Digital Commons Network^™

Constitutional Texting, Lawrence B. Solum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

"Constitutional Texting" introduces an account of constitutional meaning that draws on Paul Grice's distinction between "speaker's meaning" and "sentence meaning." The constitutional equivalent of speaker's meaning is "framer's meaning," the meaning that the author of the constitutional text intended to convey in light of the author's beliefs about the reader's beliefs about the author's intentions. The constitutional equivalent of sentence meaning is "clause meaning," the meaning that an ordinary reader would attribute to the text at the time of utterance without any beliefs about particular intentions on the part of the author. Clause meaning is possible because the words and …

The Presumption Of Liberty And The Public Interest: Medical Marijuana And Fundamental Rights, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

As part of this lecture series on lawyering in the public interest, the author decided to talk about his pro bono involvement in the medical cannabis case of Gonzales v. Raich, which he and three other lawyers brought on behalf of Angel Raich and Diane Monson. There are three topics discussed in this lecture: the first is how the author got involved in doing this, which is a question he is asked all the time; the second is to describe the theory they took to the Supreme Court, which prevailed in the Ninth Circuit but was ultimately rejected by …

Moral Conflict And Liberty: Gay Rights And Religion, Chai R. Feldblum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

My goal in this piece is to surface some of the commonalities between religious belief liberty and sexual orientation identity liberty and to offer some public policy suggestions for what to do when these liberties conflict. I first want to make transparent the conflict that I believe exists between laws intended to protect the liberty of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender ("LGBT") people so that they may live lives of dignity and integrity and the religious beliefs of some individuals whose conduct is regulated by such laws. I believe those who advocate for LGBT equality have downplayed the impact of …

Constitutions As "Living Trees"? Comparative Constitutional Law And Interpretive Metaphors, Vicki C. Jackson

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Part I below explores the interpretive approaches of three other high national courts that have engaged in constitutional review over a long period of time, identifying two respects in which they may bear on this debate. First, their jurisprudence relies on interpretive approaches that depend on multiple sources and forms of argument-what some call an "eclectic" method, and others might call common law constitutionalism. Second, the jurisprudence of other significant national courts acknowledges the possibility that interpretive understandings will change. Indeed, in those countries with continuity of rights-protecting constitutional regimes and with high courts vested with the power of judicial …

Lecture: Second Founding: The Story Of The Fourteenth Amendment, Garrett Epps

All Faculty Scholarship

The story of the Framing of the Fourteenth Amendment is a lost story of American history, covered over by Southern inspiring myth making and an unwillingness to grapple with the central role of slavery in American history. Americans can take new inspiration from that story and use it as an example of how our popular democracy can be perfected. Even today, nearly a century and a half after the Second Founders did their work, their words and example move before us as a people, a cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night.

We The People's Executive, Rosa Ehrenreich Brooks

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Perhaps to no one’s surprise, a recent survey found that most Americans know far more about television hits than they know about the United States Constitution. For instance, 52% of Americans surveyed could name at least two characters from The Simpsons, and 41% could name at least two judges from American Idol. Meanwhile, a mere 28% could identify more than one of the rights protected by the First Amendment.

Surveys such as this help clear up one of the apparent mysteries of the last five years: How did we change so quickly from a nation in which the …

When Is Knowing Less Better Than Knowing More? Unpacking The Controversy Over Supreme Court Reference To Non-U.S. Law, Mark V. Tushnet

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

My goal in this Essay is simply to lay out the criticisms of the use of non-U.S. law in constitutional interpretation, so as to identify what might be correct (not much, in the end) in those criticisms. I discuss criticisms based on theories of interpretation, on the claim that reference to non-U.S. law is merely decoration playing no role in generating outcomes, on the role the Constitution has in expressing distinctively American values, and on the proposition that judges are unlikely to do a good job in understanding - and therefore in referring to - non-U.S. law. This last "quality-control" …

Checks And Balances: Congress And The Federal Court, Paul D. Carrington

Faculty Scholarship

This essay was published as a chapter in Reforming the Supreme Court: Term Limits for Justices (Paul D. Carrington & Roger Cramton eds, Carolina Academic Press 2006). Its point is that Congress has long neglected its duty implicit in the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers to constrain the tendency of the Court, the academy and the legal profession to inflate the Court's status and power. The term "life tenure" is a significant source of a sense of royal status having not only the adverse cultural effects noted by Nagel, but also doleful effects on the administration and enforcement of …

Beyond Lawrence: Metaprivacy And Punishment, Jamal Greene

Faculty Scholarship

Lawrence v. Texas remains, after three years of precedential life, an opinion in search of a principle. It is both libertarian – Randy Barnett has called it the constitutionalization of John Stuart Mill's On Liberty – and communitarian – William Eskridge has described it as the gay rights movement's Brown v. Board of Education. It is simultaneously broad, in its evocation of our deepest spiritual commitments, and narrow, in its self-conscious attempts to avoid condemning laws against same-sex marriage, prostitution, and bestiality. This Article reconciles these competing claims on Lawrence's jurisprudential legacy. In Part I, it defends the …

Intelligent Design And The First Amendment: A Response, Jay D. Wexler

Faculty Scholarship

In September 2005, a federal district judge in Pennsylvania began presiding over the nation's first trial regarding the constitutionality of introducing the concept of "intelligent design" (ID), a purportedly scientific alternative to the theory of evolution, into the public schools. My previous work has argued that teaching ID in the public schools would raise serious constitutional problems. In a series of writings, including a full length book and several articles, Baylor University professor Francis Beckwith has argued that public schools may constitutionally teach ID. In doing so, Beckwith has critiqued a number of arguments I have previously advanced in my …

Videotaped Confessions And The Genre Of Documentary, Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

This essay begins the exploration of two contemporary and related film trends: the recent popular enthusiasm over the previously arty documentary film and the mandatory filming of custodial interrogations and confessions.

The history and criticism of documentary film, indeed contemporary movie-going, understands the documentary genre as political and social advocacy (recent examples are Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11 and Errol Morris's Fog of War). Judges, advocates, and legislatures, however, assume that films of custodial interrogations and confessions reveal a truth and lack a distorting point of view. As this Article explains, the trend at law, although aimed at furthering venerable criminal …

Why Bivens Won't Die: The Legacy Of Peoples V. Cca Detention Centers, Lumen N. Mulligan

Faculty Works

Interpreting recent Supreme Court precedent, the Tenth Circuit, in Peoples v. CCA Detention Centers, held that a federal prisoner confined in a privately run prison may not bring a Bivens suit against the employees of the private prison for violations of his constitutional rights when alternative state-law causes of action are available. The author first reviews the Supreme Court's evolving Bivens jurisprudence and turns next to an overview of the Tenth Circuit's opinion. Third, the author argues that, despite the Tenth Circuit's new approach, putative constitutional claims brought under state-law theories of recovery will often be re-federalized, producing uniform federal …

Drugs, Dogs And The Fourth Amendment: An Analysis Of Justice Stevens' Opinion In Illinois V. Caballes, James Johnston

James B Johnston

When a drug dealer delivers illegal narcotics to the American maret place, he frequently uses out nation's roads. In an opinion authored by Justice John Paul Stevens, the U.S. Supreme Court that is captioned Illinois v. Caballes, the Court ruloed that drug dealers do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy when delivering illegal drugs in their cars. This article agrees with the Court's ruling and argues that we as a society have a right and an obligatio n to protect ourselves from drug abuse and drug traffickers. Justice Stevens' opinionj provides a brilliant examination of judicial precedent coupled with …

Rehabilitating The "Mystery Passage": An Examination Of The Supreme Court's Anthropology Using The Personalistic Norm Explicit In The Philosophy Of Karol Wojtyla, Michael Scaperlanda

Michael A. Scaperlanda

No abstract provided.

Immigration And Evil: The Religious Challenge, Michael Scaperlanda

Michael A. Scaperlanda

No abstract provided.

An Examination Of New Jersey's Money Laundering Statutes, James B. Johnston

James B Johnston

Drug dealers, white collar criminals and organized crime groups look at New Jersey as a safe haven when conducting financial transactions with their crime linked money. Due to its proximity to New York, New Jersey has become susceptible to the money laundering industry. As a result the New Jersey legislature has passed a series of anti-money laundering provisions that provide law enforcement with powerful tools designed to take the profit out of crime and bring money launderers to justice. This article examines New Jersey's money laundering statutes and its potential contribution in bringing profit motivated criminals to justice.

Time For Accountability: Effective Oversight Of Women's Prisons, Debra L. Parkes

Debra L. Parkes

Numerous reports and commissions of inquiry have documented the need for oversight and accountability mechanisms to redress illegalities and rights violations in Canada’s women’s prisons. This paper examines the recent troubled history of women’s imprisonment in which the calls for meaningful accountability and oversight have arisen, outlines some necessary criteria for any effective oversight body within this context, and measures some of the key recommendations against those criteria. The authors conclude that the judicial oversight model and remedial sanction proposed by Justice Louise Arbour in 1996 in her Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Certain Events at the Prison …

An Economic Model Of Fair Use (With Thomas Miceli), Richard Adelstein

Richard Adelstein

A formal model of the law of fair use.

The Meaninglessness Of Delayed Appointments And Discretionary Grants Of Capital Postconviction Counsel, Celestine Richards Mcconville

Celestine Richards McConville

This article addresses the right to postconviction counsel in capital cases - a right that is absolutely crucial to protecting innocent capital inmates from wrongful execution. It is no secret that indigent capital inmates who wish to pursue their state postconviction remedies have no constitutional right to counsel, and instead must rely on statutory grants of counsel. While numerous death penalty states have seen fit to provide a mandatory statutory right to postconviction counsel, a handful of death penalty states, including Alabama, provide only a discretionary right to such counsel. But in Alabama, which at the time of this writing …

The Detainee Cases Of 2004 And 2006 And Their Aftermath, Ronald D. Rotunda

Ronald D. Rotunda

The War on Terror, more than any other war, involves lawyers. For example, they track down terrorist funding, freeze bank funds, and engage in electronic surveillance. Even more significantly, those whom the military has captured are using the U.S. court system to seek release from their detention. While there are a few cases on this issue going back to the Civil War and World War II, the U.S. Supreme Court has issued major rulings on this question in the last few years. The media and those suing the Government claim that these cases have rejected and dealt severe blows to …

The Citizenship Dialectic, Ediberto Roman

Ediberto Roman

Palazzolo, The Public Trust, And The Property Owner’S Reasonable Expectations: Takings And The South Carolina Marsh Island Bridge Debate, Erin Ryan

Erin Ryan

South Carolina recently promulgated new guidelines regulating the State’s consideration of requests by private marsh island owners to build bridges for vehicular access through publicly owned marsh and tidelands. Many thousands of these islands hug the South Carolina coast, but they are surrounded by tidelands subject to South Carolina’s formidable public trust doctrine, which obligates the State to manage submerged lands and waterways for the benefit of the public. This piece evaluates the relationship between the public trust doctrine and the takings subtext to the debate over the new guidelines – a relationship that has become particularly interesting in the …

The Ethnographic Village Law In The Transformation Of The Social(转型社会的乡村法律民族志：方法与对象), Meng Hou

Hou Meng

No abstract provided.

Changing Expectations Of Privacy And The Fourth Amendment, Robert Power

Robert C Power

Communist’S Post-Modern Power Dilemma: One Step Back, Two Steps Forward, “Soft No” And Hard Choices …, Nicos Trimikliniotis

Nicos Trimikliniotis

This paper considers the challenges ahead after having assessed what determined the outcome of the referendum in April 2004 and the balance of forces as they emerge in the Parliamentary elections of 2006. In spite of the generally sound claims that globalisation shifts decision-making away from nation-states, particularly weak and small states to networks beyond the nation-state, in the case of Cyprus what we have for the first time paradoxically is the “fate” of Cyprus primarily in the hands of Cypriots themselves. Although semi-occupied the two communities can make their decision as to the future of their country and state, …

Immigration To Cyprus, Nicos Trimikliniotis

Nicos Trimikliniotis

This chapter discusses the context that has transformed Cyprus from an emigration to an immigration country. It examines public discourse, the legal status, and the social position of migrants and asylum-seekers. This is exposed against the historical and political backdrop of Cyprus, dominated by the ‘national’ problem, which keeps the island divided.

Unburdening The Constitution: What Has The Indian Constitution Got To Do With Private Universities, Modernity And Nation States?, Shubhankar Dam

Shubhankar Dam

This article critically analyses the decision of the Indian Supreme Court in Yashpal and another v. State of Chhattisgarh and others holding the establishment of private universities as unconstitutional. Swayed by the overwhelmingly irresponsible character of the respondent universities, the Supreme Court innovated constitutional arguments to uphold the claims of the petitioners. While intuitively correct in the context of the immediate facts, the judgment, when analysed in the abstract, reveals the self-inflicted harm it has the potential to cause. The judgment is technologically regressive: it fails to account for the emerging trends in education, especially those related to the use …

El Tribunal Constitucional Ante El Principio De Primacía Del Derecho Comunitario, Germán M. Teruel Lozano

Germán M. Teruel Lozano

THE SPANISH CONSTITUTIONAL COURT BEFORE THE PRIMACY PRINCIPLE OF COMMUNITY LAW: The objective of this study is to analyze and to assess the jurisprudence of the Spanish Constitutional Court about the compatibility of Primacy principle of Community Law with the Spanish Constitution of 1978. The paper pays special attention to the Declaration about the European Constitution (1/2004), that implies a radical change from the previous decisions of the Constitutional Court, especially with respect to the Declaration on the European Union Treaty (132bis/1992). Since the 2004 Declaration, the Constitutional Court admits a possible “displacement” of constitutional rules on behalf of community …

Leyes Orgánico-Constitucionales: Insatisfactoria Rigidización De La Democracia, Fernando Muñoz

Fernando Muñoz

No abstract provided.

A Cultural Turn: Reflections On Recent Historical And Legal Writing On The Second Amendment

William G. Merkel