Law Commons^™

Post-Conviction Access To A State's Forensic Dna Evidence For Probative Testing: Not A Freestanding Constitutional Right, Dorothea Thompson

Tennessee Journal of Law and Policy

In District Attorney's Office v. Osborne, the United States Supreme Court addressed the central issue of whether Respondent William Osborne should have a "freestanding and far-reaching constitutional right of access" to the State's deoxyribonucleic acid ("DNA") evidence for the purpose of post-conviction relief. Osborne asserted this constitutional right of access under the federal civil rights statute, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, rather than proceeding through a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The United States District Court for the District of Alaska initially dismissed the respondent's claims, holding that an application for habeas corpus constituted the proper mechanism …

Due Process And Equal Protection: A Constitutional Approach To Same-Sex Marriage, Ashley Musselman

Tennessee Journal of Law and Policy

On July 6, 2006, the Court of Appeals of New York decided Hernandez v. Robles. At issue in that case was whether New York's Domestic Relations Law violated the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the New York constitution by limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples. The plaintiffs were members of forty-four same-marriage licenses in the State of New York. The case began as four separate lawsuits in which the plaintiffs sought a declaratory judgment against "the license-issuing authorities of New York City, Albany, and Ithaca; the State Department of Health, which instructs local authorities about the issuance …

Constitutional Sex Discrimination, Lee Epstein, Andrew D. Martin, Lisa Baldez, Tasina Nitzschke Nihiser

Tennessee Journal of Law and Policy

Nearly thirty years have elapsed since the U.S. Supreme Court decided Craig v. Boren, a landmark case in the Court's constitutional sex discrimination jurisprudence. In Craig, the justices pronounced that they would apply neither the lowest level of scrutiny-rational basis-nor the highest level-strict scrutiny-to evaluate claims of sex discrimination. Rather, the Court invoked a standard "in between" the two, now known as intermediate or heightened scrutiny. Under this approach, the Court asks whether a law challenged on equal protection grounds is substantially related to the achievement of an important objective.

Certainly the Craig Court's intermediate approach has its supporters; indeed, …