Constitutional Law Commons^™

Death, Ineligibility And Habeas Corpus, Lee B. Kovarsky

Lee Kovarsky

I examine the interaction between what I call 'death ineligibility' challenges and the habeas writ. A death ineligibility claim alleges that a criminally-confined capital prisoner belongs to a category of offenders for which the Eighth Amendment forbids execution. By contrast, a 'crime innocence' claim alleges that, colloquially speaking, a capital prisoner 'wasn’t there, and didn’t do it.' In the last eight years, the Supreme Court has identified several new ineligibility categories, including mentally retarded offenders. Configured primarily to address crime innocence and procedural challenges, however, modern habeas law is poorly equipped to accommodate ineligibility claims. Death Ineligibility traces the genesis …

The One And Only Substantive Due Process Clause, Ryan C. Williams

Ryan Williams

State Extraterritorial Powers Reconsidered, Mark D. Rosen

Mark D. Rosen

No abstract provided.

Judicial Disqualification In The Aftermath Of Caperton V. A.T. Massey Coal Co., Ronald D. Rotunda

Ronald D. Rotunda

Does Due Process require a judge to disqualify himself if an individual spent independent funds to buy ads that criticized the judge's opponent in a judicial election? The Supreme Court said yes (5 to 4) in the Caperton decision, and thus has created more uncertainty in the law. Does it matter if the person who paid for the independent ads was not a lawyer or a party but was only an employee of the party? And, does it matter if that employee's financial interest in the law suit (if one were to pierce the corporate veil) is minor – substantially …

The Constitution And Our Debt To The Future, Rena I. Steinzor

Rena I. Steinzor

Health and safety laws have always been justified as manifestations of congressional authority to regulate and protect the free flow of interstate commerce under Article I, section 8 of the Constitution. Professor Steinzor argues that reliance on the Commerce Clause can support next generation proposals, including a National Environmental Legacy Act proposed by Professor Alyson Flournoy, which would require that any action on federal land involving the consumption or destruction of resources must be sustainable, as well as pending climate change legislation. But, Steinzor says, a far more desirable constitutional foundation for such laws is the General Welfare Clause found …

Svenskt Rättsligt Skydd Mot Säkerhetsrådets Beslut [Swedish Legal Protection Against Un Security Council Decisions], Vilhelm Persson

Vilhelm Persson

National authorities are sometimes expected to implement acts of the Security Council. This may cause questions concerning applicability of human rights regulation. On a regional level such questions have already been brought to the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice. On a national level, the Swedish fundamental laws are in principle applicable to all acts of Swedish authorities. Authorities should therefore set aside acts of the Security Council that are incompatible with rights protected by the fundamental laws. This is the case even when authorities act outside of Swedish territory. However, the fundamental laws were …

The Inconvenience Of A “Constitution [That] Follows The Flag … But Doesn’T Quite Catch Up With It”: From Downes V. Bidwell To Boumediene V. Bush, Pedro A. Malavet

Pedro A. Malavet

Providing extensive historical, precedential and sociological context for the 2008 decision on the habeas corpus rights of detainees at Guantanamo Naval Station; includes a detailed study of the court’s references to the Insular Cases and then a detailed analysis of the original decisions an their historical and sociological context.

Freedom Of Thought For The Extended Mind: Cognitive Enhancement And The Constitution, Marc J. Blitz

Marc J. Blitz

No abstract provided.

Newspaper Theft, Self-Preservation And The Dimensions Of Censorship, Erik Ugland, Jennifer Lambe

Erik Ugland

One of the most common yet understudied means of suppressing free expression on college and university campuses is the theft of freely-distributed student publications, particularly newspapers. This study examines news accounts of nearly 300 newspaper theft incidents at colleges and universities between 1995 and 2008 in order to identify the manifestations and consequences of this peculiar form of censorship, and to augment existing research on censorship and tolerance by looking not at what people say about free expression but at what they do when they have the power of censorship in their own hands. Among the key findings is that …

Organizations And Economics, Richard Adelstein

Richard Adelstein

A contribution to a symposium on a paper by Richard Posner.

Collective Action Federalism: A General Theory Of Article I, Section 8, Robert D. Cooter, Neil Siegel

Robert Cooter

The Framers of the United States Constitution wrote Article I, Section 8 in order to address some daunting collective action problems facing the young nation. They especially wanted to protect the states from military warfare by foreigners and from commercial warfare against one another. The states acted individually when they needed to act collectively, and Congress lacked power under the Articles of Confederation to address these problems. Section 8 thus authorized Congress to promote the “general Welfare” of the United States by tackling many collective action problems that the states could not solve on their own. Subsequent interpretations of Section …

Subconstitutionalism, Tom Ginsburg, Eric A. Posner

Tom Ginsburg

No abstract provided.

Lucy V. Adams, Sage Encyclopedia Of African American Education, Armando G. Hernandez

Armando G. Hernandez

Each topic in this 2-volume encyclopedia is discussed as it relates to the education of African Americans. The entries provide a comprehensive overview of educational institutions at every level, from preschool through graduate and professional training, with special attention to historically and predominantly Black colleges and universities. The encyclopedia follows the struggle of African Americans to achieve equality in education—beginning among an enslaved population and evolving into the present—as the efforts of many remarkable individuals furthered this cause through court decisions and legislation.

The Sit-Ins And The State Action Doctrine, Christopher W. Schmidt

Christopher W. Schmidt

By taking their seats at “whites only” lunch counters across the South in the spring of 1960, African American students not only launched a dramatic new stage in the civil rights movement, they also sparked a national reconsideration of the scope of the constitutional equal protection requirement. The critical constitutional question raised by the sit-in movement was whether the Fourteenth Amendment, which after Brown v. Board of Education (1954) prohibited racial segregation in schools and other state-operated facilities, applied to privately owned accommodations open to the general public. From the perspective of the student protesters, the lunch counter operators, and …

Marriage And Parenthood As Status And Rights: The Growing, Problematic And Possibly Constitutional Trend To Disaggregate Family Status From Family Rights, Katharine K. Baker

Katharine K. Baker

The Stories Of Marriage, Katharine K. Baker

Katharine K. Baker

Procedural Due Process In Pennsylvania: How The Commonwealth Court Clarified An Ambiguous Concept, John L. Gedid

John L. Gedid

No abstract provided.

Procreation, Harm, And The Constitution, Carter Dillard

Carter Dillard

This Essay provides relatively novel answers to two related questions: First, are there moral reasons to limit the sorts of existences it is permissible to bring people into, such that one would be morally prohibited from procreating in certain circumstances? Second, can the state justify a legal prohibition on procreation in those circumstances using that moral reasoning, so that the law would likely be constitutional?

These questions are not new, but my answers to them are and add to the existing literature in several ways. First, I offer a possible resolution to a recent debate among legal scholars regarding what …

From Proclaiming To Realizing Human Rights -- An Indian Perspective, Rishabh Jogani

Rishabh Jogani

This article deals with human rights organisations and their organisational set up along with the indian perspective of the same.

Fundamental Social Rights, Social Security And The Costs Of Social Rights: Brazilian Cases, Carlos Luiz Strapazzon

Carlos Luiz Strapazzon

Brazilian Courts, in order to guarantee social rights, should take into account the scarcity of resources and the principle of equality so as not favoring anyone with features that are intended for everyone. Given this limitation, how the Judicial Power might act with respect to the realization of social rights? It has down increased attention how, in Brazil, the Judicial Power, especially the Supreme Court and the Superior Court, have interfered in Executive discretion so as to protect social rights, as health rights or educational rights. This article aims to explain how it occurs in Brazil and verify, on the …