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Some Objections To Strict Liability For Constitutional Torts, Michael Wells

Scholarly Works

Qualified immunity protects officials from damages for constitutional violations unless they have violated "clearly established" rights. Local governments enjoy no immunity, but they may not be sued on a vicarious liability theory for constitutional violations committed by their employees. Critics of the current regime would overturn these rules in order to vindicate constitutional rights and deter violations.

This Article argues that across-the-board abolition of these limits on liability would be unwise as the costs would outweigh the benefits. In some contexts, however, exceptions may be justified. Much of the recent controversy surrounding qualified immunity involves suits in which police officers …

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Wise Legal Giant, Thomas A. Schweitzer

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Originalism From The Soft Southern Strategy To The New Right: The Constitutional Politics Of Sam Ervin Jr, Logan E. Sawyer Iii

Scholarly Works

Although originalism’s emergence as an important theory of constitutional interpretation is usually attributed to efforts by the Reagan administration, the role the theory played in the South’s determined resistance to civil rights legislation in the 1960s actually helped create the Reagan coalition in the first place. North Carolina Senator Sam Ervin Jr., the constitutional theorist of the Southern Caucus, developed and deployed originalism because he saw its potential to stymie civil rights legislation and stabilize a Democratic coalition under significant stress. Ervin failed in those efforts, but his turn to originalism had lasting effects. The theory helped Ervin and other …

Civil Rights In Crisis: The Racial Impact Of The Denial Of The Sixth Amendment Right To Counsel, Richard Klein

Scholarly Works

Whereas in 2013 there had been widespread celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, much has been written in subsequent years about the unhappy state of the quality of counsel provided to indigents. But it is not just defense counsel who fail to comply with all that we hope and expect would be done by those who are part of our criminal courts; prosecutorial misconduct, if not actually increasing, is becoming more visible. The judiciary chooses to focus on the rapid processing of cases, often ignoring the rights of those being prosecuted …

Civil Rights And Related Decisions, Eileen Kaufman

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Discrimination Cases In The 2000 Term, Eileen Kaufman

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

New York Public School Financing Litigation (Symposium: New York State Constitutional Law: Trends And Developments), Leon D. Lazer

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Employment Discrimination: Recent Developments In The Supreme Court (Symposium: The Supreme Court And Local Government Law, 1993-1994 Term), Eileen Kaufman

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Section 1983, Martin A. Schwartz, George Pratt, Leon Friedman

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Preiser Puzzle: Continued Frustrating Conflict Between The Civil Rights And Habeas Corpus Remedies For State Prisoners, Martin A. Schwartz

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.