All presidents should expect to be sued early and often by state attorneys general of the opposite party.
- William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst College
While Harris and Trump diverge on many key policy issues, they find common ground in other areas.
There are substantial differences between the two candidates, though each of their records contains some interesting twists and turns.
Despite support for clemency from Oklahoma’s top prosecutor, a death row inmate appears set to die on May 18.
The arrest of a former American president is unprecedented, but the nation’s founders anticipated the day would come.
A scholar who has studied imprisonment explains why the promise of sentence reductions in return for organ donation raises ethical issues about whether inmates can ever consent freely.
Alabama has paused the carrying out of death sentences after a series of cases in which the state struggled with the procedure.
On Nov. 8, the US may experience a surge of voters intimidated by Election Day challenges to their right to cast a ballot.
In 1972, justices handed down a decision that attacked discriminatory and capricious death sentences. But it left the door ajar for states to continue the practice.
Victim impact statements give survivors a voice in the criminal justice process. But research shows their wrenching personal testimonies may not bring closure and can add racial bias into sentencing.
The Justice Department has approved alternatives to lethal injections for federal executions. But no method of capital punishment has been without gruesome stories of what went wrong.
President Donald Trump may be trying to get state lawmakers to shift the outcome of the presidential election.
The presidential election outcome seems to be at least partially in dispute. Six scholars provide a history of contested elections in the US and explain what happens when the results are challenged.
Lawsuits are being argued in courthouses across the country over the conduct of the election. That could lead to the public losing confidence in the election’s legitimacy.
Who belongs a heartbeat away from the president?
This is not the first time the prospect of state legislatures ignoring the popular vote and appointing their own slate of electors has arisen.
President Trump’s law-and-order campaign rhetoric has been compared to Richard Nixon’s and George Wallace’s similar themes in 1968. But such appeals go much further back, to the US in the early 1800s.
Infection rates of COVID-19 have soared among prisoners in the US. An expert on penal policy considers what is ‘unjust and disproportionate’ punishment at this time.
The promised benefits of lethal injection – a quick, painless death – have never come true. There’s not even agreement about which drugs are best for executions.
Recent efforts to restore voting rights to the formerly incarcerated, a crucial Democratic constituency, could have important implications for the 2020 presidential election.
The Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts has reversed its decadeslong practice of protecting voters’ rights and removing barriers to casting ballots.
National emergencies allow for the purest expressions of sovereign power, testing the government’s commitment to human rights. Some leaders are failing the coronavirus test, experts say.
Compared to many other advanced countries, both federal and state court systems in the United States are behind in using videoconferencing in court settings.
Could defiance of court orders at the highest level undermine the Constitution’s authority in the eyes of American citizens?
Trump’s firing of witnesses who testified during his impeachment trial has been described as ‘retribution.’ But these actions are actually revenge, a political scientist says.
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