Law Commons^™

The Potential Utility Of Disciplinary Regulation As A Remedy For Abuses Of Prosecutorial Discretion, Samuel J. Levine

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

The Dynamic Relationship Between Freedom Of Speech And Equality, Timothy Zick

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy

This Article examines the dynamic intersection between freedom of speech and equal protection, with a particular focus on the race and LGBT equality movements. Unlike other works on expression and/or equality, the Article emphasizes the relational and bi-directional connections between freedom of speech and equal protection. Freedom of speech has played a critical role in terms of advancing constitutional equality. However, with regard to both race and LGBT equality, free speech rights also failed in important respects to facilitate equality claims and movements. Advocacy and agitation on behalf of equality rights have also left indelible positive and negative marks on …

Lee V. Macon County Board Of Education: The Possibilities Of Federal Enforcement Of Equal Educational Opportunity, Brian K. Landsberg

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy

Lee v. Macon County Board of Education shows the evolution of the role of the three branches in enforcing the equal protection clause in public education in Alabama. All three branches initially acquiesced in the separate but equal doctrine. The executive and the judicial branches rejected the doctrine in Brown, but the legislative branch remained silent until 1964. Despite Congress’ failure to authorize a federal role in desegregation, the Department of Justice was an active participant in Lee beginning in 1963. When Congress finally did act in 1964 to authorize such suits, it encumbered the authorization with severe limitations. Congress …

From Edward To Eric Garner And Beyond: The Importance Of Constitutional Limitations On Lethal Use Of Force In Police Reform, Nancy C. Marcus

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Treatment As An Individual And The Priority Of Persons Over Groups In Antidiscrimination Law, Patrick S. Shin

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy

The Supreme Court has said that the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution and Title VII’s prohibition of discrimination require that all persons be treated as individuals and that the laws operate primarily to protect “persons, not groups.” This article shows that the legal requirement of individual treatment has two distinct components: a rule invalidating inferences about persons based on their membership in protected groups and a rule prohibiting disparate treatment for the sake of group interests or intergroup equality. The first rule is rooted in moral principles of respect for individual autonomy. The second rule is a principle that …

Undocumented Migrants As New (And Peaceful) American Revolutionaries, Daniel I. Morales

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy

This essay situates undocumented migrants in the history of the American revolutionary period. The lawbreaking of both groups produced constructive legal and social change. For example, the masses of American revolutionaries and many of their leading men fought to rid the colonies of hereditary aristocracy. Colonists had come to cherish the proto-meritocracy that had bloomed on colonial shores and rankled at local evidence of aristocratic privilege, like the Crown’s grant of landed estates to absentee English aristocrats.

Today’s equivalent hereditary aristocracy is the citizenry of wealthy democracies like the United States. Hereditary citizens use immigration restrictions to reserve the wealth …

Are Black Parents Locked Out Of Challenging Disproportionately Low Charter School Board Representation? Assessing The Role Of The Federal Courts In Building A House Of Cards, Steven L. Nelson, Heather N. Bennett

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Journal Staff

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

The Death Knell For The Death Penalty And The Significance Of Global Realism To Its Abolition From Glossip V. Gross To Brumfield V. Cain, Linda A. Malone

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Empirical Analysis And The Fate Of Capital Punishment, John J. Donohue

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy

In his dissenting opinion in Glossip v. Gross, Justice Breyer attempted to give content to the Supreme Court’s prior command in Atkins v. Virginia that unless the imposition of the death penalty “measurably contributes to one or both of [the legitimate penological goals of deterrence and retribution], it ‘is nothing more than the purposeless and needless imposition of pain and suffering,’ and hence an unconstitutional punishment.” Justice Breyer’s opinion illuminates the central role that empirical studies have played in death penalty litigation since Furman v. Georgia on issues ranging from the lack of deterrence associated with the death …

Forty Years Of Death: The Past, Present, And Future Of The Death Penalty In South Carolina (Still Arbitrary After All These Years), John H. Blume, Lindsey S. Vann

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

The Geographic Distribution Of Us Executions, Frank R. Baumgartner, Woody Gram, Kaneesha R. Johnson, Arvind Krishnamurthy, Colin P. Wilson

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy

We review statistical patterns of the geographic distribution of US executions, compare them to homicides, and demonstrate extremely high degrees of concentration of executions in the modern period compared to previous historical periods. We further show that this unprecedented level of concentration has been increasing over the past 20 years. We demonstrate that it is virtually uncorrelated with factors related to homicides. Finally, we show that it corresponds to a statistical distribution associated with “self-reinforcing” processes: a power-law or exponential distribution.

These findings stand whether we look at individual counties within death-penalty states, across the 50 states of the United …

Un-Gregg-Ulated: Capital Charging And The Missing Mandate Of Gregg V. Georgia, Sherod Thaxton

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

The Challenges Of “Improving” The Modern Death Penalty, Douglas A. Berman

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Journal Staff

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.