Law Commons^™

Unearthing The Public Interest: Recognizing Intrastate Economic Protectionism As A Legitimate State Interest, Katharine M. Rudish

Fordham Law Review

In Oklahoma, a person must complete sixty-credit hours of undergraduate training and embalm twenty-five bodies before being legally licensed to sell caskets in the state. In Louisiana, in order to sell caskets, one must operate a fully licensed funeral establishment, defined as a place dedicated to preparing bodies for burial. In recent years, these states and others have faced legal challenges to casket sale restrictions by individuals who wish to sell caskets directly to the public, yet who are unable to do so as they are not licensed funeral directors. Courts have grappled with whether these state regulations, which in …

Functionalism’S Military Necessity Problem: Extraterritorial Habeas Corpus, Justice Kennedy, Boumediene V. Bush, And Al Maqaleh V. Gates, Richard Nicholson

Fordham Law Review

The U.S. Supreme Court has struggled over the last 150 years to definitively answer the question of whether the U.S. Constitution applies beyond the borders of the territorial United States. Because the Constitution is silent on the issue, the burden has fallen on the judiciary to establish the contours of the doctrine. At times, the Court has espoused formulistic theories limiting constitutional application to territorial sovereignty, while at others it has looked to more objective, practical solutions that reach beyond the borders.

In 2008, the Supreme Court held in Boumediene v. Bush that the application of the Suspension Clause of …

A Pillar Of Democracy: Reflections On The Role And Work Of The Constitutional Court Of South Africa, Kate O’Regan

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Recognizing The Right To Petition For Victims Of Domestic Violence, Tamara L. Kuennen

Fordham Law Review

Like any citizen, a victim of domestic violence (DV) may call the police for help when she needs it. And yet, when a victim calls the police, she not only seeks law enforcement assistance but also invokes her constitutional right to seek one of the most fundamental services the government can provide—protection from harm. That right, recently described by the Supreme Court as “essential to freedom,” is the right “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” guaranteed by the First Amendment.

This Article argues that a combination of law and policy initiatives produces negative collateral consequences for DV …

Unconstitutional Animus, Susannah W. Pollvogt

Fordham Law Review

It is well established that animus can never constitute a legitimate state interest for purposes of equal protection analysis. But neither precedent nor scholarship has stated conclusively how animus is properly defined, what counts as evidence of animus in any given case, or the precise doctrinal significance of a finding of animus. The U.S. Supreme Court has explicitly addressed the question of animus only a handful of times, and these cases do not appear to be particularly congruent with one another, at least on the surface. Further, while a number of scholars have discussed animus in terms of moral philosophy, …

The Representative Equality Principle: Disaggregating The Equal Protection Intent Standard, Bertrall L. Ross Ii

Fordham Law Review

Challenges under the Equal Protection Clause require proof of intentional discrimination. Though rarely questioned by legal scholars or the courts, that conventional account cannot explain the success of equal protection challenges to electoral structures that dilute the vote of racial minorities. In the Supreme Court’s most recent decisions on vote dilution, the Court has invalidated local electoral structures under the Equal Protection Clause to the extent that they deprive African Americans of the opportunity for effective representation in the political process. The Court has reached its decisions despite the absence of any proof of intentional discrimination in the adoption of …

Seeking Liberty’S Refuge: Analyzing Legislative Purpose Under Casey’S Undue Burden Standard, Lucy E. Hill

Fordham Law Review

In the 1992 decision Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, the U.S. Supreme Court crafted the “undue burden” standard for evaluating the constitutionality of abortion laws. Under that standard, a state is free to regulate abortion, as long as the regulation does not impose an undue burden on a woman’s right to an abortion. Although the standard is disjunctive, the Casey opinion focuses on the “effect” prong of the test, with little guidance as to what a “purpose” prong inquiry would look like. Subsequent Supreme Court abortion jurisprudence has served only to obscure the issue. Circuit courts, therefore, …