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Full-Text Articles in Legal History
Congress's Power To Enforce Fourteenth Amendment Rights: Lessons From Federal Remedies The Framers Enacted , Robert J. Kaczorowski
Congress's Power To Enforce Fourteenth Amendment Rights: Lessons From Federal Remedies The Framers Enacted , Robert J. Kaczorowski
Faculty Scholarship
Professor Robert Kaczorowski argues for an expansive originalist interpretation of Congressional power under the Fourteenth Amendment. Before the Civil War Congress actually exercised, and the Supreme Court repeatedly upheld plenary Congressional power to enforce the constitutional rights of slaveholders. After the Civil War, the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment copied the antebellum statutes and exercised plenary power to enforce the constitutional rights of all American citizens when they enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and then incorporated the Act into the Fourteenth Amendment. The framers of the Fourteenth Amendment thereby exercised the plenary power the Rehnquist Court claims the …
Supermajoritarianism And The American Criminal Jury, Ethan J. Leib
Supermajoritarianism And The American Criminal Jury, Ethan J. Leib
Faculty Scholarship
I argue in this article that supermajority decision rules would be more appropriate than unanimity or majority rule for criminal jury convictions and that majority decision rules would be more appropriate than either unanimity or supermajoritarian rules for acquittals. I first summarize some of the advantages and disadvantages of various decision rules as a matter of general democratic theory. I next outline the arguments made for various decision rules in the context of the criminal jury. Finally, I offer an argument for supermajoritarian requirements for conviction rooted in our general constitutional commitment to supermajoritarianism. I present a coherentist account for …