Austin Sarat

4 days ago | thehill.com | Austin Sarat

Sometimes, a one-vote margin seems like a landslide. That’s how the 215-214 margin of victory in the House for the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” should have felt to many Democrats. From the moment of the bill’s introduction, Democrats seemed unable to find their footing, resorting to calling it by less flattering names but not rallying the nation against it. In fact, the Democrats couldn’t seem to figure out quite who they were trying to rally.

4 days ago | yahoo.com | Austin Sarat

Sometimes, a one-vote margin seems like a landslide. That’s how the 215-214 margin of victory in the House for the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” should have felt to many Democrats. From the moment of the bill’s introduction, Democrats seemed unable to find their footing, resorting to calling it by less flattering names but not rallying the nation against it. In fact, the Democrats couldn’t seem to figure out quite who they were trying to rally.

4 days ago | mississippifreepress.org | Austin Sarat

Jimmie Christian Duncan learned in April 2025 that a Louisiana judge had dismissed his capital murder conviction and he would no longer face the prospect of execution. In 1998, a jury convicted Duncan of murdering his girlfriend’s 23-month-old daughter, and he had been on death row ever since. Louisiana has a long and troubled death penalty history. From 1976 to 2015, 80% of the state’s capital sentences were reversed on appeal, and 12 people have been exonerated from its death row.

5 days ago | salon.com | Austin Sarat

One of the key axioms of politics in our, and any other, era is that nothing lasts forever. Today’s seemingly new political arguments, almost certainly, will find their way into an opponent’s arsenal. Evidence of that axiom is abundant. Where once Republicans were rapidly anti-Russia and anti-Putin, today they favor accommodation. Where once Democrats were suspicious of free trade, today they embrace it as part of their criticism of the president’s protectionism.

5 days ago | msnbc.com | Austin Sarat

Last week, Donald Trump turned his fire on the Federalist Society, a powerful conservative advocacy group, and its co-founder Leonard Leo, a key adviser to Trump on judicial nominations during his first term.