Law Commons^™

Square Circles - Restoring Rationality To The Same-Sex Marriage Debate, Jeffrey J. Ventrella

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Deconstructing Davis V. United States: Intention And Meaning In Ambiguous Requests For Counsel, David Aram Kaiser, Paul Lufkin

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

The authors discuss the United States Supreme Court's decision in Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452 (1994), arguing that its holding-that police officers do not have to cease questioning a criminal suspect who utters an ambiguous request for counsel during custodial interrogation-depends on concepts of interpretation that have been discredited by the deconstructionist theory of Jacques Derrida and subsequent literary critics.

Derrida criticized theoretical movements, such as structuralism, that ignored the role of ambiguity in language. In turn, reacting to Derrida's emphasis on the indeterminacy of meaning, other literary critics sought criteria for "objective" interpretation, the search for which …

Bakke, Grutter, And The Principle Of Subsidiarity, Peter Widulski

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

When seeking to civilly commit an inmate nearing release from prison, states often adopt a formulation of mental responsibility for criminal behavior that is inconsistent with the standard on which they rely when rebutting a criminal insanity defense. Defendants are permitted to raise certain incapacity defenses in one context, and yet they are prohibited from advancing those same defenses in another. As a result, many states may seek criminal punishment on the theory that a defendant is legally sane and then later argue that the same person has a serious mental abnormality characterized by a propensity to engage in criminal …

Supreme Court Voting Behavior 2004 Term, Richard G. Wilkins, Scott Worthington, Jacob Reynolds, John J. Nielsen

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

The 2004 Term, for the third straight year, notes a liberal trend on the Court. The outcomes tabulated on six of ten Tables in 2004, considered as a whole, manifest overall liberal movement. These results strengthen the hypothesis posed by last year's study that "the United States Supreme Court may have embarked on a new course." The stability of any such trend, however, may depend upon the voting behaviors of the two positions on the Court opened at the end of the 2005 Term. Chief Justice Rehnquist, statistically speaking, was the most conservative Member of the Court this Term as …

Restoring The Fourth Amendment: The Original Understanding Revisited, David E. Steinberg

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

Supreme Court decisions regarding the Fourth Amendment are arbitrary, unpredictable and often border on incoherent. This quagmire is inspiring Fourth Amendment scholars to develop catch phrases for the chaos. And it is all because of Court attempts to apply the Fourth Amendment in situations where it was never intended to apply - particularly in police search and seizures. The Fourth Amendment was never intended to serve this role.

Position Paper For Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly Symposium On Gay Marriage, Therese M. Stewart

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

No abstract provided.

A Conservative Critique Of The Federal Marriage Amendment, John Choon Yoo, Anntim Vulchev

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Supreme Court Voting Behavior - 2003 Term, Richard G. Wilkins, Scott Worthington, Lorianne Updike, Jacob Reynolds

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

The 2003 Term, for the second year, notes a liberal trend across a majority of the Tables of this Study. The voting behavior of individual Justices in 2003 was somewhat more stable this Term in that individual departures from past voting behaviors were less pronounced than in 2002. Nevertheless, the Study still demonstrates continuing instability in the voting behavior of individual Justices. This Term, statistically significant departures from past behavior by at least five Members of the Court are present on six Tables. This might suggest that the voting behavior of the Justices on these Tables is "in transition," although …

Reconciling Morality And Moral Responsibility In The Law: A Due Process Challenge To The Inconsistent Mental Responsibility Standards At Play In Criminal Insanity Defenses And Sexually Violent Predator Civil Commitment Hearings, Jeremy T. Price

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

When seeking to civilly commit an inmate nearing release from prison, states often adopt a formulation of mental responsibility for criminal behavior that is inconsistent with the standard on which they rely when rebutting a criminal insanity defense. Defendants are permitted to raise certain incapacity defenses in one context, and yet they are prohibited from advancing those same defenses in another. As a result, many states may seek criminal punishment on the theory that a defendant is legally sane and then later argue that the same person has a serious mental abnormality characterized by a propensity to engage in criminal …

If It Looks Like A Duck... Traditional Public Forum Status Of Open Areas On Public University Campuses, Nathan W. Kellum

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

The notion behind the oft-used maxim, "If it looks like a duck. . ." is that it is an irrefutable adage, but it is one that is lost on many public university administrators. Their struggle with the obvious comes at a high cost. Fundamental First Amendment freedoms are often deprived in areas that represent traditional public for a on campus. Although many universities are diverse in their respective creations of policies pertaining to speech on campus, they are remarkable similar in their approaches to control speech. The right to speak no campus is often strictly controlled, certain speakers are even …

Evidence And Confrontation In The President's Military Commissions, Nicholas W. Smith

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

In the wake of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush and his administration began a vigorous offensive against America's perceived enemies. President Bush issued a Military Order to capture and take into custody anyone the President perceived to be a member of the al Qaida terror network, any suspect of terrorism, and anyone who aids the efforts of terrorists. The President holds limitless discretion over who falls under the jurisdiction of his order, and those captured are subject to trial of military commission. Five hundred prisoners are …