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Constitutional Law

Maurer School of Law: Indiana University

2009

Constitutional law

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

Free Speech And National Security, Geoffrey R. Stone Jul 2009

Free Speech And National Security, Geoffrey R. Stone

Indiana Law Journal

Symposium: An Ocean Apart? Freedom of Expression in Europe and the United States. This Article was originally written in French and delivered as a conference paper at a symposium held by the Center for American Law of the University of Paris II (Panthèon-Assas) on January 18-19, 2008.


Judicial Activism And Fourteenth Amendment Privacy Claims: The Allure Of Originalism And The Unappreciated Promise Of Constrained Nonoriginalism, Daniel O. Conkle Jan 2009

Judicial Activism And Fourteenth Amendment Privacy Claims: The Allure Of Originalism And The Unappreciated Promise Of Constrained Nonoriginalism, Daniel O. Conkle

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Among other meanings, "judicial activism" can be defined as judicial decisionmaking that frustrates majoritarian self-government and that is unconstrained by law. So understood, judicial activism is presumptively problematic, because it frustrates customary democratic and judicial norms.

In this essay, I address originalist and nonoriginalist responses to the presumptive problem of judicial activism in the context of Fourteenth Amendment privacy claims, including claims relating to abortion, sexual conduct, and same-sex marriage. I argue that originalism is an overrated solution, largely because current understandings of originalism, despite claims to the contrary, do not provide standards of decision that are sufficiently clear to …