Law Commons^™

No Balancing For Anti-Constitutional Government Conduct, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals

Commentary: Further Prosecutions Over The 2020 Election Are Not Justified, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

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

Did The Biden Administration Violate The First Amendment?, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

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

Today’S Supreme Court: ‘Not A Normal Court,’ But Not Unprecedented Either, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

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

Pardon Me? Why Biden Should Pull A Gerald Ford When It Comes To Trump, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

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

Six Lessons From The Debt Deal. What Did We Learn?, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

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

The Durham Report Shows Why We Don’T Want The Fbi Involved In Politics, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

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

If The Gop Won’T Do It, Democrats Will Have To Block Trump’S Nomination For Them, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

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

The Pgh Synagogue Shooting Case Should’Ve Been Heard In Pa. Court, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

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

The Views Aired At Pitt Debate Were Ugly. It Was Still Right To Let It Happen, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

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

Let The Right Ones In: The Supreme Court's Changing Approach To Justiciability, Richard L. Heppner

Law Faculty Publications

The power of federal courts to act is circumscribed not only by the limits of subject matter jurisdiction, but also by various justiciability doctrines. Article III of the Constitution vests the judicial power of the United States in the Supreme Court and such inferior courts as Congress creates. That power is limited to deciding cases and controversies. It does not permit federal courts to provide advisory opinions when there is not a real dispute between the parties. Based on that constitutional limit, and related prudential concerns, the Court has developed a variety of justiciability requirements limiting which cases can be …

The Theological Error Behind Post-Liberalism’S Bid For Political Power, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals.

With Pa’S Highest Court Depleted, Shapiro, Gop Senate Leaders Let Voters Down, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

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

A "Mere Shadow" Of A Conflict: Obscuring The Establishment Clause In Kennedy V. Bremerton, Ann L. Schiavone

Law Faculty Publications

In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the Roberts Court continued its move to carve out larger spaces for religious practice and expression in public spheres. But in so doing it left lower courts and school districts with many more questions than answers concerning what the Establishment Clause means and what it requires of them.

An Alternative To The Independent State Legislature Doctrine, Bruce Ledewitz

Law Faculty Publications

One of the most momentous actions taken by the United States Supreme Court in the last term was not deciding a case but granting review at the end of the term in Moore v. Harper, the North Carolina congressional redistricting case. This is the case in which the Supreme Court appears likely to adopt some version of the Independent State Legislature Doctrine (Doctrine). In this essay, I will describe the actual case and the Doctrine. But I will also be offering an alternative to the Doctrine, one that I believe achieves some of the goals that the Justices who …

Analysis Of Carson V. Makin, Wilson Huhn

Law Faculty Publications

Many school districts in the State of Maine lack high schools, so the children in those districts must attend another school selected by their parents. In 1873 the State of Maine enacted a tuition assistance program that offers a stipend to participating schools to partially defray the cost of educating children from districts that lack a high school. In 1981 the State of Maine enacted a law that categorically excludes sectarian schools’ from participating in the tuition assistance program.

Three sets of parents sued the Commissioner of the Maine Department of Education, asserting that the exclusion of sectarian schools, from …

Privacy: Pre- And Post-Dobbs, Rona Kaufman

Law Faculty Publications

The United States Supreme Court has interpreted the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to include a fundamental right to familial privacy. The exact contours of that right were developed by the Court from 1923 until 2015. In 2022, with its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, the Supreme Court abruptly changed course and held that the right to terminate a pregnancy is no longer part of the right to privacy previously recognized by the Court. This essay seeks to place Dobbs in the context of the Court’s family privacy cases in an effort to understand the Court’s …

Foreword: New Supreme Court Cases: Duquesne Law Faculty Explains, Wilson Huhn

Law Faculty Publications

On September 30, 2022, several members of the faculty of the Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University presented a Continuing Legal Education program, New Supreme Court Cases: Duquesne Law Faculty Explains, reviewing these developments. Duquesne Law Review graciously invited the faculty panel to contribute their analysis of these cases from the Supreme Court's 2021- 2022 term for inclusion in this symposium issue of the Law Review.

What Bad Decisions By Ron Desantis And Gavin Newsom Have In Common, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

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

The Panama Canal Treaties Were Carter’S Biggest Foreign Policy Win, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

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

What Both Sides Of The Abortion Fight Can Learn From Antonin Scalia, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

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

Why I Am No Longer A Jew, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals.

By Any Measure, Liberal Democracy Is Superior. Here’S Why, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

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

If I Were A Betting Man: Some Predictions For The Year We Have Left, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

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

On Pope Benedict, Science, Faith, And His Legacy, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

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

An Alternative To The Independent State Legislature Doctrine, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals

The Openness Of Talmud, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals.

The Death And Resurrection Of Establishment Doctrine, Gerard V. Bradley

Duquesne Law Review

Lead Article

The biggest news of the Supreme Court's 2021-22 term was the Court's "abandonment" of Lemon v. Kurtzman as the default test for Establishment Clause jurisprudence. For a full half-century, Lemon v. Kurtzman defined what our constitutional separation of church and state meant. But now the Court has definitively laid it to rest. The important question of church-state relations stands at a strategic fork in the road that the Court has not faced since 1962, and perhaps not since 1947. Justice Gorsuch complained that Lemon demonstrably failed as law. That it was a judicial tool that flopped by every …

Let The Right Ones In: The Supreme Court's Changing Approach To Justiciability, Richard L. Heppner Jr.

Duquesne Law Review

In last term's blockbuster case Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, one of the considerations Justice Alito cited for overturning Roe and Casey was that they "have led to the distortion of many important but unrelated legal doctrines."¹ Alito asserted that abortion jurisprudence has, among other things, "ignored the Court's third-party standing doctrine."² Whether that is a fair description of the case law is debatable. But it raises the question of whether the newly ascendant conservative majority might likewise distort standing doctrine, and other justiciability doctrines, in order to decide particular, controversial issues.

Applying Bentham's Theory Of Fallacies To Chief Justice Robert's Reasoning In West Virginia V. Epa, Dana Neacsu

Duquesne Law Review

There are two issues in West Virginia v. EPA.¹ One regards justiciability, and the other delegation. Article III of the Federal Constitution limits justiciability to controversies, to disputes involving an injured party whose harm the judiciary believes it can remedy. The Constitution is silent on delegation.

This Essay summarizes the Court's decision in West Virginia v. EPA.² It also analyzes Chief Justice Roberts' reasoning and addresses the case's flaws from two perspectives. It references the Court's decision connecting it to the so-called New Deal Cases,³ because in both Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan,^{4 …}