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Yesterday Attorney General Eric Holder issued a memo, assuring the Supreme Court that President Obama respects the authority of the court to overturn federal laws they find unconstitutional. This memo came after Republican challengers to the Affordable Care Act accused the President of pressuring the Court during deliberations. We discuss the controversy with Jeffrey Rosen, Professor of Law at George Washington University, and Todd Zwillich, Takeaway Washington correspondent.

All this week, The Takeaway is talking about incarceration in America. We’ll talk with experts, advocates and former prisoners about the issues they’re facing, behind bars and outside the prison walls. Today we're focusing on juvenile justice.

Whether or not you buy into the idea of American exceptionalism, the U.S. constitution is an exceptional document: the way in which it was crafted, how it secured the rights of citizens, and how 94 percent of nations have modeled their own charters after it. But if you ask Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the constitution is exactly that: historically exceptional, but now a tad out of date. In a recent interview in Egypt, she stated: "I would not look to the U.S. Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012."

In line with her comments, a new study has found that fewer and fewer nations are modeling their constitutions after ours.

Stephen Breyer, Supreme Court Justice and author of Making Our Democracy Work: A Judge's View, offers his view of interpreting the Constitution. 

Massachusetts congressman Jim McGovern, believing that there is too much corporate influence in politics, has proposed a drastic and most likely futile bill to attempt to amend the Consitution to exclude corporations as "people". Bob talks to Congressman McGovern about why he chose to take this step.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Tuesday in a case that could have broad implications for how modern surveillance technology is used to track criminals. The question at stake in The United States v. Antoine Jones is whether Fourth Amendment protections from "unreasonable searches and seizures" extends to GPS tracking and where the boundaries between public and private space lies in an era when many people are increasingly trackable through smart phones and other digital devices.

Jay Wexler, law professor at Boston University and author of the new book, The Odd Clauses: Understanding the Constitution through Ten of Its Most Curious Provisions, discusses the lesser- known parts of the Constitution and how they affect our lives too.

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Adam Winkler examines America's four-centuries-long political battle over gun control and the right to bear arms. Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America is centered on the landmark 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller, which invalidated a law banning handguns in the nation's capital, and looks at the Founding Fathers, the Second Amendment, gun rights advocates and gun control lobbyists, and the debate over guns.

Stephen Breyer, Supreme Court Justice and author of Making Our Democracy Work: A Judge's View, offers his view of interpreting the Constitution.

→ Add Your Comments, Listen, and Read a Recap at It's A Free Country

Democrats and Republicans will this morning release their separate plans to raise the debt ceiling before the August 2 deadline. But only one plan can pass and Congress is running out of time. The lack of time has thrown a spotlight on the 14th amendment, which some say would allow President Obama to increase the debt ceiling on his own. 

How might the Constitution affect the debt ceiling debate? Jay Wexler, law professor at Boston University, blogger and author of the forthcoming book The Odd Clauses: Understanding the Constitution through Ten of Its Most Curious Provisions, discusses the meaning of Section 4 of the 14th Amendment and its potential role in the debt ceiling debate.

For months, the words "debt ceiling" have been hanging over Americans' heads, along with apocalyptic predictions of what might happen if President Obama and Congress don’t raise the ceiling or rearrange the budget before August.

But back in April, Garrett Epps proposed something completely novel, that’s just now starting to get a lot of attention: what if the president simply asserted that under the Fourteenth Amendment the debt ceiling is unconstitutional?

Ilya Shapiro, senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute and the editor-in-chief of Cato Supreme Court Review, and Nathaniel Persily, Charles Keller Beekman Professor of Law and Political Science at Columbia Law School, review listeners' favorite passages from the constitution.

President Obama invoked states' rights in his response to whether same sex marriage should be federally protected. Constitutional scholar and professor at the University of Texas School of Law, Sanford Levinson, will discuss the history of federal vs. states' rights. 

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Eric Lane, senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice and distinguished law professor at Hofstra University School of Law, tested New Yorkers' knowledge of government and politics and found it wanting. Can Brian Lehrer show listeners do better?

→ Take a Civics Quiz, Read More, and Listen at It's A Free Country!

Roy Moore, aka the "Ten Commandments Judge" who declared his Presidential exploratory committee for a 2012 run, is mostly infamous for a heartfelt political stunt.

He's the former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who secretly installed a five-ton granite rock carved with the Ten Commandments into the state courthouse one night. He refused to get rid of it even when ordered to by a federal judge, which ultimately got him fired. Moore then traveled the country with his rock, billing himself as a hero to the Christian right. He truly, fervently believes in the power of the Rock. He also calls himself a "Constitutionalist." (In case you were wondering, the exact phrase "Separation of Church and State" is not in the Constitution).

Operation Odyssey Dawn began Saturday with coalition missiles targeting Moammar Gadhafi's tanks and air defenses. Is the United States leading this effort? Meanwhile, relief and rescue efforts continue in Japan and time is of the essence as over 12,000 people are still missing and 8,000 have been confirmed dead so far. 

The Egyptian military has set up an eight-person panel of legal experts to revise the country's constitution. The panel includes a Coptic Christian jurist and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood – and so far, opposition leaders have praised it as a respected and credible group of individuals. Outside experts have argued about the need to either completely rewrite or extensively revise the country's legal framework. But most agree that the ten day deadline the Egyptian military has set for completion isn't enough time — and that the process may undermine the underlying goal for more democracy in the country.