoming US Supreme Court cases on the docket and how his classes are studying them, as well as election matters, voting rights issues, and even recent legislation regarding critical race theory and the first amendment concerns those bills raise.

And of course we take some time to chat about all things pop-culture with Professor Mulroy, which as those who know him can attest, is an always enjoyable topic to go over with him.

In this episode of Show Cause, we are excited to welcome Josh Whitehead, the Administrator of the Memphis and Shelby County Office of Planning and Development. In addition to his role overseeing zoning and planning efforts throughout the city, Whitehead is also a longtime adjunct professor of Land Use Law at the University of Memphis School of Law.

Our conversation covers a lot of ground and if you are interested in the many quirky twists and turns of zoning, urban planning, as well as the history of zoning in Memphis, you're in for a treat.

We touch on the development and implementation of Memphis' Unified Development Code, the history behind Memphis' many planning ordinances in the past, and the new Memphis 3.0, the city’s comprehensive plan to guide land use, development, transportation, and other built environment considerations over the next 20 years.

All of this and much more in this episode of Show Cause.

In episode 2 of Show Cause, we are joined by Memphis Law Professor Danny Schaffzin and Steve Barlow, co-directors of the law school's Neighborhood Preservation Clinic.

They go into detail about the formation and history of this innovative blight-fighting clinic and how the unique partners its composed of make it one of the most effective blight-fighting tools the city has ever known. They also discuss the many educational opportunities this program provides students and the unique career pipeline it has developed, as many former clinic students are now finding themselves practicing in a variety of related fields and coming full-circle. 

As a national model for the fight against blight, the clinic and its partners are still evolving and finding new and innovative solutions to the issues surrounding blight and redevelopment of properties. 

Take a listen to learn more about these "preservation partners" in the ongoing battle against blight in Memphis and beyond!

In this episode we examine the topic of Name, Image, and Likeness rights (NIL) and how this item is changing the landscape of college athletics and amateurism. We are joined by two individuals that help explain the matter in more depth, both from a University of Memphis perspective and the larger legal landscape.

Lynda Black is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Memphis and serves as the Faculty Athletics Representative to the NCAA for the UofM. Professor Black is also a Division 1 Faculty Athletics Representative Board Member and has worked extensively on NIL matters.

Dr. Adam Walker is the Executive Associate Athletic Director for Administration at the University of Memphis. He chaired the UofM's NIL working group and the committee that created the University's new NIL-related program, "MaximUM," which provides resources and helps to educate student-athletes on how to manager their personal brands.

Enjoy the show. This is Show Cause.