Law Commons^™

The Third Annual Women In Law Leadership Lecture: A Fireside Chat Featuring Amy Barasch, Esq., Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Movement Constitutionalism, Brandon Hasbrouck

Scholarly Articles

The white supremacy at the heart of the American criminal legal system works to control Black, Brown, and poor people through mass incarceration. Poverty and incarceration act in a vicious circle, with reactionaries mounting a desperate defense against any attempt to mitigate economic exploitation or carceral violence. Ending the cycle will require replacing this inequitable system with the life- and liberty-affirming institutions of abolition democracy. The path to abolition democracy is arduous, but abolitionists can press for change through what I coin “movement constitutionalism.” Movement constitutionalism is the process by which grassroots abolitionist movements shift—through demands and in solidarity with …

Equal Protection And Abortion: Brief Of Equal Protection Constitutional Law Scholars Serena Mayeri, Melissa Murray, And Reva Siegel As Amici Curiae In Support Of Respondents In Dobbs V. Jackson Women's Health Organization, Reva Siegel, Melissa Murray, Serena Mayeri

All Faculty Scholarship

Equal Protection changes the questions we ask about abortion restrictions. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, an amicus brief filed on our behalf demonstrated that Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The brief continues a tradition of equality arguments that preceded Roe v. Wade and will continue, in new forms, after Dobbs. Our brief shows how the canonical equal protection cases United States v. Virginia and Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs extend to the regulation of pregnancy, hence provide an independent constitutional basis for abortion rights.

Under equal …

Law School News: Distinguished Service Professor: Deborah Gonzalez 05-20-2020, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Slogans Appropriate To The Legacy Of Martin Luther King Jr., Theodore Walker

Perkins Faculty Research and Special Events

For printing signs, banners, posters, tee shirts, and bumper stickers (and for preaching sermons) that are appropriate to the legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., please consider the following slogans: ABOLISH WAR, ABOLISH POVERTY, AMEND THE CONSTITUTION, SUPPORT AN ECONOMIC BILL OF RIGHTS, JOBS FOR ALL, GUARANTEED INCOME FOR ALL, SUPPORT UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME, and GOOD NEWS TO THE POOR - Luke 4:14-19.

Class As Caste: The Thirteenth Amendment’S Applicability To Class-Based Subordination, William M. Carter Jr.

Articles

As part of a symposium marking the sesquicentennial of the Thirteenth Amendment, this Article briefly explores whether the Thirteenth Amendment applies to class-based subordination. While recognizing that the increasingly rigid class-based stratification of our society, rampant discrimination against the poor, increasing income inequality, and the concentration of enormous wealth in the hands of so few are all pressing social challenges that the legal system must address, this Article concludes that generalized class-based discrimination likely would not fall within the scope of the “badges and incidents of slavery” that the Amendment prohibits.

This Article argues, however, that the Thirteenth Amendment's prohibition …

The First Amendment Protection Of Charitable Speech, Joseph Mead

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

Although philanthropy ranks among the best of human endeavors, local governments across the country have severely restricted charitable entreaties by organizations and individuals alike, all in the name of eliminating "panhandlers." These laws rely on premises that increasingly conflict with Supreme Court instructions about the freedom of speech. Yet lingering uncertainty about where exactly charitable restrictions fall in First Amendment jurisprudence has encouraged local governments to innovate new statutory formulations to wage war on expressions of poverty in order to "clean up" their cities. This piece examines seven arguments commonly used to justify restrictions on charitable solicitations and finds them …

Future Of The Fourth Amendment: The Problem With Privacy, Poverty And Policing, Kami Chavis Simmons

Faculty Publications

For decades, the reasonable expectation of privacy has been the primary standard by which courts have determined whether a "search" has occurred within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. The Supreme Court's recent decision in U.S. v. Jones, however, has reinvigorated the physical trespass doctrine's importance when determining whether there has been a "search" triggering constitutional protection. Recognizing the unpredictability of the reasonable expectation of privacy doctrine and that doctrine's bias against the urban poor, many scholars hope that the Jones opinion may ameliorate the class divide that has developed in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.

This Article argues that while …

Gideon V. Wainwright--From A 1963 Perspective, Jerold H. Israel

Articles

Gideon v. Wainwright is more than a “landmark” Supreme Court ruling in the field of constitutional criminal procedure. As evidenced by the range of celebrators of Gideon’s Fiftieth Anniversary (extending far beyond the legal academy) and Gideon’s inclusion in the basic coverage of high school government courses, Gideon today is an icon of the American justice system. I have no quarrel with that iconic status, but I certainly did not see any such potential in Gideon when I analyzed the Court’s ruling shortly after it was announced in March of 1963. I had previously agreed to write an article for …

The Illusory Right To Counsel, Eve Brensike Primus

Articles

Imagine a woman wrongly accused of murdering her fianc6. She is arrested and charged with first-degree murder. If convicted, she faces a mandatory sentence of life without the possibility of parole. Her family scrapes together enough money to hire two attorneys to represent her at trial. There is no physical evidence connecting her to the murder, but the prosecution builds its case on circumstantial inferences. Her trial attorneys admit that they were so cocky and confident that she would be acquitted that they did not bother to investigate her case or file a single pre-trial motion. Rather, they waived the …

A Structural Vision Of Habeas Corpus, Eve Brensike Primus

Articles

As scholars have recognized elsewhere in public law, there is no hermetic separation between individual rights and structural or systemic processes of governance. To be sure, it is often helpful to focus on a question as primarily implicating one or the other of those categories. But a full appreciation of a structural rule includes an understanding of its relationship to individuals, and individual rights can both derive from and help shape larger systemic practices. The separation of powers principle, for example, is clearly a matter of structure, but much of its virtue rests on its promise to help protect the …

Litigation Strategies For Dealing With The Indigent Defense Crisis, Eve Brensike Primus

Articles

The indigent defense delivery system in the United States is in a state of crisis. Public defenders routinely handle well over 1,000 cases a year, more than three times the number of cases that the American Bar Association says one attorney can handle effectively. As a result, many defendants sit in jail for months before even speaking to their court-appointed lawyers. And when defendants do meet their attorneys, they are often disappointed to learn that these lawyers are too overwhelmed to provide adequate representation. With public defenders or assigned counsel representing more than 80% of criminal defendants nationwide, the indigent …

Brief For Amicus Curiae David A. Super: Supporting Plaintiff-Appellants Urging Reversal, In Howard V. Hawkins (2009)., David A. Super

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court has consistently held that congressional intent governs whether federal statutes are privately enforceable. Where Congress has been silent, a line of cases culminating in Gonzaga Univ. v. Doe, 536 U.S. 273 (2002), prescribes a formula for inferring congressional intent from the structure of a statute. Here, however, Congress has not been silent: the Food and Nutrition Act specifies the amount of retroactive benefits that may be awarded households in “any judicial action arising under this Act” and makes certain records of state agencies “available for review in any action filed by a household to enforce any provision …

Procedural Obstacles To Reviewing Ineffective Assistance Of Trial Counsel Claims In State And Federal Postconviction Proceedings., Eve Brensike Primus

Articles

Ineffective assistance of trial counsel is one of the most frequently raised claims in state and federal postconviction petitions. This is hardly surprising given reports of trial attorneys who refuse to investigate their cases before trial, never meet with their clients before the day of trial, and fail to file any motions or object to inadmissible evidence offered at trial. Unfortunately, the current structure of indigent defense funding makes it impossible for many public defenders to provide effective representation to their clients.

Introduction: International Review Of Constitutionalism Special Issue On Law, Poverty And Economic Inequality, Penelope Andrews, Frank W. Munger

Articles & Chapters

Editors introduction: This collection of articles by noted scholars examines what law and legal institutions can do to alleviate poverty and economic inequality in the new economic and political environment. The articles explore the contours of many struggles for distributive justice. They describe contemporary constitutional strategies, such as the incorporation of economic, social and cultural rights in constitutions in relation to grassroots anti-poverty campaigns in many parts of the world, including campaigns for rights in South Africa, and poor people's economic and human rights campaigns in the United States. Such campaigns face well-known disadvantages in contending with entrenched, powerful, and …

Extending Charter Benefits To Canada’S Poor, A. Wayne Mackay

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

While the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has had a major impact on Canada’s political landscape in its first 25 years, its impact on social and economic rights has been minimal. The courts should assume a larger role in advancing the rights of the many Canadians living in poverty and despair.

Judges have traditionally regarded matters of social and economic policy as falling within the expertise of the legislative and executive branches of the state. The Charter has done little to dispel that view. The elected branches of the state must continue to play a major role, but the …

Slides: Dam Building And Removal On The Elwha: A Prototype Of Adaptive Mismanagement And A Tribal Opportunity, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

Presenter: William H. Rodgers, Jr., Stimson Bullitt Professor of Environmental Law, University of Washington School of Law

77 slides

Justice Delayed: A Tribal Attorney’S Perspective On Elwha River Dam Removal And Ecosystem Restoration, Russell W. Busch

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

Presenter: Russell W. Busch, Attorney for the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe

10 pages.

Structural Reform In Criminal Defense: Relocating Ineffective Assistance Of Counsel Claims, Eve Brensike Primus

Articles

This Article suggests a structural reform that could solve two different problems in criminal defense representation. The first problem is that the right to effective trial counsel lacks a meaningful remedy. Defendants are generally not permitted to raise ineffective assistance of counsel claims until collateral review. Given that collateral review typically occurs years after trial, most convicted defendants have completed their sentences by that time and therefore have little incentive to pursue ineffectiveness claims. Moreover, there is no right to counsel on collateral review, and it is unrealistic to expect defendants to navigate the complicated terrain of an ineffectiveness claim …

Katrina, The Constitution, And The Legal Question Doctrine, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this paper I will not develop the case for constitutionally protected welfare rights - I have tried to do that elsewhere. Instead, I want to explore the tension between what I will take to be at least a plausible account of the state's Constitutional obligations to the poor, and what seems to me as at least equally self-evident, to wit, that no American court will discover and then impose such Constitutional obligations upon recalcitrant state or federal legislators. My conclusion will be pragmatic. I want to urge those who feel likewise regarding the Constitutional obligations of state actors, to …

Reconstructing Section Five Of The Fourteenth Amendment To Assist Impoverished Children, James G. Wilson

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Liberal lawyers encounter grim alternatives caused by the Supreme Court's relentless shift to the right, particularly if they consider stare decisis a major constitutional value. They can attack specific decisions, demonstrating inconsistencies with prior cases, conclusory reasoning and/ or poor policy. They can use history, jurisprudence or even literature to make broad-based critiques of the Court's increasing callousness. They can propose counter-doctrine which is consistent with existing caselaw. The third response may appear quixotic, even naive, given the present Court. Nevertheless, exploration of progressive alternatives illuminates existing doctrine and provides potential openings if the Court ever decides to become more …

Gideon V. Wainwright A Quarter-Century Later, Yale Kamisar

Articles

In a brief working paper sent to all conference participants, Professor Burt Neuborne suggested that we might consider several themes, among them "Gideon Celebrated," "Gideon Fulfilled," and "Gideon Betrayed." I think these are useful headings.