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Jurisprudence Commons

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Articles 1 - 5 of 5

Full-Text Articles in Jurisprudence

Judicial Independence And The Ambiguity Of Article Iii Protections, Tracey E. George Jan 2003

Judicial Independence And The Ambiguity Of Article Iii Protections, Tracey E. George

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Is the federal judiciary truly an independent body? A quick glance at the Constitution would suggest the answer is yes. The Constitution provides for life tenure and a difficult removal process for federal judges that together, as the common wisdom goes, shield federal judges from the shifting winds of the more political branches and the public at large. The author of this essay argues, however, that on a closer examination of the protections provided for by the Constitution, judicial independence might be more mirage than truism. Threats to judicial independence arise not only externally through the actions of the other …


Six Opinions By Mr. Justice Stevens: A New Methodology For Constitutional Cases?, Robert F. Nagel Jan 2003

Six Opinions By Mr. Justice Stevens: A New Methodology For Constitutional Cases?, Robert F. Nagel

Publications

No abstract provided.


Constitutional Borrowing And Nonborrowing, Lee Epstein, Jack Knight Jan 2003

Constitutional Borrowing And Nonborrowing, Lee Epstein, Jack Knight

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Constitutional Legitimacy, Randy E. Barnett Jan 2003

Constitutional Legitimacy, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The problem of constitutional legitimacy is to establish why anyone should obey the command of a constitutionally-valid law. A lawmaking system is legitimate if there is a prima facie duty to obey the laws it makes. Neither "consent of the governed" nor "benefits received" justifies obedience. Rather, a prima facie duty of obedience exists either (a) if there is actual unanimous consent to the jurisdiction of the lawmaker or, in the absence of consent, (b) f laws are made by procedures which assure that they are not unjust. In the absence of unanimous consent, a written constitution should be assessed …


State Laws And The Independent Judiciary: An Analysis Of The Effects Of The Seventeenth Amendment On The Number Of Supreme Court Cases Holding State Laws Unconstitutional, Donald J. Kochan Dec 2002

State Laws And The Independent Judiciary: An Analysis Of The Effects Of The Seventeenth Amendment On The Number Of Supreme Court Cases Holding State Laws Unconstitutional, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

In recent years, the Seventeenth Amendment has been the subject of legal scholarship, congressional hearings and debate, Supreme Court opinions, popular press articles and commentary, state legislative efforts aimed at repeal, and activist repeal movements. To date, the literature on the effects of the Seventeenth Amendment has focused almost exclusively on the effects on the political production of legislation and competition between legislative bodies. Very little attention has been given to the potential adverse effects of the Seventeenth Amendment on the relationship between state legislatures and the federal courts. This Article seeks to fill part of that literature gap, applying …