Constitutional Law Commons^™

Explaining Korematsu: A Response To Dean Chemerinsky , Robert J. Pushaw Jr.

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Reluctant Apology For Plessy: A Response To Akhil Amar, Barry P. Mcdonald

Pepperdine Law Review

A response to the article "Plessy v. Ferguson and the Anti-Canon," by Akhil Amar, published in the November 2011 issue of the "Pepperdine Law Review," is presented. Topics include an examination of Justice Henry Billings Brown's decision in the case, the constitutionality of segregating U.S. citizens by race, and the impact of public opinion on U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

Plessy V. Ferguson And The Anti-Canon, Akhil Reed Amar

Pepperdine Law Review

The article focuses on the U.S. Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson, which dealt with the constitutionality of racial segregation in the U.S. Topics include the application of precedent in controversial U.S. Supreme Court cases, when the U.S. Constitution can overrule a court decision, and dissenting judicial opinions.

Foreign Affairs Federalism And The Limits On Executive Power, Zachary D. Clopton

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

On February 23 of this year, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals invalidated a California statute permitting victims of the Armenian genocide to file insurance claims, finding that the state's use of the label "Genocide" intruded on the federal government's conduct of foreign affairs. This decision, Movsesian v. Versicherung AG, addresses foreign affairs federalism—the division of authority between the states and the federal government. Just one month later, the Supreme Court weighed in on another foreign affairs issue: the separation of foreign relations powers within the federal government. In Zivotofsky v. Clinton, the Supreme Court ordered the lower courts to …

Swing Votes On The Current Supreme Court: The Joint Opinion In Casey And Its Progeny, R. Randall Kelso, Charles D. Kelso

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Legal Scholarship Highlight: Confronting Supreme Court Fact Finding, Allison Orr Larsen

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Standing Lessons: What We Can Learn When Conservative Plaintiffs Lose Under Article Iii Standing Doctrine, Heather Elliott

Indiana Law Journal

The Supreme Court’s Article III standing doctrine has plagued liberal groups for nearly forty years. Recently, however, the doctrine has blocked a number of conservative lawsuits opposing gay marriage, the 2010 health care law, and the expansion of federal funding for stem cell research.

What can we learn from these cases? Because contemporary criticisms of standing doctrine have usually come from the left and defenses from the right, it is commonplace to associate arguments for broad standing with left-wing political agendas.

But, as some scholars have shown, a version of narrow standing helped liberals protect New Deal legislation in the …

How The Gun-Free School Zones Act Saved The Individual Mandate, Richard A. Primus

Articles

For all the drama surrounding the Commerce Clause challenge to the in-dividual mandate provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“PPACA”), the doctrinal question presented is simple. Under existing doctrine, the provision is as valid as can be. To be sure, the Supreme Court could alter existing doctrine, and many interesting things could be written about the dynamics that sometimes prompt judges to strike out in new directions under the pressures of cases like this one. But it is not my intention to pursue that possibility here. My own suspicion, for what it is worth, is that the …

The Sky Is Still Not Falling, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

Cases since Crawford have mainly fallen into two categories. One involves accusations of crime, made by the apparent victim shortly after the incident. In Michigan v. Bryant, a majority of the Court adopted an unfortunately constricted view of the word "testimonial" in this context. That decision was a consequence of the Court having failed to adopt a robust view of when an accused forfeits the confrontation right. How the Court will deal with this situation-one mistake made in an attempt to compensate for another-is a perplexing and important question. This Essay, though, concentrates on the other principal category of post-Crawford …

Confrontation And Forensic Laboratory Reports, Round Four, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

Crawford v. Washington radically transformed the doctrine governing the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution. Before Crawford, a prosecutor could introduce against an accused evidence of a hearsay statement, even one made in contemplation that it would be used in prosecution, so long as the statement fit within a "firmly rooted" hearsay exception or the court otherwise determined that the statement was sufficiently reliable to warrant admissibility. Crawford recognized that the Clause is a procedural guarantee, governing the manner in which prosecution witnesses give their testimony. Therefore, a prosecutor may not introduce a statement that is testimonial …