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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State v. Savage

Docket: 2019AP000090-CR

Opinion Date: December 23, 2020

Judge: Annette Kingsland Ziegler

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

The Supreme Court reversed the decision of the court of appeals reversing the circuit court's judgment and order denying Defendant's postconviction motion to withdraw his guilty plea, holding that counsel was not ineffective and Defendant was not entitled to withdraw his plea post-sentencing. Defendant pleaded guilty to violation of sex offender registry and was sentenced. Almost one year later, Defendant filed a motion to withdraw his guilty plea, asserting that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance and that, as a result, his plea was not knowing, intelligent, or voluntary. After a hearing, the circuit court denied Defendant's postconviction motion. The court of appeals reversed. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that Defendant's trial counsel did not provide ineffective assistance in failing to inform Defendant about State v. Dinkins, 810 N.W.2d 787 (Wis. 2012), because Dinkins did not provide Defendant with a defense.