Dave Moran

speaker

82 appearances 2 recordings 1 series first heard Mar 2025 last heard 16 Jun

Dave Moran’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.

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The Moth · Fabricated, Forged and Forgotten: The Moth Radio Hour · 16 Jun 2026 podcast

So in March 2003, a month before my scheduled argument, I flew to Washington and went to watch an argument of another criminal case.

And the argument started, and first thing that I noticed was that this is a really small room.

Those of you who have been there know this.

This is a really small courtroom.

And the lawyer is just a few feet under the nose of Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

And the argument started, and it was a death penalty case.

And the lawyer arguing for the inmate was getting into it with Justice Scalia about what the record really showed.

And it turns out Justice Scalia had this weird habit of he would ask a question, and you would think he was done, and there'd be a deep breath and a long pause, and then there'd be more question coming.

And the lawyer was very eager and he kept starting to answer the questions and then Justice Scalia would ask some more.

And this happened two or three times and suddenly Chief Justice Rehnquist leaned forward and said, you will let Justice Scalia finish asking his questions.

There will not be two people talking at the same time.

Now the lawyer at the podium didn't seem phased at all.

He just went on with his argument after a quick apology.

But if cameras were allowed in the courtroom, you would have a video of all of the blood draining out of me.

So I came back home, and I told people in Michigan about this terrifying experience.

And everybody had a Chief Justice Rehnquist story of how he loved to chew out attorneys.

If an attorney sometimes got the name wrong, the justices don't have name plates on the bench.

And so some attorneys mistake the name.

And he would say, that was Justice Souter, not Justice Kennedy.

Or the worst thing you could do would be to answer a question and start the answer with, well, Judge O'Connor, it's Justice O'Connor.

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