Some Observations on Calls for Senate Reform: Part One of a Two-Part Series

VIKRAM DAVID AMAR

In this first of a series of columns, Illinois Law dean and professor Vikram David Amar offers four observations about recent calls for reform of the filibuster device in the U.S. Senate. Dean Amar suggests looking at state experiences with supermajority rules, as well as the Senate’s own recent past, and he considers why senators might be reluctant to eliminate the filibuster. He concludes with a comment on President Joe Biden’s suggestion that the Senate return to the “talking filibuster” and praises a suggestion by Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) that the cloture requirement (currently at 60 votes) could be lowered gradually, the longer a measure under consideration is debated.

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Commonwealth v. Concepcion

Docket: SJC-12382

Opinion Date: March 16, 2021

Judge: Lowy

Areas of Law: Criminal Law

The Supreme Judicial Court exercised its authority under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 278, 33E to reduce the jury's verdict of murder in the first degree to murder in the second degree, holding that, in light of the circumstances, a verdict of murder in the second degree was more consonant with justice. Defendant was fifteen years old when he killed the victim and had a history of trauma, impaired cognitive abilities, and mental health issues. Defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree and sentenced to life with the possibility of parole after twenty years. On appeal, the Supreme Judicial Court rejected most of Defendant's arguments but agreed that, in the circumstances of this case, there was ground for reducing the verdict from first to second degree murder.