Digital Commons Network^™

Why Judges Can't Save Democracy, Robert L. Tsai

Faculty Scholarship

In The Specter of Dictatorship,¹ David Driesen has written a learned, lively book about the dangers of autocracy, weaving together incisive observations about democratic backsliding in other countries with a piercing critique of American teetering on the brink of executive authoritarianism at home. Driesen draws deeply and faithfully on the extant literature on comparative constitutionalism and democracy studies. He also builds on the work of scholars of the American political system who have documented the largely one-way transfer of power over foreign affairs to the executive branch. Driesen's thesis has a slight originalist cast, holding that "the Founders aimed …

Removal Of Context: Blackstone, Limited Monarchy, And The Limits Of Unitary Originalism, Jed Handelsman Shugerman

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court's recent decisions that the President has an unconditional or indefeasible removal power rely on textual and historical assumptions and a "removal of context." This article focuses on the "executive power" part of the Vesting Clause and particularly the unitary theorists' misuse of Blackstone. Unitary executive theorists overlook the problems of relying on England's limited monarchy: the era's rise of Parliamentary supremacy over the Crown and its power to eliminate or regulate (i.e., make defeasible) royal prerogatives. Unitary theorists provide no evidence that executive removal was ever identified as a "royal prerogative" or a default royal power. The …

Free Speech Still Matters, Joel M. Gora

Brooklyn Law Review

In its first ten years, the Roberts Court proved to be the most speech protective Court in a generation, if not in our history; however, in the intervening five years, the Court has faced intense pressures, ranging from heightened criticism of its First Amendment jurisprudence to seismic changes in the makeup of the Court to very real proposals for court “packing.” Despite these powerful forces, the Roberts Court has surprisingly stayed true to its commitment to—and guardianship of—the First Amendment. Nevertheless, in the face of modern political correctness and cancel culture, free speech has rarely been in a more precarious …

Transition Administration, Michael Herz, Katherine A. Shaw

Articles

The period from November 3, 2020 to January 20, 2021, was unlike any presidential transition in our history. President Donald Trump refused to accept his ballot-box defeat, instead battling to overturn the election’s outcome. This dramatic public campaign was waged in state and federal courts, state legislatures, the offices of state and local election officials, the Department of Justice, and finally the halls of Congress, where on January 6, 2021, a mob incited by the President stormed the Capitol with the explicit goal of preventing the final counting of electoral votes for Joe Biden. These efforts had more mundane and …

A Modest Proposal: Leveraging Private Enforcement Mechanisms And The Bayh-Dole Act To Reduce Drug Prices In The U.S. Healthcare Industry, Brittany Day

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

The United States healthcare system is one of the most expensive in the world. Unlike other products, when drug prices skyrocket, people may die. While advocating for various solutions, both the Biden and Trump administrations have recognized the importance of halting the rise of prescription drug prices. Most of the solutions advanced are focused on government-side initiatives, such as allowing Medicare to directly negotiate with pharmaceutical companies. Yet, the "march-in rights" built into the Bayh-Dole Act create an opportunity to set up a mechanism that would invite private actors to sue pharmaceutical companies for unconscionable drug pricing. The Bayh-Dole Act …

Systemic Racism And Minority Disparities In Health Care, Constance Fain

The Bridge: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Legal & Social Policy

Historically, racial discrimination in society has had an adverse effect on the health of African Americans. This type of inequality has also affected other persons of color, and it has been reported that racism has insidious effects on many White individuals, especially on their health as well. Four critical issues will be addressed in this paper: First, the impact of discrimination on the health care of African Americans and others. From slavery to lynching to incarceration, generations of African American families have endured trauma. Psychologist and other social scientists have said that these continuing experiences with racism may lie at …

One Vote, Two Votes, Three Votes, Four: How Ranked Choice Voting Burdens Voting Rights And More, Brandon Bryer

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Challenging Solitary Confinement Through State Constitutions, Alison Gordon

University of Cincinnati Law Review

Eighth Amendment jurisprudence has resulted in limited scrutiny of solitary confinement despite the known harms associated with the practice. The two-part test established by the federal courts to evaluate Eighth Amendment claims and limitations on challenging prison conditions under the Prison Litigation Reform Act can make it difficult to establish that solitary confinement is cruel and unusual punishment.

State constitutional challenges to solitary confinement are underexplored. Nearly all state constitutions contain an equivalent provision to the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. State courts need not be bound by federal jurisprudence in interpreting the scope of the state …

The High Price Of Poverty In Arkansas’S Courts: Rethinking The Utility Of Municipal Fines And Fees, Madison Miller

Arkansas Law Review

The opposite of poverty is not wealth. It is justice. Beginning in the 1980s, a "trail of tax cuts" led to budget shortfalls and revenue gaps throughout the United States. These budgetary problems resulted in many cities and towns shifting their burden of funding courts and the justice system at large "to the 'users' of the courts, including those least equipped to pay." Although "jailing an indigent person for a fine-only, low-level offense is unconstitutional," it is still an ongoing practice in many states, including Arkansas. In 1995, Arkansas passed new legislation to govern its circuit courts' collection and enforcement …

Creating Cautionary Tales: Institutional, Judicial, And Societal Indifference To The Lives Of Incarcerated Individuals, Nicole B. Godfrey

Arkansas Law Review

It has long been said that a society’s worth can be judged by taking stock of its prisons. That is all the truer in this pandemic, where inmates everywhere have been rendered vulnerable and often powerless to protect themselves from harm. May we hope that our country’s facilities serve as models rather than cautionary tales. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, issued the above-quoted clarion call to protect the lives of incarcerated people on May 14, 2020. At that point, the COVID-19 pandemic had brought American society to a standstill for a little more than two months, …

The Flag Can Travel But The Constitution Must Ask Permission: How The First Circuit And The District For Puerto Rico Commit To Equal Protection Without Abandoning The Insular Cases Doctrine, Alejandro J. Anselmi González

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

For American citizens, one of the most important safeguards guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States is the equal protection of the law. The United States prides itself on the doctrine and jurisprudence of equal protection because of the social progression achieved since the end of the Civil War. The Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution eliminated the institution of slavery and were supposed to guarantee equal civil and legal status to all citizens. The Constitution, however, has not been consistently interpreted in this way since the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898. The nation emerged from this conflict …

Stop Calling Kyle Rittenhouse A Hero. He Killed Two Unarmed People, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

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

Johnson V. Superintendent Fayette Sci: Severing Ties With Pronoun Substitutions In Bruton Cases, Aubrey Link

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Protecting The Throne: The Third Circuit's Decision To Preserve Sovereign Immunity In Gentile V. Sec, Ryan Brady, John Reid

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Equal, But Only Conceptually: Explaining The Phenomenon Of Religious Losses In Contemporary Canadian Constitutional Cases Involving Conflicting Rights, Mike Madden

Dalhousie Law Journal

If there is no hierarchy of rights in Canada, then why does freedom of religion so often seem to lose in cases of conflicts with other rights? This article discusses five recent Canadian cases (involving same-sex marriages, controversial medical practices, the wearing of a niqab, and a Christian university’s sexual conduct policy) in order to expose how the courts regularly characterize freedom of religion as being conceptually equal to other rights, before ruling against freedom of religion on the facts of the particular cases. This phenomenon within Canadian rights jurisprudence is then justified within the article by reference to a …

Rearguard Or Vanguard? A New Look At Canada’S Constitutional Act Of 1791, Philip Girard

Articles & Book Chapters

The Constitutional Act 1791, which provided representative governments to Upper and Lower Canada, has often been regarded as a reactionary document. Here, a comparison with the constitutions of the eastern colonies of British North America as well as the pre-revolutionary constitutions of the Thirteen Colonies reveals a variety of ways in which the 1791 Act was more liberal and more committed to the popular element of the constitution than its comparators. The significance of the statutory form of the 1791 Act is emphasised and contrasted with the much less secure position of the popular element under prerogative constitutions. Significant concessions …

Due Process In Prison Disciplinary Hearings: How The “Some Evidence” Standard Of Proof Violates The Constitution, Emily Parker

Washington Law Review

Prison disciplinary hearings have wide-reaching impacts on an incarcerated individual’s liberty. A sanction following a guilty finding is a consequence that stems from hearings and goes beyond mere punishment. Guilty findings for serious infractions, like a positive result on a drug test, can often result in a substantial increase in prison time. Before the government deprives an incarcerated individual of their liberty interest in a shorter sentence, it must provide minimum due process. However, an individual can be found guilty of serious infractions in Washington State prison disciplinary hearings under the “some evidence” standard of proof—a standard that allows for …

Copyright’S Deprivations, Anne-Marie Carstens

Washington Law Review

This Article challenges the constitutionality of a copyright infringement remedy provided in federal copyright law: courts can order the destruction or other permanent deprivation of personal property based on its mere capacity to serve as a vehicle for infringement. This deprivation remedy requires no showing of actual nexus to the litigated infringement, no finding of willfulness, and no showing that the property’s infringing uses comprise the significant or predominant uses. These striking deficits stem from a historical fiction that viewed a tool of infringement, such as a printing plate, as the functional equivalent of an infringing copy itself. Today, though, …

Speech Regulation By Algorithm, Enrique Armijo

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

The rapid convergence of speech and technology on social media platforms means it is likely the case that, either now or soon, more expressive activity will be regulated by Artificial Intelligence (AI) than by any legislature, regulator, or other government entity. Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly told Congress and other audiences that AI is the key to resolving Facebook's content moderation challenges, envisioning a moderation regime where algorithms detect and take down speech infringing Facebook's Community Standards ex ante, that is, prior to its public posting and before it reaches other users. According to Zuckerberg, this would eventually replace its initial …

Ridden With Controversy: Applying The Public Forum Doctrine To Public Transit Advertising, Remy T. B. Oliver

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Note tackles the application of the First Amendment to public transit advertising. Under the current judicial framework, the First Amendment is filtered through the "public forum doctrine" when discussing the rights of citizens to utilize government property for expressive purposes. The Note will argue that public transit advertising constitutes a "designated public forum" in most (if not all) cases. That characterization would force any content-based restrictions to be narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest. The natural result is a significant expansion of access to public transit advertising by interested parties. If the U.S. Supreme Court were to …

Docket Selection And Judicial Responsiveness: The Use Of Ai In The Colombian Constitutional Court, Pablo Rueda Saiz

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Article addresses some of the limitations of AI as a tool to preselect a long or shortlist of cases for a court at the apex of the judicial system to review. It focuses on the Colombian Constitutional Court, as an example of a court at the apex of the judicial system that has been historically responsive to claims for fundamental rights. Docket selection is an example of a classification problem using supervised learning, in which a machine groups data according to preestablished characteristics.

This Article draws from two different bodies of literature to analyze the consequences of using AI …

Ballots In An Unfamiliar Language And Other Things That Make No Sense: Interpreting How The Voting Rights Act Undermines Constitutional Rights For Voters With Limited English Proficiency, Abigail Hylton

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Note will argue that the current federal scheme for determining the baseline resources that a state must provide to voters with limited English proficiency is unconstitutional. Specifically, the Voting Rights Act neglects to require adequate translation and interpretation services for many voters with limited English proficiency. Such failure to adequately support this group of citizens throughout the election process effectively excludes them from the democratic process and deprives them of their constitutional right to vote. Whether this group of voters has access to translated materials currently hinges on the language they speak, their nationality, and their geographic location; the …

The Complexities Of Conscience: Reconciling Death Penalty L Aw With Capital Jurors’ Concerns, Meredith Martin Rountree, Mary R. Rose

Buffalo Law Review

Jurors exercise unique legal power when they are asked to decide whether to sentence someone to death. The Supreme Court emphasizes the central role of the jury’s moral judgment in making this sentencing decision, noting that it is the jurors who are best able to “express the conscience of the community on the ultimate question of life or death.” Manylower courts nevertheless narrow the range of admissible evidence at the mitigation phase of a capital trial, insisting on a standard of legal relevance that interferes with the jury’s ability to exercise the very moral judgment the Supreme Court has deemed …

How Artificial Intelligence Machines Can Legally Become Inventors: An Examination Of And Solution To The Decision On Dabus, Justyn Millamena

Journal of Law and Policy

With proliferation of Artificial Intelligence research and development, it is foreseeable that these machines will invent many new patentable technologies. However, the United States Patent and Trademark Office recently deemed a patent application incomplete for listing an AI machine as the inventor. If the USPTO’s decision is not corrected, the patent system will be in danger because many fraudulent patent applications that list incorrect inventors will be filed. This would drastically change existing and settled inventorship jurisprudence and might endanger the patent protection over such patents. This Note argues that the USPTO’s reasons for not allowing the Artificial Intelligence machine …

Plausible Retaliation: Using Modern Pleading Standards As A Blueprint For First Amendment Retaliation Claims, Amy L. Moore

Law Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the Supreme Court’s evolving doctrine governing First Amendment retaliatory arrest claims, focusing on the Court’s decision in Nieves v. Bartlett and its imposition of a lack-of-probable-cause requirement as a threshold element. Tracing the doctrinal development from Mt. Healthy City School District Board of Education v. Doyle through Hartman v. Moore, Reichle v. Howards, Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, and Nieves, the Article argues that the Court improperly imported retaliatory prosecution logic into the arrest context without adequately accounting for modern pleading standards under Twombly and Iqbal. The Article contends that requiring …

Digital Privacy Rights And Cloud Act Agreements, Tim Cochrane

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

The United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK) will soon bring into force a new international law enforcement data sharing ‘CLOUD Act agreement’ (US-UK Agreement), the first of its kind under the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act 2018 (CLOUD Act). These agreements enable law enforcement in one state to directly request data from service providers based in the other state. They respond to long-standing concerns with the main mechanism for obtaining overseas data, mutual legal assistance (MLA). The US and UK claim the US-UK Agreement will significantly speed up data access relative to MLA while “respecting privacy and …

Textual Gerrymandering: The Eclipse Of Republican Government In An Era Of Statutory Populism, William N. Eskridge, Victoria Frances Nourse

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

We have entered the era dominated by a dogmatic textualism—albeit one that is fracturing, as illustrated by the three warring original public meaning opinions in the blockbuster sexual orientation case, Bostock v. Clayton County. This Article provides conceptual tools that allow lawyers and students to understand the deep analytical problems faced and created by the new textualism advanced by Justice Scalia and his heirs. The key is to think about choice of text—why one piece of text rather than another—and choice of context—what materials are relevant to confirm or clarify textual meaning. Professors Eskridge and Nourse apply these concepts …

Beyond The Horizons Of The Harvard Forewords, Or Bassok

Cleveland State Law Review

American constitutional thought is controlled by certain paradigms that limit the ability to think beyond them. A careful reading of the Harvard Law Review Forewords—the “tribal campfire” of American constitutional thinkers—is one way to detect these paradigms. Based on reading these Forewords since their inception in 1951 and until 2019, I track how the concept of judicial legitimacy has been understood over the years. My analysis shows that in recent decades an understanding of judicial legitimacy in terms of public support has risen to the status of a controlling paradigm. While this understanding is currently considered commonsensical, it stands in …

Federalism And The Limits Of Subnational Political Heterogeneity, James A. Gardner

Journal Articles

With an epidemic of democratic backsliding now afflicting many of the world’s democracies, including the United States, some scholars have suggested that federalism might serve as a useful defense for liberal democracy by impeding the ability of an authoritarian central government to stamp it out at the subnational level. In this Essay, I dispute that contention. An examination of both federal theory on one hand and the behavior and tactics of central control employed by ancient and early modern empires on the other leads to the conclusion that the protective value of federalism against the effects of national authoritarianism is …

Implementation Of Human Rights Certification As A Request For Human Rights Protection To Workers In The Fishery Industry, Tito Pramudita

"Dharmasisya” Jurnal Program Magister Hukum FHUI

The responsibility of the state is one of the important keys in the life of the state, one of which is in labor matters. In its implementation there are several records of violations of human rights in the Indonesian Sea, namely Trafficking in Persons, Forced / Slavery Labor, Child Labor, Overtime and the absence of health insurance. Research Objectives To analyze regulations in Indonesia regulating the protection of human rights for workers in the fishing industry in Indonesia and Fisheries Human Rights Certification contained in the Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Regulation No. 35 of 2015 has effectively provided …