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Law360's The Term: Suing Candy Makers For Child Slavery

Law360 (December 3, 2020, 10:12 PM EST) -- This week, the U.S. Supreme Court weighed whether Nestlé and Cargill can be held liable for supporting child slavery on African cocoa farms, and heard another census case with big implications for congressional power. Law360's The Term catches you up.

Each week on The Term, Supreme Court reporter Jimmy Hoover and co-host Natalie Rodriguez break down all the high court action.

Up first on this week's episode, the Supreme Court on Thursday revived a California church's lawsuit challenging COVID-19 restrictions. Jimmy discusses how Justice Amy Coney Barrett has made the court more open to First Amendment claims of religious discrimination.

Diving into oral arguments, the team breaks down Monday's arguments in a high-profile battle over the 2020 census that could have major consequences for political representation in Congress and federal funding over the next decade. The case deals with whether the Trump administration can exclude unauthorized immigrants from official census counts, leading to what some fear will be an illegal undercount of states with high immigrant populations.

Natalie opens the main segment this week about Tuesday's hearing in a case over whether Nestlé and Cargill can be held liable for child slavery. She explains how the justices reacted to one of the companies' central arguments: that the Alien Tort Statute applies only to people, not corporations.

Jimmy then turns to Wednesday's hearing in Edwards v. Vannoy, over whether the justices should grant new trials to potentially thousands of prisoners who were convicted by non-unanimous juries. The court last term held that such convictions are unconstitutional, but stopped short of applying that holding retroactively, which teed up Wednesday's case.

To end this week's episode, Natalie gives some of the highlights of Justice Sonia Sotomayor's appearance on the Facebook digital series Red Table Talk this week with famed Cuban American singer Gloria Estefan and her family.

More information about the show can be found here. You can also subscribe on Apple PodcastsStitcherSpotifyGoogle Play and iHeartRadio. And if you like the show, please leave a written review! It helps others find us more easily.


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