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Constitutional Law

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Selected Works

2018

Supreme Court

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network

A New Philosophy In The Supreme Court, Robert M. Sanger Aug 2018

A New Philosophy In The Supreme Court, Robert M. Sanger

Robert M. Sanger

This is a positive article about the soon-to-be-newlyminted United States Supreme Court. No, this is not written by a guest columnist and, yes, the present author still holds progressive views regarding criminal justice. Assuming the Supreme Court and other branches of government continue to function – even if in less than an optimal fashion – we, as lawyers, have to work with what we have. We have a conservative Supreme Court with, presumably, conservative principles, and that is with which we must work. One of the characteristics often seen in individual Supreme Court Justices is the tendency to rise above …

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Boy Scouts & Burning Crosses: Bringing Balance To The Court’S Lopsided Approach To The Intersection Of Equality And Speech, Russell K. Robinson Jan 2018

Boy Scouts & Burning Crosses: Bringing Balance To The Court’S Lopsided Approach To The Intersection Of Equality And Speech, Russell K. Robinson

Russell K Robinson

This article identifies a previously-ignored pattern of Supreme Court decisions that privilege one competing constitutional value, either speech or equality, and subordinate the other—with little or no reasoning explaining its choice. In adjudicating such cases, including two cases decided last term, the Supreme Court has steadfastly treated these disputes as either a basic equality case or a simple speech case. This dichotomy is a problem because once the Court places a case within either a speech or equality paradigm, it is constrained by certain rigid analytical presumptions. These presumptions threaten to stunt the analysis and to deprive the Court of …

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