Law Commons^™

Law School News: 'Hate And Bigotry Have No Place In America' April 18, 2019, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Law School News: Celebrating The First Women Lawyers In Rhode Island April 12, 2019, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Law Library Blog (March 2019): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

John Quincy Adams Influence On Washington’S Farewell Address: A Critical Examination, Stephen Pierce

Undergraduate Research

John Quincy Adams is seen by the American public today as a failed one-term president. When one starts to see his diplomatic work and his service in Congress, however, he becomes one of the most important figures in American history. The diplomatic historian Samuel Flagg Bemis was in 1944 the first historian to suggest that Adams’ early writings influenced Washington’s Farewell Address. He looked through some of Adams’ early published writings and concluded that it was, “Conspicuous among the admonitions of the Farewell Address are: (1) to exalt patriotically the national words, America, American, Americans; (2) to beware of foreign …

Manufactured Emergencies, Robert Tsai

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Emergencies are presumed to be unusual affairs, but the United States has been in one state of emergency or another for the last forty years. That is a concern. The erosion of democratic norms has led not only to the collapse of the traditional conceptual boundary between ordinary rule and emergency governance, but also to the emergence of an even graver problem: the manufactured crisis. In an age characterized by extreme partisanship, institutional gridlock, and technological manipulation of information, it has become exceedingly easy and far more tempting for a President to invoke extraordinary power by ginning up exigencies. To …

Law Library Blog (January 2019): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

The Guatemalan Presidential Election, Center For The Advancement Of Public Integrity

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

With current President Jimmy Morales’ term concluding in 2020, the presidential election is currently underway in Guatemala to determine his successor. The Constitution of Guatemala prohibits incumbent presidents from running for a second term and several prominent political figures are competing to replace President Morales, with many accusations about their checkered political past.

Manufactured Emergencies, Robert L. Tsai

Faculty Scholarship

Emergencies are presumed to be unusual affairs, but the United States has been in one state of emergency or another for the last forty years. That is a problem. The erosion of democratic norms has led to not simply the collapse of the traditional conceptual boundary between ordinary rule and emergency governance, but also the emergence of an even graver problem: the manufactured crisis. In an age characterized by extreme partisanship, institutional gridlock, and technological manipulation of information, it has become exceedingly easy and far more tempting for a President to invoke extraordinary power by ginning up exigencies. To reduce …

Faithful Execution And Article Ii, Andrew Kent, Ethan J. Leib, Jed Shugerman

Faculty Scholarship

Article II of the U.S. Constitution twice imposes a duty of faithful execution on the President, who must “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” and take an oath or affirmation to “faithfully execute the Office of President.” These Faithful Execution Clauses are cited often, but their background and original meaning have never been fully explored. Courts, the executive branch, and many scholars rely on one or both clauses as support for expansive views of presidential power, for example, to go beyond standing law to defend the nation in emergencies; to withhold documents from Congress or the courts; or …

Manufactured Emergencies, Robert Tsai

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Emergencies are presumed to be unusual affairs, but the United States has been in one state of emergency or another for the last forty years. That is a problem. The erosion of democratic norms has led to not simply the collapse of the traditional conceptual boundary between ordinary rule and emergency governance, but also the emergence of an even graver problem: the manufactured crisis. In an age characterized by extreme partisanship, institutional gridlock, and technological manipulation of information, it has become exceedingly easy and far more tempting for a President to invoke extraordinary power by ginning up exigencies. To reduce …

The Trump Administration And The Rule Of Law, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

Written for a French audience in 2017, this article sought to frame the explosive issues about the Trump presidency in relation to the American trend to strong views of the unitary executive, that in the author's view ignore the striking contrast between to propositions in Article II Section 2 of the Constitution, its only words defining presidential power. Made "Commander in chief" of the military, he is next given the power only to require the opinion in writing from the heads of the executive bodies Congress was expected to create how they intended to carry out the duties Congress had …

The Ninth Circuit’S Asylum Ban Ruling Is A Message To Trump, Peter Margulies

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Women In Robes 10/04/2018, Roger Williams University School Of Law, Women's Law Society

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Testimony Of Rebecca Ingber Before The United States Senate Committee On The Judiciary On The Nomination Of Brett Kavanaugh For Associate Justice Of The U.S. Supreme Court, Rebecca Ingber

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Rebecca Ingber testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee as it considered the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh for Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Her testimony focused on Judge Kavanaugh's national security and international law jurisprudence, in particular, the court's role in considering international law constraints on the President's war powers, and the potential effects of this judicial approach on executive power.

Righting A Wrong: Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, And The Espionage Act Prosecutions, David Forte

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This is a story of excess and reparation. It is a chronicle of one President from the elite intellectual classes of the East, and another from a county seat in the heartland. Woodrow Wilson was the college president whose contribution to the art of government lay in the principle of expertise and efficiency. When he went to war, he turned the machinery of government into a comprehensive and highly effective instrument for victory. For Wilson, it followed that there could be little tolerance for those who impeded the success of American arms by their anti-war propaganda, draft resistance, or ideological …

Rwu First Amendment Blog: David Logan's Blog: Discovering Trump 06-22-2018, David A. Logan

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Law Library Blog (February 2018): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Executive Power And National Security Power, Julian Davis Mortenson, Andrew Kent

Book Chapters

The constitutional text governing national security law is full of gaps, oversights, and omissions. In combination with the authorization principle -- which requires all federal actors to identify particularized authority for their actions -- these gaps have often presented an acute dilemma for Presidents charged with defending the nation. Focusing on three periods in American history, this chapter sketches the historical evolution of how the political branches have responded.

First, the early republic. During this period, presidents responded to the authorization dilemma by seeking highly particularized authorization from the two other constitutional branches of government. Throughout the era, presidents’ claims …

Thurgood Marshall Memorial Lecture Series: "The Race Card And The Trump Card: New Challenges And Familiar Frustrations" February 5, 2018, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

The President, Prosecutorial Discretion, Obstruction Of Justice, And Congress, Henry L. Chambers Jr.

Law Faculty Publications

The executive power of the United States is vested in the President of the United States. That power includes prosecutorial discretion—the power to prosecute or decline to prosecute. Consequently, the President would appear to have the constitutional authority to initiate or end a federal criminal prosecution or investigation. This would seem particularly so in an era in which executive power arguably continues to expand. Nonetheless, an ongoing debate exists regarding whether a President obstructs justice when he attempts to end a criminal investigation for improper reasons. Those who argue in favor of the possibility of obstruction of justice suggest that …

Why A President Cannot Authorize The Military To Violate (Most Of) The Law Of War, John C. Dehn

Faculty Publications & Other Works

Waterboarding and “much worse,” torture, and “tak[ing] out” the family members of terrorists: President Trump endorsed these measures while campaigning for office. After his inauguration, Trump confirmed his view of the effectiveness of torture and has not clearly rejected other measures forbidden by international law. This Article therefore examines whether a President has the power to order or authorize the military to violate international humanitarian law, known as the “law of war.” Rather than assess whether the law of war generally constrains a President as Commander-in-Chief, however, its focus is the extent to which Congress requires the U.S. military to …

Suing The President For First Amendment Violations, Sonja R. West

Scholarly Works

On any given day, it seems, President Donald Trump can be found attacking, threatening, or punishing the press and other individuals whose speech he dislikes. His actions, moreover, inevitably raise the question: Do any of these individuals or organizations (or any future ones) have a viable claim against the President for violating their First Amendment rights?

One might think that the ability to sue the President for violation of the First Amendment would be relatively settled. The answer, however, is not quite that straightforward. Due to several unique qualities about the First Amendment and the presidency, it is not entirely …

Can The President Control The Department Of Justice?, Bruce Green, Rebecca Roiphe

Articles & Chapters

As the investigation into President Trump's campaign ties to Russia grows increasingly intense, it is critical to understand how much control the President has over the Attorney General and the Department of Justice. Some critics claim that the President has absolute power to direct federal prosecutors and control their decisions. The President and his lawyers, joined by several scholars, take this claim one step further by arguing that the chief executive could not be guilty of obstruction of justice because his control over all prosecutorial decisions is absolute. This issue last arose during the Nixon Administration. The Department of Justice …

Obama's Conversion On Same-Sex Marriage: The Social Foundations Of Individual Rights, Robert L. Tsai

Faculty Scholarship

This essay explores how presidents who wish to seize a leadership role over the development of rights must tend to the social foundations of those rights. Broad cultural changes alone do not guarantee success, nor do they dictate the substance of constitutional ideas. Rather, presidential aides must actively re-characterize the social conditions in which rights are made, disseminated, and enforced. An administration must articulate a strategically plausible theory of a particular right, ensure there is cultural and institutional support for that right, and work to minimize blowback. Executive branch officials must seek to transform and popularize legal concepts while working …

Learning To Live With Judicial Partisanship: A Response To Cassandra Burke Robertson, Bruce A. Green, Rebecca Roiphe

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Presidential Attacks On The Press, Sonja R. West

Scholarly Works

President Donald Trump’s habit of hurling invectives at the press is disturbing. It undermines the work of the press and breaks long-standing norms that presidents show respect for the role of the Fourth Estate. But insults alone rarely raise First Amendment issues. Presidents have long used the bully pulpit to respond to or criticize news reports. Even Trump’s near daily verbal assaults on reporters and news organizations can be considered part of our country’s “uninhibited, robust, and wide-open” marketplace of ideas. Presidents have opinions too, and journalists should be able to handle his rants.

Yet there are also times when …

Promoting Executive Accountability Through Qui Tam Legislation, Randy Beck

Scholarly Works

For hundreds of years prior to ratification of the U.S. Constitution, Anglo-American legislatures used qui tam legislation to enforce legal constraints on government officials. A qui tam statute allows a private informer to collect a statutory fine for illegal conduct, even if the informer lacks the particularized injury normally required for Article III standing. This essay explores whether qui tam regulation should be revived as a means of ensuring executive branch legal accountability."

Newsroom: Center Of The Storm: Rwu Law And Daca 11-21-2017, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Law Library Blog (November 2017): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Trending @ Rwu Law: Michael Bowden's Post: Celebrating Professor Tony Santoro 10-31-2017, Michael Bowden

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.