Law Commons^™

The Religious Freedom Waltz: Going Forward While Moving Back, Audra L. Savage

ConLawNOW

Although religious freedom has the distinction as the “first freedom,” it is not first in terms of protected rights. Religious freedom is under attack and if not shielded from potential threats, this quintessential American right may be lost altogether. Or at least, this is what U.S. law professors Andrew Koppelman and Steven D. Smith would have one believe, according to books each professor recently published. Unfortunately, they are not exaggerating. Volumes of articles and tomes have been written questioning, critiquing and criticizing (and lamenting, blasting and ridiculing) the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court adjudicating the religion clauses of the …

Testing For Regulatory Penalties: Insuring The Health Of Fedrealism In The Age Of Obamacare, Steven Z. Hodaszy

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Professional Speech And The First Amendment, Rodney A. Smolla

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Assault Weapon Bans: Can They Survive Rational Basis Scrutiny?, Clayton E. Cramer

ConLawNOW

In the last two decades, legislatures and courts have been increasingly willing to argue that a certain class of firearms termed “assault weapons” are not protected by the Second Amendment, and may be regulated or banned even though functionally identical firearms are not generally subject to such laws. Do such underinclusive bans survive even the lowest level of scrutiny: rational basis?

Does The Mechanical License Provision Of The Copyright Act Violate The Copyright Clause?, Maryna Koberidze

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

No abstract provided.

Mental Illness, Severe Emotional Distress, And The Death Penalty: Reflections On The Tragic Case Of Joe Giarratano, Richard J. Bonnie

Washington and Lee Law Review

Joe Giarratano was on death row for twelve years, and remains incarcerated today, because mental illness and severe emotional distress wholly undermined reliable adjudication in his case. Using Giarratano’s remarkable story as a case study, I illustrate some of the ways in which mental illness and acute emotional distress can lead to unreliable findings and judgments and—even worse—can actually propel the criminal justice system toward a death sentence. I cover the unreliability of his confession, his impaired ability to assist counsel, his impaired capacity to make a rational decision regarding whether to initiate or continue post-conviction proceedings, his diminished mental …

The Death Penalty And Mental Illness In International Human Rights Law: Toward Abolition, Richard J. Wilson

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Post-Trial Plea Bargaining In Capital Cases: Using Conditional Clemency To Remove Weak Cases From Death Row, Adam M. Gershowitz

Washington and Lee Law Review

Plea bargaining accounts for over ninety percent of criminal convictions and it dominates the American criminal justice system. Yet, once a defendant is convicted, bargaining almost completely disappears from the system. Even though years of litigation are on the horizon, there is nearly no bargaining in the appellate and habeas corpus process. There are two reasons for this. First, prosecutors and courts typically lack the power to alter a sentence that has already been imposed. Second, even if prosecutors had the authority to negotiate following a conviction, they would have little incentive to do so. Affirmance rates in ordinary criminal …

The Commonwealth Of Virginia V. Joseph Michael Giarratano: A Cautionary Tale, Todd C. Peppers

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Lethal Injection: A Horrendous Brutality, Robin C. Konrad

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Regulation Of Forensic Evidence, Brandon L. Garrett

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Solitary Confinement Until Death By State-Sponsored Homicide: An Eighth Amendment Assessment Of The Modern Execution Process, Robert Johnson

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Demise Of Capital Clemency, Paul J. Larkin Jr.

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Matters Of Strata: Race, Gender, And Class Structures In Capital Cases, Phyllis Goldfarb

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

“Merchants And Thieves, Hungry For Power”: Prosecutorial Misconduct And Passive Judicial Complicity In Death Penalty Trials Of Defendants With Mental Disabilities, Michael L. Perlin

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court’S Talmudic Debate On The Meanings Of Guilt, Innocence, And Finality, Jonathan D. Colan

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Tying The Knot With A Surname? The Constitutionality Of Japan's Law Requiring A Same Marital Name, Koji Higashikawa

ConLawNOW

The Japanese Supreme Court issued a decision denying married women the right to retain their separate maiden name legally after marriage. It upheld the constitutionality of an old law requiring both marital partners to adopt the same surname. This essay by a Japanese scholar provides insight and explanation into the Supreme Court’s decision.

Originalism And Same-Sex Marriage, Steven G. Calabresi, Hannah M. Begley

University of Miami Law Review

This article examines the original meaning of the equality guarantee in American constitutional law. It looks are the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth century roots of the modern doctrine, and it concludes that the Fourteenth Amendment bans the Hindu Caste system, European feudalism, the Black Codes, the Jim Crow laws, and the common law's denial to women of equal civil rights to those held by men. It then considers the constitutionality of bans on same sex marriage from an Originalist perspective, and it concludes that State laws banning same sex marriage violate the Fourteenth Amendment.

A Tribute To Justice Scalia: Why Bad Cases Make Bad Methodology, Brian T. Fitzpatrick

Vanderbilt Law Review

The Vanderbilt Law Review asked me to write a short memorial tribute to my old boss, Justice Antonin Scalia, and I am fortunate that Dean Chemerinsky's new book provides an apt occasion to do so. To be as blunt as the Justice would have been: he would have hated this book. Not because Dean Chemerinsky is not a gifted writer; he most surely is. But because the entire methodology of the book-a methodology I call "bad-cases" reasoning-was anathema to the Justice. The Justice may not have been right about everything, but he was right about this: bad-cases reasoning is bad …

A Tricky Negotiation: Free Speech Versus Insensitivity, Melvin Dilanchian

Washington University Undergraduate Law Review

The central question presented in this paper is whether specialty license plates constitute government speech, and are thus subject to disapproval by the Board of the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles. The core concerns reviewed in this research, largely focus on defining whose speech specialty license plates are. The purpose is to investigate and analyze the precedent established as a result of a recent case, Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans. The paper thoroughly reviews the arguments made in the majority opinion, as well as those of the dissenting opinion, with an interdisciplinary approach. The argument presented …

Thinking About The Supreme Court's Successes And Failures, Erwin Chemerinsky

Vanderbilt Law Review

The Supreme Court often has failed at its most important tasks and at the most important times. I set out this thesis at the beginning the book:

To be clear, I am not saying that the Supreme Court has failed at these crucial tasks every time. Making a case against the Supreme Court does not require taking such an extreme position. I also will talk about areas where the Court has succeeded in protecting minorities and in enforcing the limits of the Constitution. My claim is that the Court has often failed where and when it has been most needed. …

Procedural Due Process Claims, Erwin Chemerinsky

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Qualified Immunity When Facts Are In Dispute, Leon Friedman

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Theory Of Municipal Custom And Practice, Karen Blum

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Supreme Court's 1998-1999 Term: Fourth Amendment Decisions, Kathryn R. Urbonya

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Supreme Court Homecoming, George S. Isaacson

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Law—Fourth Amendment And Seizures— Accidental Seizures By Deadly Force: Who Is Seized During A Police Shootout? Plumhoff V. Rickard, 134 S. Ct. 2012 (2014)., Adam D. Franks

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Dissecting The Hybrid Rights Exception: Should It Be Expanded Or Rejected?, David H. Hudson Jr., Emily H. Harvey

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Constitutionalizing Corporate Law, Elizabeth Pollman

Vanderbilt Law Review

The Supreme Court has recently decided some of the most important and controversial cases involving the federal rights of corporations in over two hundred years of jurisprudence. In rulings ranging from corporate political spending to religious liberty rights, the Court has dramatically expanded the zone in which corporations can act free from regulation. This Article argues these decisions represent a doctrinal shift, even from previous cases granting rights to corporations. The modern corporate rights doctrine has put unprecedented weight on state corporate law to act as a mechanism for resolving disputes among corporate participants regarding the expressive and religious activity …

Prove Yourselves: Oliver Wendell Holmes And The Obsessions Of Manliness, John M. Kang

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.