Law Commons^™

The Role Of Emotion In Constitutional Theory, J. Joel Alicea

Notre Dame Law Review

Although the role of emotion in law has become a major field of scholarship, there has been very little attention paid to the role of emotion in constitutional theory. This Article seeks to fill that gap by providing an integrated account of the role of emotion within the individual, how emotion affects constitutional culture, and how constitutional culture, properly understood, should affect our evaluation of major constitutional theories.

The Article begins by reconstructing one of the most important and influential accounts of emotion in the philosophical literature: that of Thomas Aquinas. Because Aquinas’s description of the nature of emotion accords …

The Incorporation Of The Republican Guarantee Clause, Jason Mazzone

Notre Dame Law Review

This Article makes the case for understanding the Fourteenth Amendment to incorporate the Republican Guarantee Clause of Article IV. Incorporation shifts the focus of the Guarantee Clause from the interests of states to the interests of citizens; from protecting popular sovereignty as a political ideal to safeguarding more specifically rights that citizens hold and exercise in a republican system. Once incorporated, the Guarantee Clause should be understood to require states themselves to maintain a republican form of government and to act to correct departures from republicanism within their own governing arrangements. In addition, an incorporated Guarantee Clause informs the meaning …

The Work Is Not Done: Frederick Douglass And Black Suffrage, Bradley Rebeiro

Notre Dame Law Review

Since antiquity, political theorists have tried to identify the proper balance between ideals and pragmatism in political and public life. Machiavelli and Aristotle both offered prudence as an approach, but with different ends in mind: stability and the good, respectively. Among the many contributions Kurt Lash’s two-volume set on the Reconstruction Amendments provides to present-day discourse, it supplies the careful reader an answer to this timeless question by highlighting the role of Frederick Douglass in public deliberation over the Fifteenth Amendment. In this Essay I argue that Amer-ican abolitionist, social reformer, and statesman Frederick Douglass illustrates and enacts the Aristotelian …

The Lawfulness Of The Fifteenth Amendment, Travis Crum

Notre Dame Law Review

One of the most provocative debates in constitutional theory concerns the lawfulness of the Reconstruction Amendments’ adoptions. Scholars have contested whether Article V permits amendments proposed by Congresses that excluded the Southern States and questioned whether those States’ ratifications were obtained through unlawful coercion. Scholars have also teased out differences in how States were counted for purposes of ratifying the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. This debate has focused exclusively on the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, dismissing the Fifteenth Amendment as a mere sequel.

As this Essay demonstrates, the Fifteenth Amendment’s ratification raises unique issues and adds important nuance to this …

Brown, History, And The Fourteenth Amendment, Christopher W. Schmidt

Notre Dame Law Review

Legal scholars and historians in recent years have sought to elevate Reconstruction to the stature of a “second Founding,” according it the same careful inquiry and legitimating function as the first. Their work marks the latest iteration of a decades-long campaign to displace the far more dismissive attitude toward Reconstruction that permeated historical scholarship and legal opinions in the first half of the twentieth century. In this Article, I present the flurry of engagement with the history of the Fourteenth Amendment during the litigation of Brown v. Board of Education (1954) as a key transition point in how historians and …

Taking (Equal Voting) Rights Seriously: The Fifteenth Amendment As Constitutional Foundation, And The Need For Judges To Remodel Their Approach To Age Discrimination In Political Rights, Vikram D. Amar

Notre Dame Law Review

This Essay explores the relationship between twentieth-century voting-discrimination amendments and the Fifteenth Amendment’s antidiscrimination groundwork on which these later developments built. In particular, it examines ways in which the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, whose text and ratification conversations tightly track those of the Fifteenth Amendment, has been underimplemented, if not completely ignored, in recent debates and cases that are ever-more crucial to the meaning of political-rights equality under the Constitution. It ends by urging courts to take more seriously the similarities between the Twenty-Sixth and Fifteenth Amendments in adjudicating disputes involving facial or de facto age discrimination in political rights realms.

The Intent Of The Framer: John Bingham’S Fourteenth Amendment, Michael Zuckert

Notre Dame Law Review

It is not often that a single individual is responsible for constitutional provisions as important as Sections 1 and 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. My project in this Essay is not to engage in a study of original intent, or original public meaning, or however we wish now to characterize the originalist project, but to engage in a quest for John Bingham’s Amendment, for understanding the Amendment as he understood it. Whether this gives us an authoritative reading of the Amendment for the purposes of constitutional interpretation and adjudication is a separate issue. I treat Bingham as an author and …

Freedom Seekers: The Transgressive Constitutionalism Of Fugitives From Slavery, Rebecca E. Zietlow

Notre Dame Law Review

In the years leading up to the Civil War, fugitives from slavery put their lives on the line to improve their own status and that of their families in their quest for freedom. Fugitives from slavery, or “freedom seekers,” engaged in civil disobedience, resisting laws that they believed to be unjust and inhumane. In the North, free black people and their white allies supported the freedom seekers by engaging in civil disobedience of their own. The transgressive actions of freedom seekers sparked constitutional controversy during the antebellum era over issues of interstate comity, federalism, citizenship rights, and fundamental human rights. …

How Favored, Exactly? An Analysis Of The Most Favored Nation Theory Of Religious Exemptions From Calvary Chapel To Tandon, Luray Buckner

Notre Dame Law Review

In this Note, I argue that Justice Kavanaugh’s most favored nation test for religious exemptions actually differs from the one employed by the majority of the Court in Tandon. The majority’s formulation of the test is vague and explicitly requires courts to engage in a fact-intensive comparability analysis. Practically, lower courts applying Tandon to religious exemption questions have exploited this comparability step to rule against religious claimants generally, but more specifically to deny them strict scrutiny. Because the Tandon test was formulated to apply to all free exercise claims, the test is necessarily framed in more general terms and …

A Solution For The Third-Party Doctrine In A Time Of Data Sharing, Contact Tracing, And Mass Surveillance, Tonja Jacobi, Dustin Stonecipher

Notre Dame Law Review

Today, information is shared almost constantly. People share their DNA to track their ancestry or for individualized health information; they instruct Alexa to purchase products or provide directions; and, now more than ever, they use videoconferencing technology in their homes. According to the third-party doctrine, the government can access all such information without a warrant or without infringing on Fourth Amendment privacy protections. This exposure of vast amounts of highly personal data to government intrusion is permissible because the Supreme Court has interpreted the third-party doctrine as a per se rule. However, that interpretation rests on an improper understanding of …

Establishment’S Political Priority To Free Exercise, Marc O. Degirolami

Notre Dame Law Review

Americans are beset by disagreement about the First Amendment. Progressive scholars are attacking the venerable liberal view that First Amendment rights must not be constricted to secure communal, political benefits. To prioritize free speech rights, they say, reflects an unjust inflation of individual interest over our common political commitments. These disagreements afflict the Religion Clauses as well. Critics claim that religious exemption has become more important than the values of disestablishment that define the polity. Free exercise exemption, they argue, has subordinated establishment.

This Article contests these views. The fundamental rules and norms constituting the political regime—what the Article calls …

Whose Secularism? Which Laïcité? Negotiating Transnational And National Constitutionalism In Kosovo, Thomas J. Hellenbrand

Notre Dame Law Review

This Note will proceed as follows: Part I will set the stage and briefly outline the history of Kosovo and its current political status. Part II will then introduce the Kosovo Constitution and the process by which international agreements (such as the European Convention of Human Rights) were embedded in the text and made binding legal authority. It will show that, although the international agreements are binding, the Kosovo Constitution does not make international case law obligatory. Part III will then address different foundational documents drafted in anticipation of Kosovo’s statehood and how judicial and administrative institutions should apply them …

Recovering The Tort Remedy For Federal Official Wrongdoing, Gregory Sisk

Notre Dame Law Review

As the Supreme Court weakens the Bivens constitutional tort cause of action and federal officers avoid liability for unlawful behavior through qualified immunity, we should recollect the merit of the common-law tort remedy for holding the federal government accountable for official wrongdoing. For more than a century after ratification of the Constitution, federal officers who trespassed on the rights of American citizens could be held personally liable under common-law tort theories, but then routinely were indemnified by the government.

The modern Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) roughly replicates the original regime for official wrongdoing by imposing liability directly on the …

The Inconsistent Originalism Of Judge-Made Remedies Against Federal Officers, Stephen I. Vladeck

Notre Dame Law Review

Professor Carlos V´azquez and I have explained in depth why the Supreme Court’s evisceration of damages remedies for constitutional violations by federal officers is analytically and historically incoherent. And I have written elsewhere about the extent to which modern constitutional remedies doctrine has turned a remarkably blind eye to foundational principles of federalism—paying little more than lip service to the robust availability of common-law damages (and habeas) remedies against federal officers in state courts from the Founding through the Civil War—and, at least for damages, well into the twentieth century. I don’t mean to rehash (or relitigate) either argument here. …

Judicial Autonomy V. Executive Authority: Which Prevails In The Case Of A Postcommutation Collateral Attack?, Vincent A. Marrazzo

Notre Dame Law Review

An inmate with a commuted sentence will sometimes collaterally attack his already commuted sentence. This raises the question: Does an act of executive clemency divest the courts of authority to hear the collateral attack? In other words, does clemency moot the issues involved in the collateral attack? While multiple circuit courts have weighed in on this question, the Fourth and Sixth Circuits have developed the most robust discussions, disagreeing about whether federal courts may hear these cases. The Fourth Circuit has held that a collateral attack postcommutation is moot as the “President’s commutation order simply closes the judicial door.” In …

Lessons For Bivens And Qualified Immunity Debates From Nineteenth-Century Damages Litigation Against Federal Officers, Andrew Kent

Notre Dame Law Review

This Essay was written for a symposium marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics. As the current Court has turned against Bivens—seemingly confining it to three specific contexts created by Bivens and two follow-on decisions in 1979 and 1980—scholars and litigants have developed a set of claims to respond to the Court’s critique. The Court now views the judicially created Bivens cause of action and remedy as a separation-of-powers foul; Congress is said to be the institution which should weigh the costs and benefits …

Was Bivens Necessary?, Ann Woolhandler, Michael G. Collins

Notre Dame Law Review

Some federal common-law skeptics have provided criteria for keeping federal common law in check. Although not specifically addressing Bivensactions, Professor Nelson has argued that when engaged in federal common lawmaking, federal courts should see themselves as more tied to custom, general principles of the common law, and precedent, rather than seeing themselves as engaged in a freewheeling search for the best policy. This methodology makes federal common law less subject to criticism as usurping the lawmaking roles of other government actors. Professor Merrill has argued that federal common law needs to be specifically intended by the framers of a …

Bivens And The Ancien Régime, Carlos M. Vázquez

Notre Dame Law Review

This Essay considers the relevance for Bivens claims of the Court’s shift to a nouveau régime to address the implication of private rights of action under statutes. Part I describes and assesses the Court’s reasons for shifting to the nouveau régime in the statutory context. Part II explains why the Court’s shift to a nouveau régime for implying damage remedies under federal statutes does not justify a similar shift with respect to constitutional remedies. The Constitution’s omission of specific remedies for violation of the Constitution’s substantive provisions does not reflect the Founders’ belief that such remedies are unnecessary to give …

Stare Decisis As Authority And Aspiration, Randy J. Kozel

Notre Dame Law Review

The doctrine of stare decisis remains a defining feature of American law despite challenges to its legitimacy and efficacy. Even so, there is space between the role that stare decisis currently plays and the potential that it offers. The gap is evident in the jurisprudence of the U.S. Supreme Court. Though the Justices continue to underscore the fundamental status of stare decisis, the Court’s opinions sometimes seem quick to depart from precedents whose reasoning has fallen out of favor.

Using Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents as a case study, this Article explains how the Court can invigorate the doctrine …

A Scapegoat Theory Of Bivens, Katherine M. Crocker

Notre Dame Law Review

Some scapegoats are innocent. Some warrant blame, but not the amount they are made to bear. Either way, scapegoating can allow in-groups to sidestep social problems by casting blame onto out-groups instead of confronting such problems—and the in-groups’ complicity in perpetuating them—directly.

This Essay suggests that it may be productive to view the Bivens regime’s rise as countering various exercises in scapegoating and its retrenchment as constituting an exercise in scapegoating. The earlier cases can be seen as responding to social structures that have scapegoated racial, economic, and other groups through overaggressive policing, mass incarceration, and inequitable government conduct more …

Going Rogue: The Supreme Court's Newfound Hostility To Policy-Based Bivens Claims, Joanna C. Schwartz, Alexander Reinert, James E. Pfander

Notre Dame Law Review

In Ziglar v. Abbasi, 137 S. Ct. 1843 (2017), the Supreme Court held that a proposed Bivens remedy was subject to an exacting special factors analysis when the claim arises in a “new context.” In Ziglar itself, the Court found the context of the plaintiffs’ claims to be “new” because, in the Court’s view, they challenged “large-scale policy decisions concerning the conditions of confinement imposed on hundreds of prisoners.” Bivens claims for damages caused by unconstitutional policies, the Court suggested, were inappropriate.

This Essay critically examines the Ziglar Court’s newfound hostility to policy-based Bivens claims. We show that an …

Counting Heads: The Decennial Census And Adjustments To Enumeration, Jay E. Town

Notre Dame Law Review Reflection

The 2020 Decennial Census has become a lightning rod for litigious civil rights organizations, state attorneys general, and even members of Congress. At stake is the apportionment of representatives in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College divided amongst the several states. Furthermore, the “headcount” determines the allotment of $1.5 trillion in nondiscretionary federal dollars to be distributed to the various states based on the persons who are counted in each. The headcount is also used in redistricting of congressional districts. Make no mistake, litigation surrounds the manner in which the census arrives at its headcount after every census. …

The Compensation Constraint And The Scope Of The Takings Clause, Thomas W. Merrill

Notre Dame Law Review

The idea I wish to explore in this Essay is whether the established methods for determining just compensation can shed light on the meaning of other issues that arise in litigation under the Takings Clause. Specifically, is it possible to “reverse engineer” the Takings Clause by reasoning from settled understandings about how to determine just compensation in order to reach certain conclusions about when the Clause applies, what interests in private property are covered by the Clause, and what does it mean to take such property? The proposed exercise is positive or descriptive in nature rather than normative. The hypothesis …

Valuation Blunders In The Law Of Eminent Domain, Richard A. Epstein

Notre Dame Law Review

In dealing with the valuation problem, I will bracket these estimation issues in order to look to different and disturbing types of difficulties in the valuation enterprise. The law of eminent domain starts with the implicit assumption that the government is in general a good actor whose motives and laudable and whose behavior does not need excessive judicial oversight. Hence the general norm of judicial deference often applies to valuation decisions. In the cases that I shall review, as well as others, a general pattern emerges, whereby all doubtful valuation questions that arise dealing with key problems are at best …

The Catholic Church And The Paycheck Protection Program: Assessing Nondiscrimination After Trinity Lutheran And Espinoza, Elizabeth Totzke

Notre Dame Law Review

This Note argues the inclusion of houses of worship and the subsequent dispersal of PPP funds to the Catholic Church was explicitly constitutional. Applying the lens of the Supreme Court’s recently announced nondiscrimination principle, this Note considers the ramifications of the SBA’s official policy and explores the constitutional justification for the SBA’s ad hoc PPP policy. In fact, under the nondiscrimination principle, this Note concludes that the SBA’s policy shift was not just constitutionally permissible, but probably constitutionally required.

Who Has The Right?: Analysis Of Second Amendment Challenges To 18 U.S.C. § 922(G)(4), Alexandra T. Cline

Notre Dame Law Review

This Note argues that courts should decide challenges to § 922(g)(4) solely under the first step of the test, based on the notion that individuals subject to § 922(g)(4) fall outside the scope of Second Amendment protection. Thus, under the two-part test, the law would not burden conduct protected by the Amendment, rendering step two unnecessary for at least the vast majority of § 922(g)(4) challenges. This Note provides three independent ways in which courts could deem § 922(g)(4) outside the purview of the Second Amendment, and each should be considered a permissible approach.

The first Part of this Note …

A Variable Number Of Cheers For Viewpoint-Based Regulations Of Speech, R. George Wright

Notre Dame Law Review Reflection

If there is one thing we think we know about the First Amendment, it is that speech restrictions based on viewpoint are especially objectionable. The Supreme Court has declared that “[i]f there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.” For this proposition, the Court has on one occasion cited thirteen of its own precedents.

Much more broadly, the Court has also held that a government “has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its …

The Power Of Interpretation: Minimizing The Construction Zone, John O. Mcginnis, Michael B. Rappaport

Notre Dame Law Review

One of the most important conceptual innovations within modern originalism is the distinction between a zone of interpretation and a zone of construction. When constitutional provisions have a determinate meaning, decisions find that meaning occurs within the interpretation zone. But when the original meaning of a constitutional provision is indeterminate, decisions are based on something other than the original meaning and occur within the construction zone.

This Article represents the first sustained challenge to the importance of the distinction. It argues that a variety of techniques enhance the power of interpretation to resolve uncertainties and thus greatly reduce the size …

Constitutional Law's Conflicting Premises, Maxwell L. Stearns

Notre Dame Law Review

Doctrinal inconsistency is constitutional law’s special feature and bug. Virtually every salient doctrinal domain presents major precedents operating in tension. Bodies of precedent are rarely abandoned simply because a newer strand makes an older one appear out of place. And when an earlier strand is redeployed or substituted, the once-newer strand likewise persists. This dynamic process tasks law students, often for the first time, with reconciling the seemingly irreconcilable.

These doctrinal phenomena share as their root cause dual persistent conflicting premises. Some examples: Standing protects congressional power to monitor the executive branch, or it limits congressional monitoring when the selected …

Fraudulently Induced Confessions, Michael J. Zydney Mannheimer

Notre Dame Law Review

The jurisprudence on the use of police deception during interrogations is singularly unhelpful. Police may deceive in order to induce a suspect to confess, the courts tell us, unless they go too far. Police are permitted, for example, to feign sympathy for the suspect, lie about the existence of incriminating evidence, and falsely downplay the seriousness of the offense under investigation. But when police engage in other forms of deception, such as by offering false promises of leniency or misrepresenting the suspect’s Miranda rights, courts will balk and declare the resulting confession coerced. Yet neither courts nor commentators have successfully …