Latest 2 Cases: Calvary Chapel of Bangor v. Mills (Civil Rights), United States v. Guzman-Merced (Criminal Law)

The Twenty-Sixth Amendment and the Real Rigging of Georgia’s Election

VIKRAM DAVID AMAR

Illinois law dean Vikram David Amar explains why Georgia’s law allowing persons 75 years and older to get absentee ballots for all elections in an election cycle with a single request, while requiring younger voters to request absentee ballots separately for each election, is a clear violation of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment. Dean Amar acknowledges that timing may prevent this age discrimination from being redressed in 2020, but he calls upon legislatures and courts to understand the meaning of this amendment and prevent such invidious disparate treatment of voters in future years.

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COVID Comes to Federal Death Row—It Is Time to Stop the Madness

AUSTIN SARAT

Austin Sarat—Associate Provost and Associate Dean of the Faculty and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence & Political Science at Amherst College—explains the enhanced risk of COVID-19 infection in the federal death row in Terre Haute, not only among inmates but among those necessary to carry out executions. Professor Sarat calls upon the Trump administration and other officials to focus on saving, rather than taking, lives inside and outside prison.

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Calvary Chapel of Bangor v. Mills

Docket: 20-1507

Opinion Date: December 22, 2020

Judge: Selya

Areas of Law: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law, Health Law

The First Circuit dismissed this appeal without prejudice for lack of appellate jurisdiction, holding that the appeal was premature. In the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Governor of Maine responded to the threat of contagion by issuing executive orders limiting all non-essential activities and gatherings. Plaintiff Calvary Chapel of Bangor brought this action arguing that those orders violated the First Amendment's Free Speech, Free Exercise, Assembly, and Establishment protections. The district court refused Plaintiff's request for a temporary restraining order. Plaintiff appealed. The First Circuit dismissed the appeal, holding that this case did not display the criteria this Court has previously identified as characterizing a de facto denial of injunctive relief and that the remaining requirements for appealability were not satisfied.

United States v. Guzman-Merced

Docket: 18-2146

Opinion Date: December 22, 2020

Judge: William Joseph Kayatta, Jr.

Areas of Law: Criminal Law

The First Circuit vacated Defendant's plea of guilty to one count of violating 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1), which makes it a crime for a convicted felon to possess a firearm, holding that there was a reasonable probability that Defendant would not have pled guilty had he been advised that the government need prove that he knew when he possessed the gun that he was a felon. Defendant pleaded guilty in 2018 to one count of violating section 922(g)(1). In 2019, the United States Supreme Court held in Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191, 2200 (2019), that a conviction for that crime requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt that when the defendant possessed the gun he knew he had previously been convicted of an offense punishable by more than one year in prison. The First Circuit vacated Defendant's conviction, holding (1) the district court's failure to advise Defendant of Rehaif's knowledge requirement was clear error; and (2) there was a reasonable probability that Defendant would not have pled guilty had he been informed in accordance with Rehaif.