Digital Commons Network^™

The Black Fourth Amendment, Charisma Hunter

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Policing Black bodies serves at the forefront of the American policing system. Black bodies are subject to everlasting surveillance through institutions and everyday occurrences. From relaxing in a Starbucks to exercising, Black bodies are deemed criminals, surveilled, profiled, and subjected to perpetual implicit bias when participating in mundane activities. Black people should have the same protections as white people and should possess the ability to engage in everyday, commonplace, and routine activities.

The Fourth Amendment was not drafted with the intention of protecting Black bodies. In fact, Black bodies were considered three-fifths of a person at the drafting of the …

Dampak Ketiadaan Perda Penetapan Ukl/Upl Pada Kepastian Hukum Dalam Pelaksanaan Desentralisasi Di Bidang Lingkungan Hidup, Puteri Amirillis

"Dharmasisya” Jurnal Program Magister Hukum FHUI

The case of mangrove damage on the South Coast of West Sumatra in 2016-2017 where the defendant was a Deputy Regent who owned land in the Nagari Mandeh area, Pesisir Selatan, West Sumatra. The land was built without an environmental permit. The absence of an environmental permit has emerged because of the mangrove damage. This paper focuses on the absence of environmental permits because there is no stipulation on the types of businesses that are required to have UKL / UPL which should be stipulated by a regional regulation (Perda) by the Regional Government of the Pesisir Selatan Regency. This …

The Dark Side Of Due Process: Part Iii, How To Use Irreverent Double-Talk To Speak Back To Bad Men, Joshua J. Schroeder

St. Mary's Law Journal

Most American lawyers take for granted that the common law established almost all the ordinary causes of action we know today. As Joseph Story’s Commentaries acknowledged, the common law is the basis of the entire U.S. system of law. Common law struggled with feudal and canon forms and eventually transformed them for the benefit of ordinary people even in the face of the most heinous travesties of the English and American past.

The Witch Judges of Salem, Massachusetts and the Parliament of Saints in England did not prevail through despotic radicalism to demolish the common law through codification. Legal positivism …

Gender Identity, Sports, And Affirmative Action: What's Title Ix Got To Do With It?, Michael E. Rosman

St. Mary's Law Journal

There is much talk these days of promoting “equity” rather than “equality.” When applied outside athletics, Title IX promotes non-discrimination, usually associated with equality. As it has been applied to sports, though, it may be our most prominent “equity” statute, making sure each sex gets its fair share.

The questions this article seeks to address are legal ones that the debate about trans females seems to bring to the fore. How did we start with a statute whose language looks very similar to every other civil rights statute—and, indeed, that acts just like every other civil rights statute outside of …

Book Review Of Common Good Constitutionalism, Wendy E. Parmet

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Why The Courts Should Stop Philly Da Larry Krasner’S Impeachment Trial, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

Shakespeare And The Supreme Court: How The Justices Reveal Their Ideologies By Referencing His Works, Rachel Anderson

Honors Projects

The works of William Shakespeare have been referenced many times throughout history, even by Supreme Court justices. Building off of an observation of a mock trial by James Shapiro, this project puts the utilization of Shakespeare from three Court opinions in relation to its context within the play and the opinion to examine what the reference reveals about the authoring justices' ideology. In doing so, this project concludes that the justices utilize Shakespeare's works in their opinions for various reasons, including to infuse their beliefs into their argument. This implies that Supreme Court justices do not base their opinions on …

Bostock And Textualism: A Response To Berman And Krishnamurthi, Andrew Koppelman

Notre Dame Law Review Reflection

The Bostock Court adopted an argument I’ve been making for years, and that I pressed upon it in an amicus brief: that discrimina-tion against gay people is necessarily sex discrimination. I defended Justice Neil Gorsuch’s opinion for the Court in my article, Bostock, LGBT Discrimination, and the Subtractive Moves, which catalogues various common but unsuccessful strategies for evading the force of the sex discrimination argument. That piece, originally drafted before the Supreme Court’s decision as a critique of arguments by Court of Appeals judges, was easy to revise and update. The dissenters, Justices Samuel Alito (joined by Clarence …

A Candle In The Labyrinth: A Guide For Immigration Attorneys To Assert Habeas Corpus After Dhs V. Thuraissigiam, Joshua J. Schroeder

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

In the summer of 2020, immigration law seemed to become the gravitational center of presidential power. After the Supreme Court decided several immigration cases in favor of the executive department, former President Trump cited “the DACA case” to support a new constitutional theory that “[t]he Supreme Court gave the president of the United States powers that nobody thought the president had.” Accordingly, Trump began to issue presidential legislation including “an immigration plan, a health care plan, and various other plans.”

Trump also began to occupy cities that were politically opposed to his presidency with ICE and CBP agents, including BORTAC …

Revisiting The Fried Chicken Recipe, Zachary B. Pohlman

Notre Dame Law Review Reflection

Twenty-five years ago, Gary Lawson introduced us to legal theory’s tastiest analogy. He told us about a late-eighteenth-century recipe for making fried chicken and how we ought to interpret it. Lawson’s pithy essay has much to be praised. Yet, even twenty-five years later, there remains more to be said about legal theory’s most famous recipe. In particular, there remains much more to be said about the recipe’s author, a person (or, perhaps, group of people) whom Lawson does not discuss. Lawson’s analysis of the recipe leads him to an “obvious” conclusion: the recipe’s meaning is its original public meaning. If …

Beware What You Google: Fourth Amendment Constitutionality Of Keyword Warrants, Chelsa Camille Edano

Washington Law Review

Many Americans have potentially had their privacy rights invaded through invisible, widespread police searches. In recent years, local and federal governments have compelled Google and other search engine companies to produce the personal information of users who have conducted a search query related to a crime. By using keyword warrants, the government can conduct a dragnet search for suspects, imposing suspicion on users and exposing their personal information. The keyword warrant is a symptom of the erosion of the Fourth Amendment protection against suspicionless searches. Not only is scholarship scarce on keyword warrants, but also instances of these warrants are …

A Call To Abolish Determinate-Plus Sentencing In Washington, Rachel Stenberg

Washington Law Review

For certain incarcerated individuals who commit sex offenses, Washington State’s determinate-plus sentencing structure requires a showing of rehabilitation before release. This highly subjective “releasability” determination occurs after an individual has already served a standard sentence. A review of recent releasability determinations reveals sentences are often extended on arbitrary and inconsistent grounds—especially for individuals who face systemic challenges in prison due to their identity or condition. This Comment shows that the criteria to determine whether individuals are releasable is an incomplete picture of their actual experience in the carceral setting, using the distinct example of incarcerated individuals with mental illness. While …

Obstacles To Proving 24-Hour Lighting Is Cruel And Unusual Under Eighth Amendment Jurisprudence, Lauren Jaech

Washington Law Review

Twenty-four-hour lighting causes sleep deprivation, depression, and other serious disorders for incarcerated individuals, yet courts often do not consider it to be cruel and unusual. To decide if prison conditions violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, courts follow a two-part inquiry that requires examining the intent of prison officials (known as the subjective prong) as well as the degree of seriousness of the alleged cruel or unusual condition (the objective prong). Incarcerated individuals often file complaints challenging 24-hour lighting conditions. Whether they succeed on these claims may depend on the circuit in which they reside. Judges …

Constitutional Memories, Jack M. Balkin

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Many arguments in constitutional law invoke collective memory. Collective memory is what a group—for example, a religion, a profession, a people, or a nation—remembers and forgets about its past. This combination of remembering and forgetting helps constitute the group’s identity and structures its values and its commitments. Precisely because memory is selective, it may or may not correspond to the best account of historical facts.

The use of collective memory in constitutional argument is constitutional memory. It shapes people’s views about what the law means and why people have authority. Lawyers and judges continually invoke and construct memory; judicial decisions …

A New Takings Clause? The Implications Of Cedar Point Nursery V. Hassid For Property Rights And Moratoria, Benjamin Alexander Mogren

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

In part, the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution holds that “no person . . . shall [have their] private property . . . taken for public use, without just compensation.” In Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “a California regulation that permits union organizers to enter the property of agricultural business to talk with employees about supporting a union is unconstitutional.” The purpose of this Note is to discuss what Cedar Point Nursery means generally for the future of Takings Clause analysis and will argue that Cedar Point Nursery should be seen as a …

The Constitutional Law Of Interpretation, Anthony J. Bellia Jr., Bradford R. Clark

Notre Dame Law Review

The current debate over constitutional interpretation often proceeds on the assumption that the Constitution does not provide rules for its own interpretation. Accordingly, several scholars have attempted to identify applicable rules by consulting external sources that governed analogous legal texts (such as statutes, treaties, contracts, etc.). The distinctive function of the Constitution—often forgotten or overlooked—renders these analogies largely unnecessary. The Constitution was an instrument used by the people of the several States to transfer a fixed set of sovereign rights and powers from one group of sovereigns (the States) to another sovereign (the federal government), while maintaining the “States” as …

Debs And The Federal Equity Jurisdiction, Aditya Bamzai, Samuel L. Bray

Notre Dame Law Review

The United States can sue for equitable relief without statutory authorization. The leading case on this question is In re Debs, and how to understand that case is of both historical and contemporary importance. Debs was a monumental opinion that prompted responses in the political platforms of major parties, presidential addresses, and enormous academic commentary. In the early twentieth century, Congress enacted several pieces of labor legislation that reduced Debs’s importance in the specific context of strikes. But in other contexts, the question whether the United States can bring suit in equity remains disputed to this day. The …

Democracy's Forgotten Possessions: U.S. Territories' Right To Statehood Through Constitutional Liquidation, Joshua Stephen Ebiner

Notre Dame Law Review

This Note argues that the Territories must be granted statehood consistent with the equal footing doctrine. This thesis does not challenge Congress’s power to acquire or govern territory, or its constitutional authority to admit (and place reasonable conditions on the admission of) territory into the Union as states. These matters have long been settled through constitutional practice. Neither does this thesis suggest that acquired territory must be immediately annexed into the Union, since there are valid reasons to delay such a decision. Instead, the claim is that permanently inhabited territories that have longstanding, constitutionally significant relationships with the United States …

Delegation At The Founding: A Response To Critics, Julian Davis Mortenson, Nicholas Bagley

Articles

This essay responds to the wide range of commentary on Delegation at the Founding, published previously in the Columbia Law Review. The critics’ arguments deserve thoughtful consideration and a careful response. We’re happy to supply both. As a matter of eighteenth-century legal and political theory, “rulemaking” could not be neatly described as either legislative or executive based on analysis of its scope, subject, or substantive effect. To the contrary: Depending on the relationships you chose to emphasize, a given act could properly be classified as both legislative (from the perspective of the immediate actor) and also executive (from the perspective …

Sex Trait Discrimination: Intersex People And Title Vii After Bostock V. Clayton County, Sam Parry

Washington Law Review

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees from workplace discrimination and harassment on account of sex. Courts have historically failed to extend Title VII protections to LGBTQ+ people. However, in 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County changed this. Bostock explicitly extended Title VII’s protections against workplace discrimination to “homosexual” and “transgender” people, reasoning that it is impossible to discriminate against an employee for being gay or transgender without taking the employee’s sex into account. While Bostock is a win for LGBTQ+ rights, the opinion leaves several questions unanswered. The reasoning in …

Textualism And The Indian Canons Of Statutory Construction, Alex Tallchief Skibine

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

When interpreting statutes enacted for the benefit or regulation of Indians or construing treaties signed with Indian nations, courts are supposed to apply any of five specific canons of construction relating to Indian Affairs. Through examining the modern line of Supreme Court cases involving statutory or treaty interpretation relating to Indian nations, this Article demonstrates that the Court has generally been faithful in applying canons relating to treaty interpretation or abrogation. The Court has also respected the canon requiring unequivocal expression of congressional intent before finding an abrogation of tribal sovereign immunity. However, there are two other canons that the …

Closing The Door On Permanent Incorrigibility: Juvenile Life Without Parole After Jones V. Mississippi, Juliet Liu

Fordham Law Review

In April 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Jones v. Mississippi, its latest opinion in a line of cases addressing when, if ever, a child should be sentenced to life in prison with no hope of parole or release. Although Jones purported to resolve division among lower courts over the findings that a sentencing court must make about a child defendant’s character and prospects for reform and rehabilitation, the decision will likely lead to further disagreement among courts.

This Note argues that although the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence has protected children from harsh sentences, it has also opened a Pandora’s …

Let's Get Real: Weak Artificial Intelligence Has Free Speech Rights, James B. Garvey

Fordham Law Review

The right to free speech is a strongly protected constitutional right under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court significantly expanded free speech protections for corporations in Citizens United v. FEC. This case prompted the question: could other nonhuman actors also be eligible for free speech protection under the First Amendment? This inquiry is no longer a mere intellectual exercise: sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) may soon be capable of producing speech. As such, there are novel and complex questions surrounding the application of the First Amendment to AI. Some commentators argue that AI …

Symposium: The Future Of Reproductive Rights: Concrete Reliance On Stare Decisis In A Post-Dobbs World, Michael Gentithes

ConLawNOW

This Article will describe two ways in which Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has muddied the Supreme Court’s precedent on precedent. First, it will examine how the Court’s decision to overrule Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey undermines not only its substantive due process holding, but also its status as a precedent on precedent. Without Casey in place, Dobbs further elevates a weakened version of stare decisis that has been ascendant on the Court in recent decades, one which threatens to undermine legal stability in all areas of constitutional law. Second, the Article will examine the Dobbs majority’s …

The Congruent Constitution (Part One): Incorporation, Jay S. Bybee

BYU Law Review

In Barron v. Mayor of Baltimore (1833), the Supreme Court held that the Bill of Rights applied to the federal government alone. Following the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, the Supreme Court reconsidered the rule of Barron. The Court first reaffirmed the rule of Barron and held that neither the Privileges or Immunities Clause nor the Due Process Clause made the Bill of Rights applicable to the states. It then entered a period of “absorption,” where the Court held that the Due Process Clause guaranteed some minimal rights found in the Bill of Rights, but not necessarily the …

Increasing Voter Investment In American Democracy: Proposals For Reform, Adam Drake

Fordham Law Voting Rights and Democracy Forum

Millions of Americans choose to stay home every election cycle. Polling suggests that these nonvoters are either apathetic with respect to the democratic process or feel alienated from the United States government. Reforms to the democratic system should focus on alleviating these sentiments, ultimately encouraging more voters to show up to the polls. As turnout increases, so too does the legitimacy and stability of the U.S. government.

With that goal in mind, this Article advocates for a five- prong approach to reforming the electoral system. The first proposed step is to eliminate unnecessary barriers to voting by establishing federal automatic …

Against A Deconstitutionalisation Of International Law In Times Of Populism, Pandemic, And War, Anne Peters

Articles

On 24th February 2022, the international landscape changed. The German chancellor called it a ‘Zeitenwende’, an epochal change. Russia invaded its neighbour Ukraine, a state that has struggled with corruption and oligarchy but which might nevertheless be qualified as having a democratic and liberal system of government. Russia thereby violated one of the basic principles of international law, the prohibition on the use of force, and in the course of this unlawful war is committing countless grave violations of human rights and humanitarian law, and commits atrocities amounting maybe even to genocide.

Textualism, Judicial Supremacy, And The Independent State Legislature Theory, Leah M. Litman, Katherine A. Shaw

Articles

This piece offers an extended critique of one aspect of the so-called "independent state legislature" theory. That theory, in brief, holds that the federal Constitution gives state legislatures, and withholds from any other state entity, the power to regulate federal elections. Proponents ground their theory in two provisions of the federal Constitution: Article I's Elections Clause, which provides that "[t]he Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof," and Article H's Presidential Electors Clause, which provides that "[e]ach State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature …

Is There A Constitutional Common Good?, R. George Wright

Journal of Catholic Legal Studies

(Excerpt)

Identifying and pursuing some widely shared idea of the common good seems central to a sustainable constitutional order. This may seem especially true in an era of deep political division. The problem, though, is that such political division may indeed heighten the need for recognizing and promoting a shared constitutional common good, while, at the same time, preventing such an identification and pursuit of any such common good. What is needed is a way to disrupt this vicious circle. This Article is an illustration of the operation of this vicious circle and, more optimistically, a proffering of the means …

Fighting A Foreseeable Fauci “Fourth”: A Fourth Amendment Take On Hypothetical “Lock-Down” Orders, Justin R. Marks

Ohio Northern University Law Review

No abstract provided.