Digital Commons Network^™

Textualism And The Indian Canons Of Statutory Construction, Alex Tallchief Skibine

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

When interpreting statutes enacted for the benefit or regulation of Indians or construing treaties signed with Indian nations, courts are supposed to apply any of five specific canons of construction relating to Indian Affairs. Through examining the modern line of Supreme Court cases involving statutory or treaty interpretation relating to Indian nations, this Article demonstrates that the Court has generally been faithful in applying canons relating to treaty interpretation or abrogation. The Court has also respected the canon requiring unequivocal expression of congressional intent before finding an abrogation of tribal sovereign immunity. However, there are two other canons that the …

Second Chances: Why Michigan Should Categorically Prohibit The Sentence Of Juvenile Life Without Parole, Richard Zhao

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The United States is the only country in the world that sentences children to die in prison. This practice, known as juvenile life without parole (JLWOP), is condemned by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Yet twenty-five states still permit the sentence, and Michigan houses one of the nation’s largest JLWOP populations. Despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s ban on some forms of JLWOP, more must be done to further limit the use of this sentence. The current JLWOP sentencing scheme is untenable, imposes a significant financial burden on taxpayers, and perpetuates racial inequality. This Note explores …

Clashing Canons And The Contract Clause, T. Leigh Anenson, Jennifer K. Gershberg

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article is the first in-depth examination of substantive canons that judges use to interpret public pension legislation under the Contract Clause of the U.S. Constitution and state constitutions. The resolution of constitutional controversies concerning pension reform will have a profound influence on government employment. The assessment begins with a general discussion of these interpretive techniques before turning to their operation in public pension litigation. It concentrates on three clashing canons: the remedial (purpose) canon, the “no contract” canon (otherwise known as the unmistakability doctrine), and the constitutional avoidance canon. For these three canons routinely employed in pension law, there …

Resolving Alj Removal Protections Problem Following Lucia, Spencer Davenport

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

When the Supreme Court decided Lucia v. SEC and held that administrative law judges (ALJs) are Officers under the Constitution, the Court opened a flood of constitutional issues around the status of ALJs and related government positions. One central issue relates to ALJs’ removal protections. ALJs currently have two layers of protection between them and the President. In an earlier Supreme Court decision, the Court held that two layers of tenure protection between an “Officer of the United States” and the President was unconstitutional as it deprived the President the power to hold his officers accountable. As impartial adjudicators, ALJs …

Eighteen Is Not A Magic Number: Why The Eighth Amendment Requires Protection For Youth Aged Eighteen To Twenty-Five, Tirza A. Mullin

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The Eighth Amendment protects a criminal defendant’s right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. This Note argues that any punishment of eighteen- to twenty-five-year-olds is cruel and unusual without considering their youthfulness at every stage of the criminal process, and that it is unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment for these youths to be automatically treated as fully-developed adults. This Note will explore in depth how juveniles differ from adults, both socially and scientifically, and how the criminal justice system fails every youth aged eighteen- to twenty-five by subjecting them to criminal, rather than juvenile, court without considering their …

“A World Of Steel-Eyed Death”: An Empirical Evaluation Of The Failure Of The Strickland Standard To Ensure Adequate Counsel To Defendants With Mental Disabilities Facing The Death Penalty, Michael L. Perlin, Talia Roitberg Harmon, Sarah Chatt

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

First, we discuss the background of the development of counsel adequacy in death penalty cases. Next, we look carefully at Strickland, and the subsequent Supreme Court cases that appear—on the surface—to bolster it in this context. We then consider multiple jurisprudential filters that we believe must be taken seriously if this area of the law is to be given any authentic meaning. Next, we will examine and interpret the data that we have developed. Finally, we will look at this entire area of law through the filter of therapeutic jurisprudence, and then explain why and how the charade of “adequacy …

Protecting Local Authority In State Constitutions And Challenging Intrastate Preemption, Emily S.P. Baxter

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In recent years, state legislatures have increasingly passed laws that prohibit or preempt local action on a variety of issues, including fracking, LGBTQIA nondiscrimination, and workplace protections, among others. Often, these preemption laws are a direct response to action at the local level. States pass preemption laws either directly before or directly after a locality passes an ordinance on the same subject. Scholars have seen these preemptive moves as the outcome of the urban disadvantage in state and national government due to partisan gerrymandering.

Preemption may be a feature of our governing system, but it has also become a problematic …

Constitutional Cohesion And The Right To Public Health, James G. Hodge Jr., Daniel Aaron, Haley R. Augur, Ashley Cheff, Joseph Daval, Drew Hensley

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Despite years of significant legal improvements stemming from a renaissance in public health law, Americans still face major challenges and barriers in assuring their communal health. Reversals of legal reforms coupled with maligned policies and chronic underfunding contribute to diminished public health outcomes. Underlying preventable morbidity and mortality nationally are realities of our existing constitutional infrastructure. In essence, there is no general obligation of government to protect or promote the public’s health. Under principles of “constitutional cohesion,” structural facets and rights-based principles interwoven within the Constitution protect individuals and groups from governmental vices (i.e., oppression, overreaching, tyranny, and malfeasance). Structural …

Ensuring That Punishment Does, In Fact, Fit The Crime, Meredith D. Mcphail

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The United States imprisons a greater proportion of its own population than any other country in the world. A legal framework provides protections for those individuals who are incarcerated, but that framework is flawed. The jurisprudence distinguishes pretrial detainees (who have not been convicted) from convicted persons (who are serving a sentence). Based on that distinction, different standards apply to conditions of confinement and use of force cases brought by pretrial detainees and those brought by convicted persons. That distinction–and the resulting disparate application of legal standards–does not comport with the reality of incarceration, the concept of punishment, or the …

Accusers As Adjudicators In Agency Enforcement Proceedings, Andrew N. Vollmer

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Largely because of the Supreme Court’s 1975 decision in Withrow v. Larkin, the accepted view for decades has been that a federal administrative agency does not violate the Due Process Clause by combining the functions of investigating, charging, and then resolving allegations that a person violated the law. Many federal agencies have this structure, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Federal Trade Commission.

In 2016, the Supreme Court decided Williams v. Pennsylvania, a judicial disqualification case that, without addressing administrative agencies, nonetheless raises a substantial question about one aspect of the combination of functions at agencies. …

Reforming Sec Alj Proceedings, Joanna Howard

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note considers the current constitutional challenges to SEC administrative proceedings and suggests process reforms to enhance fairness for respondents. Challenges have developed since the Dodd-Frank Act expanded the SEC’s ability to use administrative proceedings. Arguments that there is a pre-existing flaw in the method of appointing administrative law judges provide the most potential for success. The Tenth Circuit’s December 2016 decision against the SEC in Bandimere has created a split, diverging from the D.C. Circuit’s analysis of that question in Lucia. Resolution by the Supreme Court may be inevitable. Even if the challengers do ultimately succeed, this will …

It Is Time For Washington State To Take A Stand Against Holmes's Bad Man: The Value Of Punitive Damages In Deterring Big Business And International Tortfeasors, Jackson Pahlke

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In Washington State, tortfeasors get a break when they commit intentional torts. Instead of receiving more punishment for their planned bad act, intentional tortfeasors are punished as if they committed a mere accident. The trend does not stop in Washington State—nationwide, punitive damage legislation inadequately deters intentional wrongdoers through caps and outright bans on punitive damages. Despite Washington State’s one hundred and twenty-five year ban on punitive damages, it is in a unique and powerful position to change the way courts across the country deal with intentional tortfeasors. Since Washington has never had a comprehensive punitive damages framework, and has …

A Legal Obituary For Ramiro, Sheri Lynn Johnson

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Most death penalty lawyers who practice long enough will watch the execution of a client. It is always, always terrible, but not always terrible in the same way. With each client’s execution, a lawyer is confronted with the death of a human being—not an accidental death, not an inevitable death, but an avoidable one—and with his or her own failure to prevent that death. Some executions also involve a very personal loss for the lawyer because of their relationship with the client. Other executions are horrific because things go awry and impose extreme suffering on the executed individual. No matter …

Shedding Light On The "Going Dark" Problem And The Encryption Debate, John Mylan Traylor

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In an effort to protect the enormous volume of sensitive and valuable data that travels across the Internet and is stored on personal devices, private companies have created encryption software to secure data from criminals, hackers, and terrorists who wish to steal it. The greatest benefit of encryption also creates the biggest problem: Encryption software has become so secure that often not even the government can bypass it. The “Going Dark” problem—a scenario in which the government has obtained the legal authority to search a suspected criminal’s encrypted device but lacks the technical ability to do so—is becoming increasingly common. …

Think Of The Children: Using Iied To Reformulate Disturbing Speech Restrictions, Richard Lorren Jolly

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The Colorado State Court of Appeals recently upheld an injunction restricting public displays of aborted fetuses. The court held that the restriction passed strict scrutiny because the state had a compelling interest in protecting children from the psychological harm of “disturbing images” and the injunction was narrowly tailored. This marked the first time an injunction had been upheld on this rationale. This Note critiques that holding and others. It contends that while some federal and state courts have recognized the interest in protecting the psychological wellbeing of children from disturbing speech as compelling, the interest is not supported by precedent. …

Milkovich V. Lorain Journal Twenty-Five Years Later: The Slow, Quiet, And Troubled Demise Of Liar Libel, Leonard Niehoff, Ashley Messenger

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., the Supreme Court held that there is no separate constitutional protection for statements of opinion. It also held that an accusation that an individual lied is a statement of fact actionable in defamation. Lower courts have, correctly in our view, essentially ignored both holdings. In Part I we discuss Milkovich and the infirmities in its reasoning. In Part II we discuss the complex nature of lies and accusations of lies and argue that Milkovich failed to account for that complexity. In Part III we discuss the strategies the lower courts have used to …

The Firing Squad As "A Known And Available Alternative Method Of Execution" Post-Glossip, Deborah W. Denno

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article does not address the medical debate surrounding the role of midazolam in executions; the problems associated with using the drug have been persuasively argued elsewhere. Nor does it question the soundness of the Glossip Court’s “alternative method of execution” requirement. Rather, this Article’s proposed reform is a constitutionally acceptable alternative that meets the Glossip Court’s standard, rendering moot—at least for the purposes of the following discussion—very real concerns regarding the validity of that dictate. Part I of this Article pinpoints several areas where the Glossip Court goes wrong in glaringly inaccurate or misleading ways, given the vast history …

Making The Right Call For Confrontation At Felony Sentencing, Shaakirrah R. Sanders

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Felony sentencing courts have discretion to increase punishment based on un-cross-examined testimonial statements about several categories of uncharged, dismissed, or otherwise unproven criminal conduct. Denying defendants an opportunity to cross-examine these categories of sentencing evidence undermines a core principle of natural law as adopted in the Sixth Amendment: those accused of felony crimes have the right to confront adversarial witnesses. This Article contributes to the scholarship surrounding confrontation rights at felony sentencing by cautioning against continued adherence to the most historic Supreme Court case on this issue, Williams v. New York. This Article does so for reasons beyond the unacknowledged …

Parallel Justice: Creating Causes Of Action For Mandatory Mediation, Marie A. Failinger

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The American common law system should adopt court-connected mandatory mediation as a parallel system of justice for some cases that are currently not justiciable, such as wrongs caused by constitutionally protected behavior. As evidence that such a system is practical, this Article describes systemic and ethical parallels between court-connected mediation and the rise of the equity courts in medieval England, demonstrating that there are no insurmountable practical objections to the creation of “mediation-only” causes of action. The Article then explores the constitutional concerns surrounding the idea of “mandatory mediation-only” causes of action, using constitutional hate speech and invasion of privacy …

Solitary Confinement, Public Safety, And Recdivism, Shira E. Gordon

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

As of 2005, about 80,000 prisoners were housed in solitary confinement in jails and in state and federal prisons in the United States. Prisoners in solitary confinement are generally housed in a cell for twenty-two to twenty-four hours a day with little human contact or interaction. The number of prisoners held in solitary confinement increased 40 percent between 1995 and 2000, in comparison to the growth in the total prison population of 28 percent. Concurrently, the duration of time that prisoners spend in solitary confinement also increased: nationally, most prisoners in solitary confinement spend more than five years there. The …

Federal Incarceration By Contract In A Post-Minneci World: Legislation To Equalize The Constitutional Rights Of Prisoners, Allison L. Waks

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In the 2012 case Minneci v. Pollard, the United States Supreme Court held that federal prisoners assigned to privately-run prisons may not bring actions for violations of their Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment and may instead bring actions sounding only in state tort law. A consequence of this decision is that the arbitrary assignment of some federal prisoners to privately-run prisons deprives them of an equal opportunity to vindicate this federal constitutional right and pursue a federal remedy. Yet all federal prisoners should be entitled to the same protection under the United States Constitution-regardless of the type …

Where Do We Go From Here: Plea Colloquy Warnings And Immigration Consequences Post-Padilla, Vivian Chang

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note argues for the passage of criminal procedure rules that would require judges to warn criminal defendants about immigration consequences at plea colloquy. Part I addresses the overlap of criminal and immigration law, arguing that the increased use of the criminal justice system to police federal immigration laws calls for greater protection of non-citizen defendants at plea colloquy. Part II then addresses the legal duties imposed on both defense counsel and trial courts in relation to plea colloquy. Padilla merely addressed the duty of defense counsel to provide constitutionally effective assistance before plea colloquy and did not reach the …

The Telltale Sign Of Discrimination: Probabilities, Information Asymmetries, And The Systemic Disparate Treatment Theory , Jason R. Bent

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The systemic disparate treatment theory of employment discrimination is in disarray. Originally formulated in United States v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the systemic disparate treatment theory provides plaintiffs with a method for creating an inference of unlawful discriminatory intent if plaintiffs can first present sufficient statistical evidence establishing that the employer was engaged in a "pattern or practice" of discrimination. While the Court and scholars have recently given substantial attention to the disparate impact theory, they have not adequately analyzed the contours of the systemic disparate treatment theory. For example, there are currently disputes about whether the systemic disparate treatment …

Leveling Localism And Racial Inequality In Education Through The No Child Left Behind Act Public Choice Provision, Erika K. Wilson

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

School district boundary lines play a pivotal role in shaping students' educational opportunities. Living on one side of a school district boundary rather than another can mean the difference between being able to attend a high-achieving resource-enriched school or having to attend a low-achieving resource-deprived school. Despite the prominent role that school district boundary lines play in dictating educational opportunities for students, remedies formulated by the federal judiciary-the institution frequently looked upon to address issues of school segregation and inequality-are ineffective in ameliorating disparities between school districts. They are ineffective because the federal judiciary evidences a doctrinal preference for localism …

Inferiorizing Judicial Review: Popular Constitutionalism In Trial Courts, Ori Aronson

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The ongoing debates over the legitimacy of judicial review-the power of courts to strike down unconstitutional statutes-as well as the evolving school of thought called "popular constitutionalism, " are characterized by a preoccupation with the Supreme Court as the embodiment of judicial power This is a striking shortcoming in prevailing constitutional theory, given the fact that in the United States, inferior courts engage in constitutional adjudication and in acts of judicial review on a daily basis, in ways that are importantly different from the familiar practices of the Supreme Court. The Article breaks down this monolithic concept of "the courts" …

Once More Unto The Breach: American War Power And A Second Legislative Attempt To Ensure Congressional Input, Jonathan T. Menitove

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Once again embroiled in an unpopular overseas armed conflict, the United States faces difficult questions concerning the constitutional use of military force. Records from the Constitutional Convention suggest the Framers intended to lodge America's power to go to war with the Congress. While American presidents' early use of military force displays deference to the legislature, more recent military actions illustrate the executive's dominance in making war. Notwithstanding a few early court decisions in Congress 's favor, the judiciary has been unhelpful in restoring the constitutional Framers' vision for the administration of the war power Congress, therefore, has been forced to …

Penalizing Poverty: Making Criminal Defendants Pay For Their Court-Appointed Counsel Through Recoupment And Contribution, Helen A. Anderson

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Over thirty years ago the United States Supreme Court upheld an Oregon statute that allowed sentencing courts, with a number of important procedural safeguards, to impose on indigent criminal defendants the obligation to repay the cost of their court appointed attorneys. The practice of ordering recoupment or contribution (application fees or co-pays) of public defender attorney's fees is widespread, although collection rates are unsurprisingly low. Developments since the Court's decision in Fuller v. Oregon show that not only is recoupment not cost-effective, but it too easily becomes an aspect of punishment, rather than legitimate cost recovery. In a number of …

"An Opportunity For Effective Cross-Examination": Limits On The Confrontation Right Of The Pro Se Defendant, Alanna Clair

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The rights of a defendant to confront his accusers and conduct his defense without the assistance of counsel are sacrosanct in the American judicial system. The rights of the defendant are even sometimes exalted at the expense of the rights of the public or of victims of crime. This Note examines the problem of a pro se defendant using his confrontation right to intimidate or harass his alleged victims testifying against him. It is well-established that the confrontation right is not unconditional. The problem comes in determining whether the courts can place limits on the confrontation right of a pro …

Connecting The Dots Between The Constitution, The Marshall Trilogy, And United States V. Lara: Notes Toward A Blueprint For The Next Legislative Restoration Of Tribal Sovereignty, Ann E. Tweedy

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This law review Article examines: (1) the underpinnings of tribal sovereignty within the American system; (2) the need for restoration based on the Court's drastic incursions on tribal sovereignty over the past four decades and the grave circumstances, particularly tribal governments' inability to protect tribal interests on the reservation and unchecked violence in Indian Country, that result from the divestment of tribal sovereignty; (3) the concept of restoration as illuminated by United States v. Lara, and finally (4) some possible approaches to partial restoration.

The Article first evaluates the constitutional provisions relating to Indians and the earliest federal Indian law …

Interrogation Of Detainees: Extending A Hand Or A Boot?, Amos N. Guiora

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The current "war on terror" provides the Bush administration with a unique opportunity to both establish clear guidelines for the interrogation of detainees and to make a forceful statement about American values. How the government chooses to act can promote either an ethical commitment to the norms of civil society, or an attitude analogous to Toby Keith's "American Way," where Keith sings that "you'll be sorry that you messed with the USofA, 'Cuz we'll put a boot in your ass, It's the American Way."