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Selected Works

Selected Works

2018

First Amendment

Articles 1 - 8 of 8

Full-Text Articles in Law

When Should The First Amendment Protect Judges From Their Unethical Speech?, Lynne H. Rambo Nov 2018

When Should The First Amendment Protect Judges From Their Unethical Speech?, Lynne H. Rambo

Lynne H. Rambo

Judges harm the judicial institution when they engage in inflammatory or overtly political extrajudicial speech. The judiciary can be effective only when it has the trust of the citizenry, and judicial statements of that sort render it impossible for citizens to see judges as neutral and contemplative arbiters. This lack of confidence would seem especially dangerous in times like these, when the citizenry is as polarized as it has ever been.

Ethical codes across the country (based on the Model Code of Judicial Conduct) prohibit judges from making these partisan, prejudicial or otherwise improper remarks. Any discipline can be undone, …

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Prosecuting Conduit Campaign Contributions - Hard Time For Soft Money, Robert D. Probasco Jul 2018

Prosecuting Conduit Campaign Contributions - Hard Time For Soft Money, Robert D. Probasco

Robert Probasco

In recent years, there have been several high-profile prosecutions for violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act, involving contributions nominally by one individual but funded or reimbursed by another individual deemed to be the true contributor. Prosecutions of these “conduit contribution” cases have been surprising in at least three significant respects. First, the prosecutions have been based on violations of FECA’s reporting requirements and may not have involved any violations of the substantive prohibitions or limitations of contributions. Second, the defendants were the donors rather than campaign officials who actually filed reports with FECA. Third, the cases were prosecuted as …

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Reconciling The Lanham Act And The Fdca: A Comment On Chris Hurley’S Note, Christopher B. Seaman Apr 2018

Reconciling The Lanham Act And The Fdca: A Comment On Chris Hurley’S Note, Christopher B. Seaman

Christopher B. Seaman

No abstract provided.

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Police Misconduct, Video Recording, And Procedural Barriers To Rights Enforcement, Howard M. Wasserman Apr 2018

Police Misconduct, Video Recording, And Procedural Barriers To Rights Enforcement, Howard M. Wasserman

Howard M Wasserman

The story of police reform and of "policing the police" has become the story of video and video evidence, and "record everything to know the truth" has become the singular mantra. Video, both police-created and citizen-created, has become the singular tool for ensuring police accountability, reforming law enforcement, and enforcing the rights of victims of police misconduct. This Article explores procedural problems surrounding the use of video recording and video evidence to counter police misconduct, hold individual officers and governments accountable, and reform departmental policies, regulations, and practices. It considers four issues: 1) the mistaken belief that video can "speak …

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Boy Scouts & Burning Crosses: Bringing Balance To The Court’S Lopsided Approach To The Intersection Of Equality And Speech, Russell K. Robinson Jan 2018

Boy Scouts & Burning Crosses: Bringing Balance To The Court’S Lopsided Approach To The Intersection Of Equality And Speech, Russell K. Robinson

Russell K Robinson

This article identifies a previously-ignored pattern of Supreme Court decisions that privilege one competing constitutional value, either speech or equality, and subordinate the other—with little or no reasoning explaining its choice. In adjudicating such cases, including two cases decided last term, the Supreme Court has steadfastly treated these disputes as either a basic equality case or a simple speech case. This dichotomy is a problem because once the Court places a case within either a speech or equality paradigm, it is constrained by certain rigid analytical presumptions. These presumptions threaten to stunt the analysis and to deprive the Court of …

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When Judges Are Theologians: Adjudicating Religious Questions, Michael A. Helfand Dec 2017

When Judges Are Theologians: Adjudicating Religious Questions, Michael A. Helfand

Michael A Helfand

In this chapter, I explore how judges—and, more generally, U.S. courts—deal with legal disputes when they must consider not only laws and facts, but also religion, or maybe even more precisely, theology. Indeed, in a wide range of circumstances, judges are confronted with cases where the outcome in some way or another requires them to issue a decision that is predicated, to varying to degrees, on a theological question upon which there is some debate. While in American law the ostensibly simple answer to this question is simply that the Constitution prohibits courts from adjudicating religious questions, the reality is …

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The Future Of Religious Arbitration In The United States: Looking Through A Pluralist Lens, Michael A. Helfand Dec 2017

The Future Of Religious Arbitration In The United States: Looking Through A Pluralist Lens, Michael A. Helfand

Michael A Helfand

In recent years, religious arbitration has received increasing attention both in the American press and academy. For some, this attention is driven by concern that state enforcement of decisions issued by religious tribunals has the power to undermine the objectives of the U.S. legal system. For others, it is driven by a recognition that religious arbitration enables communities to enhance their process of dispute resolution by ensuring that it comports with shared religious principles and values. And, as is often the case, both perspectives contain important elements of truth. As a paradigmatic legal plurality institution, religious arbitration has the capacity …

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Implied Consent To Religious Institutions: A Primer And A Defense, Michael A. Helfand Dec 2017

Implied Consent To Religious Institutions: A Primer And A Defense, Michael A. Helfand

Michael A Helfand

One of the recent fault lines over religious liberty is the scope of protections afforded religiously motivated institutions and corporations. Courts and scholars all seem to agree that such religious institutions deserve some degree of protection. But there remains significant debate over the principles that should guide judicial decisions addressing the circumstances in which religiously motivated institutions should, and in which circumstances they should not, receive the law’s protection.

In this Article, I expound, and defend, my proposed “implied consent” framework for addressing religious institutional claims. Such a framework grounds the authority of religious institutions not in a degree of …

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