Law Commons^™

Double Jeopardy All Over Again: Dual Sovereignty, Rodney King, And The Aclu, Susan Herman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Representing The Lesbian In Law And Literature, Anne B. Goldstein

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay addresses the question "what is involved in representing a lesbian? in two contexts, law and literature. Its premise is that the work of novelists is enough like the work of lawyers that lawyers can learn how to represent lesbian clients better by studying books with lesbian characters. This is a preliminary, anecdotal, and impressionistic effort. The Author relies upon several systematic surveys of the field and her seven years' experience as a litigator and eight years' further reading and reflection about the problems and strategies of representing lesbians.

The Essay begins by exploring the general problem of representing …

Judicial Recantation, Mark A. Graber

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Fundamental Rights In The "Gray" Area: The Right Of Privacy Under The Minnesota Constitution, Michael K. Steenson

Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores the constitutional aspects of Minnesota privacy law. Part II briefly explains federal privacy law to provide a baseline for consideration of privacy law in Minnesota. Part III examines the right of privacy as it has evolved in the Minnesota common law. Part IV evaluates the Minnesota Supreme Court's application of federal privacy standards and then examines the court's decisions that outline the right of privacy under the Minnesota Constitution. Part V concludes by raising questions concerning the potential application of the court's concept of privacy under the Minnesota Constitution as applied to two areas: same-sex marriages and …

Gay Rights Through The Looking Glass: Politics, Morality, And The Trial Of Colorado's Amendment 2, Suzanne B. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

Courts have long struggled to resolve the question of how far a community may go in exercising its power to treat minority members differently. Popular prejudice, "community morality" and invidious stereotypes repeatedly have had their day in court as judges work to reconcile equal protection and privacy rights with their own attitudes about the place of people of color, women and gay people in society. In the early 1990s, the tension between the American ideal of equality and the reality of human diversity starkly emerged. A national wave of citizen-sponsored initiatives seeking to amend state constitutions and local charters to …

Facing The Challenge: A Lawyer's Response To Anti-Gay Initiatives, Suzanne B. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

We are living in an extraordinary period of gay and lesbian history. As lesbian and gay civil rights gain increasing recognition throughout the country – through small but growing numbers of laws prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination, court rulings protecting lesbian and gay parents' custody of their children, and a historically unprecedented level of positive media coverage – our struggles also have escalated enormously. Not only must we litigate and negotiate for equal opportunity in employment, housing, and parenting rights as always, but also we face a nationally organized and terrifically well-funded assault on our fundamental rights as citizens.

This nationwide …

Two Social Movements, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

Two social movements in the last fifty years have had a profound impact on our understanding of law and the role of the courts in our system of government. One is the civil rights movement. The demand for greater racial and gender equality and other civil rights has changed the face of the law in countless ways. For example, it has called into question – or at least required a fundamental revision in – the traditional understanding that the courts should interpret the Constitution and laws in accordance with their original meaning. Decisions such as Brown v. Board of Education …

Violence Against Lesbians And Gay Men, Suzanne B. Goldberg, Bea Hanson

Faculty Scholarship

Faggot! Dyke! Pervert! Homo!" Just words? Or rhetoric that illuminates and fuels hatred of lesbians and gay men? How often are these words supplemented by the use of a bat, golf clubs, a hammer, a knife, a gun? Studies indicate that lesbians and gay men experience criminal victimization at rates significantly higher than other individuals and are the most frequent victims of bias crime.

Since lesbians and gay men live all across the country – in large cities, small towns, and rural areas – we can be targets of bias crime no matter where we live. From the attacks against …

Same-Sex Marriage And Choice Of Law: If We Marry In Hawaii, Are We Still Married When We Get Home?, Barbara Cox

Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores the choice-of-law question of whether a same-sex couple, married in Hawaii after successful completion of the Baehr v. Lewin case, will have their marriage recognized by the state of their domicile upon their return from Hawaii. This Article first applauds the Baehr court's decision that prohibiting same-sex marriage is unconstitutional sex discrimination but then critiques its decision that the fundamental right to marry does not extend to same-sex couples.

The second Part considers the choice-of-law questions that will arise in cases litigating the validity of a couple's same-sex marriage upon their return to their domicile. It considers …