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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Edna L. v. Dept. of Health & Social Services (Office of Children's Services)

Docket: S-17485

Opinion Date: December 24, 2020

Judge: Peter J. Maassen

Areas of Law: Family Law

A mother and father appealed the termination of their parental rights after proceedings at the Families with Infants and Toddlers Court (FIT Court). They argued their rights were violated when the FIT Court’s “rigid, non-fact driven,” 12-month timeline governed the progression of the Child in Need of Aid (CINA) cases of their two children. After review of the FIT Court record, the Alaska Supreme Court concluded it was error to adhere to a preset timeline rather than making an individualized assessment of whether the parents had a reasonable time to remedy based on the facts of their children’s cases, as required by statute. Furthermore, the Court concluded the parents did not knowingly and voluntarily waive that statutory requirement.