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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Rivera v. Kirby Offshore Marine, LLC

Docket: 19-40799

Opinion Date: December 22, 2020

Judge: Carl E. Stewart

Areas of Law: Admiralty & Maritime Law, Personal Injury

Plaintiff was hired by Kirby to pilot a seagoing vessel. While plaintiff was aboard the vessel, he injured his foot when he tripped over a stair inside a hatch door. Plaintiff filed suit against Kirby for lost wages and the district court ultimately determined that Kirby was liable to plaintiff on his claim of Sieracki seaworthiness and that Kirby was alternatively liable under the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (LHWCA). The district court awarded plaintiff $11,695,136.00 in damages. The Fifth Circuit concluded that plaintiff is not an employee of Riben Marine and thus is not eligible to sue under section 905(b) of the LHWCA; the district court did not clearly err in concluding that the vessel was unseaworthy; plaintiff was not contributorily negligent for wearing sunglasses on the vessel and the district court did not make insufficient factual findings on the contributory negligence question; assuming arguendo that the district court erroneously admitted evidence of a subsequent remedial measure, Kirby has not demonstrated that the error affected its substantial rights; and the district court did not err in assessing plaintiff's lost future earnings.

Baisley v. International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers

Docket: 20-50319

Opinion Date: December 22, 2020

Judge: Edith Brown Clement

Areas of Law: Constitutional Law, Labor & Employment Law

Plaintiff filed suit to invalidate IAM's opt-out procedures as violative of his First Amendment rights, the Railway Labor Act (RLA), and IAM's Duty of Fair Representation. The district court dismissed the action under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). The Fifth Circuit affirmed, finding no constitutional infirmity in the IAM's opt-out procedures under the settled decisions of the Supreme Court and the Fifth Circuit. In this case, the court distinguished the three cases plaintiff presented regarding public-sector unions, Knox v. SEIU, Local 1000, 567 U.S. 298 (2012), Harris v. Quinn, 573 U.S. 616 (2014), and Janus v. AFSCME, Council 31, 138 S. Ct. 2448 (2018), and explained that it is undisputed that applying them to this private-sector dispute would require the court to extend into a new realm. Furthermore, by extension, plaintiff's constitutional avoidance, statutory, and Duty of Fair Representation claims also fail.

United States v. Garcia

Docket: 19-10465

Opinion Date: December 22, 2020

Judge: Cory T. Wilson

Areas of Law: Criminal Law

Defendant argued that the district court did not properly pronounce supervision conditions requiring him to participate in drug treatment and to pay at least $25 per month towards its costs. Defendant also argued that the payment condition is inconsistent with the district court's previous findings regarding his indigence and inability to pay a fine. The Fifth Circuit affirmed, holding that defendant failed to assert a lack of notice and failed to support his contention that the ambiguity in the record indicates that the district court failed to pronounce the conditions at issue. Furthermore, the court was not persuaded that the district court's findings related to defendant's current indigence are inconsistent with a future payment condition. Rather, defendant may be able to pay $25 per month once he leaves prison and finds employment. Regardless, even if it turns out that defendant cannot afford to pay $25 per month upon release, the court explained that the district court could not automatically revoke his supervised release. Accordingly, the district court did not abuse its discretion by requiring defendant to pay for his own drug treatment during his term of supervised release.