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Articles 1 - 29 of 29
Full-Text Articles in Law
Under-The-Table Overruling, Christopher J. Peters
Under-The-Table Overruling, Christopher J. Peters
All Faculty Scholarship
In this contribution to a Wayne Law Review symposium on the first three years of the Roberts Court, the author normatively assesses the Court's practice of "under-the-table overruling," or "underruling," in high-profile constitutional cases involving abortion, campaign-finance reform, and affirmative action. The Court "underrules" when it renders a decision that undercuts a recent precedent without admitting that it is doing so. The author contends that underruling either is not supported by, or is directly incompatible with, three common rationales for constitutional stare decisis: the noninstrumental rationale, the predictability rationale, and the legitimacy rationale. In particular, while the latter rationale - …
Overcoming Necessity: Torture And The State Of Constitutional Culture, Thomas P. Crocker
Overcoming Necessity: Torture And The State Of Constitutional Culture, Thomas P. Crocker
Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
Sanctionable Conduct: How The Supreme Court Stealthily Opened The Schoolhouse Gate, Sonja R. West
Sanctionable Conduct: How The Supreme Court Stealthily Opened The Schoolhouse Gate, Sonja R. West
Scholarly Works
The Supreme Court's decision in Morse v. Frederick signaled that public school authority over student expression extends beyond the schoolhouse gate. This authority may extend to any activity in which a student participates that the school has officially sanctioned. The author argues that this decision is unsupported by precedent, and could encourage schools to sanction more events in the future. Because the Court failed to limit or define the power of a school to sanction an activity, the decision could have a chilling effect on even protected student expression. The author commends the Court for taking up this issue after …
Torture, With Apologies, Thomas P. Crocker
Substantive Due Process After Gonzales V. Carhart, Steven G. Calabresi
Substantive Due Process After Gonzales V. Carhart, Steven G. Calabresi
Faculty Working Papers
This Essay begins in Part I with a doctrinal evaluation of the status of Washington v. Glucksberg ten years after that decision was handed down. Discussion begins with consideration of the Roberts Court's recent decision in Gonzales v. Carhart and then turns to the subject of Justice Kennedy's views in particular on substantive due process. In Part II, the Essay goes on to consider whether the Glucksberg test for substantive due process decision making is correct in light of the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Essay concludes in Parts II and III that Glucksberg is right to confine …
Beyond The Article I Horizon: Congress’S Enumerated Powers And Universal Jurisdiction Over Drug Crimes, Eugene Kontorovich
Beyond The Article I Horizon: Congress’S Enumerated Powers And Universal Jurisdiction Over Drug Crimes, Eugene Kontorovich
Faculty Working Papers
This paper explores the Article I limits faced by Congress in exercising universal jurisdiction (UJ) – that is, regulating extraterritorial conduct by foreigners with no affect on or connection the U.S. While UJ is becoming increasingly popular in Europe for the punishment of human rights offenses, Congress's primary use of UJ today is under the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act. This obscure law allows the U.S. to punish for violating U.S. drug laws foreign defendants on foreign vessels in international waters. The MDLEA's UJ provisions raise fundamental questions about the source and extent of Congress's constitutional power to regulate purely …
The Mismatch Between Public Nuisance Law And Global Warming, David A. Dana
The Mismatch Between Public Nuisance Law And Global Warming, David A. Dana
Faculty Working Papers
The federal courts using the common law method of case-by-case adjudication may have institutional advantages over the more political branches, such as perhaps more freedom from interest group capture and more flexibility to tailor decisions to local conditions. Any such advantages, however, are more than offset by the disadvantages of relying on the courts in common resource management in general and in the management of the global atmospheric commons in particular. The courts are best able to serve a useful function resolving climate-related disputes once the political branches have acted by establishing a policy framework and working through the daunting …
The German Idea Of Freedom, Edward J. Eberle
The German Idea Of Freedom, Edward J. Eberle
Law Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Equality In Germany And The United States, Edward J. Eberle
Equality In Germany And The United States, Edward J. Eberle
Law Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Reining In Abuses Of Executive Power Through Substantive Due Process, Rosalie Berger Levinson
Reining In Abuses Of Executive Power Through Substantive Due Process, Rosalie Berger Levinson
Law Faculty Publications
Although substantive due process is one of the most confusing and controversial areas of constitutional law, it is well established that the Due Process Clause includes a substantive component that “bars certain arbitrary wrongful government actions ‘regardless of the fairness of the procedures used to implement them.’” The Court has recognized substantive due process limitations on law-enforcement personnel, publicschool officials, government employers, and those who render decisions that affect our property rights. Government officials who act with intent to harm or with deliberate indifference to our rights have been found to engage in conduct that “shocks the judicial conscience” contrary …
Misinterpreting "Sounds Of Silence": Why Courts Should Not "Imply" Congressional Preclusion Of § 1983 Constitutional Claims, Rosalie Berger Levinson
Misinterpreting "Sounds Of Silence": Why Courts Should Not "Imply" Congressional Preclusion Of § 1983 Constitutional Claims, Rosalie Berger Levinson
Law Faculty Publications
Despite the clear text of 42 U.S.C. § 1983, its promise to protect constitutional rights has been obfuscated by the theory that Congress, by enacting civil rights laws, has “impliedly” foreclosed the historic use of § 1983 to vindicate constitutional wrongdoing. Increasingly, plaintiffs are being denied their right to vindicate constitutional wrongdoing, either because the new “preempting” federal statute does not trigger individual liability or because it makes institutional liability more difficult to establish.
It is counterintuitive to believe that Congress, in an attempt to expand equality or due process, intended to cut off existing remedies for constitutional violations. Nonetheless, …
Exclusionary Eminent Domain, David A. Dana
Exclusionary Eminent Domain, David A. Dana
Faculty Working Papers
This Article explores the phenomenon of "exclusionary eminent domain" – the exercise of eminent domain that has the effect of excluding low-income households from an otherwise predominantly or entirely middle-class or wealthy neighborhood or locality, whether or not exclusion itself was the purpose of the condemnation. All condemnations exclude the condemned owner (and his or her tenants, if any) from the condemned property. Exercises of what I am calling "exclusionary eminent domain" are doubly exclusive because the displaced residents are unable to afford new housing in the same neighborhood or locality as their now-condemned, former homes. In exclusionary eminent domain, …
Commercial Speech, First Amendment Intuitionism And The Twilight Zone Of Viewpoint Discrimination, Martin H. Redish
Commercial Speech, First Amendment Intuitionism And The Twilight Zone Of Viewpoint Discrimination, Martin H. Redish
Faculty Working Papers
In this article, I seek to demonstrate that arguments made by scholars against First Amendment protection for commercial speech may be divided into three categories: (1) rationalist, (2) intuitionist, and (3) ideological. I argue that all three forms of opposition to commercial speech protection suffer, either directly or indirectly, from the same fundamental flaw: each constitutes or at the very least facilitates creation of a constitutionally destructive form of viewpoint discrimination. I show that all of the specific rationales for opposing First Amendment protection for commercial speech are fatally and illogically underinclusive: In each case the justification asserted to support …
Corruption Of Religion And The Establishment Clause, Andrew Koppelman
Corruption Of Religion And The Establishment Clause, Andrew Koppelman
Faculty Working Papers
Government neutrality toward religion is based on familiar considerations: the importance of avoiding religious conflict, alienation of religious minorities, and the danger that religious considerations will introduce a dangerous irrational dogmatism into politics and make democratic compromise more difficult. This paper explores one consideration, prominent at the time of the framing, that is often overlooked: the idea that religion can be corrupted by state involvement with it. This idea is friendly to religion but, precisely for that reason, is determined to keep the state away from religion.
If the religion-protective argument for disestablishment is to be useful today, it cannot …
The Empirical Judiciary, A. Christopher Bryant
The Empirical Judiciary, A. Christopher Bryant
Faculty Articles and Other Publications
This essay reviews David L. Faigman’s Constitutional Fictions: A Unified Theory of Constitutional Facts (Oxford U.P. 2008). Constitutional Fictions is a highly original book that promises to (and should) have an enormous impact on both constitutional law scholarship and practice. The book focuses on the methods, or lack thereof, that the Court employs in receiving evidence and resolving disagreements about questions of fact in constitutional cases. In doing so, the book does the legal profession an invaluable service by identifying and articulating the many frequently unspoken questions that arise in the context of judicial consideration and resolution of legislative facts …
Quintessential Elements Of Meaningful Constitutions In Post-Conflict States, William W. Van Alstyne
Quintessential Elements Of Meaningful Constitutions In Post-Conflict States, William W. Van Alstyne
Faculty Scholarship
This examination compares several successful constitutions formulated to govern countries just formed from the conclusion of armed conflicts (including the U.S.). Some of the most important elements gleaned from these successful constitutions include an independent court before which one may appeal to the new constitution because such a constitution adequately secures the integrity of the court itself.
Terror Financing, Guilt By Association And The Paradigm Of Prevention In The ‘War On Terror’, David Cole
Terror Financing, Guilt By Association And The Paradigm Of Prevention In The ‘War On Terror’, David Cole
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
"Material support" has become the watchword of the post-9/11 era. Material support to groups that have been designated as "terrorist" has been the U.S. government's favorite charge in post-9/11 "terrorism" prosecutions. Under immigration law, material support is a basis for deportation and exclusion - even where individuals have been coerced into providing support by the terrorist group itself. And under the Military Commissions Act, it is now a "war crime."
This essay argues that the criminalization of "material support" to designated "terrorist organizations" is guilt by association in twenty-first-century garb, and presents all of the same problems that criminalizing membership …
Fighting Women: The Military, Sex, And Extrajudicial Constitutional Change, Jill Elaine Hasday
Fighting Women: The Military, Sex, And Extrajudicial Constitutional Change, Jill Elaine Hasday
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The Supreme Court in Rostker v. Goldberg (1981) upheld male-only military registration, and endorsed male-only conscription and combat positions. Few cases have challenged restrictions on women's military service since Rostker, and none have reached the Supreme Court. Federal statutes continue to exclude women from military registration and draft eligibility, and military regulations still ban women from some combat positions. Yet many aspects of women's legal status in the military have changed in striking respects over the past quarter century while academic attention has focused elsewhere. Congress has eliminated statutory combat exclusions, the military has opened many combat positions to women, …
Unratified Treaties, Domestic Politics, And The U.S. Constitution, Curtis A. Bradley
Unratified Treaties, Domestic Politics, And The U.S. Constitution, Curtis A. Bradley
Faculty Scholarship
Under contemporary treaty practice, a nation's signature of a treaty typically does not make the nation a party to the treaty. Rather, nations become parties to treaties through an act of ratification or accession, which sometimes occurs long after signature. Nevertheless, Article 18 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which many commentators regard as reflecting customary international law, provides that when a nation signs a treaty it is obligated to refrain from actions that would defeat the object and purpose of the treaty until such time as it makes clear its intent not to become a party …
Errors, Omissions, And The Tennessee Plan, Brian T. Fitzpatrick
Errors, Omissions, And The Tennessee Plan, Brian T. Fitzpatrick
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
In the Spring 2008 issue of the Tennessee Law Review, I wrote an essay questioning whether Tennessee's merit system for selecting appellate judges - the Tennessee Plan - satisfies the requirements of the Tennessee Constitution. The Tennessee Constitution requires all judges to be elected by the qualified voters of the state, yet, under the Plan, all appellate judges are initially selected by gubernatorial appointment and then retained in uncontested referenda. I argued that both the appointment and retention features of the Plan are unconstitutional, and I recommended that the legislature refuse to reauthorize the Plan when it expires in June …
Election As Appointment: The Tennessee Plan Reconsidered, Brian T. Fitzpatrick
Election As Appointment: The Tennessee Plan Reconsidered, Brian T. Fitzpatrick
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Tennessee's merit system for selecting judges - referred to as the Tennessee Plan - has been controversial ever since it was enacted in 1971 to replace contested elections. The greatest controversy has been whether the Plan is even constitutional. The Tennessee constitution states that all judges "shall be elected by the qualified voters" of the state. Yet, under the Tennessee Plan, the governor appoints all appellate judges, and those judges come before the voters only after a period of time on the bench and only in uncontested yes-no retention referenda. In 1977, the people of Tennessee were asked to amend …
The Possibility Of A Secular First Amendment, Chad Flanders
The Possibility Of A Secular First Amendment, Chad Flanders
All Faculty Scholarship
In a series of articles and now in their new book, Religious Freedom and the Constitution, Lawrence Sager and Christopher Eisgruber (E&S) defend an interpretation of the religion clauses of the First Amendment which, they write, "denies that religion is a constitutional anomaly, a category of human experience that demands special benefits and/or necessitates special restrictions." While not a book review in the traditional sense, my essay takes E&S's defense of a secular First Amendment as a starting point and asks, how did we get to the point where an interpretation of the First Amendment which denies that religion is …
The Intriguing Federalist Future Of Reproductive Rights, Scott A. Moss, Douglas M. Raines
The Intriguing Federalist Future Of Reproductive Rights, Scott A. Moss, Douglas M. Raines
Publications
As the decline of Roe v. Wade inspires renewed efforts to restrict federal constitutional abortion rights, the serious shortcomings of abortion rights advocates' strategies for preserving such rights will become increasingly apparent. Continued reliance on Roe is likely to fail with an increasingly unsympathetic Supreme Court. Even abortion rights supporters have begun to criticize the decision for weak reasoning, which is difficult to remedy at this late stage of federal abortion jurisprudence. Moreover, although autonomy and gender equality arguments for abortion rights would improve upon Roe's privacy rationale, such arguments would require abrogating substantial precedent and are, therefore, of limited …
What Yoder Wrought: Religious Disparagement, Parental Alienation And The Best Interests Of The Child, Jeffrey Shulman
What Yoder Wrought: Religious Disparagement, Parental Alienation And The Best Interests Of The Child, Jeffrey Shulman
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Despite its grounding in a specific and peculiar set of facts, the strict scrutiny mandate of Wisconsin v. Yoder (decided in 1972) has changed the constitutional landscape of custody cases - - and it has done so in a way that is unsound both as a matter of law and policy. Following Yoder, most courts require a showing of harm to the child, or a substantial threat of harm to the child, before placing any restrictions on exposure to a parent’s religious beliefs and practices. This harm standard leaves children in an untenable position when parents compete for “spiritual custody,” …
On The Commander-In-Chief Power, David Luban
On The Commander-In-Chief Power, David Luban
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Since September 11, the Bush administration has asserted broad, exclusive presidential war powers under the Commander in Chief Clause. However, the minimalist language of the Clause never specifies what powers a commander in chief possesses. This paper argues, based on military history, original understanding, and the contemporary theory of civilian-military relations, that the commander-in-chief power is narrow rather than broad. In ancient and feudal societies, like contemporary military dictatorships, civilian and military dominion are fused to consolidate power in the hands of a single leader – a warrior-king or fighting executive, whose military prowess validates the claim to civilian rule. …
The 'High Crime Area' Question: Requiring Verifiable And Quantifiable Evidence For Fourth Amendment Reasonable Suspicion Analysis, Andrew Ferguson, Damien Bernache
The 'High Crime Area' Question: Requiring Verifiable And Quantifiable Evidence For Fourth Amendment Reasonable Suspicion Analysis, Andrew Ferguson, Damien Bernache
Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals
This article proposes a legal framework to analyze the "high crime area" concept in Fourth Amendment reasonable suspicion challenges.Under existing Supreme Court precedent, reviewing courts are allowed to consider that an area is a "high crime area" as a factor to evaluate the reasonableness of a Fourth Amendment stop. See Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119 (2000). However, the Supreme Court has never defined a "high crime area" and lower courts have not reached consensus on a definition. There is no agreement on what a "high-crime area" is, whether it has geographic boundaries, whether it changes over time, whether it …
The Conservative Case For Precedent, Thomas W. Merrill
The Conservative Case For Precedent, Thomas W. Merrill
Faculty Scholarship
This Essay offers some reasons why conservatives should favor giving great weight to precedent in constitutional adjudication. Let me start with some preliminary observations about the debate between originalism and precedent more generally.
First, the debate has been dominated to far too great an extent by specific cases, Roe v. Wade in particular. It is distressing that the only issue that has seemed to matter in recent confirmation hearings is what a nominee thinks about Roe v. Wade. Similarly, in the precedent versus originalism debate, much of the discussion – even in the law reviews – is animated by …
Curricula And Complacency: A Response To Professor Levinson, Ernest A. Young
Curricula And Complacency: A Response To Professor Levinson, Ernest A. Young
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
The Outrageous God: Emotional Distress, Tort Liability, And The Limits Of Religious Advocacy, Jeffrey Shulman
The Outrageous God: Emotional Distress, Tort Liability, And The Limits Of Religious Advocacy, Jeffrey Shulman
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
When Matthew Snyder died fighting for his country, his memory was celebrated, and his loss mourned. The Westboro Baptist Church conducted a celebration of a different kind by picketing near Matthew’s funeral service. The church held signs that read, “You are going to hell,” “God hates you,” “Thank God for dead soldiers,” and “Semper fi fags.” In the weeks following the funeral, the church posted on its website, godhatesfags.com, an “epic” entitled “The Burden of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder.” Matthew’s burden, as the church saw it, was that he had been “raised for the devil” and “taught to defy …