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Full-Text Articles in Law

Is There A Dormant Extraterritoriality Principle?: Commerce Clause Limits On State Antitrust Laws, Michael J. Ruttinger Dec 2007

Is There A Dormant Extraterritoriality Principle?: Commerce Clause Limits On State Antitrust Laws, Michael J. Ruttinger

Michigan Law Review

State antitrust laws ordinarily supplement federal law by providing a cause of action for anticompetitive activity that occurs in the state. Some states, however, have construed their antitrust regimes to reach conduct that occurs outside the state's boundaries. Such regulation raises significant federalism and Commerce Clause concerns by creating possible extraterritorial liability for conduct with virtually no in-state effect. This Note examines two Commerce Clause standards that may limit the degree to which state antitrust laws may exercise extraterritorial force-the "dormant" or "negative" Commerce Clause and the so-called "Extraterritorial Principle." Unfortunately, the dormant Commerce Clause test, as articulated in Pike …


Taking Text Too Seriously: Modern Textualism, Original Meaning, And The Case Of Amar's Bill Of Rights, William Michael Treanor Dec 2007

Taking Text Too Seriously: Modern Textualism, Original Meaning, And The Case Of Amar's Bill Of Rights, William Michael Treanor

Michigan Law Review

Championed on the Supreme Court by Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas and in academia most prominently by Professor Akhil Amar textualism has emerged within the past twenty years as a leading school of constitutional interpretation. Textualists argue that the Constitution should be interpreted in accordance with its original public meaning, and in seeking that meaning, they closely parse the Constitution's words and grammar and the placement of clauses in the document. They have assumed that this close parsing recaptures original meaning, but, perhaps because it seems obviously correct, that assumption has neither been defended nor challenged. This Article uses Professor …


International Law And Constitutional Interpretation: The Commander In Chief Clause Reconsidered, Ingrid Brunk Wuerth Oct 2007

International Law And Constitutional Interpretation: The Commander In Chief Clause Reconsidered, Ingrid Brunk Wuerth

Michigan Law Review

The Commander in Chief Clause is a difficult, underexplored area of constitutional interpretation. It is also a context in which international law is often mentioned, but not fully defended, as a possible method of interpreting the Constitution. This Article analyzes why the Commander in Chief Clause is difficult and argues that international law helps resolve some of the problems that the Clause presents. Because of weaknesses in originalist analysis, changes over time, and lack of judicial competence in military matters, the Court and commentators have relied on second-order interpretive norms like congressional authorization and executive branch practice in interpreting the …


Noontime Dumping: Why States Have Broad Discretion To Regulate Onboard Treatments Of Ballast Water, Kyle H. Landis-Marinello Oct 2007

Noontime Dumping: Why States Have Broad Discretion To Regulate Onboard Treatments Of Ballast Water, Kyle H. Landis-Marinello

Michigan Law Review

Ballast water discharges from shipping vessels are responsible for spreading numerous forms of aquatic invasive species, a form of biological pollution that leads to billions of dollars in annual costs. In the wake of inaction from the federal government and inaction from the shipping industry, several Great Lakes states are currently considering legislation to address the problem. Michigan has already passed a law to prevent ballast water introductions of invasive species. As states begin to regulate ballast water discharges from oceangoing vessels, such laws will likely face challenges based on the constitutional principles of the Dormant Commerce Clause and the …


Proximate Cause In Constitutional Torts: Holding Interrogators Liable For Fifth Amendment Violations At Trial, Joel Flaxman May 2007

Proximate Cause In Constitutional Torts: Holding Interrogators Liable For Fifth Amendment Violations At Trial, Joel Flaxman

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues for the approach taken by the Sixth Circuit in McKinley: a proper understanding of the Fifth Amendment requires holding that an officer who coerces a confession that is used at trial to convict a defendant in violation of the right against self-incrimination should face liability for the harm of conviction and imprisonment. Part I examines how the Supreme Court and the circuits have applied the concept of common law proximate causation to constitutional torts and argues that lower courts are wrong to blindly adopt common law rules without reference to the constitutional rights at stake. It …


Looking Backward: Richard Epstein Ponders The "Progressive" Peril, Michael Allan Wolf Apr 2007

Looking Backward: Richard Epstein Ponders The "Progressive" Peril, Michael Allan Wolf

Michigan Law Review

In the 1888 novel Looking Backward, Edward Bellamy dreamed up a twentieth century America that was a socialist utopia, a vision invoked four years later by the conservative Justice David J. Brewer as a warning against government regulation. In How Progressives Rewrote the Constitution, Richard Epstein, looking back at the twentieth century through an interpretive lens much more similar to Brewer's than Bellamy's, sees and bemoans the growth of a dominant big government of which the novelist could only dream. Epstein pulls no punches in his attack on those he deems responsible for the shift in the American …


A Syllabus Of Errors, Douglas Laycock Apr 2007

A Syllabus Of Errors, Douglas Laycock

Michigan Law Review

Modern American society is pervasively regulated. It is also religiously diverse to a degree that is probably unprecedented in the history of the world. It is inevitable that some of these diverse religious practices will violate some of these pervasive regulations, and equally inevitable that if we ask whether all these regulations are really necessary, sometimes the answer will be no. If we take free exercise of religion seriously, sometimes it will make sense to exempt sincere religious practices from generally applicable laws - but only some laws, and only some applications. Hardly anyone thinks that human sacrifice should be …


"By Night She Fought For Fair Use": Restoring The Integrity Of Copyright Law, One Comic-Book Reader At A Time, Jessica Sawyer Wang Apr 2007

"By Night She Fought For Fair Use": Restoring The Integrity Of Copyright Law, One Comic-Book Reader At A Time, Jessica Sawyer Wang

Michigan Law Review

Students of copyright law quickly learn that the subject is counterintuitive. One of the first revelations of this is-somewhat alarmingly-the purpose of copyright itself. Contrary to popular belief, copyright is not just about protecting an artist's creation, but sharing it. Simultaneously protecting a work and sharing it helps to fulfill the Constitution's mandate that Congress "promote the Progress of Science ... by securing for limited Times to Authors ... the exclusive Right to their ... Writings." In other words, Congress is to promote learning and the advancement of our culture. The symbiosis of protecting and sharing is effected through the …


A Response To Professor Laycock, Marci A. Hamilton Apr 2007

A Response To Professor Laycock, Marci A. Hamilton

Michigan Law Review

Almost a hundred years ago, the American Association of University Professors established guidelines for civility among scholars, saying that academic exchanges "should be set forth with dignity, courtesy, and temperateness of language." I agree wholeheartedly with these principles, and I will not succumb to the temptation to respond in kind to Professor Laycock's review. Tone is much less important than having a frank exchange of views. It is well known that Professor Laycock and I have very different perspectives on the proper interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause. His review and my response should be an opportunity for us to …


Twins Or Triplets?: Protecting The Eleventh Amendment Through A Three-Prong Arm-Of-The-State Test, Héctor G. Bladuell Feb 2007

Twins Or Triplets?: Protecting The Eleventh Amendment Through A Three-Prong Arm-Of-The-State Test, Héctor G. Bladuell

Michigan Law Review

In 1999, the Supreme Court held that the common law principle that the sovereign cannot be sued in its own courts without its consent was embedded in the Constitution's structure when it was ratified. The Court, however, has not always adhered to this view. In 1793, when a citizen of South Carolina sued the State of Georgia to enforce a debt arising from the sale of Revolutionary War supplies, the Court ordered the State to fulfill its obligation even though the State had not consented to the suit. Alarmed by the sudden opening of their treasuries to federal courts over …


Mostly Harmless: An Analysis Of Post-Aedpa Federal Habeas Corpus Review Of State Harmless Error Determinations, Jeffrey S. Jacobi Feb 2007

Mostly Harmless: An Analysis Of Post-Aedpa Federal Habeas Corpus Review Of State Harmless Error Determinations, Jeffrey S. Jacobi

Michigan Law Review

Sixty years ago, in Kotteakos v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that a small class of so-called harmless errors committed by courts did not require correction. The Court acknowledged that some judicial errors, though recognizable as errors, did not threaten the validity of criminal convictions and therefore did not quite require reversal. Specifically, the Court held that errors that violated federal statutes should be deemed harmless unless they had a "substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury's verdict." While Kotteakos represented the Supreme Court's first treatment of the concept of harmlessness, other courts had a …


The D'Oh! Of Popular Constitutionalism, Neal Devins Jan 2007

The D'Oh! Of Popular Constitutionalism, Neal Devins

Michigan Law Review

This Review will be divided into three parts. Part I will both summarize The Most Democratic Branch and highlight some of the difficulties that the Supreme Court would face in implementing Rosen's decision-making model. In particular, by allowing the Court to invalidate laws for a host of "antidemocratic" reasons, Rosen's matrix does not constrain the Court in a predictable way. Part II will examine some of the empirical evidence about public attitudes toward the Supreme Court, including public awareness of Supreme Court decisions. I will contend that the Court cannot look to the people to sort out the Constitution's meaning …


When Courts Shouldn't Take The Initiative: Section 2 Of The Voting Rights Act, Initiative Petitions, And Operation King's Dream, Francesca Ambrosio Jan 2007

When Courts Shouldn't Take The Initiative: Section 2 Of The Voting Rights Act, Initiative Petitions, And Operation King's Dream, Francesca Ambrosio

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that interpreting section 2 to exclude initiative proposals during their circulation phase is the only way to avoid insurmountable statutory construction problems and constitutional objections. It grounds the theoretical discussion of the VRA in an analysis of how the court applied section 2 in Operation King's Dream. Part I provides the legal landscape of a section 2 claim, including relevant legislative history and the essential elements of a successful claim. Part II contends that because no voting takes place during the petition phase of a proposal, petition circulation can neither deny nor abridge the right to …