State and Local Government Law Commons^™

The Right To Trial By Jury Shall Remain Inviolate: Jury Trials In Civil Actions In Georgia’S Courts, David E. Shipley

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Trials, though rare, “shape almost every aspect of procedure,” and the jury trial is a distinctive feature of civil litigation in the United States. The Seventh Amendment of the U.S. Constitution ‘preserves’ the right to jury trial “[i]n suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars.” Even though this amendment does not apply to the states, courts in the states “honor the right to the extent it is created in their constitutions or local statutes.”

The Georgia Constitution provides that “[t]he right to trial by jury shall remain inviolate,” and Georgia’s appellate courts have shown …

State Constitutional Law: Standing To Litigate Public Rights In Georgia Courts, Randy Beck

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State courts interpreting state constitutions face the recurring issue of how much weight to afford Supreme Court of the United States precedent addressing comparable questions under the United States Constitution. At one end of the spectrum, many state courts routinely engage in what federal Judge Jeffrey Sutton calls “lockstepping,” importing federal doctrine wholesale into state decisional law. For a court engaged in lockstepping, concepts like freedom of speech or equal protection of the laws under a state constitution mean whatever the U.S. Supreme Court interprets them to mean under the federal Constitution, even if the state provision differs in potentially …

State Constitutions And Summary Judgment, Marcus Gadson

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Is summary judgment constitutional? Scholars have passionately debated the question in recent years. But they have made an important oversight. State courts hear more than fifty times as many cases a year as federal courts do. Whatever state courts decide with regard to summary judgment will affect vastly more litigants than what federal courts do. At the same time, states have largely adopted federal summary judgment standards and cases interpreting them. Yet scholars considering whether summary judgment is constitutional have focused all of their attention on the Seventh Amendment. They have entirely failed to consider state constitutional jury trial guarantees. …

Diploma Privilege And The Constitution, Patricia E. Salkin, Claudia Angelos, Sara J. Berman, Mary Lu Bilek, Carol L. Chomsky, Marsha Griggs, Joan W. Howarth, Eileen Kaufman, Deborah Jones Meritt, Judith Wegner, Andrea Curcio

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The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting shutdowns are affecting every aspect of society. The legal profession and the justice system have been profoundly disrupted at precisely the time when there is an unprecedented need for legal services to deal with a host of legal issues generated by the pandemic, including disaster relief, health law, insurance, labor law, criminal justice, domestic violence, and civil rights. The need for lawyers to address these issues is great but the prospect of licensing new lawyers is challenging due to the serious health consequences of administering the bar examination during the pandemic.

State Supreme Courts are …

An Illusory Right To Appeal: Substantial Constitutional Questions At The New York Court Of Appeals, Meredith R. Miller

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The jurisdiction of the New York Court of Appeals has long been shrouded in mystery. When the Court dismisses an appeal, it provides a boilerplate, one-sentence decretal entry, which gives the litigants little, if any, meaningful indication of the Court’s reasons for dismissal. In February 2010, however, the world received a rare glimpse into the Court’s jurisdiction when, in Kachalsky v. Cacace, 925 N.E.2d 80 (N.Y. 2010), Judge Robert Smith dissented from the Court’s sua sponte dismissal of the appeal. Judge Smith voted to retain the appeal, arguing that the Court was using the requirement of “substantiality” to invoke discretion …

State Constitutionalism And The Right To Health Care, Elizabeth Weeks Leonard

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This Article examines state constitutions and health care rights. Notably, close to a third of states’ constitutions recognize health while the U.S. Constitution contains no reference. Ample scholarly commentary exists on the absence of a right to health care under the U.S. Constitution but little attention has been paid to state constitutional law. This Article begins by explaining the absence of a federal right and the rationale for looking to state constitutional protections for health. The Article then provides a comprehensive survey of state constitutional provisions and judicial decisions enforcing or interpreting them. The survey reveals certain common themes and …

Federalism And Accountability: State Attorneys General, Regulatory Litigation, And The New Federalism, Timothy L. Meyer

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This Comment will examine how one particular state institution, state attorneys general (SAGs), has operated within a unique set of institutional and political constraints to create state-based regulation with nationwide impact in policy areas including consumer protection, antitrust, environmental regulation, and securities regulation. This state-based regulation casts doubt on one of the principle rationales advanced in the Supreme Court's anticommandeering line of cases for limiting federal power; namely, that such a move enhances electoral accountability, a concept central to our democracy. If in the absence of federal regulation a series of narrowly accountable state-based actors can create nationwide regulation in …

Note, A Woman’S Life, A Woman’S Health: Equalizing Medicaid Abortion Funding In Simat Corp. V. Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, Sara Gordon

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This casenote discusses the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision in Simat Corp. v. Arizona Health Care Cost Container System. In a decision deviating from those of the United States Supreme Court, the Arizona Supreme Court declared the Arizona statute and accompanying Arizona Heath Care Cost Containment System provisions unconstitutional because they did not survive strict scrutiny analysis under the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Arizona Constitution. Where the state of Arizona has undertaken to fund abortions for indigent women whose lives are directly threatened by pregnancy, it cannot refuse to pay for abortions for similarly indigent women whose health, …

U.S. Supreme Court Hands Two Big Wins To Municipal Governments In 2001-2002 Term, Patricia E. Salkin

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No abstract provided.

Business Subsidies And The Dormant Commerce Clause, Dan T. Coenen

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In this Article, I seek to respond to the Court's overture with a treatment of of subsidies under the dormant Commerce Clause that moves progressively from the general to the specific. Part I examines key Supreme Court cases to show that the basic question of whether state business subsidies are constitutional remains open and important. Part II then turns to how that question should be resolved, focusing on whether subsidies are fairly distinguishable from ostensibly equivalent, and concededly unlawful, discriminatory tax relief. The thrust of Part II is that both precedent and policy support the traditional, pre-West Lynn Creamer" view …

Commerce Clause Restraints On State Tax Incentives, Walter Hellerstein

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The states' provision of tax incentives designed to encourage economic development within their borders has long been a feature of the American legislative landscape. Today every state provides tax incentives as an inducement to local industrial location and expansion. Indeed, scarcely a day goes by without some state offering yet another tax incentive to spur economic development, often in an effort to attract a particular enterprise to the state.

The debate over the efficacy and wisdom of state tax and other business incentives is intense and important, as other articles in this Symposium plainly reveal. My purpose here, however, is …

Insuring Domestic Tranquility: Lopez, Federalization Of Crime, And The Forgotten Role Of The Domestic Violence Clause, Jay S. Bybee

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Lost in the discussions of the federalization of crime is the one clause in the Constitution that actually links Congress, the states, and the problem of local crime: the Domestic Violence Clause.

Long ignored by courts, the Domestic Violence Clause recognizes the primacy of the states in addressing domestic violence within their borders. It imposes on the federal government a duty to protect states against domestic violence, but only when states request assistance. The Domestic Violence Clause plays the role of a Tenth Amendment for crime. It is a reaffirmation of the enumerated powers doctrine and a promise of federal …

The Commerce Clause Quartet, Martin A. Schwartz, Leon D. Lazer

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No abstract provided.

Section 1983, Martin A. Schwartz, George Pratt, Leon Friedman

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No abstract provided.

Means, Ends And Original Intent: A Response To Charles Cooper, Michael Wells

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Charles Cooper believes that the ninth amendment should be read at once more broadly and more narrowly than it is today. In his view, the intent of the Framers was to cabin the power of the federal government. By taking note in the ninth amendment of rights other than those enumerated in the first eight, they sought to ensure that the national government would not exercise powers beyond those listed in the Constitution. Since the aim of the ninth amendment was to keep the federal government one of limited power, it is inappropriate to apply the amendment to the states, …

The Governmental-Proprietary Distinction In Constitutional Law, Michael L. Wells, Walter Hellerstein

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The governmental-proprietary distinction has led a stormy life. Courts have characterized it as “illusory,” a “quagmire,” a “rule of law that is inherently unsound,” and as a “talismanic formula” that results in “unenlightening characterizations of States’ activities.” Commentators have branded the distinction as “probably one of the most unsatisfactory known to the law,” have questioned its internal coherence, and have dismissed it as irrelevant in constitutional decisions. The distinction, however, clings stubbornly to life, appearing in a remarkably wide range of cases. The United States Supreme Court itself appears ambivalent about its worth. In some cases, the Court has rejected …

Local Government "Home Rule": A Place To Stop?, R. Perry Sentell Jr.

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In November 1977, the Supreme Court of Georgia rendered a decision in City of Atlanta v. Myers which invalidated a municipal ordinance requiring that police officers and firefighters be residents of the municipality. The public media, in its discussion of the decision, primariily pointed out the residency requirement, the policy behind it, and its advantages and disadvantages to the cause of good government--all important matters. As frequently happens, however, even more crucial considerations in the case may have gone unheralded. From the legal perspective, that is, the importance of the decision and its implications may considerably transcend the factual context …

Through A Glass Darkly: Equal Protection For Home Rule Units In Illinois – Urbana V. Houser, Daniel H. Derby

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No abstract provided.

Extraterritorial Power In Georgia Municipal Law, R. Perry Sentell Jr.

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The image of municipal power carries with it the accompanying concept of limitations on that power. One of the seemingly most natural of such limitations is that pertaining to territory. If a municipality is an incorporated entity, composed of precisely described physical boundaries, then its operational existence would normally be presumed to take place within those boundaries. The municipality's power to function outside its limits would thus appear not only unnecessary but foreign to the corporate conception. The problem with such neatness, of course, is its unworldliness. The truism is that neither man nor municipality is an island and that …

A Commerce Power Seesaw: Balancing National League Of Cities, J. Ralph Beaird, C. Ronald Ellington

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This Article seeks to explore the developing principles of state sovereignty limitations on Congress’ exercise of its granted powers and the potential conflicts in reconciling the enforcement of strong federal policy interests with the allowance to the states of primary control over certain governmental functions. Since both tenth and eleventh amendment questions were raised by the application of the Fair Labor Standards Act’s ever broadening coverage to state employees and its grant of federal court jurisdiction over enforcement suits, and since the Act precipitated the League of Cities decision, the Court’s treatment of the Act will serve as the primary …

Selected Oddities In Georgia Municipal Law, R. Perry Sentell Jr.

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Generally speaking, practitioners, jurists, professors, legislators, and students desire certainty in the law. For those interested in the law of municipal corporations in Georgia, however, that search for certainty is frequently frustrating, if not impossible. In his Article, Professor Sentell points to a number of Georgia constitutional and statutory rules which, when read with the interpretations of these provisions by the Georgia courts, generate uncertainty and confusion for one confronted with a question in municipal corporation law. The discussion begins with a look at the definitional uncertainty of what is a municipal corporation under Georgia law, turns next to an …

Discretion In Georgia Local Government Law, R. Perry Sentell Jr.

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The initial question in evaluating the ability of a municipal corporation to control the affairs of its citizens is the existence of an allocation of power from the state sovereign. Once such power is found, Georgia courts traditionally view any activity within the scope of that power as a privilege of citizenship in a municipal corporation, controlled at the generally unrestricted discretion of the local government. But when and how do such privileges become rights? With an overview of the typical positions taken by Georgia courts on the power of local governments to control the affairs of their citizens, Professor …

Unconstitutionality In Georgia: Problems Of Nothing, R. Perry Sentell Jr.

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Professor Sentell's Article examines the apparently well-established principle in Georgia that an unconstitutional statute is an absolute nullity. Against the backdrop of City of Atlanta v. Gower, Professor Sentell first focuses on the developmen of-the-void-from-inception doctrine and then reviews its application in Georgia. Finally, he concludes that this principle has had a substantial impact upon constitutional and legislative law in this state.

Federalizing Through The Franchise: The Supreme Court And Local Government, R. Perry Sentell Jr.

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Decisionmaking at the local government level has been significantly affected by both national legislation and federal court decisions seeking to protect the right to vote. Indeed, Professor Sentell feels that the Supreme Court, through decisions invalidating restrictions on the franchise, has involved itself to an unparalleled degree in heretofore purely local affairs. In examining these decisions, the author queries if legitimate voting regulations may be now imposed by local governments. In so doing he focuses upon the Court's equal protection analysis of extraordinary majority vote requirements and elections restricted to certain segments of the electorate and upon the expansive judicial …

Hawkins V. Town Of Shaw: The Court As City Manager, C. Ronald Ellington, Lawrence F. Jones

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For over one hundred years Congress and the federal courts have pursued the goal of racial equality in the United States. In areas such as voting rights, public accommodations, and housing, Congress and the courts have interacted closely, with broad judicial interpretations upholding major remedial legislation. Moreover, when confronted by official state sources of racial discrimination, courts have traditionally responded to the clear command of the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment without awaiting congressional action. Brown v. Board of Education stands as perhaps the best known instance in which a court has, on its own, ordered the elimination …

Municipal Annexation In Georgia: Nay-Sayers Beward (Plantation Pipe Line Co. V. City Of Bremen), R. Perry Sentell Jr.

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In the Fall 1967 issue of the Georgia Law Review, there appeared a somewhat ambitious effort to survey the law of municipal annexation in Georgia. That rather stuffy treatment at least served to demonstrate the existence of a history on the subject dating from the beginning of time in this State. It also purported to make one or two daring thrusts at formulating principles then apparently settled and at identifying legal points around which further evolution might be anticipated.

Some apparently believed that these thrusts were more negative than daring and that they reflected an approach which was basically …

Avery V. Midland County: Reapportionment And Local Government Revisited, R. Perry Sentell Jr.

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Earlier in the pages of this Review the judicial application of the "one-man-one-vote" standard to local government is discussed in detail. As noted, the United States Supreme Court did not completely evolve this standard for state legislatures until June, 1964. Since that time, the state courts and the lower federal courts have been inundated with litigation raising the question of the basic applicability of the standard to local governments in this country, as well as a host of accompanying inquiries. This litigation and the courts' reactions to it were extensively traced. At the close of its term, however, the Court …