Law Commons^™

Rabbi Lamm, The Fifth Amendment, And Comparative Jewish Law, Samuel J. Levine

Scholarly Works

Rabbi Norman Lamm’s 1956 article, “The Fifth Amendment and Its Equivalent in the Halakha,” provides important lessons for scholarship in both Jewish and American law. Sixty-five years after it was published, the article remains, in many ways, a model for interdisciplinary and comparative study of Jewish law, drawing upon sources in the Jewish legal tradition, American legal history, and modern psychology. In so doing, the article proves faithful to each discipline on its own terms, producing insights that illuminate all three disciplines while respecting the internal logic within each one. In addition to many other distinctions, since its initial publication, …

Is The Establishment Clause Asymmetrical?, Sam Foer

Senior Honors Projects

Through numerous Establishment Clause cases, the Supreme Court has concluded that when public educators promote or denigrate religious views in the K-12 classroom, they violate the First Amendment. The Court has found that the protection of ‘freedom of conscience’ is embedded in the purpose of the Establishment Clause, which applies most strictly to the public school setting. This is because the sphere of conscience is most vulnerable to invasion in developing minds, and children are in a captive environment at school - they cannot escape from State instruction. Thus, states, school systems, and teachers who impose their religious beliefs onto …

Taking Laughter Seriously At The Supreme Court, Tonja Jacobi, Matthew Sag

Faculty Articles

Laughter in Supreme Court oral arguments has been misunderstood, treated as either a lighthearted distraction from the Court’s serious work, or interpreted as an equalizing force in an otherwise hierarchical environment. Examining the more than nine thousand instances of laughter witnessed at the Court since 1955, this Article shows that the Justices of the Supreme Court use courtroom humor as a tool of advocacy and a signal of their power and status. As the Justices have taken on a greater advocacy role in the modern era, they have also provoked more laughter.

The performative nature of courtroom humor is apparent …

Telling Stories In The Supreme Court: Voices Briefs And The Role Of Democracy In Constitutional Deliberation, Linda H. Edwards

Scholarly Works

On January 4, 2016, over 112 women lawyers, law professors, and former judges told the world that they had had an abortion. In a daring amicus brief that captured national media attention, the women “came out” to their clients; to the lawyers with or against whom they practice; to the judges before whom they appear; and to the Justices of the Supreme Court.

The past three years have seen an explosion of such “voices briefs,” 16 in Obergefell and 17 in Whole Woman’s Health. The briefs can be powerful, but their use is controversial. They tell the stories of non-parties—strangers …

The Need To Overrule Mapp V. Ohio, William T. Pizzi

Publications

This Article argues that it is time to overrule Mapp v. Ohio. It contends that the exclusionary rule is outdated because a tough deterrent sanction is difficult to reconcile with a criminal justice system where victims are increasingly seen to have a stake in criminal cases. The rule is also increasingly outdated in its epistemological assumption which insists officers act on "reasons" that they can articulate and which disparages actions based on "hunches" or "feelings." This assumption runs counter to a large body of neuroscience research suggesting that humans often "feel" or "sense" danger, sometimes even at a subconscious …

Regulating Offensiveness: Snyder V. Phelps, Emotion, And The First Amendment, Christina E. Wells

Faculty Publications

In its upcoming term, the Court will decide in Snyder v. Phelps whether Albert Snyder can sue the Reverend Fred Phelps and other members of the Westboro Baptist Church for invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress for protesting near his son’s funeral. Those arguing in favor of tort liability claim that the Phelps’ speech during a time of mourning and vulnerability is especially outrageous and injurious and that the First Amendment allows such regulation. Their arguments, however, effectively rely on the offensiveness of the Phelps’ message rather than on any external indicia of harm, such as noisy …

The Supreme Court, The Mentally Disabled Criminal Defendant, And Symbolic Values: Random Decisions, Hidden Rationales, Or Doctrinal Abyss, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court, The Mentally Disabled Criminal Defendant, Psychiatric Testimony In Death Penalty Cases, And The Power Of Symbolism: Dulling The Ake In Barefoot’S Achilles Heel, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

An Invitation To The Dance: An Empirical Response To Chief Justice Warren Burger’S ‘Time-Consuming Procedural Minuets’ Theory In Parham V. J.R., Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.