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Constitutional Remedies & Public Interest Balancing, John M. Greabe

Law Faculty Scholarship

The conventional account of our remedial tradition recognizes that courts may engage in discretionary public interest balancing to withhold the specific remedies typically administered in equity. But it generally does not acknowledge that courts possess the same power with respect to the substitutionary remedies usually provided at law. The conventional account has things backwards when it comes to constitutional remedies. The modern Supreme Court frequently requires the withholding of substitutionary constitutional relief under doctrines developed to protect the perceived public interest. Yet it has treated specific relief to remedy ongoing or imminent invasions of rights as routine, at least when …