Law Commons^™

Personhood Under The Fourteenth Amendment, Vincent J. Samar

Marquette Law Review

This Article examines recent claims that the fetus be afforded the status of a person under the Fourteenth Amendment. It shows that such claims do not carry the necessary objectivity to operate reasonably in a pluralistic society. It then goes on to afford what a better view of personhood that could so operate might actually look like. Along the way, this Article takes seriously the real deep concerns many have for the sanctity of human life. By the end, it attempts to find a balance for those concerns with the view of personhood offered that should engage current debates about …

End The Bloody Taxation: Seeing Red On The Unconstitutional Tax On Tampons, Victoria Hartman

Northwestern University Law Review

Why was there so much activism in the United States, and across the world, to end the tampon tax in 2016? This Note situates the movement to end the tampon tax within a broader history of feminist activism related to tampons and menstruation. It also analyzes the constitutional dimensions of the tax on feminine hygiene products and serves as a litigation guide for plaintiffs claiming that a state, city, or county sales tax on feminine hygiene products violates the Equal Protection Clause. Lastly, this Note demonstrates the hardships women face paying this tax and encourages state legislatures and city councils …

Fisher V. University Of Texas At Austin: Navigating The Narrows Between Grutter And Parents Involved, Kimberly A. Pacelli

Maine Law Review

Universities’ use of race as a factor in their admissions decisions has been a divisive issue both in the legal system and in political discourse. Opponents of affirmative action have challenged racial preferences in public university admissions under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Individuals who find themselves denied a coveted seat in a university class and suspect that racial preferences are to blame will often challenge their rejection as a denial of their state’s “equal protection of the laws.” The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently considered whether the University of Texas at …

Estate Of Fortier V. City Of Lewiston: Is Maine's Tort Claims Act Unintelligible?, William I. Olver

Maine Law Review

In Estate of Fortier v. City of Lewiston, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, was asked to decide if the City of Lewiston was “using” an aircraft under the Maine Tort Claims Act (MTCA) when it chartered a plane from Twin Cities Air Services (Twin Cities) as part of an Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Corp (AFJROTC) exercise. Tragically, the pilot and three AFJROTC cadets from Lewiston High School lost their lives when the plane crashed into Barker Mountain shortly after take-off. The families of the students brought suit against Lewiston, in part, alleging negligence …

Tinkering With Tinker: Applying A New Test To Peer On Peer Bullying In Social Media, January Turner

Oklahoma Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Originalism And The Criminal Law: Vindicating Justice Scalia's Jurisprudence - And The Constitution, Adam Lamparello, Charles E. Maclean

Akron Law Review

Justice Scalia was not perfect—no one is—but he was not a dishonest jurist. As one commentator explains, “[i]f Scalia was a champion of those rights [for criminal defendants, arrestees], he was an accidental champion, a jurist with a deeper objective—namely, fidelity to what he dubbed the ‘original meaning’ reflected in the text of the Constitution—that happened to intersect with the interests of the accused at some points in the constellation of criminal law and procedure.” Indeed, Justice Scalia is more easily remembered not as a champion of the little guy, the voiceless, and the downtrodden, but rather, as Texas Gov. …

Holding Supporters Of Terrorism Accountable: The Exercise Of General Jurisdiction Over The Pa And Plo In A Post-Daimler Framework, Mark D. Christopher

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Voting Rights And The History Of Institutionalized Racism: Criminal Disenfranchisement In The United States And South Africa, Brock A. Johnson

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Occupational Licensing: Quality Control Or Enterprise Killer? Problems That Arise When People Must Get The Government's Permission To Work, W. Sherman Rogers

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

This Article is organized into six parts: Part one (the current section) provides the reader with an introduction and overview of the issues that have arisen because of states’ ever-expanding regulation of occupations requiring qualifications and credentials for holding certain jobs. Such qualifications often appear totally unnecessary to one’s ability to safely and competently perform a job. Part two provides background information on the Lochner Era of Supreme Court jurisprudence, the aftermath of the Lochner Era, and a brief history of the issues involved in state occupational licensing requirements. Part three discusses and evaluates recent cases of note—primarily the decisions …

Race And The Law, Cassandra Conover

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Personal Jurisdiction In The Data Age: Macdermid V. Deiter's Adaptation Of International Shoe Amidst Supreme Court Uncertainty, Ryan Almy

Maine Law Review

In MacDermid, Inc. v. Deiter, the Second Circuit held that a Connecticut court may exercise personal jurisdiction over a defendant who allegedly used a computer in Canada to remotely access a computer server located in Connecticut in order to misappropriate proprietary, confidential electronic information belonging to a Connecticut corporation. This Note argues that, given the factual elements before the court, MacDermid was an unsurprising, orthodox, and proper holding in the context of personal jurisdiction jurisprudence. However, the facts in MacDermid, and the corresponding limits inherent in the Second Circuit’s holding, reveal potentially gaping holes in our modern personal jurisdiction framework …

The Post-Crawford Rise In Voter Id Laws: A Solution Still In Search Of A Problem, David M. Faherty

Maine Law Review

In Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, the Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s voter identification law, which required registered voters to present government-issued photo identification at the polls. Instead of applying heighted scrutiny to a law that had an effect on voter qualifications, the Court simply balanced the asserted state interest of protecting the integrity and reliability of elections by preventing voter fraud against the burden imposed on eligible voters who were prevented from voting because they did not possess the required form of photo identification. Not persuaded by the fact that Indiana could not point to a single instance of …

The Magic Mirror Of "Original Meaning": Recent Approaches To The Fourteenth Amendment, Bret Boyce

Maine Law Review

Nearly a century and a half after its adoption, debate continues to rage over the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantees of basic rights. Of the three clauses in the second sentence of Section One, the latter two (the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses) loom very large in modern Supreme Court decisions, while the first (the Privileges or Immunities Clause) is of minimal importance, having been invoked only once to strike down a state law. Originalists—those who hold that the Constitution should be interpreted according to its original meaning—have often deplored this state of affairs. Many have argued …

After Flint: Environmental Justice As Equal Protection, David A. Dana, Deborah Tuerkheimer

Northwestern University Law Review

This Essay conceptualizes the Flint water crisis as an archetypical case of underenforcement—that is, a denial of the equal protection of laws guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Viewed as such, the inadequacy of environmental regulation can be understood as a failure that extends beyond the confines of Flint; a failure that demands a far more expansive duty to protect vulnerable populations.

The Lost Due Process Doctrines, Paul J. Larkin Jr.

Catholic University Law Review

Due process jurisprudence has long been dominated by discussion of its procedural requirements and substantive limitations. Through the lens of the Constitution’s Due Process Clause, however, the Supreme Court has also considered the geographic reach and substantive exercise of legal authority, the delegation of law making to private parties, the incorporation doctrine, and the issues of fundamental fairness. These doctrines have existed for some time, but the Supreme Court has never explained how they fit into its “procedural vs. substantive” dichotomy. This article examines these Lost Due Process Doctrines and poses the question of whether they should suffer the same …

Concealed Motives: Rethinking Fourteenth Amendment And Voting Rights Challenges To Felon Disenfranchisement, Lauren Latterell Powell

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Felon disenfranchisement provisions are justified by many Americans under the principle that voting is a privilege to be enjoyed only by upstanding citizens. The provisions are intimately tied, however, to the country’s legacy of racism and systemic disenfranchisement and are at odds with the values of American democracy. In virtually every state, felon disenfranchisement provisions affect the poor and communities of color on a grossly disproportionate scale. Yet to date, most challenges to the provisions under the Equal Protection Clause and Voting Rights Act have been unsuccessful, frustrating proponents of re-enfranchisement and the disenfranchised alike.

In light of those failures, …

Reason And Reasonableness: The Necessary Diversity Of The Common Law, Frederic G. Sourgens

Maine Law Review

This Article addresses the central concept of “reasonableness” in the common law and constitutional jurisprudence. On the basis of three examples, the common law of torts, the common law of contracts, and Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, the Article notes that different areas of the law follow fundamentally inconsistent utilitarian, pragmatic, and formalist reasonableness paradigms. The significance of this diversity of reasonableness paradigms remains largely under-theorized. This Article submits that the diversity of reasonableness paradigms is a necessary feature of the common law. It theorizes that the utilitarian, pragmatic and formalistic paradigms are structural elements driving the common law norm-generation process. This …

The Wholesale Exclusion Of Religion From Public Benefits Programs: Why The First Amendment Religion Clauses Must Take A Backseat To Equal Protection, Michael J. Borger

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.