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Full-Text Articles in Law

The Future Of Limitless Debate: The Filibuster In The 113th Congress, Mark Kogan Aug 2012

The Future Of Limitless Debate: The Filibuster In The 113th Congress, Mark Kogan

Legislation and Policy Brief

Human cloning, the caning of teen vandals, and the belief that aliens descend from space to abduct humans and livestock all hold something in common: they are more popular than Congress. With the 112th Congress bottoming out at a record-low 9% approval rating, it is clear that Americans are deeply unsatisfied with the gridlock gripping Washington. While it is popular, and even easy, to lambaste Republicans for blanket obstructionism and to condemn Democrats for failure to stand up to minority bullying, collective blame shifting will not breach the dam of a hyper-partisan Congress. Instead, individuals hoping to get Congress moving …


In Defense Of The Obama Administration's Non-Defense Of Doma, Daniel J. Crooks Iii Aug 2012

In Defense Of The Obama Administration's Non-Defense Of Doma, Daniel J. Crooks Iii

Legislation and Policy Brief

The Constitution charges the President with the duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed . . . .” Moreover, the President takes an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Although “[g]enerally, these duties are compatible . . ., when the Executive faces a law that he believes is unconstitutional, he must decide whether the law should be executed as written and defended if attacked, or whether the duty of faithfulness to the Constitution requires its repudiation.” This decision belongs to the President alone as the head of a co-equal branch of …


Saving Their Own Souls: How Rluipa Failed To Deliver On Its Promises, Sarah Gerwig-Moore Apr 2012

Saving Their Own Souls: How Rluipa Failed To Deliver On Its Promises, Sarah Gerwig-Moore

Legislation and Policy Brief

In the summer of 2001, as a graduate student in law and theology, I began work on a master’s thesis that examined the predicament of men of faith on San Quentin’s Condemned Row. I was working in the California Appellate Project—mostly assisting with direct appeals and state habeas petitions on behalf of men under a death sentence—when a colleague guided me into theological conversations with some of our clients. On Condemned Row, they waited—up to five years to be assigned a court-appointed appellate attorney, on judges’ rulings, and to find whether the legal system would ultimately exact the penalty it …


Lower Court Constitutionalism: Circuit Court Discretion In A Complex Adaptive System, Doni Gewirtzman Jan 2012

Lower Court Constitutionalism: Circuit Court Discretion In A Complex Adaptive System, Doni Gewirtzman

American University Law Review

While federal circuit courts play an essential role in defining what the Constitution means, one would never know it from looking at most constitutional scholarship. The bulk of constitutional theory sees judge-made constitutional law through a distorted lens, one that focuses solely on the Supreme Court with virtually no attention paid to other parts of the judicial hierarchy. On the rare occasions where circuit courts appear on the radar screen, they are treated either as megaphones for communicating the Supreme Court’s directives or as tools for implementing the theorist’s own interpretive agenda. Both approaches would homogenize the way circuit courts …


Modeling The Second Amendment Right To Carry Arms (I): Judicial Tradition And The Scope Of "Bearing Arms" For Self-Defense, Michael P. O'Shea Jan 2012

Modeling The Second Amendment Right To Carry Arms (I): Judicial Tradition And The Scope Of "Bearing Arms" For Self-Defense, Michael P. O'Shea

American University Law Review

This Article sheds light on a major constitutional question opened up by the United States Supreme Court’s landmark decisions in District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago: Does the Second Amendment “right to bear arms” include a right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home? Some courts and commentators have declared that Heller held that the Second Amendment right is limited to the home, so that restrictions on handgun carrying do not even fall within the scope of the Second Amendment. Others assert that the potential applicability of the right to bear arms outside …


Putting Constitutional Teeth Into Apaper Tiger: How To Fix The War Powersresolution, Brian J. Litwak Jan 2012

Putting Constitutional Teeth Into Apaper Tiger: How To Fix The War Powersresolution, Brian J. Litwak

American University National Security Law Brief

No abstract provided.


Predictive Policing And Reasonable Suspicion, Andrew Ferguson Jan 2012

Predictive Policing And Reasonable Suspicion, Andrew Ferguson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Predictive policing is a new law enforcement strategy to reduce crime by predicting criminal activity before it happens. Using sophisticated computer algorithms to forecast future events from past crime patterns, predictive policing has become the centerpiece of a new smart-policing strategy in several major cities. The initial results have been strikingly successful in reducing crime.This article addresses the Fourth Amendment consequences of this police innovation, analyzing the effect of predictive policing on the concept of reasonable suspicion. This article examines predictive policing in the context of the larger constitutional framework of “prediction” and the Fourth Amendment. Many aspects of current …


"Bad Juror" Lists And The Prosecutor's Duty To Disclose, Ira Robbins Jan 2012

"Bad Juror" Lists And The Prosecutor's Duty To Disclose, Ira Robbins

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Prosecutors sometimes use what are known as "bad juror" lists to exclude particular citizens from jury service. Not only does this practice interfere with an open and fair jury-selection process, thus implicating a defendant's right to be tried by a jury of his or her peers, but it also violates potential jurors' rights to serve in this important capacity. But who is on these lists? And is a prosecutor required to disclose the lists to defense counsel? These questions have largely gone unnoticed by legal analysts. This Article addresses the prosecutor's duty to disclose bad-juror lists. It reviews the federal …


Custody Rights Of Lesbian And Gay Parents Redux: The Irrelevance Of Constitutional Principles, Nancy Polikoff Jan 2012

Custody Rights Of Lesbian And Gay Parents Redux: The Irrelevance Of Constitutional Principles, Nancy Polikoff

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Disputes over custody and visitation can arise when a marriage ends and one parent comes out as gay or lesbian. the heterosexual parent may seek custody or may seek to restrict the activities of the gay or lesbian parent, or the presence of the parent's same-sex partner, during visitation. A gay or lesbian parent's assertion of constitutional rights has not been an effective response to such efforts. that is not likely to change. Advocates for gay and lesbian parents have argued forcefully for a nexus text, permitting consideration of a parent's sexual orientation only when there is evidence of an …