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The Great American Gun Violence Lottery, Erin Ryan Dec 2013

The Great American Gun Violence Lottery, Erin Ryan

Erin Ryan

Reflecting on the one-year anniversary of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, this very short essay compares the experience of gun violence in America to the dystopian game of chance in Shirley Jackson’s classic American short story, “The Lottery.” With references to the role of Constitutional law, media consumption, and cultural change, it urges an available, common-sense middle ground on gun policy. The essay was first published by the American Constitution Society (Dec. 17, 2013) and later appeared in the Huffington Post (Dec. 20, 2013).


The Bin Laden Exception, Erik Luna Nov 2013

The Bin Laden Exception, Erik Luna

Erik Luna

Osama bin Laden's demise provides an opportune moment to reevaluate the extraordinary measures taken by the U.S. government in the "war on terror," with any reassessment incorporating the threat posed by al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. Some modest analysis suggests that terrorism remains a miniscule risk for the average American, and it hardly poses an existential threat to the United States. Nonetheless, terrorism-related fears have distorted the people's risk perception and facilitated dubious public policies, exemplified here by a series of programs implemented by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Among other things, this agency has adopted costly technology and …


On Checking The Artifacts Of Canaan: A Comment On Levinson's "Confrontation", Thomas L. Shaffer Nov 2013

On Checking The Artifacts Of Canaan: A Comment On Levinson's "Confrontation", Thomas L. Shaffer

Thomas L. Shaffer

No abstract provided.


Incentives To Create Under A "Lifetime-Plus-Years" Copyright Duration: Lessons From A Behavioral Economic Analysis For Eldred V. Ashcroft, Avishalom Tor, Dotan Oliar Nov 2013

Incentives To Create Under A "Lifetime-Plus-Years" Copyright Duration: Lessons From A Behavioral Economic Analysis For Eldred V. Ashcroft, Avishalom Tor, Dotan Oliar

Avishalom Tor

In this Article, we highlight for the first time some of the significant but hitherto unrecognized behavioral effects of copyright law on individuals' incentives to create and then examine the implications of our findings for the constitutional analysis of Eldred v. Ashcroft. We show that behavioral biases - namely, individuals' optimistic bias regarding their future longevity and their subadditive judgments in circumstances resembling the extant rule of copyright duration - explain the otherwise puzzling lifetime-plus-years basis for copyright protection given to individual authors, and reveal how this regime provides superior incentives to create. Thus, insofar as the provision of increased …


Drug Exceptionalism, Erik Luna Nov 2013

Drug Exceptionalism, Erik Luna

Erik Luna

No abstract provided.


Holdings, Dicta, And The Paradigms Of Precedent, Randy J. Kozel Nov 2013

Holdings, Dicta, And The Paradigms Of Precedent, Randy J. Kozel

Randy J Kozel

In United States v. Windsor, the Supreme Court invalidated a key provision of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. In doing so, it raised significant questions about the power of states to limit the institution of marriage to opposite-sex couples. That issue was not presented in Windsor itself, but Windsor’s reasoning and rhetoric have already begun to play a pivotal role in ensuing challenges to state laws. Determining the future effects of Windsor, or of any other Supreme Court decision, requires defining the scope of judicial precedent. One account of precedent is restrictive: Only a court’s holdings must …


Religion, Division, And The First Amendment, Richard W. Garnett Nov 2013

Religion, Division, And The First Amendment, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

Nearly thirty-five years ago, in Lemon v. Kurtzman, Chief Justice Warren Burger declared that state programs or policies could excessive(ly) - and, therefore, unconstitutionally - entangle government and religion, not only by requiring or allowing intrusive public monitoring of religious institutions and activities, but also through what he called their divisive political potential. Chief Justice Burger asserted also, and more fundamentally, that political division along religious lines was one of the principal evils against which the First Amendment was intended to protect. And from this Hobbesian premise about the inten(t) animating the First Amendment, he proceeded on the assumption that …


Supreme Court Wrestles With Prayer At Public Meetings, Alan E. Garfield Nov 2013

Supreme Court Wrestles With Prayer At Public Meetings, Alan E. Garfield

Alan E Garfield

No abstract provided.


The Political (And Other) Safeguards Of Religious Freedom, Richard W. Garnett Nov 2013

The Political (And Other) Safeguards Of Religious Freedom, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

This essay is a contribution to a symposium marking the 20th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s still-controversial decision in Employment Division v. Smith. That decision, it is suggested, should not be read as reflecting or requiring hostility or indifference towards claims for legislatively enacted accommodations of religion. Smith is not an endorsement of religion-blind neutrality in constitutional law; instead, it assigns to politically accountable actors the difficult, but crucially important, task of accommodating those whose religious exercise would otherwise be burdened by generally applicable laws. The essay goes on to suggest several things that must be true of our law …


Assimilation, Toleration, And The State's Interest In The Development Of Religious Doctrine, Richard Garnett Nov 2013

Assimilation, Toleration, And The State's Interest In The Development Of Religious Doctrine, Richard Garnett

Richard W Garnett

Thirty-five years ago, in the context of a church-property dispute, Justice William Brennan observed that government interpretation of religious doctrine and judicial intervention in religious disputes are undesirable, because when civil courts undertake to resolve [doctrinal] controversies..., the hazards are ever present of inhibiting the free development of religious doctrine and of implicating secular interests in matters of purely ecclesiastical concern. This statement, at first, seems wise and fittingly cautious, even unremarkable and obvious. On examination, though, it turns out to be intriguing, elusive, and misleading. Indeed, Justice Brennan's warning presents hazards of its own, and its premises - if …


Judicial Review, Local Values, And Pluralism, Richard W. Garnett Nov 2013

Judicial Review, Local Values, And Pluralism, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

At the Federalist Society's 2008 National Student Symposium, a panel of scholars was asked to consider the question, does pervasive judicial review threaten to destroy local identity by homogenizing community norms? The answer to this question is yes, pervasive judicial review certainly does threaten local identity, because such review can homogenize[e] community norms, either by dragging them into conformity with national, constitutional standards or (more controversially) by subordinating them to the reviewers' own commitments. It is important to recall, however, that while it is true that an important feature of our federalism is local variation in laws and values, it …


Formalism And Realism In Commerce Clause Jurisprudence, Barry Cushman Nov 2013

Formalism And Realism In Commerce Clause Jurisprudence, Barry Cushman

Barry Cushman

This Article attempts a reconceptualization of developments in Commerce Clause jurisprudence between the Civil War and World War II by identifying ways in which that jurisprudence was structurally related to and accordingly deeply influenced by the categories of substantive due process and dormant Commerce Clause doctrine. Antecedent dormant Commerce Clause jurisprudence set the terms within which Commerce Clause doctrine was worked out; coordinate developments in substantive due process doctrine set limits upon the scope of Commerce Clause formulations and thus played a critical and underappreciated role in maintaining the federal equilibrium. The subsequent erosion of those due process limitations vastly …


Direct Democracy And Hastily Enacted Statutes, John C. Nagle Nov 2013

Direct Democracy And Hastily Enacted Statutes, John C. Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

No abstract provided.


Supreme Court Heads Into A New Term, Gerry Bradley Oct 2013

Supreme Court Heads Into A New Term, Gerry Bradley

Gerard V. Bradley

Gerard Bradley was quoted in the National Catholic Register article Supreme Court Heads Into a New Term by JOAN FRAWLEY DESMOND on October 9. Gerard Bradley, an expert on constitutional law at the University of Notre Dame Law School, told the Register that the justices will decide “whether states have the power to limit a doctor’s prescription of RU-486 to the FDA protocols.” But there is a larger issue at stake for abortion facilities that resist this kind of oversight. “I think the outcome is important and will actually turn on the larger question of whether Oklahoma is setting up …


Executive Power In Youngstown's Shadows, Patricia L. Bellia Oct 2013

Executive Power In Youngstown's Shadows, Patricia L. Bellia

Patricia L. Bellia

Fifty years after it was handed down, the Supreme Court's decision in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer is among the most important of the Court's separation of powers cases. This Article explores two quite different legacies of the Youngstown case. First, Youngstown has a symbolic or rhetorical power, in that it stands as an example of a court invalidating the actions of a coordinate branch of government in a politically delicate context. When a court wields this weapon, it can take some cover in Youngstown's shadows, and the possibility of a court exercising this power disciplines the executive …


The Mighty Work Of Making Nations Happy: A Response To James Davison Hunter, Patrick Brennan Oct 2013

The Mighty Work Of Making Nations Happy: A Response To James Davison Hunter, Patrick Brennan

Patrick McKinley Brennan

This article is an invited response to James Davison Hunter’s much-discussed book To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World (Oxford University Press, 2010). Hunter, a sociologist at UVA and a believing Protestant, claims that law’s capacity to contribute to social change is “mostly illusory” and that Christians, therefore, should practice “faithful presence” in the public square rather than seek to influence law directly. My response is that it is, in fact, law’s stunning ability to alter and limit available choices that makes it an object of deservedly fierce contest. The wild …


Taxation Without Limitation: The Prohibited Pretext Doctrine V. The Sebelius Theory, Brett W. Hastings Oct 2013

Taxation Without Limitation: The Prohibited Pretext Doctrine V. The Sebelius Theory, Brett W. Hastings

Brett W Hastings

The Article posits that the Supreme Court erred in its ruling regarding the Affordable Care Act by overlooking a well established constitutional principle, dubbed the Prohibited Pretext Doctrine. This doctrine, which prohibits the exercise of a prohibited power through the pretextual use of a power granted, faded from memory due to the post Lochner era expansion of the Commerce Clause. Nevertheless, the doctrine remains valid law. In overlooking the Prohibited Pretext Doctrine, the Supreme Court established a new and contradictory doctrine, dubbed the Sebelius Theory. The Sebelius Theory turns the Prohibited Pretext Doctrine on its head by explicitly allowing the …


Equilibrium, Adam Lamparello Oct 2013

Equilibrium, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

No abstract provided.


Can We Find A Balance Between Privacy Andsecurity?, Alan E. Garfield Sep 2013

Can We Find A Balance Between Privacy Andsecurity?, Alan E. Garfield

Alan E Garfield

No abstract provided.


The Problem Of Thirst: The Right To Equality And The Unlawful Privatization Of Water, Kasari Jl Govender Aug 2013

The Problem Of Thirst: The Right To Equality And The Unlawful Privatization Of Water, Kasari Jl Govender

Kasari JL Govender

The problem of thirst is a massive one, and a child dies every 15 seconds from disease related to lack of access to safe, clean water. Privatization is touted as the solution to water injustice, despite evidence that privatization of water services only increases water deprivation for the poorest citizens. This paper examines whether a privatized for-profit system of water access for personal use infringes the human right to water, and whether states have a legal responsibility to protect their citizens from any and all third party business interests in water. The problem of thirst is considered from the perspective …


Hougang By-Election Case: What Court Decision On By-Election Reveals, Jack Tsen-Ta Lee Aug 2013

Hougang By-Election Case: What Court Decision On By-Election Reveals, Jack Tsen-Ta Lee

Jack Tsen-Ta LEE

The Singapore Court of Appeal’s judgment in Vellama d/o Marie Muthu v Attorney-General [2013] SGCA 39 – popularly known as the Hougang by-election case – shows that the Court sees its role as policing the margins rather than involving itself in the heart of politics. The Court held that the Government was incorrect in asserting the Constitution confers on it the discretion not to hold a by-election at all after a parliamentary seat falls vacant. The judgment came as a surprise to those used to a judicial stance fairly deferential towards the Government, but on balance the Court did accord …


Gay Talk: Protecting Free Speech For Public School Teachers, Stephen J. Elkind, Peter D. Kauffman Jul 2013

Gay Talk: Protecting Free Speech For Public School Teachers, Stephen J. Elkind, Peter D. Kauffman

Stephen J Elkind

In Garcetti v. Ceballos, the Supreme Court held that public employees are not entitled to free speech when speaking “pursuant to their official duties.” In most situations, this strips teachers of First Amendment protection when they discuss controversial subjects, such as homosexuality, with their students. To ensure their classrooms are tolerant and accepting environments for homosexual and questioning youth, teachers need free speech protection against adverse employment action their schools might take. The Garcetti Court, acknowledging that “expression related to academic scholarship and classroom instruction implicates” unique constitutional concerns, explicitly left open whether its decision applied in the education …


Weighing One Constitutional Need Against Another, Alan E. Garfield Jun 2013

Weighing One Constitutional Need Against Another, Alan E. Garfield

Alan E Garfield

No abstract provided.


No Resolution In Sight In Debate On Gun-Control Laws, Alan E. Garfield May 2013

No Resolution In Sight In Debate On Gun-Control Laws, Alan E. Garfield

Alan E Garfield

No abstract provided.


¿Por Qué Ser Monárquico En España?, Germán M. Teruel Lozano Apr 2013

¿Por Qué Ser Monárquico En España?, Germán M. Teruel Lozano

Germán M. Teruel Lozano

No abstract provided.


Constitutional Limitations On Land Use Controls, Environmental Regulations And Governmental Exactions, 2013 Edition, Garrett Power Mar 2013

Constitutional Limitations On Land Use Controls, Environmental Regulations And Governmental Exactions, 2013 Edition, Garrett Power

Garrett Power

This electronic book is published in a searchable PDF format as a part of the E-scholarship Repository of the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. It is an “open content” casebook intended for classroom use in courses in Constitutional Law, Land Use Control, and Environmental Law and. It consists of 130 odd judicial opinions (most rendered by the U.S. Supreme Court) carefully selected from the two hundred years of American constitutional history which address the clash between public sovereignty and private property. The text considers both the personal right to liberty and the personal right in property. …


Public Reporting Of Courts’ Performance – How Is This Best Achieved?, Matthew S.R. Palmer Mar 2013

Public Reporting Of Courts’ Performance – How Is This Best Achieved?, Matthew S.R. Palmer

The Hon Justice Matthew Palmer

In this address Matthew Palmer suggests: 1 The disclosure of information, probably more information than the judiciary feels comfortable disclosing, in a simple, straightforward, unvarnished way, is essential to the medium term constitutional legitimacy of the judiciary. 2 Judges, public servants and politicians speak different languages. Recognising the differences is the first step to a better understanding of, and communication with, each other and, perhaps to mitigating the potential for constitutional conflicts to get out of hand. 3 It’s not constitutionally appropriate for the executive or legislative branches of government to decide, over the wishes of the judiciary, on the …


Public Debt In The United States And Germany: A Constitutional Perspective, Stephen Utz Feb 2013

Public Debt In The United States And Germany: A Constitutional Perspective, Stephen Utz

Stephen Gerard Utz

The German and American constitutional frameworks permit at best quite different approaches to legislative self-discipline regarding public debt. This article compares these frameworks in an effort to identify structural features that further or hinder long-term budgetary discipline for the two countries.


The Campaign Finance Safeguards Of Federalism, Garrick B. Pursley Feb 2013

The Campaign Finance Safeguards Of Federalism, Garrick B. Pursley

Garrick B. Pursley

This article provides the first systematic account of the relationship between campaign finance and federalism. Federalism—a fundamental characteristic of the constitutional structure—depends for its stability on political mechanisms. States and their advocates and representatives in Congress, federal agencies, political parties, intergovernmental lobbying groups, and other political forums work together to check federal interference with state governments. Entire normative theories of federalism depend on the assumption that this system of political safeguards is working effectively in the background. But the federalism and constitutional theory literatures lack a rigorous account of the effects of dramatic political change on pro-federalism political dynamics. Building …


Tools To Fight Voter Suppression Still Are Needed, Alan E. Garfield Feb 2013

Tools To Fight Voter Suppression Still Are Needed, Alan E. Garfield

Alan E Garfield

No abstract provided.