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Full-Text Articles in Law

Faux Advocacy In Amicus Practice, James G. Dwyer Apr 2023

Faux Advocacy In Amicus Practice, James G. Dwyer

Pepperdine Law Review

Amicus brief filing has reached “avalanche” volume. Supreme Court Justices and lower court judges look to these briefs particularly for non-case-specific factual information––“legislative facts”—relevant to a case. This Article calls attention to a recurrent yet unrecognized problem with amicus filings offering up legislative facts in the many cases centrally involving the most vulnerable members of society—namely, non-autonomous persons, including both adults incapacitated by mental illness, intellectual disability, or other condition, and children. Some amici present themselves as advocates for such persons but use the amicus platform to serve other constituencies and causes, making false or misleading factual presentations about the …


Making A Reasonable Calculation: A Strategic Amendment To The Idea, Hetali M. Lodaya Jan 2020

Making A Reasonable Calculation: A Strategic Amendment To The Idea, Hetali M. Lodaya

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) lays out a powerful set of protections and procedural safeguards for students with disabilities in public schools. Nevertheless, there is a persistent debate as to how far schools must go to fulfill their mandate under the IDEA. The Supreme Court recently addressed this question with its decision in Endrew F. v. Douglas Cty. School District Re-1, holding that an educational program for a student with a disability must be “reasonably calculated” to enable a child’s progress in light of their circumstances. Currently, the Act’s statutory language mandates Individual Education Program (IEP) teams …


Equality In Germany And The United States, Edward J. Eberle Sep 2018

Equality In Germany And The United States, Edward J. Eberle

San Diego International Law Journal

This Article will proceed as follows. Part I will describe the methodology and approach of American and German equality law. The constitutional Courts of both countries value equality highly, resulting in strong and well developed jurisprudence. Each of the Courts employ a sliding scale of judicial scrutiny with the degree of scrutiny varying with the trait or personal interest affected by the governmental measure. Strict or extremely intensive scrutiny applies to measures targeting personal traits that especially affect a person's identity, like race, national heritage, or alienage under United States law, and race, sex, gender, language, national origin, disability, faith, …


Drawing The Line At Atkins And Roper: The Case Against Additional Categorical Exemptions From Capital Punishment For Offenders With Conditions Affecting Brain Function, Mark E. Coon Apr 2013

Drawing The Line At Atkins And Roper: The Case Against Additional Categorical Exemptions From Capital Punishment For Offenders With Conditions Affecting Brain Function, Mark E. Coon

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.


Equal Protection And The New Rational Basis Test: The Mentally Retarded Are Not Second Class Citizens In Cleburne, Gordon W. Johnson Jan 2013

Equal Protection And The New Rational Basis Test: The Mentally Retarded Are Not Second Class Citizens In Cleburne, Gordon W. Johnson

Pepperdine Law Review

Recently, the Fifth Circuit held that classifications involving the mentally retarded were quasi-suspect and should be reviewed under a heightened scrutiny analysis. The Supreme Court reversed that holding but granted the retarded a remedy by applying a more genuine scrutiny under the rational basis test. The Court's decision in City of Cleburne, Texas v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc. raises the question whether the Court intends to apply an increased level of scrutiny under the rational basis test or whether this case merely represents another ad hoc decision made on the horns of a dilemma. This Note discusses the uncertain impact …


Whither The Disability Rights Movement?, Robert W. Pratt Apr 2011

Whither The Disability Rights Movement?, Robert W. Pratt

Michigan Law Review

While reading this book in 2010, almost twenty years to the date after President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disability Act ("ADA"), one realizes how much the world of politics has changed. It is difficult to remember a time when such major legislation passed the U.S. Senate by a vote of 91 to 6 and the House of Representatives by 377 to 28. Even more surprising, as we look back to 1990, is the fact that the executive branch was controlled by a different political party than the legislative branch. Contrast this legislative record with the milieu surrounding …


Three Steps And You're Out: The Misuse Of The Sequential Evaluation Process In Child Ssi Disability Determinations, Frank S. Bloch Oct 2003

Three Steps And You're Out: The Misuse Of The Sequential Evaluation Process In Child Ssi Disability Determinations, Frank S. Bloch

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program provides cash benefits to financially needy persons who are 65 years of age or older, blind, or disabled. It also provides cash benefits to children with disabilities under the age of 18. This Article examines three sets of regulatory efforts to implement special disability standards for children, based first on the original SSI legislation, then on a seminal Supreme Court decision, and finally on amendments to the Social Security Act overruling the Court's decision, and shows how the "sequential evaluation process," which has been useful for adjudicating adult disability claims, has been a …


Disabiling The Ada: Essences, Better Angels, And Unprincipled Neutrality Claims, Aviam Soifer Feb 2003

Disabiling The Ada: Essences, Better Angels, And Unprincipled Neutrality Claims, Aviam Soifer

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.


Constitutional Doctrine As Paring Tool: The Struggle For "Relevant" Evidence In University Of Alabama V. Garrett, Pamela Brandwein Dec 2001

Constitutional Doctrine As Paring Tool: The Struggle For "Relevant" Evidence In University Of Alabama V. Garrett, Pamela Brandwein

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article examines the difficulties involved in translating the social model of disability into the idiom of constitutional law. The immediate focus is University of Alabama v. Garrett. Both parts of this Article consider how disability rights claims collide with a discourse of legitimacy in constitutional law. Part I focuses on the arguments presented in several major Briefs filed in support of Garrett. Constitutional doctrines are conceived as paring tools and it is shown how the Court used these doctrines to easily pare down the body of evidence Garrett's lawyers sought to claim as relevant in justifying the ADA …


The Imperial Sovereign: Sovereign Immunity & The Ada, Judith Olans Brown, Wendy E. Parmet Dec 2001

The Imperial Sovereign: Sovereign Immunity & The Ada, Judith Olans Brown, Wendy E. Parmet

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Professors Brown and Parmet examine the impact of the Supreme Court's resurrection of state sovereign immunity on the rights of individuals protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act in light of the recent decision, Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett. Placing Garrett within the context of the Rehnquist Court's evolving reallocation of state and federal authority, they argue that the Court has relied upon a mythic and dangerous notion of sovereignty that is foreign to the Framers' understanding. Brown and Parmet go on to show that, by determining that federalism compels constraining congressional power to …


Envisioning A Future For Age And Disability Discrimination Claims, Alison Barnes Dec 2001

Envisioning A Future For Age And Disability Discrimination Claims, Alison Barnes

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article considers the reasons for reinterpretations of age and disability and examines the fundamental reasons for changes in the implementation of both the ADA and ADEA. Part I presents the basic structure and relevant requirements of the two statutes and comments on the reasons their legislative purposes are not often seen as overlapping. Part II discusses the recent Supreme Court decisions that have undermined the purposes and implementation of both the ADA and ADEA and chilled causes of action based on the ADA and ADEA. Part III projects the current problems with anti-discrimination causes into the future, when older …