Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 10 of 10

Full-Text Articles in Law

Federalism: Theory, Policy, Law, Daniel Halberstam May 2012

Federalism: Theory, Policy, Law, Daniel Halberstam

Book Chapters

Even France now values local government. Over the past 30 years, top-down appointment of regional prefects and local administrators has given way to regionally elected councils and a revision of Article 1 of the French Constitution, which proclaims that today the state’s ‘organization is decentralized’. The British Parliament, too, has embraced local rule by devolving powers to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. And in China, decentralization has reached a point where some scholars speak of ‘de facto federalism’. A systematic study of the distribution of authority in 42 democracies found that over the past 50 years, regional authority grew in …


Constitutional Heterarchy: The Centrality Of Conflict In The European Union And The United States, Daniel Halberstam May 2012

Constitutional Heterarchy: The Centrality Of Conflict In The European Union And The United States, Daniel Halberstam

Book Chapters

In the debates about whether to take constitutionalism beyond the state, the European Union invariably looms large. One element, in particular, that invites scholars to grapple with the analogy between the European Union and global governance is the idea of legal pluralism. Just as the European legal order is based on competing claims of ultimate legal authority among the European Union and its member states, so, too, the global legal order, to the extent that we can speak of one, lacks a singular, uncontested hierarchy among its various parts. To be sure, some have argued that the UN Charter provides …


The Past And Future Of Deinstitutionalization Litigation, Samuel R. Bagenstos Feb 2012

The Past And Future Of Deinstitutionalization Litigation, Samuel R. Bagenstos

Law & Economics Working Papers

Two conflicting stories have consumed the academic debate regarding the impact of deinstitutionalization litigation. The first, which has risen almost to the level of conventional wisdom, is that deinstitutionalization was a disaster. The second story does not deny that the results of deinstitutionalization have in many cases been disappointing. But it challenges the suggestion that deinstitutionalization has uniformly been unsuccessful, as well as the causal link critics seek to draw with the growth of the homeless population. This dispute is not simply a matter of historical interest. The Supreme Court’s 1999 decision in Olmstead v. L.C., which held that unjustified …


Who Said The Crawford Revolution Would Be Easy?, Richard D. Friedman Jan 2012

Who Said The Crawford Revolution Would Be Easy?, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

One of the central protections of our system of criminal justice is the right of the accused in all criminal prosecutions "to be confronted with the witnesses against him." It provides assurance that prosecution witnesses will give their testimony in the way demanded for centuries by Anglo-American courts-in the presence of the accused, subject to cross-examination- rather than in any other way. Witnesses may not, for example, testify by speaking privately to governmental agents in a police station or in their living rooms. Since shortly after it was adopted, however, the confrontation right became obscured by the ascendance of a …


A Crisis In Federal Habeas Law, Eve Brensike Primus Jan 2012

A Crisis In Federal Habeas Law, Eve Brensike Primus

Reviews

Everyone recognizes that federal habeas doctrine is a mess. Despite repeated calls for reform, federal judges continue to waste countless hours reviewing habeas petitions only to dismiss the vast majority of them on procedural grounds. Broad change is necessary, but to be effective, such change must be animated by an overarching theory that explains when federal courts should exercise habeas jurisdiction. In Habeas for the Twenty-First Century: Uses, Abuses, and the Future of the Great Writ, Professors Nancy King and Joseph Hoffmann offer such a theory. Drawing on history, current practice, and empirical data, King and Hoffmann find unifying themes …


The Sky Is Still Not Falling, Richard D. Friedman Jan 2012

The Sky Is Still Not Falling, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

Cases since Crawford have mainly fallen into two categories. One involves accusations of crime, made by the apparent victim shortly after the incident. In Michigan v. Bryant, a majority of the Court adopted an unfortunately constricted view of the word "testimonial" in this context. That decision was a consequence of the Court having failed to adopt a robust view of when an accused forfeits the confrontation right. How the Court will deal with this situation-one mistake made in an attempt to compensate for another-is a perplexing and important question. This Essay, though, concentrates on the other principal category of post-Crawford …


Local, Global And Plural Constitutionalism: Europe Meets The World., Daniel Halberstam Jan 2012

Local, Global And Plural Constitutionalism: Europe Meets The World., Daniel Halberstam

Book Chapters

The idea that constitutionalism is central to the legitimate exercise of public power has dominated the modern liberal imagination since the Enlightenment. The ideal of limited collective self-governance has spawned a rich and highly diverse tradition of hard-fought national constitutions from the time of the Glorious Revolution into the present. Today, however, constitutionalism faces its greatest challenge yet: the question of its continued relevance to modern governance. With the explosion of governance beyond the state, many wonder whether constitutionalism as we know it is being marginalized or altogether undermined.


On Overreaching, Or Why Rick Perry May Save The Voting Rights Act But Destroy Affirmative Action, Ellen D. Katz Jan 2012

On Overreaching, Or Why Rick Perry May Save The Voting Rights Act But Destroy Affirmative Action, Ellen D. Katz

Articles

The State of Texas is presently staking out two positions that are not typically pursued by a single litigant. On the one hand, Texas is seeking the invalidation of the Voting Rights Act, and, on the other, the State is now defending the validity of the expansive race-based affirmative action policy it uses at its flagship university. This Essay presses the claim that Texas has increased the chance it will lose in bothTexas v. Holder andFisher v. University of Texas because it has opted to stake out markedly extreme positions in each. I argue that Texas would be more likely …


How The Gun-Free School Zones Act Saved The Individual Mandate, Richard A. Primus Jan 2012

How The Gun-Free School Zones Act Saved The Individual Mandate, Richard A. Primus

Articles

For all the drama surrounding the Commerce Clause challenge to the in-dividual mandate provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“PPACA”), the doctrinal question presented is simple. Under existing doctrine, the provision is as valid as can be. To be sure, the Supreme Court could alter existing doctrine, and many interesting things could be written about the dynamics that sometimes prompt judges to strike out in new directions under the pressures of cases like this one. But it is not my intention to pursue that possibility here. My own suspicion, for what it is worth, is that the …


Confrontation And Forensic Laboratory Reports, Round Four, Richard D. Friedman Jan 2012

Confrontation And Forensic Laboratory Reports, Round Four, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

Crawford v. Washington radically transformed the doctrine governing the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution. Before Crawford, a prosecutor could introduce against an accused evidence of a hearsay statement, even one made in contemplation that it would be used in prosecution, so long as the statement fit within a "firmly rooted" hearsay exception or the court otherwise determined that the statement was sufficiently reliable to warrant admissibility. Crawford recognized that the Clause is a procedural guarantee, governing the manner in which prosecution witnesses give their testimony. Therefore, a prosecutor may not introduce a statement that is testimonial …