Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Law
Fourteenth Amendment Originalism, Jamal Greene
Fourteenth Amendment Originalism, Jamal Greene
Faculty Scholarship
In Baze v. Rees, the Supreme Court rejected a death-row inmate's claim that a state's use of a lethal injection protocol that carried risks of severe pain from improper administration violated the Constitution. Justice Thomas wrote a remarkable concurring opinion, joined by Justice Scalia, in which he argued that the plurality opinion announcing the governing standard for claims of this sort was wrong, and should have hewed more closely to the original understanding of the Eighth Amendment. Justice Thomas wrote that "the Framers intended to prohibit torturous modes of punishment akin to those that formed the historical backdrop of …
The Supreme Court, Sexual Citizenship And The Idea Of Progress, Kendall Thomas
The Supreme Court, Sexual Citizenship And The Idea Of Progress, Kendall Thomas
Faculty Scholarship
Is American Progressive Constitutionalism dead ... yet? I propose to seek the beginnings of an answer to this question in the pages of a recent decision by the United States Supreme Court. I do feel obliged to say this, not because I am committed to a court-centered adjudicative conception of American constitutionalism; to the contrary. But rather, because the decision on which I want to focus seems to me to offer a rich resource for critical reflection on the idea of self-government whose connections to Progressive Constitutionalism give us our topic this afternoon.