The Future of Faithless Electors and the National Popular Vote Compact: Part Two in a Two-Part Series

VIKRAM DAVID AMAR

In this second of a two-part series of columns about the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in the “faithless elector cases, Illinois Law dean and professor Vikram David Amar describes some good news that we may glean from those cases. Specifically, Amar points out that states have many ways of reducing elector faithlessness, and he lists three ways in which the Court’s decision paves the way for advances in the National Popular Vote (NPV) Interstate Compact movement.

Read More

Impoverishing Women: Supreme Court Upholds Trump Administration’s Religious and Moral Exemptions to Contraceptive Mandate

JOANNA L. GROSSMAN

SMU Dedman School of Law professor Joanna L. Grossman comments on the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision upholding the Trump administration’s religious and moral exemptions to the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Grossman provides a brief history of the conflict over the growing politicization of contraception in the United States and argues that the exemptions at issue in this case should never have been promulgated in the first place because they have no support in science or public policy.

Read More

State v. Edwards

Docket: 120600

Opinion Date: July 17, 2020

Judge: Carol A. Beier

Areas of Law: Criminal Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the district court judge denying Defendant's motion for a new trial on the basis of DNA testing results, holding that the district judge did not abuse her discretion by concluding that there was no "reasonable probability" the DNA results would have changed the original trial's outcome. Defendant was convicted of first-degree murder, conspiracy to possess with intent to sell hallucinogenic drugs, and aggravated robbery. Approximately a dozen years later, Defendant filed a request for DNA testing on some items found at the crime scene. The district judge granted the request. Defendant filed a motion to set aside his conviction or grant him a new trial in light of the DNA test results. The district judge denied the motion, concluding that the new DNA evidence was "not reasonably probable to lead to a jury reaching a different result." The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the district judge did not abuse her discretion in denying relief.