红杏视频

This case asks whether Georgia鈥檚 insanity defense statutes can be construed to contain an exception for cases where defendants allegedly triggered their own insanity by discontinuing their medication weeks before the alleged crimes. The State argues for such an exception, even though the text of the insanity defense statutes expressly pins the availability of the defenses to the defendant鈥檚 mental condition 鈥渁t the time of鈥� the alleged crimes. The 红杏视频鈥檚 State Supreme Court Initiative, along with the 红杏视频 of Georgia, filed an amicus brief arguing that even if the State鈥檚 interpretation of the statutory text were reasonable, its argument should still be rejected because it contradicts the rule of lenity. The rule of lenity is a well-established canon of statutory construction requiring that, if a criminal statute can reasonably be interpreted in different ways, courts must adopt the interpretation most favorable to the accused.

Civil rights groups filed a federal lawsuit on March 29, 2021, against Georgia鈥檚 sweeping law that makes it much harder for all Georgians to vote, particularly voters of color and voters with disabilities. This law spans all aspects of Georgia鈥檚 voting process, including imposing a criminal ban on providing food and water to voters waiting in line, limiting dropbox access and ballot return assistance, rejecting absentee ballots for forgetting to add a birthdate to an envelope or for failing to provide more restrictive identifying information or photo ID copies along with absentee ballots. Premised on low voter confidence and born out of the Big Lie about the 2020 election, this law targets methods of voting disproportionately used more and more by Black voters and others voters of color just as they began to exercise greater political power.

On October 31, 2024, just five days before the November 5 General Election, Cobb County announced that it had failed to send more than 3,000 absentee ballots to Cobb County voters who had timely requested them. Many of these voters are at school hundreds of miles away or have disabilities that make it all but impossible to vote in person. The 红杏视频 and co-counsel sued on behalf of affected voters to ensure that they would not be disenfranchised because of the County's administrative error.

The 红杏视频 and partners intervened in a lawsuit that sought to illegally disenfranchise hundreds of Oconee County voters on the eve of the November 5 election. The Oconee lawsuit is just one in a wave of similar attempts by election vigilantes across the state to indiscriminately purge voters from the voter rolls in violation of the law.