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Rehnquist's Vietnam: Constitutional Separatism And The Stealth Advance Of Martial Law, Diane H. Mazur

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article argues that judicial deference to the military, at least as the principle is understood in contemporary decisions of the Court, is surprisingly recent and not at all constitutionally established. In fact, this deference departs from constitutional text and from a line of Supreme Court precedent concerning civilian-military relations extending back before the Civil War. Broad judicial deference to military discretion is only a creation of the post-Vietnam, all-volunteer military and, more specifically, only a creation of one single Justice of the Supreme Court, William H. Rehnquist.

In Greer v. Spock, First Amendment values were displaced narrowly in the …