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Full-Text Articles in Law

Michigan Supreme Court Overturns Landmark Eminent Domain Case, Patricia E. Salkin Apr 2005

Michigan Supreme Court Overturns Landmark Eminent Domain Case, Patricia E. Salkin

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No abstract provided.


Courts Over Constitutions Revisited: Unwritten Constitutionalism In The States, Thomas B. Mcaffee, Nathan N. Frost, Rachel Beth Klein-Levine Jan 2004

Courts Over Constitutions Revisited: Unwritten Constitutionalism In The States, Thomas B. Mcaffee, Nathan N. Frost, Rachel Beth Klein-Levine

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A good deal of modern debate in constitutional law has concerned the appropriate methods for construing constitutional rights. But the focus on “individual rights” has sometimes prompted us to pay too little attention to the “right” deemed most fundamental by those who brought us the state and federal constitutions: the right of the people collectively to make determinations about how they should be governed. The author demonstrates that the key to understanding the development of the power of judicial review, both by the United States Supreme Court and by the highest courts of the states, is to perceive courts as …


Lawrence V. Texas: The Decision And Its Implications For The Future, Martin A. Schwartz Jan 2004

Lawrence V. Texas: The Decision And Its Implications For The Future, Martin A. Schwartz

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No abstract provided.


Supreme Court Section 1983 Decisions: (October 2001 Term), Martin A. Schwartz Jan 2003

Supreme Court Section 1983 Decisions: (October 2001 Term), Martin A. Schwartz

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No abstract provided.


Is Including "Under God" In The Pledge Of Allegiance Lawful?: An Impeccably Correct Ruling, Peter Brandon Bayer Jan 2003

Is Including "Under God" In The Pledge Of Allegiance Lawful?: An Impeccably Correct Ruling, Peter Brandon Bayer

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On June 26, 2002, in Newdow v. U.S. Congress, a divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the 1954 Congressional amendment adding the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance violated the First Amendment’s proscription that, “Congress shall make not law respecting an establishment of religion.” Because the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause applies to the States via the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Ninth Circuit likewise found unlawful a California school district’s policy encouraging public school students to utter the words “under God” as part of teacher-led …


Congressional Power Over Presidential Elections: Lessons From The Past And Reforms For The Future, Dan T. Coenen, Edward J. Larson Mar 2002

Congressional Power Over Presidential Elections: Lessons From The Past And Reforms For The Future, Dan T. Coenen, Edward J. Larson

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Presidential election controversies are nothing new. They have plagued our republic since 1801, when the fourth election for the office ended in a muddle that nearly deprived the rightful winner of the presidency. Each controversy has led to calls for reform. In every instance, the cryptic and troublesome constitutional text has hampered congressional efforts to correct the problems. Simply stated, the Constitution offers little explicit guidance on when and how Congress can regulate the selection of the President. In this Article, we explore the implications of this textual deficiency, looking both at what Congress has done in the past and …


Paradise Lost: Good News Club, Charitable Choice, And The State Of Religious Freedom, Ian C. Bartrum Jan 2002

Paradise Lost: Good News Club, Charitable Choice, And The State Of Religious Freedom, Ian C. Bartrum

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The United States Constitution's two religion clauses prohibit Congress from passing laws that establish religion or restrict its free exercise. This Note argues that James Madison and Thomas Jefferson worked to include this language in the Constitution because of their belief that citizens' religious duties were more fundamental than their civic duties. It argues that they intended the Constitution's religion clauses to form a simple dialectic: the government may not force citizens to renounce their religious duties by compelling them to support another faith, nor may it pass laws that act coercively to restrict their religious beliefs and practices. This …


Of Orphans And Vouchers: Nevada's "Little Blaine Amendment" And The Future Of Religious Participation In Public Programs, Jay S. Bybee Jan 2002

Of Orphans And Vouchers: Nevada's "Little Blaine Amendment" And The Future Of Religious Participation In Public Programs, Jay S. Bybee

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In December 1875, President Ulysses S. Grant delivered his last annual message to Congress. He warned of “the dangers threatening us” and the “importance that all [men] should be possessed of education and intelligence,” lest “ignorant men . . . sink into acquiescence to the will of intelligence, whether directed by the demagogue or by priestcraft.” He recommended as “the primary step” a constitutional amendment “making it the duty of each of the several States to establish and forever maintain free public schools adequate to the education of all of the children” and “prohibiting the granting of any school funds, …


The Privatization Of The Civil Commitment Process And The State Action Doctrine: Have The Mentally Ill Been Systematically Stripped Of Their Fourteenth Amendment Rights?, William Brooks Jan 2001

The Privatization Of The Civil Commitment Process And The State Action Doctrine: Have The Mentally Ill Been Systematically Stripped Of Their Fourteenth Amendment Rights?, William Brooks

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No abstract provided.


Unenumerated Rights Under The U.S. Constitution, Thomas B. Mcaffee Jan 2001

Unenumerated Rights Under The U.S. Constitution, Thomas B. Mcaffee

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The symbol of modern constitutional law, for good or ill, is Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court’s abortion decision. From the beginning, the big question has been, where in the text of the Constitution do were find this “right of privacy” that secures the right to choose abortion? Some scholars have argued that such a right could not be found in the text or structure of the Constitution. One powerful counter stems from a textual approach to giving effect to the Constitution. In this article, the author argues that, if we look carefully enough at the text and history, …


Exploiting Trauma: The So-Called Victim's Rights Amendment, Lynne Henderson Jan 2001

Exploiting Trauma: The So-Called Victim's Rights Amendment, Lynne Henderson

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No abstract provided.


Does The Federal Constitution Incorporate The Declaration Of Independence?, Thomas B. Mcaffee Jan 2001

Does The Federal Constitution Incorporate The Declaration Of Independence?, Thomas B. Mcaffee

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A standard view at the time of the adoption of the Constitution was that “a constitution does not in itself imply any more than a declaration of the relation which the different parts of the government have to each other, but does not imply security for the rights of individuals.” The drafters of the state constitutions had “assumed that government had all power except for specific prohibitions contained in a bill of rights.” When the federal Constitution was transmitted to the states by Congress, Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts defended the omission of a bill of rights based on the federal …


The Constitution As Based On The Consent Of The Governed—Or, Should We Have An Unwritten Constitution?, Thomas B. Mcaffee Jan 2001

The Constitution As Based On The Consent Of The Governed—Or, Should We Have An Unwritten Constitution?, Thomas B. Mcaffee

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It is useful to embrace continuity in describing basic differences we have in giving effect to the Constitution, especially if particular ways of communicating help us convey and understand what is at stake. The individual who originated the term “non-interpretivist” to describe judicial review implementing the unwritten constitution, for example, continues to believe that the best approach to constitutional interpretation is not “textualist,” but is properly characterized as “supplemental.” In his view, “much American constitutional adjudication, including but not limited to decisions under due process liberty and the right of privacy, involves the interpretation of an unwritten and essentially common …


Due Process And Fundamental Rights, Martin A. Schwartz Jan 2000

Due Process And Fundamental Rights, Martin A. Schwartz

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No abstract provided.


The Tenth Amendment Among The Shadows: On Reading The Constitution In Plato's Cave, Jay S. Bybee Jan 2000

The Tenth Amendment Among The Shadows: On Reading The Constitution In Plato's Cave, Jay S. Bybee

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In Plato's Allegory of the Cave, he describes a cavernous chamber in which men are imprisoned. Although a large fire lights the cave, the prisoners cannot see the light source. Instead, they can only make out figures that dance and parade in front of them illuminated by the fire. The prisoners cannot even see the figures directly, only their shadows. Everything that the prisoners know about reality they have learned from the distorted shapes of the shadows dancing about the cave's walls. Socrates wonders, if a prisoner were suddenly freed and could see the objects themselves and not merely their …


Common Ground: Robert Jackson, Antonin Scalia, And A Power Theory Of The First Amendment, Jay S. Bybee Jan 2000

Common Ground: Robert Jackson, Antonin Scalia, And A Power Theory Of The First Amendment, Jay S. Bybee

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There are few cases that contrast more starkly than Justice Robert Jackson's opinion for the Court in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette and Justice Antonin Scalia's majority opinion in Employment Division v. Smith. Although we praise Barnette for its soaring defense of the Free Speech Clause and excoriate Smith for its crabbed reading of the Free Exercise Clause, in fact, Justice Jackson and Justice Scalia are not so far apart. When we read Barnette and Smith in context, we will find that Justice Jackson and Justice Scalia treaded common ground with respect to the First Amendment. …


Toward The Restorative Constitution: A Restorative Justice Critique Of Anti-Gang Public Nuisance Injunctions, Joan W. Howarth Jan 2000

Toward The Restorative Constitution: A Restorative Justice Critique Of Anti-Gang Public Nuisance Injunctions, Joan W. Howarth

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Gang members from elsewhere congregated on lawns, on sidewalks, and in front of apartment complexes at all hours. They displayed a casual contempt for notions of law, order, and decency -- openly drinking, smoking dope, sniffing toluene, and even snorting cocaine laid out in neat lines on the hoods of residents' cars. San Jose prosecutors responded by obtaining and enforcing a broad injunction against the gangs and their members, based on the finding that the gangs' activities constituted a public nuisance. California prosecutors have sought such anti-gang public nuisance injunctions since 1987. Their constitutionality was in doubt for ten years …


The Imposition Of The Death Penalty In The United States Of America: Does It Comply With International Norms?, Beverly Mcqueary Smith Jan 1999

The Imposition Of The Death Penalty In The United States Of America: Does It Comply With International Norms?, Beverly Mcqueary Smith

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No abstract provided.


Unenumerated Constitutional Rights And Unenumerated Biblical Obligations: A Preliminary Study In Comparative Hermeneutics, Samuel J. Levine Jan 1998

Unenumerated Constitutional Rights And Unenumerated Biblical Obligations: A Preliminary Study In Comparative Hermeneutics, Samuel J. Levine

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In his 1986 Yale Law Journal article, Robert Cover wrote of an explosion of legal scholarship placing interpretation at the crux of the enterprise of law. As part of the continuing emphasis on hermeneutics in constitutional interpretation, a body of literature has emerged comparing constitutional textual analysis to Biblical hermeneutics. This scholarship has been based on the recognition that, like the Constitution, the Bible functions as an authoritative legal text that must be interpreted in order to serve as the foundation for a living community. Levine looks at a basic hermeneutic device common to both Biblical and constitutional interpretation, the …


Protecting Basic Rights Of Citizens, Ellen Catsman Freidin, Ann C. Mcginley Jan 1998

Protecting Basic Rights Of Citizens, Ellen Catsman Freidin, Ann C. Mcginley

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Revision 9 suggests three important changes to the basic rights provision of the Florida Constitution. First, it would add “female and male alike” to define “natural persons who are equal before the law.” This change expressly recognizes equality of the sexes. Second, it would prohibit the government from depriving a person of any right because of the person’s national origin. Finally, the revision prohibits the government from depriving a person of any right because of “physical disability,” replacing the currently existing protection for “physical handicap.”


The Federal System As Bill Of Rights: Original Understandings, Modern Misreadings, Thomas B. Mcaffee Jan 1998

The Federal System As Bill Of Rights: Original Understandings, Modern Misreadings, Thomas B. Mcaffee

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In the modern era, we have almost completely lost track of the relationship that the Framers of the United States Constitution perceived between the structure of our federal system and the protection of popular rights. At least two obvious components of this confusion persist. First, as we have come to think of rights almost exclusively in terms of the claims of individuals against the government, we have lost the ability to hear the Framers' voices referring to rights held by the people in their collective capacity, including the rights of the people within each of the sovereign states to be …


Does New York's Death Penalty Statute Violate The New York Constitution? (Symposium: New York State Constitutional Law: Trends And Developments), Richard Klein, Hon. Stewart F. Hancock, Jr., Christopher Quinn Jan 1998

Does New York's Death Penalty Statute Violate The New York Constitution? (Symposium: New York State Constitutional Law: Trends And Developments), Richard Klein, Hon. Stewart F. Hancock, Jr., Christopher Quinn

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No abstract provided.


Reflections On The Constitutional Scholarship Of Charles Black: A Look Back And A Look Forward, Samuel J. Levine Jan 1997

Reflections On The Constitutional Scholarship Of Charles Black: A Look Back And A Look Forward, Samuel J. Levine

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Charles L. Black Jr. has been one of the most important constitutional scholars in the United States for more than four decades. Professor Black's writings have helped shape the debate in a wide variety of constitutional areas, from racial equality and welfare rights to constitutional amendment, impeachment, and the death penalty. In this essay, Levine briefly surveys a number of Professor Black's articles, focusing on two areas of his scholarship: unnamed human rights and racial justice. By analyzing these two topics, which represent, respectively, Black's most recent scholarship and his most significant early work, Levine attempts to show certain principles …


Rethinking The Constitutionality Of The Supreme Court's Preference For Binding Arbitration: A Fresh Assessment Of Jury Trial, Separation Of Powers, And Due Process Concerns, Jean R. Sternlight Jan 1997

Rethinking The Constitutionality Of The Supreme Court's Preference For Binding Arbitration: A Fresh Assessment Of Jury Trial, Separation Of Powers, And Due Process Concerns, Jean R. Sternlight

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Courts and commentators have typically assumed that binding arbitration is both private and consensual, and that it therefore raises no constitutional concerns. This Article challenges both assumptions and goes on to consider arguments that arbitration agreements may unconstitutionally deprive persons of their right to a jury trial, to a judge, and to due process of law. The author argues first that courts' interpretation of seemingly private arbitration agreements may often give rise to "state action," particularly where courts have used a "preference favoring arbitration over litigation" to construe a contract in a non-neutral fashion. The author next draws on the …


Bringing Forward The Right To Keep And Bear Arms: Do Text, History, Or Precedent Stand In The Way?, Thomas B. Mcaffee, Michael J. Quinlan Jan 1997

Bringing Forward The Right To Keep And Bear Arms: Do Text, History, Or Precedent Stand In The Way?, Thomas B. Mcaffee, Michael J. Quinlan

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The Second Amendment is the black sheep of the constitutional family. Paralleling the Amendment's neglect and abuse by commentators is the curious onslaught of misinformation and fear in the public arena. In this Article, Professors McAffee and Quinlan begin the process of restoring the Second Amendment to its rightful place as an individual right enjoyed by the citizenry. Reviewing singular facets of the Second Amendment debate, including the relation between the Militia and Right to Arms Clauses, the meaning of “keep and bear,” the relevance of militia provisions today and the abandonment by the Supreme Court as an active participant …


A Critical Guide To The Ninth Amendment, Thomas B. Mcaffee Jan 1996

A Critical Guide To The Ninth Amendment, Thomas B. Mcaffee

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Since the Supreme Court's decision in Griswold v. Connecticut, thousands of law students each year have confronted a confusing debate over the meaning of the Ninth Amendment. Writing for the majority in Griswold, Justice Douglas included the Ninth Amendment among the sources for deriving the “penumbral” right of privacy. More central to this article, in a separate concurrence Justice Goldberg contended that the Amendment provided a basis for the discovery of fundamental human rights beyond those included in the text of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In response, the dissenting Justices, Stewart and Black, argued that …


Originalism And Indeterminacy, Thomas B. Mcaffee Jan 1996

Originalism And Indeterminacy, Thomas B. Mcaffee

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Perhaps the most universal objection to originalism is that it is impossible; that is, the materials relied upon by originalists simply do not yield determinant answers to any worthwhile questions. This indeterminacy objection lacks significant force for at least three reasons. First, the claim that the interpretive materials are always indeterminate vastly overstates the extent and importance of the uncertainties involved; consequently, originalism's critics understate the importance of the originalist canon as a tool for reducing the degree of indeterminacy in constitutional interpretation. Once it becomes clear that originalist methodology can provide some definitive answers, even if significant indeterminacy remains, …


Federalism And The Protection Of Rights: The Modern Ninth Amendment’S Spreading Confusion, Thomas B. Mcaffee Jan 1996

Federalism And The Protection Of Rights: The Modern Ninth Amendment’S Spreading Confusion, Thomas B. Mcaffee

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Blindness to a basic understanding of the framers' design of our federal structure is largely responsible for the confusion that surrounds our understanding of the Ninth Amendment. The Ninth Amendment reads: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” In Griswold v. Connecticut, Justices Black and Stewart explained in separate dissenting opinions that the Ninth Amendment's reference to the other rights “retained by the people” alluded to the collective and individual rights the people “retained” by virtue of granting limited, enumerated powers to the national government. …


A Critical Guide To The Second Amendment, Glenn Harlan Reynolds Apr 1995

A Critical Guide To The Second Amendment, Glenn Harlan Reynolds

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This Article surveys case law, history, and scholarship on the Second Amendment. Examining both "individual right" and "collective right" theorists, it synthesizes a so-called "Standard Model" of Second Amendment interpretation, and briefly addresses questions of what weapons might be protected under a more expansive treatment of the Second Amendment than exists today.


The Constitution Of Belarus: A Good First Step Towards The Rule Of Law, Gary M. Shaw Jan 1995

The Constitution Of Belarus: A Good First Step Towards The Rule Of Law, Gary M. Shaw

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No abstract provided.