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A Critique Of John Hart Ely's Quest For The Ultimate Constitutional Interpretivism Of Representative Democracy, James E. Fleming

Faculty Scholarship

Contemporary constitutional theory, John Hart Ely argues in Democracy and Distrust, is dominated by a false dichotomy between "clause-bound interpretivism" and "noninterpretivism." Clausebound interpretivists, such as the late Justice Hugo Black, believe that "judges deciding constitutional issues should confine themselves to enforcing norms that are stated or clearly implicit in the written Constitution" (p. 1). Noninterpretivists, such as the Supreme Court that produced the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade,2 contend that "courts should go beyond that set of references and enforce [substantive] norms that cannot be discovered within the four comers of the document" (p. 1). The genius of …

The Free Speech Metamorphosis Of Mr. Justice Holmes, David S. Bogen

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Scope Of Section 1985(3) In Light Of Great American Federal Savings And Loan Association V. Novotny: Too Little Too Late?, Taunya Lovell Banks

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Nineteenth Century Interpretations Of The Federal Contract Clause: The Transformation From Vested To Substantive Rights Against The State , James L. Kainen

Faculty Scholarship

During the early nineteenth century, the contract clause served as the fundamental source of federally protected rights against the state. Yet the Supreme Court gradually eased many of the restrictions on state power enforced in the contract clause cases while developing the doctrine of substantive due process after the Civil War. By the end of the nineteenth century, the due process clause had usurped the place of the contract clause as the centerpiece in litigation about individual rights. Most analyses of the history of federally protected rights against the state have emphasized the rise of substantive due process to the …

The Case For Treason, George P. Fletcher

Faculty Scholarship

"If this be treason, make the most of it." Patrick Henry had no fear of the ultimate crime against his King. Nor did the burghers of Maryland who set ablaze the Peggy Stewart in Annapolis Harbor. One would think that for us as Americans the crime of treason would carry special significance. Our nation was born in acts of treason. The threat of prosecution made the crime foremost in the mind of the constitutional draftsmen. Indeed, treason is the only crime to find definition in our basic document.

There are other indications that the crime of treason is central to …

Overbreadth, Henry Paul Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

The concern in constitutional law with "overbreadth" is generally understood to denote a conscious departure from conventional standing concepts in free-expression cases. Assertedly justified by the special vulnerability of protected expression to impermissible deterrence, overbreadth doctrine invites litigants to attack the facial validity of rules which burden expressive interests. A litigant whose expression is admittedly within the constitutionally valid applications of a statute is permitted to assert the statute's potentially invalid applications with respect to other persons not before the court and with whom the litigant stands in no special relationship. Judicial focus is not on the protected character, vel …

Commentary: Constitutional Law, Joel Gora

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Graphic Review Of The Free Speech Clause, William W. Van Alstyne

Faculty Scholarship

This work acts as a spring board for the study of the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. It builds useful graphical representations of complex constitutional theories from the ground up, allowing students to follow both development and the application of these theories.