Digital Commons Network^™

The Legal Landscape For Frontline Student Journalists, Jonathan Peters

Scholarly Works

They have exposed campus outbreaks and questioned reopening plans. They have documented social-distancing violations at fraternity and sorority houses. They have tracked and explained fast-breaking changes to instructional modes and commencement events. They have demanded transparency from school administrators. And through it all they have boldly told the story of the human experience.

Famously, at the University of North Carolina, the Daily Tar Heel published a biting editorial under the headline “UNC has a clusterfuck on its hands,” after virus clusters were identified in campus housing. And the day that Notre Dame announced it would move only temporarily …

The Gun Subsidy, Christian Turner, Justin Van Orsdol

Scholarly Works

Despite thousands of gun deaths annually, the United States has failed to reach consensus on any means of addressing the public health crisis that is gun violence. The issue has become politically polarized, constitutionalized, and an object of pessimism and despair. We propose a regulatory system in which gun manufacturers would be strictly liable to a federal fund for deaths caused by their guns, paired with a subsidy that will serve to ensure the availability of guns sufficient to meet the rights the Supreme Court has found in the Second Amendment. While strict liability of this kind can indeed serve …

What The Lawyers Who Sue The Press Think Of The Press, And Media Law, Jonathan Peters

Popular Media

“HAVE A SCORE TO SETTLE WITH THE PRESS? Charles Harder, the media lawyer who ground Gawker.com to dust, is your man.”

That was the subhead of a GQ profile of Harder published in 2016, after he won a $140 million jury verdict for Hulk Hogan against Gawker (later settled for $31 million). The profile went on to say that Harder had established himself “as perhaps the greatest threat in the United States to journalists, the First Amendment, and the very notion of a free press.”

Whether or not that’s true, Harder has said it would be “awesome” if the Gawker …

Speak Up, Or Not: Lack Of Freedom Of Speech Protection In Vietnam, Its Global Impact, And Proposed Solutions For Adequate Remedies, H. Grant Doan

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Private Schools' Role And Rights In Setting Vaccination Policy: A Constitutional And Statutory Puzzle, Hillel Y. Levin

Scholarly Works

Measles and other vaccine-preventable childhood diseases are making a comeback, as a growing number of parents are electing not to vaccinate their children. May private schools refuse admission to these students? This deceptively simple question raises complex issues of First Amendment law and statutory interpretation, and it also has implications for other current hot-button issues in constitutional law, including whether private schools may discriminate against LGBTQ students. This Article is the first to address the issue of private schools’ rights to exclude unvaccinated children. It finds that the answer is “it depends.” It also offers a model law that states …

Threats To The Rule Of Law In Africa, John Mukum Mbaku

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Book A Stay And Win U.S. Citizenship: Examining Birth Tourism As A Business Subject To Federal Regulatory Controls, Nicole Marie Laudick

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

You Made Gideon A Promise, Eh?: Advocating For Mandated Publicly Appointed Counsel At Bail Hearings In The United States Through Domestic Comparisons With Canadian Practices And Legal Considerations, Lauren Elizabeth Lisauskas

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The Inherent And Supervisory Power, Jeffrey C. Dobbins

Georgia Law Review

Parties to litigation expect courts to operate both
predictably and fairly. A core part of this expectation is
the presence of codified rules of procedure, which ensure
fairness while constraining, and making more
predictable, the ebb and flow of litigation.
Within the courts of this country, however, there is a
font of authority over procedure that courts often turn to
in circumstances when they claim that there is no
written guidance. This authority, referred to as the
“inherent” or “supervisory” power of courts, is an almost
pure expression of a court’s exercise of discretion in that
it gives courts the …

Reconceptualizing Hybrid Rights, Dan T. Coenen

Scholarly Works

In landmark decisions on religious liberty and same-sex marriage, and many other cases as well, the Supreme Court has placed its imprimatur on so called “hybrid rights.” These rights spring from the interaction of two or more constitutional clauses, none of which alone suffices to give rise to the operative protection. Controversy surrounds hybrid rights in part because there exists no judicial account of their justifiability. To be sure, some scholarly treatments suggest that these rights emanate from the “structures” or “penumbras” of the Constitution. But critics respond that hybrid rights lack legitimacy for that very reason because structural and …

Boots And Bail On The Ground: Assessing The Implementation Of Misdemeanor Bail Reforms In Georgia, Andrea Woods, Sandra G. Mayson, Lauren Sudeall, Guthrie Armstrong, Anthony Potts

Scholarly Works

This Article presents a mixed-methods study of misdemeanor bail practice across Georgia in the wake of reform. We observed bail hearings and interviewed system actors in a representative sample of fifty-five counties in order to assess the extent to which pretrial practice conforms to legal standards clarified in Senate Bill 407 and Walker v. Calhoun. We also analyzed jail population data published by county jails and by the Georgia Department of Community Affairs. We found that a handful of counties have made promising headway in adhering to law and best practices, but that the majority have some distance to …

Stopping The Resurgence Of Vaccine-Preventable Childhood Diseases: Policy, Politics, And Law, Hillel Y. Levin, Stacie Patrice Kershner, Timothy D. Lytton, Daniel Salmon, Saad B. Omer

Scholarly Works

Mandatory vaccination programs in the United States are generally successful, but their continued success is under threat. The ever-increasing number of parents who opt their children out of vaccination recommendations has caused severe outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases. Public health advocates have pushed for changes to state laws, but their efforts have generally been unsuccessful. We suggest that their lack of success is due to public health advocates’ failures to contend with the features of the political system that impede change and to propose reforms that are ethically defensible, efficacious, and politically feasible. Based on our earlier public health studies, ethical …

Reform Prosecutors And Separation Of Powers, Logan E. Sawyer Iii

Scholarly Works

For decades, state and local prosecutors won election by promising to be tough on crime. Today, a new breed of prosecutor has gained prominence by campaigning on, and then implementing, reform agendas. Rather than emphasize the crimes they plan to prosecute, these reform prosecutors promise to use their discretion to stop the prosecution of certain crimes and halt the application of certain sanctions. They base their decision not on a lack of resources, but rather on a belief that the enforcement of those laws is unwise or unjust. Critics have decried such policies as both inappropriate and undemocratic. Prosecutors, critics …

Public Rights, Private Privileges, And Article Iii, John Harrison

Georgia Law Review

PUBLIC RIGHTS, PRIVATE PRIVILEGES, AND ARTICLE III John Harrison* This Article addresses the constitutional justification for adjudication by executive agencies that rests on the presence of a public right. The public rights rationale originated in the nineteenth century and was for many decades the dominant explanation for the performance of adjudicative functions by executive agencies. The U.S. Supreme Court most recently relied on that rationale in Oil States Energy Services v. Greene’s Energy Group in 2018. In light of the Court’s interest in the nineteenth century system, this Article explores that system in depth and seeks to identify the ways …

The Challenges Of Water Governance (And Privatization) In China; Normative Traps, Gaps, And Prospects, Xu Qian

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Building Integration Through The Bill Of Rights? The European Union At The Mirror, Graziella Romeo

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Quiet-Revolution Rulings In Constitutional Law, Dan T. Coenen

Scholarly Works

The Supreme Court ordinarily supports its establishment of major constitutional principles with detailed justifications in its opinions. On occasion, however, the Court proceeds in a very different way, issuing landmark pronouncements without giving any supportive reasons at all. This Article documents the recurring character and deep importance of these “quietrevolution rulings” in constitutional law. It shows that—however surprising it might seem—rulings of this sort have played key roles in shaping incorporation; reverse incorporation; congressional power; federal courts; and freedom-ofspeech, freedom-of-religion, and equal-protection law. According to the synthesis offered here, these rulings fall into two categories. One set of cases involves …

The Role Of Fault In § 1983 Municipal Liability, Michael Wells

Scholarly Works

Under Monell v. Department of Social Services, local governments are not vicariously liable for constitutional violations committed by their employees. Those governments, however, are liable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violations committed by "policymaking" officials. In the face of these two principles, courts have struggled with cases in which an underling commits a constitutional violation and the claim of municipal liability is based on a policymaker's failure to prevent it. The government can be liable in these "indirect-effect" cases for a policymaker's "deliberate indifference" to safeguarding constitutional rights, a standard that demands an even greater showing of culpability than …

Federal Guilty Pleas: Inequities, Indigence And The Rule 11 Process, Julian A. Cook

Scholarly Works

In 2017 and 2018, the Supreme Court issued two little-noticed decisions—Lee v. United States and Class v. United States. While neither case captured the attention of the national media nor generated meaningful academic commentary, both cases are well deserving of critical examination for reasons independent of the issues presented to the Court. They deserve review because of a consequential shared fact; a fact representative of a commonplace, yet largely overlooked, federal court practice that routinely disadvantages the indigent (and disproportionately minority populations), and compromises the integrity of arguably the most consequential component of the federal criminal justice process. In each …

Constructing The Original Scope Of Constitutional Rights, Nathan Chapman

Scholarly Works

In this solicited response to Ingrid Wuerth's "The Due Process and Other Constitutional Rights of Foreign Nations," I explain and justify Wuerth's methodology for constructing the original scope of constitutional rights. The original understanding of the Constitution, based on text and historical context, is a universally acknowledged part of constitutional law today. The original scope of constitutional rights — who was entitled to them, where they extended, and so on — is a particularly difficult question that requires a measure of construction based on the entire historical context. Wuerth rightly proceeds one right at a time with a careful consideration …

Judge Kavanaugh, Chevron Deference, And The Supreme Court, Kent H. Barnett, Christina L. Boyd, Christopher J. Walker

Popular Media

How might a new U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh review federal agency statutory interpretations that come before him on the Court?

To find at least a preliminary answer, we can look to his judicial behavior while serving on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit—and there is plenty of relevant Kavanaugh judicial behavior to observe. Since starting his service on the D.C. Circuit in 2006, Judge Kavanaugh has participated in the disposition of around 2,700 cases and has authored more than 300 opinions. Over a third of those authored opinions involved administrative law.

Neil Gorsuch And The Return Of Rule-Of-Law Due Process, Nathan Chapman

Popular Media

Something curious happened at the Supreme Court last week. While the country was glued to the Cirque du Trump, the rule of law made a comeback, revived by Neil Gorsuch, whose place on the Court may prove to be one of Trump’s most important legacies.

Unlike the partisan gerrymander and First Amendment cases currently pending before the Court, immigration cases are usually long on textual analysis and short on grand themes. Accordingly, court-watchers didn’t have especially high expectations for Sessions v. Dimaya.

Intergovernmental Federalism Disputes, Lochlan F. Shelfer

Georgia Law Review

Constitutional litigation is increasingly being waged
between governments, in both suits between a state and
the United States, and suits between two or more states.
The jurisdictionof the Federalcourts to hear such suits,
however, is disputed. The Supreme Court's cases are
famously difficult to reconcile, with some denying
jurisdiction and other seemingly identical cases
addressing the merits without discussing jurisdiction.
Some scholars have argued that intergovernmental
disputes over political jurisdiction historically are not
justiciableand that it is constitutionally illegitimate for
the Court to hear them. Recently, some scholars have
argued that the Court should hear such cases, but have
assumed …

Qui Tam Litigation Against Government Officials: Constitutional Implications Of A Neglected History, Randy Beck

Scholarly Works

The Supreme Court concluded twenty-five years ago, in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, that uninjured private plaintiffs may not litigate “generalized grievances” about the legality of executive branch conduct. According to the Lujan Court, Congress lacked power to authorize suit by a plaintiff who could not establish some “particularized” injury from the challenged conduct. The Court believed litigation to require executive branch legal compliance, brought by an uninjured private party, is not a “case” or “controversy” within the Article III judicial power and impermissibly reassigns the President’s Article II responsibility to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” The …

Favoring The Press, Sonja R. West

Scholarly Works

In the 2010 case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the United States Supreme Court caught the nation’s attention by declaring that corporations have a First Amendment right to independently spend unlimited amounts of money in political campaigns. The Court rested its 5-4 decision in large part on a concept of speaker-based discrimination. In the Court’s words, “the Government may commit a constitutional wrong when by law it identifies certain preferred speakers.”

To drive home its point that speaker-based distinctions are inherently problematic, the Court focused on one type of speaker distinction — the treatment of news media corporations. …

Suing The President For First Amendment Violations, Sonja R. West

Scholarly Works

On any given day, it seems, President Donald Trump can be found attacking, threatening, or punishing the press and other individuals whose speech he dislikes. His actions, moreover, inevitably raise the question: Do any of these individuals or organizations (or any future ones) have a viable claim against the President for violating their First Amendment rights?

One might think that the ability to sue the President for violation of the First Amendment would be relatively settled. The answer, however, is not quite that straightforward. Due to several unique qualities about the First Amendment and the presidency, it is not entirely …

Wrongful Convictions, Constitutional Remedies, And Nelson V. Colorado, Michael Wells

Scholarly Works

This article examines the U.S. Supreme Court’s Nelson v. Colorado opinion, in which the Court addressed the novel issue of remedies for persons wrongly convicted of crimes. Governments routinely deprive criminal defendants of both liberty and property upon conviction, and do so before giving them a chance to appeal their convictions and sentences. When a conviction is overturned, the state typically refunds fines and most other monetary exactions but seldom compensates for the loss of liberty. In Nelson, the Supreme Court addressed an unusual case in which the state did not return the money and that refusal was approved (purportedly …

Free Speech And Generally Applicable Laws: A New Doctrinal Synthesis, Dan T. Coenen

Scholarly Works

A longstanding mystery of constitutional law concerns how the Free Speech Clause interacts with “generally applicable” legal restrictions. This Article develops a new conceptual framework for working through this puzzle. It does so by extracting from prior Supreme Court rulings an approach that divides these restrictions into three separate categories, each of which (at least presumptively) brings into play a different level of judicial scrutiny. An example of the first and most closely scrutinized category of generally applicable laws—that is, laws that place a “direct in effect” burden on speech—is provided by breach-of-the-peace statutes. These laws are generally applicable because …

A Reformed Liberalism: Michael Mcconnell’S Contributions To Christian Jurisprudence, Nathan Chapman

Scholarly Works

Michael McConnell is one of the most influential constitutional scholars of the past thirty years. He has written a great deal about religious liberty, but relatively little about how his own religious beliefs may relate to his constitutional jurisprudence. This essay is the first to explore the connection between McConnell’s religious views and scholarship. The essay engages with a short piece by McConnell that sketches the outlines of a “reformed liberalism.” McConnell argued that reformed Christian theology is compatible with the classical liberalism that animated the framing of the U.S. Constitution. Though he did not develop this account into a …

Submarine Statutes, Christian Turner

Scholarly Works

I define as “submarine statutes” a category of statutes that affect the meaning of later-passed statutes. A submarine statute calls for courts to apply future statutes differently than they would have otherwise. An example is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which requires, in some circumstances, exemptions for religious exercise from otherwise compulsory statutory requirements. A new statute can only be understood if its interaction with RFRA is also understood. While scholars have debated the constitutionality of some statutes like these, mainly analyzing the legitimacy of their entrenching quality, I argue that submarine statutes carry an overlooked cost. Namely, they add …