Law Commons^™

Virtual Equality As Constitutional Reality: An Introduction, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

Equality is, to be sure, an elusive concept. More often than not, we find it much easier to describe what is unequal (we know it when we see it) than affirmatively to explain equality. This definitional dilemma rises to new heights when courts, in exercising their interpretive legal functions, have to provide all persons the equal protection of the laws."

Over the course of American history and jurisprudence, the Supreme Court itself has a checkered past when it comes to judicial application of rights to equality. In the beginning, there was slavery - the quintessence of unequality - and the …

The Six Companies And The Geary Act: A Case Study In Nineteenth-Century Civil Disobedience And Civil Rights Litigation, Ellen D. Katz

Articles

In 1892, the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association in San Francisco urged the resident Chinese community to ignore a federal law. The United States Congress had just passed the Geary Act, which required all Chinese laborers living in the United States to register with the collector of internal revenue. Under the act, those who did not register would face arrest and likely deportation. The Benevolent Association, also known as the Six Companies," claimed that the act violated both the constitutional right to due process and treaty obligations with China. To combat the legislation, the association enlisted the assistance of the Chinese …

Against Assisted Suicide - Even A Very Limited Form (Symposium: Assisted Suicide, Health Care And Medical Treatment Choices), Yale Kamisar

Articles

Professor Robert Sedler is a leading constitutional law professor and a well-known civil liberties lawyer. I think he is right about many things. To cite but one example, I think he was right when he led the ACLU's successful legal attack on certain University of Michigan restrictions on "hate speech."' But I cannot agree with him about physician-assisted suicide, no matter how narrowly he frames the issue.2

Judging Girls: Decision Making In Parental Consent To Abortion Cases, Suellyn Scarnecchia, Julie Kunce Field

Articles

Judges make determinations on a daily basis that profoundly affect people's lives. On March 28, 1991, the Michigan legislature enacted a statute entitled The Parental Rights Restoration Act (hereinafter "the Michigan Act" or "the Act"). This statute delegated to probate court judges the extraordinary task of deciding whether a minor girl may have an abortion without the consent of a parent. Nothing in law school and little in an average judge's experience provide a meaningful framework for making such a decision. Although many commentators, including the authors, argue that decisions about abortion should be left to the woman regardless of …

Political Correctness In Jury Selection, George P. Fletcher

Faculty Scholarship

The values of equality and freedom are in constant tension, or so some think. The more society stresses equality, the less freedom people have. For example, Bruce Ackerman would abolish inheritance in his utopian society to insure that every generation begins on an equal footing. Many commentators have advocated restrictions on pornography and hate speech in order to protect the likely targets of these traditionally protected uses of free speech. Additionally, Catharine MacKinnon has invoked the principle of equality in the form of protecting disempowered minorities to argue for a restriction on liberty and freedom. Conversely, the more economic freedom …

Art Of Judgement In Planned Parenthood V. Casey, James Boyd White

Articles

This article was excerpted and abridged with permission from a chapter in Professor White's recent book Acts of Hope: Creating Authority in Literature, Law, and Politics. In the book, he explores the nature of authority in various cultural contexts. Here he examines the Joint Opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which has been attacked both from the right, on the grounds that it tried to keep Roe v. Wade alive, and from the left, on the grounds that it significantly weakens the force of that case. Professor White, by contrast, admires it greatly, and in this chapter explains …

Setting The Legal Context: What Is The Meaning Of Equal Access To Mental Health Services, Randy Lee, Mary Kate Kearney

Randy Lee

No abstract provided.

Criminal Procedure Mate: Searches And Seizures, Interrogation, Identifications, And Exclusionary Remedy, Robert Bloom

Robert M. Bloom

No abstract provided.

Making Conditions Constitutional By Attaching Them To Welfare: The Dangers Of Selective Contextual Ignorance Of The Unconstitutional Conditions Doctrine, Julie Nice

Julie A. Nice

This article examines the lack of judicial consistency in applying the Unconstitutional Conditions doctrine with regard to the same constitutional guarantee but involving different public benefits. Professor Nice posits that the courts frequently apply a lower level of scrutiny when conditions are attached to welfare benefits than when conditions are attached to other types of government benefits. She specifically examines this inconsistency among decisions involving Free Exercise and Takings. She shows that the Supreme Court has reduced its regular level of heightened scrutiny and instead applied Dandridge-style deference to uphold welfare conditions. For example, in a series of free exercises …

Review Of When Death Is Sought: Assisted Suicide And Euthanasia In The Medical Context, By The New York State Task Force On Life And Law, Charles Baron

Charles H. Baron

No abstract provided.

The Road To Mass Democracy: Original Intent And The Seventeenth Amendment, Christopher Hoebeke

Christopher H Hoebeke

No abstract provided.

Book Review, Challenging The Hart And Wechsler Paradigm, Mary Brigid Mcmanamon

Mary Brigid McManamon

No abstract provided.

Vampires Among Us--Does A Grand Jury Subpoena For Blood Violate The Fourth Amendment?, Floralynn Einesman

Floralynn Einesman

Rediscovering The Constitution, Jack Tsen-Ta Lee

Jack Tsen-Ta LEE

The fundamental liberties in our Constitution involve a study of tensions: between an individual's rights and the community's interests, between the role of the judiciary on the one hand and the executive and legislature on the other. How we should interpret them depends on where we think equilibrium should be established. This depends on two main factors. The first is the proper function of the judiciary as laid down by our Constitution, which is discussed in Part I of this article. The second is the nature of our fundamental liberties, for they are worded with varying degrees of generality. ... …

Equal Protection And Sexual Orientation, Jack Tsen-Ta Lee

Jack Tsen-Ta LEE

Equality is the thread running through the fundamental liberties enshrined in our Constitution. ... Equality, expressed in Art 12 of the [Singapore] Constitution, is also a specific right enforceable by the court. The difficulty comes in applying this deceptively simple concept to real-life situations. ... In considering the validity of legislation, Singapore and Malaysian courts have generally favored rational review, a modest conception of equal protection, unlike their American counterparts which have adopted a more expansive reading in the form of strict and intermediate review. This article examines how these three levels of equal protection review operate, and argues that …

Arbitrariedad, Horacio M. Lynch

Horacio M. LYNCH

No abstract provided.