State government

In his essay, Do State Legislatures Have to Obey U.S. Supreme Court Decisions? Amherst professor Austin Sarat discusses how several state legislatures, particularly Alabama, are passing laws allowing the death penalty for child rape despite a 2008 Supreme Court ruling, Kennedy v. Louisiana, that declared such punishment unconstitutional. Professor Sarat argues that this strategic legislative defiance represents a dangerous trend that threatens constitutional order, as lawmakers are deliberately passing unconstitutional laws hoping the current conservative-majority Supreme Court will overturn precedent, similar to the strategy that led to Roe v. Wade being overturned.

Reflecting on the urgency expressed by professor Sarat regarding this question, we have prepared our own report, titled Do State Legislatures Have to Obey U.S. Supreme Court Decisions?, An Overview, to provide an added frame of reference for considering the implications of professor Sarat’s posting. Our Report, which follows, is based on our search of related sources, including Deep Research, the advanced AI research application recently introduced by Open AI.

DO STATE LEGISLATURES HAVE TO OBEY U.S. SUPREME COURT DECISIONS?, An Oveerview