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The Glucksberg Renaissance: Substantive Due Process Since Lawrence V. Texas, Brian Hawkins Nov 2006

The Glucksberg Renaissance: Substantive Due Process Since Lawrence V. Texas, Brian Hawkins

Michigan Law Review

On their faces, Washington v. Glucksberg and Lawrence v. Texas seem to have little in common. In Glucksberg, the Supreme Court upheld a law prohibiting assisted suicide and rejected a claim that the Constitution protects a "right to die"; in Lawrence, the Court struck down a law prohibiting homosexual sodomy and embraced a claim that the Constitution protects homosexual persons' choices to engage in intimate relationships. Thus, in both subject matter and result, Lawrence and Glucksberg appear far apart. The Lawrence Court, however, faced a peculiar challenge in reaching its decision, and its response to that challenge brings …


The Ninth Amendment: It Means What It Says, Randy E. Barnett Feb 2006

The Ninth Amendment: It Means What It Says, Randy E. Barnett

ExpressO

Although the Ninth Amendment appears on its face to protect unenumerated individual rights of the same sort as those that were enumerated in the Bill of Rights, courts and scholars have long deprived it of any relevance to constitutional adjudication. With the growing interest in originalist methods of interpretation since the 1980s, however, this situation has changed. In the past twenty years, five originalist models of the Ninth Amendment have been propounded by scholars: The state law rights model, the residual rights model, the individual natural rights model, the collective rights model, and the federalism model. This article examines thirteen …


Enumeration And Other Constitutional Strategies For Protecting Rights: The View From 1787/1791, Mark A. Graber Jan 2006

Enumeration And Other Constitutional Strategies For Protecting Rights: The View From 1787/1791, Mark A. Graber

Faculty Scholarship

This paper interprets the constitution of 1791 in light of the constitution of 1787. The persons responsible for the original constitution thought they had secured fundamental rights by a combination of representation, the separation of powers, and the extended republic. The Bill of Rights, in their view, was a minor supplement to the strategies previously employed for preventing abusive government practices. Proposed amendments were less a list of fundamental freedoms than an enumeration of those rights likely to appease moderate anti-Federalists. That many vaguely phrased rights lacked clear legal meaning was of little concern to their Federalist sponsors, who trusted …


Who's Afraid Of Unenumerated Rights?, Randy E. Barnett Jan 2006

Who's Afraid Of Unenumerated Rights?, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Unenumerated rights are expressly protected against federal infringement by the original meaning of the Ninth Amendment and against state infringement by the original meaning of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Despite this textual recognition, unenumerated rights have received inconsistent and hesitant protection ever since these provisions were enacted, and what protection they do receive is subject to intense criticism. In this essay, the author examines why some are afraid to enforce unenumerated rights. While this reluctance seems most obviously to stem from the uncertainty of ascertaining the content of unenumerated rights, he contends that underlying this …


Three Theories Of Substantive Due Process, Daniel O. Conkle Jan 2006

Three Theories Of Substantive Due Process, Daniel O. Conkle

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Substantive due process is in serious disarray, with the Supreme Court simultaneously embracing two, and perhaps three, competing and inconsistent theories of decisionmaking. The first two theories, historical tradition and reasoned judgment, have explicit and continuing support in the Court's decisions. Under the theory of historical tradition, substantive due process affords presumptive constitutional protection only to liberties that are "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition." By contrast, the theory of reasoned judgment is far more expansive, permitting the Court to identify rights independently, through a process that amounts to philosophical analysis or political-moral reasoning. The third theory, evolving …