Judges Commons^™

“Government By Injunction,” Legal Elites, And The Making Of The Modern Federal Courts, Kristin Collins

Faculty Scholarship

The tendency of legal discourse to obscure the processes by which social and political forces shape the law’s development is well known, but the field of federal courts in American constitutional law may provide a particularly clear example of this phenomenon. According to conventional accounts, Congress’s authority to regulate the lower federal courts’ “jurisdiction”—generally understood to include their power to issue injunctions— has been a durable feature of American constitutional law since the founding. By contrast, the story I tell in this essay is one of change. During the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, many jurists considered the federal …

Between Judicial Oligarchy And Parliamentary Supremacy: Understanding The Court's Dilemma In Constitutional Judicial Review, Seow Hon Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This article considers the dilemma that constitutional judicial review presents to the most well-meaning of judges — that of navigating the narrow and difficult road between parliamentary supremacy and judicial oligarchy. It examines the Singapore Court of Appeal’s delineation of legal and extra-legal considerations in view of Ronald Dworkin’s theory of adjudication in determining the constitutionality of section 377A of the Penal Code in Lim Meng Suang v. Attorney General. It proposes an alternative natural law approach to constitutional judicial review based on Radbruch’s formula, which helps courts to avoid the pitfalls of judicial idiosyncrasies and usurpation of legislative mandate …

Justice Scalia’S Originalism And Formalism: The Rule Of Criminal Law As A Law Of Rules, Stephanos Bibas

All Faculty Scholarship

Far too many reporters and pundits collapse law into politics, assuming that the left–right divide between Democratic and Republican appointees neatly explains politically liberal versus politically conservative outcomes at the Supreme Court. The late Justice Antonin Scalia defied such caricatures. His consistent judicial philosophy made him the leading exponent of originalism, textualism, and formalism in American law, and over the course of his three decades on the Court, he changed the terms of judicial debate. Now, as a result, supporters and critics alike start with the plain meaning of the statutory or constitutional text rather than loose appeals to legislative …

Book Review Of Constitutional Personae, Michael N. Umberger

Library Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Law Professors Want Hearing, Vote On Garland, Eric Berger, Kristen M. Blankley, Brian H. Bornstein, Eve M. Brank, Robert C. Denicola, Alan H. Frank, Stephen S. Gealy, Justin Hurwitz, David Landis, Craig M. Lawson, Richard Leiter, William H. Lyons, Richard H. Lawson, Matt Novak, Allen Overcash, Stefanie S. Pearlman, Ross Pesek, Kevin Ruser, Robert F. Schopp, Anthony Schutz, Anna Williams Shavers, Brett C. Stohs, Ryan Sullivan, Richard L. Weiner, Steven L. Willborn, Sandra Zellmer

Nebraska College of Law: Faculty Publications

Dear Senator Fischer and Senator Sasse,

We write this as citizens, but we all teach at the University of Nebraska College of Law. We hold different political viewpoints and disagree frequentIy with each other on political and legal issues. As law professors, however, we share a deep commitment to the rule of law and an impartial judiciary. We therefore urge you to hold confirmation hearings and a vote on President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Chief Judge Merrick B. Garland.

How Merrick Garland Could Help Heal America, Jeffrey Bellin

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Newsroom: Yelnosky On Passing Of Justice Scalia 02-24-2016, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Newsroom: A True Original(Ist) 02-15-2016, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Justice Scalia And The Rule Of Law: Originalism Vs. The Living Constitution, Richard F. Duncan

Nebraska College of Law: Faculty Publications

Justice Antonin Scalia's sudden death in February, 2016, was a great loss for his family, a great loss for his friends, and a great loss for the "Written Constitution" of the United States of America. We will have no more of his brilliant, witty, and pugnacious judicial opinions. Instead, we will have to settle for the body of work he left behind as his legacy. But, as one commentator has said, his opinions are "so consistent, so powerful, and so penetrating in their devotion to the rule of law"—the real rule of law, not the political decrees of judges creating …

Confirming Judges In The 2016 Senate Lame Duck Session, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

In this piece, Professor Carl Tobias descriptively scrutinizes the nomination and confirmation regimes throughout the administration of President Barack Obama. The article critically evaluates selection finding that persistent Republican Senate obstruction resulted in the greatest number of unoccupied posts for the longest duration, briefly moderated by the 2013 detonation of the “nuclear option,” which constricted filibusters. Nevertheless, the article contends when the Grand Old Party (GOP) attained a chamber majority, Republicans dramatically slowed the nomination and confirmation processes after January 2015. Therefore, openings surpassed ninety before Congress is scheduled to reassemble. Because this dilemma erodes rapid, inexpensive, and equitable disposition, …

Confirm Judge Koh For The Ninth Circuit, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

On February 25, 2016, President Barack Obama appointed United States District Court Judge Lucy Haeran Koh for a judicial emergency vacancy on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The jurist has served professionally for more than six years in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, ably resolving major litigation. Thus, White House efforts to confirm her were unsurprising. Nevertheless, 2016 is a presidential election year when delay infuses many court appointments. That conundrum was exacerbated because the United States Senate Republican majority refused to even consider United States Court of Appeals …

A Nonoriginalism For Originalists, Jamal Greene

Faculty Scholarship

Originalism is an ideology, not a practice. It is a brand, an affiliation, a set of background principles, an often unstated set of restorative commitments. As James Fleming says in his book, Fidelity to Our Imperfect Constitution, originalism is an "ism." As an "ism," Fleming writes, originalism did not exist before the 1970s: "Constitutional interpretation in light of original understanding did exist, but original understanding was seen as merely one source of constitutional decision-making among several-not as a general theory of constitutional interpretation, much less the exclusive legitimate theory."

This brief Comment on Fleming's book takes the practice Fleming identifies---"constitutional …

Practice And Precedent In Historical Gloss Games, Joseph Blocher, Margaret H. Lemos

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Is Theocracy Our Politics? Thoughts On William Baude's 'Is Originalism Our Law?', Richard A. Primus

Articles

In Is Originalism Our Law?, William Baude has made a good kind of argument in favor of originalism. Rather than contending that originalism is the only coherent theory for interpreting a constitution, he makes the more modest claim that it happens to be the way that American judges interpret our Constitution. If he is right—if originalism is our law—then judges deciding constitutional cases ought to be originalists. But what exactly would the content of that obligation be? Calling some interpretive method “our law” might suggest that judges have an obligation to decide cases by reference to that method. But the …

The Fight For Equal Protection: Reconstruction-Redemption Redux, Kermit Roosevelt Iii, Patricia Stottlemyer

All Faculty Scholarship

With Justice Scalia gone, and Justices Ginsburg and Kennedy in their late seventies, there is the possibility of significant movement on the Supreme Court in the next several years. A two-justice shift could upend almost any area of constitutional law, but the possible movement in race-based equal protection jurisprudence provides a particularly revealing window into the larger trends at work. In the battle over equal protection, two strongly opposed visions of the Constitution contend against each other, and a change in the Court’s composition may determine the outcome of that struggle. In this essay, we set out the current state …

Law, Politics, And Legacy Building At The Mclachlin Court In 2014, Jamie Cameron

Osgoode Legal Studies Research Paper Series

This Article was written for Osgoode Hall Law School’s annual Constitutional Cases conference, and provides the keynote overview of the McLachlin Court’s 2014 constitutional jurisprudence. The Court’s 2014 constitutional decisions (Appointment and Senate References; Tsilqot’in Nation; Trial Lawyers) and restrictions on Mr. Big operations (Hart), in combination with a tsunami of Charter decisions early in 2015 (the 2015 Labour Trilogy; Carter v. Canada; R. v. Nur; and others), made this a legacy-building year. More than an overview, this Article probes the nature of the McLachlin Court’s legacy this year and the relationship between legal and political dynamics, to ask: in …

The High Power Of The Lower Courts, Doni Gewirtzman

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Taking Dignity Seriously: Excavating The Backdrop Of The Eighth Amendment, Meghan J. Ryan

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The U.S. punishment system is in turmoil. We have a historically unprecedented number of offenders in prison, and our prisoners are serving longer sentences than in any other country. States are surreptitiously experimenting with formulas for lethal injection cocktails, and some prisoners are suffering from botched executions. Despite this tumult, the Eighth Amendment of our Constitution does place limits on the punishments that may be imposed and how they may be implemented. The difficulty, though, is that the Supreme Court’s Eighth Amendment jurisprudence is a bit of a mess. The Court has been consistent in stating that a focus on …

Inherent National Sovereignty Constitutionalism: An Original Understanding Of The U.S. Constitution, Robert J. Kaczorowski

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Firing Squad As "A Known And Available Alternative Method Of Execution" Post-Glossip, Deborah W. Denno

Faculty Scholarship

This Article does not address the medical debate surrounding the role of midazolam in executions; the problems associated with using the drug have been persuasively argued elsewhere. Nor does it question the soundness of the Glossip Court’s “alternative method of execution” requirement. Rather, this Article’s proposed reform is a constitutionally acceptable alternative that meets the Glossip Court’s standard, rendering moot—at least for the purposes of the following discussion—very real concerns regarding the validity of that dictate. Part I of this Article pinpoints several areas where the Glossip Court goes wrong in glaringly inaccurate or misleading ways, given the vast history …

The Distinctive Role Of Justice Samuel Alito: From A Politics Of Restoration To A Politics Of Dissent, Neil S. Siegel

Faculty Scholarship

Justice Samuel Alito is regarded by both his champions and his critics as the most consistently conservative member of the current Supreme Court. Both groups seem to agree that he has become the most important conservative voice on the Court. Chief Justice John Roberts has a Court to lead; Justice Antonin Scalia and his particular brand of originalism have passed on; Justice Clarence Thomas is a stricter originalist and so writes opinions that other Justices do not join; and Justice Anthony Kennedy can be ideologically unreliable. Justice Alito, by contrast, is unburdened by the perceived responsibilities of being Chief Justice, …

Constitutional Rhetoric, Jamal Greene

Faculty Scholarship

For close to a century, students of judicial behavior have suggested that what judges think is not altogether the same as what they say. Within the legal academy, this claim has long been associated with legal realists who have argued that the formal legal rules explicated in judicial opinions are at least partly epiphenomenal, masking the influence that the personal characteristics and dispositions of adjudicators exercise over legal outcomes. Political scientists have argued, variously, that such outcomes are determined by ideology, social background, or political, professional, or other institutional constraints.

The notion that at least some “extralegal” factors influence judicial …