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Demand The Impossible: One Lawyer’s Pursuit of Equal Justice

@demandtimpossible.bsky.social
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Chronicling the legendary career of Kentuckian Stephen Bright, lifelong advocate for the poor who led the Southern Center for Human Rights for nearly 40 years. Author: @robertltsai.bsky.social. Published by W.W. Norton 2024. amzn.to/45LFzNg

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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Norman Fletcher, born and raised in Georgia, who became Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court. A truly open-minded jurist who was willing to learn about how politics disfigured the criminal justice system, particularly for the poor and despised. I was honored to interview him for my last book.
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Best and worst presidents, most important women in American history, key works of art, and more! #America250 #NewRepublic
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Honored to join this distinguished group of scholars asked to help @thenewrepublic.bsky.social commemorate #USA250. Have a look!
bit.ly
Our Never-Ending American Argument
How to sum up something as vast and varied as the American experiment? We surveyed leading scholars and thinkers.
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Coming up soon. Join us! bit.ly/4acdToI
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
Did you know that before John Brown attacked Harper’s Ferry he wrote a Declaration of Independence? Or that he led a convention that approved a provisional constitution? Please join us for a conversation about John Brown’s legacy on June 29, 7 pm EST zoom: bit.ly/49XMRRJ #America250
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
It turns out that insulation from practical reality is not always conducive to political justice
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
I’m all for more people reading the Constitution
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
On this day in 1800 John Brown was born
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
Reupping my essay on the Founders’ essential mistake, “Not popular enough”: bit.ly/34Xznn9
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
“Riveting.”—Carol Steiker, Harvard Law School “Deeply moving and sobering.”—Heather Ann Thompson, author of FEAR AND FURY bit.ly/41YTDlQ
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
“Maybe God himself is lost and needs help.”—Tom Waits Now in print: “Reasoning From Injustice,” 30 Michigan Journal of Race & Law 261 (2026). What else has Judith Shklar, Job, Harriett Beecher Stowe, and Frederick Douglass? Legal Theory Blog says,“Highly Recommended.” Read: bit.ly/4aGgvKY
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
Carry discount for audiobook version of my book @demandtimpossible.bsky.social: Demand the Impossible: One Lawyer's Pursuit of Equal Justice for All @wwnorton.com
audiobooks.com
60% OFF Demand the Impossible: One Lawyer's Pursuit of Equal Justice for All
In Demand the Impossible, Robert L. Tsai traces lawyer Stephen Bright's remarkable career to explore the legal ideas that were central to his relentless pursuit of equal justice. For nearly forty years, Bright led the Southern Center for Human Rights, a nonprofit that provided legal aid to incarcerated people and worked to improve conditions within the justice system. He argued four capital cases before the US Supreme Court—and won each one, despite facing an increasingly hostile bench. With each victory, he brought to light how the law itself had become corrupted by the country's thirst for severe punishment, exposing prosecutorial misconduct, continuing racial inequality, inadequate safeguards for people with intellectual disabilities, and the shameful quality of legal representation for the poor. Organized around these four major Supreme Court cases, each narrated in vivid and dramatic detail, Tsai's essential account explores the racism built into the criminal justice system and the incredible advancements one lawyer and his committed allies made for equal rights. An electrifying work of legal history, Demand the Impossible reveals how change can be won in even the most challenging times and how seemingly small victories can go on to have outsized effects.
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Demand The Impossible: One Lawyer’s Pursuit of Equal Justice @demandtimpossible.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
Equality, mercy, and rehabilitation.
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
Excellent news—this is the kind of pro-democracy reform a true opposition party should be championing. I wrote about Virginia’s role in distorting democracy through felon disfranchisement in PRACTICAL EQUALITY:
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
“Even as polls suggest support for the death penalty has plummeted in recent decades, Trump has pursued federal executions with unprecedented frequency.” @demandtimpossible.bsky.social
independent.co.uk
Trump’s DOJ brings back 17th-century execution method to ‘strength the death penalty’
Justice Department is ‘standing with victims’ by reviving old-school killing methods to execute federal death row inmates, acting AG Todd Blanche says
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
I’ve given a number of lectures but this one at the National Archives remains one of my favorites. #ConstitutionDay
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
The fiction of equal justice
music.youtube.com
What Our Justice System REALLY Looks Like
YouTube video by Future Hindsight
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
“Tsai delves into the world of each case, recounting how Bright uncovered grievous miscarriages of justice against Black, disabled, and indigent defendants.”
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
“America is a nation built on war.” bit.ly/4cpNTs0
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
Why I wrote this book
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
First time I’ve had a book shouted out at a commencement. @demandtimpossible.bsky.social @uconnlaw.bsky.social @bulaw.bsky.social @wwnorton.com
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
In print: “Becoming Steve Bright,” 113 Kentucky L.J. 213 (2025). This essay once represented the first chapter of @demandtimpossible.bsky.social. It focuses on Bright’s years at UK, his role in the protests following the Kent State massacre, and the litigation challenging emergency measures.
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
📕🗣️
vimeo.com
Demand the Impossible: A Conversation Between Author Robert Tsai and ACLU President Deborah Archer
This is "Demand the Impossible: A Conversation Between Author Robert Tsai and ACLU President Deborah Archer" by Fordham Law School on Vimeo, the home for…
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 16/01/2026
On one occasion, 21 lawyers in a row declined to take a case pro bono. Morris was the one who convinced Stephen Bright to take his first death penalty cases—including that of Donnie Thomas. Bright had left the Public Defender Service for DC and was teaching in the DC Law Students in Court program.
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 16/01/2026
Few people have heard of Patsy Morris. When the Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to resume in 1976, she kept track of Georgia citizens condemned to death row who desperately needed a lawyer. She called lawyers around the country begging them to take a case. #DemandTheImpossible
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 16/01/2026
That trio of lawyers and Patsy Morris stuck with Thomas, who was mentally ill, until the end. They reworked the case from the ground up. I tell the story of the twists and turns in Thomas’s legal battle in @demandtimpossible.bsky.social.
amzn.to
Demand the Impossible: One Lawyer's Pursuit of Equal Justice for All
Demand the Impossible: One Lawyer's Pursuit of Equal Justice for All
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 19/01/2026
“I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men.” — Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 06/01/2026
🙏 “This is the type of book that should be on school curriculums and adult read lists” @demandtimpossible.bsky.social
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
Spoke to members of the ABA Death Penalty Representation Project. #DemandTheImpossible
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 13/12/2025
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
Some news
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 12/10/2025
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 28/09/2025
“The race to incarcerate made a new generation of advocates crucial to the survival of liberal institutions and values in the age of mass incarceration—including the ideal of adversary justice, racial equality, and the legitimacy of a democratic state, whose overriding goals are security & justice”
liberalcurrents.com
An Exercise in Political Imagination: the Day Stephen Bright and Bryan Stevenson Debated William F. Buckley
Bright and Stevenson defended the abolition of capital punishment at a moment when political support for that movement reached its nadir.
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
Listen to a sample from Demand The Impossible, about McWilliams v. Dunn, which raises the issue of what an intellectually disabled man facing the death penalty is due. @demandtimpossible.bsky.social
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 11/08/2025
“The United States is unlikely to be the most crime-ridden country in the world, but for the last fifty years, its policies have been driven by a perception that social disorder lurks around every corner.”
amzn.to
Demand the Impossible: One Lawyer's Pursuit of Equal Justice for All
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 03/08/2025
I change my mind about AI
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
“Tsai writes about constitutional law with a focus on the conditions and structures in society that produce inequality…. the path of legal reform through the courts is narrow and daunting.”
lareviewofbooks.org
Legal Agitator of Our Time | Los Angeles Review of Books
Rodger Citron reviews Robert L. Tsai’s “Demand the Impossible: One Lawyer’s Pursuit of Equal Justice for All.”
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
“The contents of the document were explosive. Below the heading, ‘Result,’ someone had scrawled figures for how many African Americans and women should be placed on master jury lists if one wanted to underrepresent their numbers on juries.” amzn.to/45LFzNg
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
Back at it to discuss birthright citizenship and nationwide injunctions
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 28/06/2025
“Unfortunately, this ruling raises more questions than it answers.”
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 28/06/2025
Pleased to join Kristen Welker and former U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg on #MeetThePress to discuss the Supreme Court’s ruling ending universal injunctions in the birthright citizenship cases.
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 28/06/2025
My brief thoughts on the Supreme Court ruling on nationwide injunctions (and birthright citizenship). More to come. www.bu.edu/articles/202...
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
“Tsai argues that a public defender movement ought to be revived; racial justice acts need public support; and a lot of work can be done to end the death penalty.” @futurehindsight.bsky.social
futurehindsight.com
Pursuing Equal Justice: Robert Tsai — Future Hindsight
Robert L. Tsai is the author of Demand the Impossible: One Lawyer’s Pursuit of Equal Justice for All and Professor of Law and Harry Elwood Warren Memorial Scholar at Boston University School of Law. W...
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
Stephen Bright in his office at the Southern Center for Human Rights, taken sometime in the 1980’s. He kept photos of his clients to remind him of what they were like before they encountered the criminal justice system. @demandtimpossible.bsky.social
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
On @meetthepress.com I spoke about the strong tradition in this country that “boots on the ground are a threat to liberty”
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 11/06/2025
Can you still call Trump “a populist autocrat” on television these days?
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 19/06/2025
Always love visiting my favorite bookstore
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 21/06/2025
“A truly compelling account of how Stephen Bright, one of the nation’s greatest lawyers, devoted his life to demanding justice from the criminal justice system throughout the South…. His career, as told by Tsai, demonstrates how much good a lawyer committed to public justice can do.”
law.georgetown.edu
Georgetown Law Faculty’s Best Reads of 2024
Throughout the academic year, Georgetown Law faculty inspire students and colleagues with their insights, scholarship and expertise. But what inspires them?
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
Many thanks to @davidcole-gtown.bsky.social for nominating @demandtimpossible.bsky.social as one of 2024’s top reads. @georgetownlaw.bsky.social bit.ly/4jENbHk
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Robert L. Tsai @robertltsai.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
Cole writes: “A truly compelling account of how Stephen Bright, one of the nation's greatest lawyers, devoted his life to demanding justice from the criminal justice system throughout the South.”
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