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Austin Sarat

Austin Sarat

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"Morning Joe” has got to go

MSNBC's “Morning Joe” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brezinski violated some of the cardinal rules of journalism. Journalists, so those maxims...

yesterday 10

Salon

Austin Sarat

Two Separate Shaken Baby Cases in Texas Expose the Death Penalty as a Farce

Tweet Share Share Comment Two Texas death cases made headlines last week; both involved a parent who was convicted of killing...

previous day 10

Slate

Austin Sarat

One-party rule can be democratic or dangerous

The 2024 election has installed a regime of one-party government in Washington. Come Jan. 20, the presidency, the Senate, and the House of...

18.11.2024 10

Salon

Austin Sarat

Joe Biden Can Preemptively Halt One Brutal Trump Policy

Tweet Share Share Comment There are 40 men on federal death row who have been convicted of capital offenses by the federal...

12.11.2024 5

Slate

Austin Sarat

Texas Lawmakers Did Something Unprecedented to Save an Innocent Man’s Life

Tweet Share Share Comment Robert Roberson, who was wrongfully convicted of a capital crime, was due to die on Thursday at 6 p.m....

19.10.2024 10

Slate

Austin Sarat

Laundering lies: Glenn Youngkin shows how easily media is manipulated to sanewash Donald Trump

Appearing on CNN on Monday, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin found himself in an uncomfortable situation. Host Jake Tapper asked the governor whether...

16.10.2024 30

Salon

Austin Sarat

On crime and justice, Trump and Harris records differ widely

There are substantial differences between the two candidates, though each of their records contains some interesting twists and turns.

15.10.2024 5

The Conversation

Austin Sarat

Donald Trump’s retribution will begin with a restriction of free speech

Ever since Donald Trump arrived on the national political scene in 2015, he has displayed a perplexing and troubling attitude toward freedom of...

15.10.2024 9

Salon

Austin Sarat

Weaponizing tragedy for political capital: Donald Trump’s assassination attempts fuel MAGA

Donald Trump made a hero’s return to Butler, Pennsylvania, the site of the July 13 attempt on his life. In what has been widely lauded as an...

09.10.2024 5

Salon

Austin Sarat

Jack Smith shows his cards just in time: January 6 case looks like the winning hand against Trump

Jack Smith’s latest filing in the election interference case against Donald Trump contains explosive reminders and bombshell revelations about the...

03.10.2024 6

Salon

Austin Sarat

We’re Witnessing the Worst Execution Spree in Three Decades

Tweet Share Share Comment This week is shaping up to be a very bad one for death penalty opponents in the United States. If all...

24.09.2024 20

Slate

Austin Sarat

John Roberts’ MAGA conversion: How Donald Trump remade the Supreme Court in his image

Since he was appointed Supreme Court chief justice by George W. Bush in 2005, John Roberts has been something of an enigma. He initially tried to...

17.09.2024 20

Salon

Austin Sarat

Will Idaho Push Forward With One of the Rarest and Most Horrible Types of Executions?

Tweet Share Share Comment The state of Idaho tried to kill Thomas Creech once. It failed. It now wants a second chance. Last...

10.09.2024 6

Slate

Austin Sarat

From Afghanistan to Arlington, Kamala Harris can school Donald Trump on foreign policy

This is the second of a two-part series on tonight's first, and so far only scheduled, debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former...

10.09.2024 9

Salon

Austin Sarat

The end of the abolition era: Democrats quietly drop their opposition to the death penalty

What a difference four years make. In 2020 the Democratic Party took an aggressively anti-death penalty position . Not so this year. In...

31.08.2024 8

Salon

Austin Sarat

Is South Carolina Willing to Heed the Clearest Lesson We Have About Executions?

Tweet Share Share Comment Carrying out an execution is always a complicated business that takes a horrible toll on anyone who is...

30.08.2024 10

Slate

Austin Sarat

He Was in Prison for 48 Years for a Crime He Didn’t Commit. His Restitution Is Appalling.

Tweet Share Share Comment Glynn Simmons holds a dubious and painful distinction. He served a longer amount of time in prison...

21.08.2024 30

Slate

Austin Sarat

Refusing to indict Trump in Arizona was a grave mistake

The phrase “no one is above the law” has a long and storied history. But in the age of Trump it is coming to seem like nothing more than a...

11.08.2024 60

Salon

Austin Sarat

One GOP Attorney General Is Obsessed With Keeping Innocent People Behind Bars. He Just Won His Primary.

Tweet Share Share Comment All across this country, prisoners who have been falsely convicted dream about being exonerated. That...

09.08.2024 3

Slate

Austin Sarat

Yes, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Deserves to Die. It’s Still Good He Won’t Be Executed.

Tweet Share Share Comment On Wednesday, the United States government announced that it had reached a plea deal with Khalid...

02.08.2024 10

Slate

Austin Sarat

Biden’s bid to fix a broken Supreme Court: It’s time to get political

On Monday, President Joe Biden unveiled a package of reforms targeting the United States Supreme Court. That package included a proposal to...

31.07.2024 6

Salon

Austin Sarat

The Kamala Harris Death-Penalty Test

Tweet Share Share Comment When President Joe Biden leaves the White House, he will leave behind a mixed legacy on the issue of...

31.07.2024 10

Slate

Austin Sarat

In Kamala Harris Trump again confronts his worst nightmare

Fans of the Broadway musical Hamilton will remember a moment late in the show when, after a series of songs about Hamilton’s personal life, one of...

22.07.2024 70

Salon

Austin Sarat

Trump’s revenge plan relies on a return to the tortured past of the George W. Bush administration

Who said there are no second acts on the American public stage?. The good fortune of Donald Trump’s narrow escape from an assassin is a powerful...

17.07.2024 40

Salon

Austin Sarat

The Supreme Court’s immunity decision is the gift that keeps giving to Donald Trump

Another day, another miraculous escape from serious jeopardy for Donald Trump. Like a Secret Service agent shielding their protectee from danger,...

16.07.2024 10

Salon

Austin Sarat

The Supreme Court Has Never in Its History Had This Much Disdain for Precedent

Tweet Share Share Comment This is part of  Opinionpalooza , Slate’s coverage of the major decisions from the Supreme Court...

02.07.2024 3

Slate

Austin Sarat

John Roberts’ Supreme Court would have let Richard Nixon off the hook

Wherever Richard Nixon is today, I have no doubt he is smiling up at the Supreme Court. Just short of fifty years after he resigned from the...

02.07.2024 6

Salon

Austin Sarat

Connecticut May Have Figured Out a Way to Halt Executions in Texas

Tweet Share Share Comment Connecticut abolished capital punishment in April 2012. That made Connecticut the 17th state in this...

26.06.2024 4

Slate

Austin Sarat

This Democratic Governor Just Demonstrated the Right Way to Use the Pardon Power

Tweet Share Share Comment The power to grant pardons and reprieves has long been a controversial one. It lodges in chief...

21.06.2024 50

Slate

Austin Sarat

Trump’s war on cities backfires: Attack on Milwaukee may be too far for MAGA

Donald Trump went to Capitol Hill on Thursday to meet with congressional Republicans. It was his first trip there since the January 6...

17.06.2024 20

Salon

Austin Sarat

The Astonishing Lengths Samuel Alito Will Go to Execute Death Row Inmates

Tweet Share Share Comment At the end of last month, the six-justice conservative majority on the Supreme Court went out of its...

10.06.2024 10

Slate

Austin Sarat

Trump’s Dangerous Quid Pro Quo Offer to Voters

Tweet Share Share Comment The president’s ability to grant pardons and commute sentences is a dramatic but generally quiet...

29.05.2024 10

Slate

Austin Sarat

Red states are using the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade to expand the death penalty

Even as support for the death penalty wanes across the country, Republican governors, led by Florida’s Ron DeSantis, are signing into law...

25.05.2024 20

Salon

Austin Sarat

This Should Be a Wake-Up Call to the Biden Administration on the Death Penalty

Tweet Share Share Comment A blueprint for a second Trump term issued by conservative groups contains many alarming wake-up calls for progressives....

14.05.2024 30

Slate

Austin Sarat

Oklahoma Judge Tells Execution Staff to “Suck It Up” After Trauma-Break Request

01.04.2024 30

Slate

Austin Sarat

Judge stops Trump’s Georgia sideshow: 5 key takeaways from the Fani Willis ruling

On Friday, Georgia Judge Scott McAfee rejected a motion to disqualify Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis from prosecuting Donald...

16.03.2024 10

Salon

Austin Sarat

Alito’s cries of religious persecution are a chilling preview of Supreme Court in another Trump term

On Tuesday, Justice Samuel Alito gave another startling indication of how troubled he is by recent changes in American society and law. In an unusual...

23.02.2024 80

Salon

Austin Sarat

Immunity ruling boosts chances of a speedy Jan. 6 trial for Trump

Good things, as the English proverb reminds us, come to those who wait. That proverb aptly describes Tuesday’s 3-0 decision the United...

07.02.2024 8

Salon

Austin Sarat

A Federal Judge Trusts Alabama to Run an Experimental Execution. Horrible Decision.

Tweet Share Share Comment Alabama plans to experiment with nitrogen hypoxia, a previously untried method of execution, when it...

16.01.2024 10

Slate

Austin Sarat

Biden betrays his moral standing in Buffalo: Death penalty decision reveals his true colors

In a Friday afternoon announcement, the Biden Administration crossed the Rubicon when it said that it would seek the death penalty in the case of ...

13.01.2024 10

Salon

Austin Sarat

Ron DeSantis suffers a stinging defeat in his war on woke

In the last gasps of his presidential campaign, Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis continues to brag that he made his state the place where...

12.01.2024 30

Salon

Austin Sarat

The Supreme Court should resist taking the easy way out

In yet another almost unimaginable moment in America’s troubled recent history, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that former Pres....

21.12.2023 10

Salon

Austin Sarat

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