Law Commons^™

Slaughtering Slaughter-House: An Assessment Of 14th Amendment Privileges Or Immunities Jurisprudence, Caleb Webb

Senior Honors Theses

In 1872, the Supreme Court decided the Slaughter-House Cases, which applied a narrow interpretation of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the 14^th Amendment that effectually eroded the clause from the Constitution. Following Slaughter-House, the Supreme Court compensated by utilizing elastic interpretations of the Due Process Clause in its substantive due process jurisprudence to cover the rights that would have otherwise been protected by the Privileges or Immunities Clause. In more recent years, the Court has heard arguments favoring alternative interpretations of the Privileges or Immunities Clause but has yet to evaluate them thoroughly. By applying the …

Foreword: The Life, Work & Legacy Of Felix Frankfurter, The Justice Known As “Ff”, Rodger D. Citron

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Decisionmaking In Patent Cases At The Federal Circuit, Jason Reinecke

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Article provides the results of an empirical study assessing the impact of panel composition in patent cases at the Federal Circuit. The dataset includes 2675 three-judge panel-level final written decisions and Rule 36 summary affirmances issued by the Federal Circuit between January 1, 2014 and May 31, 2021. The study informs the longstanding debate concerning whether the Federal Circuit is succeeding as a court with nationwide jurisdiction in patent cases and provides insight into judicial decisionmaking more broadly. And several results show that many of the worst fears that commentators have about the Federal Circuit appear overstated or untrue. …

Promoting Women’S Advancement In The Judiciary In The Midst Of Backlash: A Comparative Analysis Of Representation And Jurisprudence In Key Domestic And International Fora, Shruti Rana

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Women’s advancement in the judiciary of the United States has been slow and uneven, and has long lagged behind other nations. Parity in representation remains distant, and the gains to date vulnerable to changes in administrations and fluctuating levels of state commitment to gender equality, with the recent global backlash to gender equality and international norms and institutions providing a critical example of this fragility. In this light, this Article argues that gender parity in the judiciary should not be viewed as merely a laudable goal. Rather, representation and parity should be viewed as fundamental state legal obligations under international …

The Constitution As A Source Of Remedial Law, Carlos Manuel Vázquez

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In Equity’s Constitutional Source, Owen W. Gallogly argues that Article III is the source of a constitutional default rule for equitable remedies—specifically, that Article III’s vesting of the “judicial Power” “in Equity” empowers federal courts to afford the remedies traditionally afforded by the English Court of Chancery at the time of the Founding, and to develop such remedies in an incremental fashion. This Response questions the current plausibility of locating such a default rule in Article III, since remedies having their source in Article III would be available in federal but not state courts and would apply to state-law …

The Common Law As Statutory Backdrop, Anita S. Krishnakumar

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Amidst the whirl of commentary about how the U.S. Supreme Court has become increasingly textualist and what precise shape modern textualism should take, the Court’s continued reliance on one decidedly atextual interpretive tool has gone largely unnoticed — the common law. Indeed, the common law has played an underappreciated, often dispositive, gap-filling role in statutory interpretation for decades, even as the textualist revolution has sidelined other non-text-focused interpretive tools. But despite the persistent role that the common law has played in statutory interpretation cases, the use of common law rules and definitions as an interpretive resource is surprisingly understudied and …

The Right To Counsel In A Neoliberal Age, Zohra Ahmed

Faculty Scholarship

Legal scholarship tends to obscure how changes in criminal process relate to broader changes in the political and economic terrain. This Article offers a modest corrective to this tendency. By studying the U.S. Supreme Court’s right to counsel jurisprudence, as it has developed since the mid-70s, I show the pervasive impact of the concurrent rise of neoliberalism on relationships between defendants and their attorneys. Since 1975, the Court has emphasized two concerns in its rulings regarding the right to counsel: choice and autonomy. These, of course, are nominally good things for defendants to have. But by paying close attention to …

The Intersection Of Judicial Interpretive Methods And Politics In Supreme Court Justices’ Due Process Opinions, Julie Castle

Capstone Showcase

The Supreme Court, a nine seat bench of unelected and lifetime tenured Justices, determines the constitutionality of dozens of cases each year. In this thesis, I research to what extent the political affiliation of the Justices affect the judicial decision making process and, ultimately, outcomes. Using pattern matching, I evaluate due process opinions from Justice Breyer, Justice O’Connor, and Justice Scalia, all of whom have established constitutional analysis methods, in order to determine if they reasonably adhere to their established method. Due to the highly political nature of due process cases, variance between the expected (adherence to the Justices’ established …

“Corruptly” Continues Consistently Confounding Courts: A New Look At “Corruptly Persuades” In 18 U.S.C. § 1512(B) Obstruction Of Justice, Connor Nelson

Utah Law Review

The word “corruptly” presents significant interpretation problems to courts construing the word in statutes. This word has created a circuit split between the Second and Third Circuits over 18 U.S.C. § 1512(b), which forbids corruptly persuading witnesses not to cooperate with federal authorities. The Second Circuit requires defendants to have an improper purpose for persuading a witness not to cooperate. The Third Circuit requires defendants to know they have a corrupt motive behind their persuasion. Rather than declare one approach superior to the other, this Note instead contends that both Circuits achieve the same outcome for two reasons. First, both …

Legitimate Exercises Of The Police Power Or Compensable Takings: Courts May Recognize Private Property Rights, Terence J. Centner

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Under their police power, governments regulate nuisances and take actions in emergency situations. For protecting humans, animals, and plants from diseases and other pests (jointly referred to as diseases), governments order inoculations, quarantine items and people, and seize and destroy property.' With respect to plants and animals, the United States Secretary of Agriculture is authorized to prohibit the importation and movement of items than may be infested. The Secretary also has the authority to hold, treat, and destroy items to prevent the dissemination of plant and animal pests. State governments take additional actions to

A False Sense Of Security: How Congress And The Sec Are Dropping The Ball On Cryptocurrency, Tessa E. Shurr

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Today, companies use blockchain technology and digital assets for a variety of purposes. This Comment analyzes the digital token. If the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) views a digital token as a security, then the issuer of the digital token must comply with the registration and extensive disclosure requirements of federal securities laws.

To determine whether a digital asset is a security, the SEC relies on the test that the Supreme Court established in SEC v. W.J. Howey Co. Rather than enforcing a statute or agency rule, the SEC enforces securities laws by applying the Howey test on a fact-intensive …

Dissent, Disagreement And Doctrinal Disarray: Free Expression And The Roberts Court In 2020, Clay Calvert

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Using the United States Supreme Court’s 2019 rulings in Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck, Nieves v. Bartlett, and Iancu v. Brunetti as analytical springboards, this Article explores multiple fractures among the Justices affecting the First Amendment freedoms of speech and press. All three cases involved dissents, with two cases each spawning five opinions. The clefts compound problems witnessed in 2018 with a pair of five-to-four decisions in National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra and Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees. Partisan divides, the Article argues, are only one problem with First Amendment …

The Kavanaugh Court And The Schechter-To-Chevron Spectrum: How The New Supreme Court Will Make The Administrative State More Democratically Accountable, Justin Walker

Indiana Law Journal

In a typical year, Congress passes roughly 800 pages of law—that’s about a seveninch

stack of paper. But in the same year, federal administrative agencies promulgate

80,000 pages of regulations—which makes an eleven-foot paper pillar. This move

toward electorally unaccountable administrators deciding federal policy began in

1935, accelerated in the 1940s, and has peaked in the recent decades. Rather than

elected representatives, unelected bureaucrats increasingly make the vast majority

of the nation’s laws—a trend facilitated by the Supreme Court’s decisions in three

areas: delegation, deference, and independence.

This trend is about to be reversed. In the coming years, Congress will …

From Common Law To Constitution, Sanctioned Dispossession And Subjugation Through Otherization And Discriminatory Classification, Mobolaji Oladeji

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

The Central Park Five As “Discrete And Insular” Minorities Under The Equal Protection Clause: The Evolution Of The Right To Counsel For Wrongfully Convicted Minors, Todd K. Beharry

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Rules, Tricks And Emancipation, Jessie Allen

Book Chapters

Rules and tricks are generally seen as different things. Rules produce order and control; tricks produce chaos. Rules help us predict how things will work out. Tricks are deceptive and transgressive, built to surprise us and confound our expectations in ways that can be entertaining or devastating. But rules can be tricky. General prohibitions and prescriptions generate surprising results in particular contexts. In some situations, a rule produces results that seem far from what the rule makers expected and antagonistic to the interests the rule is understood to promote. This contradictory aspect of rules is usually framed as a downside …

Retroactive Adjudication, Samuel Beswick

All Faculty Publications

This Article defends the retroactive nature of judicial lawmaking. Recent Supreme Court judgments have reignited debate on the retroactivity of novel precedent. When a court announces a new rule, does it apply only to future cases or also to disputes arising in the past? This Article shows that the doctrine of non-retroactive adjudication offers no adequate answer. In attempting to articulate a law of non-retroactivity, the Supreme Court has cycled through five flawed frame-works. It has variously characterized adjudicative non-retroactivity as (1) a problem of legal philosophy; (2) a discretionary exercise for balancing competing right and reliance interests; (3) a …

Intratextual And Intradoctrinal Dimensions Of The Constitutional Home, Gerald S. Dickinson

Articles

The home has been lifted to a special pantheon of rights and protections in American constitutional law. Until recently, a conception of special protections for the home in the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause was under-addressed by scholars. However, a contemporary and robust academic treatment of a home-centric takings doctrine merits a different approach to construction and interpretation: the intratextual and intradoctrinal implications of a coherent set of homebound protections across the Bill of Rights, including the Takings Clause.

Intratextualism and intradoctrinalism are interpretive methods of juxtaposing non-adjoining and adjoining clauses in the Constitution and Supreme Court doctrines to find patterns …

Supreme Silence And Precedential Pragmatism: King V. Burwell And Statutory Interpretation In The Federal Courts Of Appeals, Michael J. Cedrone

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This Article studies statutory interpretation as it is practiced in the federal courts of appeal. Much of the academic commentary in this field focuses on the Supreme Court, which skews the debate and unduly polarizes the field. This Article investigates more broadly by looking at the seventy-two federal appellate cases that cite King v. Burwell in the two years after the Court issued its decision. In deciding that the words “established by the State” encompass a federal program, the Court in King reached a pragmatic and practical result based on statutory scheme and purpose at a fairly high level of …

Second-Best Criminal Case, William Ortman

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Certainty Versus Flexibility In The Conflict Of Laws, Kermit Roosevelt Iii

All Faculty Scholarship

Traditional choice of law theory conceives of certainty and flexibility as opposed values: increase one, and you inevitably decrease the other. This article challenges the received wisdom by reconceptualizing the distinction. Rather than caring about certainty or flexibility for their own sake, it suggests, we care about them because each makes it easier to promote a certain cluster of values. And while there may be a necessary tradeoff between certainty and flexibility, there is no necessary tradeoff between the clusters of values. It is possible to improve a choice of law system with regard to both of them. The article …

Sticks, Stones, And So-Called Judges: Why The Era Of Trump Necessitates Revisiting Presidential Influence On The Courts, Quinn W. Crowley

Indiana Law Journal

This Note will be primarily divided into three main sections. Part I of this Note will begin by discussing the importance of judicial independence in modern society and the role of elected officials in shaping the public perception of the courts. Additionally, as problems of judicial legitimacy are age-old and date back to America’s founding, Part I will include a brief discussion of an early clash between President Thomas Jefferson and the courts.

Parts II and III of this Note will seek to place President Trump’s conduct towards the judicial branch within the proper historical context. Part II examines the …

A Philosophical Defense Of Judicial Minimalism, Cory A. Evans

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation analyzes, criticizes and ultimately defends judicial minimalism, a contemporary theory of judging that has come to the forefront of American jurisprudence in the early part of the 21st Century. In this dissertation I offer the first formal definition of judicial minimalism, apply that definition to case law and the literature, refute many objections to judicial minimalism including objections based on tough case counterexamples, offer a new version of the argument of epistemic humility and offer a new argument in support of judicial minimalism from the perspective of law and economics.

One Of Five: Reflections On Jim Jones' Jurisprudential Impact In His Twelve Years On The Idaho Supreme Court, Hillary Smith

Idaho Law Review

No abstract provided.

Aspirations Of Objectivity: Systemic Illusions Of Justice In The Biased Courtroom, Meagan B. Roderique

Scripps Senior Theses

Given the ever-growing body of evidence surrounding implicit bias in and beyond the institution of the law, there is an equally growing need for the law to respond to the accurate science of prejudice in its aspiration to objective practice and just decision-making. Examined herein are the existing legal conceptualizations of implicit bias as utilized in the courtroom; implicit bias as peripheral to law and implicit bias as effectual in law, but not without active resolution. These views and the interventional methods, materials, and procedures they inspire are widely employed to appreciably “un-bias” legal actors and civic participants; however, without …

Lincoln, The Constitution Of Necessity, And The Necessity Of Constitutions: A Reply To Professor Paulsen, Michael Kent Curtis

Maine Law Review

The George W. Bush administration responded to the terrorist attacks of September 11th with far-reaching assertions of a vast commander-in-chief power that it has often insisted is substantially free of effective judicial or legislative checks. As Scott Shane wrote in the December 17, 2005 edition of the New York Times, "[f]rom the Government's detention of [American citizens with no or severely limited access to courts, and none to attorneys, families, or friends] as [alleged] 'enemy combatants' to the just disclosed eavesdropping in the United States without court warrants, the administration has relied on an unusually expansive interpretation of the president's …

Constitutional Law—Why Amending The Consitution To Overrule Citizens United Is The Wrong Way To Fix Campaign Finance In The United States, Zachary Hale

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Infrequently Asked Questions, Edward T. Swaine

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

If appellate advocates could hear from courts about topics that might be raised during oral argument—as opposed to relying solely on their ability to anticipate the issues—might their answers be better? That seems likely, but it is unlikely that research could confirm that, as judicial practice overwhelmingly favors impromptu questioning. Spontaneity may be harmless if the question was predictable, or unavoidable if a judge just thought of the question. But sometimes advocates have to answer challenging questions concerning the law, facts, or implications of a position—questions that help decide the case, either due to the quality of the answer or …

Stare Decisis As Judicial Doctrine, Randy J. Kozel

Randy J Kozel

Stare decisis has been called many things, among them a principle of policy, a series of prudential and pragmatic considerations, and simply the preferred course. Often overlooked is the fact that stare decisis is also a judicial doctrine, an analytical system used to guide the rules of decision for resolving concrete disputes that come before the courts.

This Article examines stare decisis as applied by the U.S. Supreme Court, our nation’s highest doctrinal authority. A review of the Court’s jurisprudence yields two principal lessons about the modern doctrine of stare decisis. First, the doctrine is comprised largely of malleable factors …

Section 1983 Custom Claims And The Code Of Silence, Myriam Gilles

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.