Law Commons^™

Ryan V. Gonzalez And The Potential Elimination Of The Ineffective Assistance Of Counsel Post Conviction Failsafe, Kathleen Carlson

Florida Law Review

Recently, the United States Supreme Court addressed in Ryan v. Gonzales “whether the incompetence of a state prisoner requires suspension of the prisoner’s federal habeas corpus proceedings.” In a unanimous decision, the Court held that “the Courts of Appeals for the Ninth and Sixth Circuits both erred in holding that district courts must stay federal habeas proceedings when petitioners are adjudged incompetent.” The decision leaves unanswered questions with regard to a petitioner’s ability to protect himself from ineffective or incompetent counsel both before and during the habeas proceeding.

No Small Feat: Who Won The Health Care Case (And Why Did So Many Law Professors Miss The Boat)?, Randy E. Barnett

Florida Law Review

In this Essay, prepared as the basis for the 2013 Dunwody Distinguished Lecture in Law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, I describe five aspects of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius that are sometimes overlooked or misunderstood: (1) the Court held that imposing economic mandates on the people was unconstitutional under the Commerce and Necessary and Proper Clauses; (2) Chief Justice John Roberts’s reasoning was the holding in the case, whether viewed from a formalist or a realist perspective; (3) the Court did not uphold the constitutionality of …

When The Commerce Clause Goes International: A Proposed Legal Framework For The Foreign Commerce Clause, Naomi Harlin Goodno

Florida Law Review

The world is becoming a smaller place. Technology and the Internet have made global travel and communication easier, quicker, and more common. Novel legal issues arise every day to deal with this modern interconnected world. How does the law address these new problems?

Congress is allowed “[t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” The scope of Congress’s power to regulate commerce “among the several States” (the “Interstate Commerce Clause”) has long been debated. In the modern world of global interaction, Congress’s power to regulate commerce “with foreign Nations” (the “Foreign Commerce …

Religion And The Equal Protection Clause: Why The Constitution Requires School Vouchers, Steven G. Calabresi, Abe Salander

Florida Law Review

Ask anyone whether the Constitution permits discrimination on the basis of religion, and the response will undoubtedly be no. Yet the modern Supreme Court has not recognized that the antidiscrimination command of the Fourteenth Amendment protects religion in the same way that the Amendment protects against discrimination on the basis of race or gender. In fact, the Supreme Court has permitted the legislature to facially discriminate against religion in funding programs. To make matters worse, thirty-seven state constitutions and the District of Columbia’s Code openly discriminate on the basis of religion in so-called Blaine Amendments.

Bringing Our Children Back From The Land Of Nod: Why The Eighth Amendment Forbids Condemning Juveniles To Die In Prison For Accessorial Felony Murder, Mariko K. Shitama

Florida Law Review

Over 2,589 individuals sit in prison, where they have been condemned to die for crimes they committed before their eighteenth birthday. At least a quarter of these individuals received this sentence for accessorial felony murder, or a crime in which they did not kill or intend to kill the victim. Beginning with Roper v. Simmons in 2005 and continuing with Graham v. Florida in 2010, recent Eighth Amendment jurisprudence has recognized that juveniles are fundamentally different from adults in ways that limit the constitutionality of imposing adult punishment on them. In June 2012, the Supreme Court held that sentencing juveniles …

Founding-Era Conventions And The Meaning Of The Constitution’S “Convention For Proposing Amendments”, Robert G. Natelson

Florida Law Review

Under Article V of the U.S. Constitution, two thirds of state legislatures may require Congress to call a “Convention for proposing Amendments.” Because this procedure has never been used, commentators frequently debate the composition of the convention and the rules governing the application and convention process. However, the debate has proceeded almost entirely without knowledge of the many multi-colony and multi-state conventions held during the eighteenth century, of which the Constitutional Convention was only one. These conventions were governed by universally-accepted convention practices and protocols. This Article surveys those conventions and shows how their practices and protocols shaped the meaning …