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Full-Text Articles in Law
Substantive Due Process After Gonzales V. Carhart, Steven G. Calabresi
Substantive Due Process After Gonzales V. Carhart, Steven G. Calabresi
Michigan Law Review
This Article begins in Part I with a doctrinal evaluation of the status of Washington v. Glucksberg ten years after that decision was handed down. Discussion begins with consideration of the Roberts Court's recent decision in Gonzales v. Carhart and then turns to the subject of Justice Kennedy's views in particular on substantive due process. In Part II, the Article goes on to consider whether the Glucksberg test for substantive due process decision making is correct in light of the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Article concludes in Parts II and III that Glucksberg is right to confine …
Scrutiny Land, Randy E. Barnett
Scrutiny Land, Randy E. Barnett
Michigan Law Review
Scrutiny Land is the place where government needs to justify to a court its restrictions on the liberties of the people. In the 1930s, the Supreme Court began limiting access to Scrutiny Land. While the New Deal Court merely shifted the burden to those challenging a law to show that a restriction of liberty is irrational, the Warren Court made the presumption of constitutionality effectively irrebuttable. After this, only one road to Scrutiny Land remained: showing that the liberty being restricted was a fundamental right. The Glucksberg Two-Step, however, limited the doctrine of fundamental rights to those (1) narrowly defined …
Washington V. Glucksberg Was Tragically Wrong, Erwin Chemerinsky
Washington V. Glucksberg Was Tragically Wrong, Erwin Chemerinsky
Michigan Law Review
Properly focused, there were two questions before the Supreme Court in Washington v. Glucksberg. First, in light of all of the other non-textual rights protected by the Supreme Court under the "liberty" of the Due Process Clause, is the right to assisted death a fundamental right? Second, if so, is the prohibition of assisted death necessary to achieve a compelling interest? Presented in this way, it is clear that the Court erred in Washington v. Glucksberg. The right of a terminally ill person to end his or her life is an essential aspect of autonomy, comparable to aspects …
De-Moralized: Glucksberg In The Malaise, Steven D. Smith
De-Moralized: Glucksberg In The Malaise, Steven D. Smith
Michigan Law Review
Ten years down the road, what is the enduring significance of the "assisted suicide" cases, Washington v. Glucksberg and Vacco v. Quill? The cases reflect an unusually earnest, but nonetheless unsuccessful, attempt by the Supreme Court to grapple with a profound moral issue. So, why was the Court unable to provide a more satisfying justification for its conclusions? This Article, written for a symposium on the tenth anniversary of Glucksberg,, discusses that question. Part I examines some of the flaws in reasoning in the Glucksberg and Quill opinions and suggests that these flaws stem from the opinion writers' …
Due Process Traditionalism, Cass R. Sunstein
Due Process Traditionalism, Cass R. Sunstein
Michigan Law Review
In important cases, the Supreme Court has limited the scope of "substantive due process" by reference to tradition, but it has yet to explain why it has done so. Due process traditionalism might be defended in several distinctive ways. The most ambitious defense draws on a set of ideas associated with Edmund Burke and Friedrich Hayek, who suggested that traditions have special credentials by virtue of their acceptance by many minds. But this defense runs into three problems. Those who have participated in a tradition may not have accepted any relevant proposition; they might suffer from a systematic bias; and …