Tag: constitutional rights
A Progressive City Debates Crime
Plus: One moment that could have weakened Donald Trump’s influence
Welcome to Up for Debate. Each week, Conor Friedersdorf rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Question of the Week
Donald Trump is guilty of deplorable actions, under indictment for multiple crimes, and yet remains the most popular
America needs more lawyers. This isn’t a joke.
For decades, a myth about civil-rights lawyers has been spread by court decisions, legislative testimony, and popular culture. Courthouses, the story goes, are filled to the brim with plaintiffs’ attorneys desperate to make a dollar off someone else’s misery; ambulance chasers all too happy to file frivolous civil-rights cases and squeeze a few bucks out of a cash-strapped city that would otherwise spend the money on its community center or library.
In fact, the opposite is true. The
How the Supreme Court Protects Police Officers
On the afternoon of February 8, 2018, more than two dozen law-enforcement officers crowded into a conference room in the Henry County Sheriff’s Office, on the outskirts of Atlanta. They were preparing to execute a no-knock warrant at 305 English Road, the home of a suspected drug dealer who had been under investigation for almost two years. The special agent leading the briefing told the team that 305 English Road was a small house with off-white siding and several
What Comes After Roe? – The Atlantic
The Atlantic’s executive editor, Adrienne LaFrance, discusses a post-Roe America with two contributing writers. The legal historian Mary Ziegler and the constitutional-law scholar David French answer questions about what happens now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned. How will abortion bans be enforced? What will come of the legal and legislative battle moving to the states? And what other rights could the Supreme Court revoke?
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The Lawsuit Challenging the Humanity of Lethal Injection
Whether killing a person via intravenous poisoning qualifies as cruel and unusual remains, for the moment, an open question. Beginning in late February, the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma heard testimony at the trial of Glossip v. Chandler, an eight-year-old lawsuit filed on behalf of a group of death-row inmates that seeks to prove that Oklahoma’s current lethal-injection recipe—500 milligrams of midazolam, followed by 100 milligrams of vecuronium bromide, followed by 240 mEq potassium
The Supreme Court Is Gutting Voting Rights by Shadow Docket
The right-wing majority on the Supreme Court continues its run of nullifying constitutional rights by shadow docket, while insisting that it is doing no such thing.
On Monday, the Court blocked a ruling—written by a panel of three federal judges, two of whom were appointed by President Donald Trump—that found that Alabama had violated the Voting Rights Act when it drew a congressional map with one majority-Black district out of seven rather than two, in a state where Black people
Defending Democracy Is No Longer Popular Within the GOP
The next few weeks will likely answer the most crucial question that emerged from last year’s insurrection by supporters of Donald Trump: Can one political party defend American democracy on its own?
In the days after the January 6 attack, it appeared possible that many Republicans would join Democrats in a cross-party coalition to defend democracy against the autocratic threat. But instead, Trump has consolidated his control over the GOP, led a movement to purge Republican elected officials who