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The Second Amendment: Structure, History, And Constitutional Change, David S. Yassky

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Part I of the Article engages the revisionists squarely on the turf they have staked out: the intent of those who framed and ratified the Second Amendment. Here I credit the revisionists with some important insights. Their research reminds us how greatly the world in which the Second Amendment was adopted differed from our own. This perspective helps us understand how the Founders could have placed the right to bear arms on par with the right to free speech--a decision that baffles many modern Americans. Yet while the revisionists correctly perceive that the right to keep and bear arms was …

Burdening Constitutional Rights: The Supreme Court's License To Prosecutors, Bennett L. Gershman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The prosecutorial tactic of burdening a defendant’s exercise of constitutional rights has appeared in a variety of contexts. Prosecutors have asked juries to infer guilt based on a defendant’s decision not to testify, not to call witnesses, to remain silent after being given Miranda warnings, to go to trial, to secure the assistance of counsel, to refuse to consent to a warrantless search, and to testify. In all of these instances, courts have found the prosecutor’s remarks to constitute misconduct.

Use Of Race In "Stop-And-Frisk": Stereotypical Beliefs Linger, But How Far Can The Police Go?, Bennett L. Gershman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The power of police to detain persons for a brief period to investigate suspected criminal activity--commonly known as “stop-and-frisk”--has always been one of the most contentious issues in law enforcement. Although there is general consensus that street stops are an important weapon in crime prevention, the belief has always existed that stop-and-frisk tactics are often used indiscriminately and abusively against minority groups.

The Standing Of Citizens To Enforce Against Violations Of Environmental Statutes In The United States, Jeffrey G. Miller

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Judicial actions by private citizens have played a critical role in the development and enforcement of federal environmental law in the United States over several decades. The courts' general receptivity to the standing of private environmental plaintiffs has made that role possible. A troika of Supreme Court decisions on standing in environmental cases authored by Scalia J over the last decade had eroded that general receptivity, casting doubt on the continued vitality of private actions in developing and implementing environmental law. The Court's recent decision in Friends of the Earth Inc v Laidlaw Environmental Services halts this erosion. To explain …

The Voting Rights Act And The "New And Improved" Intent Test: Old Wine In New Bottles, Randolph M. Mclaughlin

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Since the Supreme Court injected the issue of intent into the voting rights arena in Mobile v. Bolden,1 there has been a long and persistent struggle to reverse that decision. In 1982, Congress thought it had put the question of the quantum and quality of proof required to establish a violation of section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to rest when Congress amended that section. However, the courts quickly began a rear guard action to undermine congressional efforts to eliminate the intent requirement as an element of a plaintiff's claim. Both the Supreme Court and the circuit courts have …

Panelist (Symposium: The Second Amendment), David S. Yassky

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

To understand the Second Amendment and what the Founders who wrote it were trying to do, you have to understand the conceptual framework that they were working in. And that conceptual framework is based on two concepts regarding the military: the concept of the army and the concept of the militia.

The Second Amendment is about how the military power of the United States should be organized. It grew out of one of the most pretentious issues faced by the Philadelphia Convention, which was: what military power should they give this new Federal Government? They're sitting down to write the …

What Do You Do When You Meet A "Walking Violation Of The Sixth Amendment" If You're Trying To Put That Lawyer's Client In Jail?, Vanessa Merton

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

For the purpose of this article, the relevance of my experience as a criminal defense attorney is this: if ever one might expect to find a prosecutor inclined to err on the side of fairness of process and protecting the rights of defendants, it ought to be me. Also, for more than twenty years, I have been something of a professional ethicist--as research fellow, teacher, staff member of an ethics center, chair and/or member of several institutional review boards, pro bono trial counsel to a disciplinary committee, ethics consultant, and expert witness--and, therefore, one might think, especially susceptible to the …