Digital Commons Network^™

Scientific Context, Suicide Prevention, And The Second Amendment After Bruen, Eric Ruben

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The Supreme Court declared in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen that modern gun laws must be “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation” to survive Second Amendment challenges. Scholarship has shown how this test of historical analogy presents difficulties because of how technological, legal, and social change has shaped policy over the centuries. This Article is the first to assess Bruen as it applies to suicide- prevention laws, and, in doing so, illuminates another form of change that complicates Bruen’s implementation: scientific progress.

As this Article shows, early generations of Americans fundamentally misunderstood mental …

Law Of The Gun: Unrepresentative Cases And Distorted Doctrine, Eric Ruben

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

There is a familiar saying, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” The so-called Law of the Hammer takes a distinctive form in adjudication. If all judges see is one repeating fact pattern for a given area of law, they might perceive it as archetypical and build the law around it. If that fact pattern does not accurately reflect the field, however, the result can be analytical distortion in terms of both the choice of doctrine and its implementation.

This Article uses Second Amendment jurisprudence to illustrate this phenomenon. It reveals how District of Columbia …

Zoya's Standing Problem, Or, When Should The Constitution Follow The Flag?, Jeffrey D. Kahn

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Some federal courts have devised a new test of prudential standing that they use to dismiss suits filed by foreign plaintiffs alleging unlawful conduct by American officials abroad, even when these cases involve matters that may have nothing to do with foreign affairs, national security, or terrorism. Rather than decide the case on its merits or dismiss it on any number of legitimate grounds, the complaint is dismissed because the plaintiff lacks a “prior substantial connection” to the United States.

I identify and critique this strange but proliferating test of standing. First, it is inconsistent with any theoretical view of …

Doing Katrina Time, Pamela R. Metzger

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This Article explores one Katrina-law problem: the plight of the poor, unrepresented and uncharged prisoners. It attempts to explain why these detainees were unrepresented and abandoned and how we might better guarantee the quality of justice for future detainees. Katrina has proved that bright-line rules are the best lines of defense for the poor; criminal justice systems honor concrete rules more readily than abstract imperatives. Katrina also proved that good lawyering on behalf of poor people can bring joy in the midst of despair.