Law Commons^™

Judges Of Color: Examining The Impact Of Judicial Diversity In The Equal Protection Jurisprudence Of The United States Court Of Appeals For The Ninth Circuit, Kristine L. Avena

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

From slavery to civil rights to affirmative action, America’s history has been plagued with the issue of race. The federal bench is no exception. For almost two centuries, the highest court of the nation did not represent the public that it served. This Note aims to determine how the presence of minority judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit impacts Equal Protection doctrine. This Note shows that a Ninth Circuit judge’s race is important in providing procedural and substantive contributions to the federal bench. Diverse judges use their life experiences to ensure that every person …

Separating Fact From Fiction: The First Amendment Case For Addressing “Fake News” On Social Media, Michael K. Park

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

“Fake news” or disinformation that appropriates the look and feel of real news stories continues to spread across social networks, suppressing informed dialogue and sowing civil discord. After revelations that influential media websites like Facebook and Twitter were used to spread fake news during the 2016 presidential election, these companies vowed to take remedial action, but have failed to contain the spread of fake news. This essay makes the case that First Amendment principles mandate that the government has a duty to preserve democratic deliberation and democratic decision-making institutions, even if that means overriding private interests. It explores some prospective …

The Unofficial Federal Officer, Megan M. Mclaughlin

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

Most people can state who the first lady is, but no one can clearly explain what the first lady is. This silence, which stretches across all three branches of government, speaks volumes and leaves the first lady’s official constitutional status as an open question. Most discussions of this matter arose during the Clinton presidency in the context of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s role in her husband’s administration. The few legal academics who touched on the topic then have not revisited it despite the changing political and social landscape. This paper explores how the evolution of first ladies has made the legal …

The Putative Problem Of Pestersome Paupers: A Critique Of The Supreme Court’S Increasing Exercise Of Its Power To Bar The Courthouse Doors Against In Forma Pauperis Petitioners, Jared S. Sunshine

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

The Supreme Court has increasingly adopted the practice of categorically and prospectively barring its more prolific petitioners from proceeding in forma pauperis—that is, without paying a filing fee. The optics of closing the courtroom doors to those who cannot afford to pay are not particularly seemly; nonetheless, the Court has persevered in and expanded this practice dramatically over the years. In the beginning, however, the Court grappled thoughtfully with the wisdom of this practice in a series of disputatious decisions. The article revisits these arguments in light of American tradition and legal precedent of unfettered access to the courts and …

The Outrageous Government Conduct Defense: An Interpretive Argument For Its Application By Scotus, Eve A. Zelinger

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the Due Process Clause protects defendants from Outrageous Government Conduct (“OGC”) via the OGC defense, but the Court has not yet been presented with a set of facts it believes warrants its application. As a result, the Court has not set forth such criteria for application of the OGC defense, leaving the lower courts to apply their own standards. While some critics contend there is no use for the OGC defense due to the availability of the entrapment defense, this Note will uncover why this is not the case. More specifically, this Note …

The President’S Role In The Administrative State: Rejecting The Illusion Of “Political Accountability”, Kevin Bohm

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

Direct presidential control of executive agencies is a contentious issue in administrative law. This note first presents an overview of Constitutional basics, before exploring the unique twist on traditional presidential control theories that now-Justice Elena Kagan proposed in her 2001 article “Presidential Administration.” Kagan’s justification for enhanced presidential control rests a novel statutory interpretation perspective and the notion that the President is uniquely qualified to impose his will on agency decision-making as he is politically accountable to the American electorate at-large. This note highlights the criticisms, from other prominent academics in the field, of relying on political accountability to justify …

No “Market” For Truth: The Weaknesses Of Free Speech-Based Defenses To Credit Rating Industry Liability, Andy Carr

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

Credit rating agencies are essential components of the global financial systems. The major CRAs primarily serve the financial systems as “gatekeepers,” in that their ratings determine whether a financial instrument is “investment grade” under federal and state laws, and as information-facilitators for the complicated instruments being bought and sold within the system. Because of their systemic significance, CRAs faced especially harsh scrutiny in the aftermath of the financial crisis and Great Recession a decade ago. Initial public scrutiny was followed by waves of litigation which resurfaced long-dormant questions about the CRAs’ exposure to liability and decades-old defenses of their rating …

Preface: Hate Speech Laws In Japan In Comparative Perspectives, Setsuo Miyazawa

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Emoluments, Zones Of Interests, And Political Questions: A Cautionary Tale, Jed Handelsman Shugerman, Gautham Rao

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

As the Supreme Court addresses partisan gerrymanders in 2018, the "political question" doctrine is facing intense scrutiny. Will the Court tackle the problem or punt once again? It turns out that other high-profile cases in the lower courts offer a perspective on the political question doctrine. The Emoluments cases offer a cautionary tale about the use of the political question doctrine, and how the political question doctrine is too often an unconsciously tempting escape forjudges facing challenging legal questions.

The dismissal by the Southern District of New York in CREW v. Trump avoided reaching the merits of the emoluments claims …

Freedom Of Speech Remains Superior To All Other Alternatives, David L. Faigman

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

No abstract provided.

And Yet It Moves - The First Amendment And Certainty, Ronald K. L. Collins

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

Few works on the First Amendment have explored the relation between free speech and certainty. While this relationship is inherent in much free speech theory and doctrine, its treatment has nonetheless been rather opaque. This Essay teases outphilosophically, textually, and operationally-the significance of that relationship and what it means for our First Amendment jurisprudence. This Essay examines how the First Amendment operates to counter claims of certainty and likewise how it is employed to demand a degree of certainty from those who wish to cabin free speech rights. This Essay argues that many free speech theories (from Milton to Meiklejohn …

Speech On Campus: How America's Crisis In Confidence Is Eroding Free Speech Values, Joseph Russomanno

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

Speech on America's university and college campuses has been a long-time issue, from classrooms to open spaces, from efforts to protect students to approaches toward invited speakers. These issues especially surfaced in the early twenty-first century, and predominantly in response to invited speakers. Several incidents in early 2017-some involving violent protests-moved these issues into an analytical spotlight. This Article examines efforts to silence controversial oncampus speakers. It does so first through the lens of free speech doctrine and how it addresses this development. Second, this Article seeks to explain this increasing intolerance for the expression of ideas: an escalating crisis …

Certainty And The Censor's Dilemma, Robert Corn-Revere

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

In a free society the censor never has the moral high ground. This fact rests uneasily with one of the primary qualities of the censor-certainty. It's right there in the job description. As Justice Anthony Kennedy has written, "[s]elf-assurance has always been the hallmark of a censor." Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes captured the ethos of censorship nearly a century ago in his famous Abrams v. United States dissent: "Persecution for the expression of opinions seems to me perfectly logical. If you have no doubt of your premises or your power and want a certain result with all your heart …

Clash Of The First And Second Amendments: Proposed Regulation Of Armed Protests, Katlyn E. Deboer

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

The United States has strayed far from its traditional use of citizen militias to demand freedom from the British and has taken a deep dive into a practice of flaunting weapons at political protests as a display of bravado to provoke fear, chill opposition, and reap media attention. The recent "Unite The Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and its resulting violent pandemonium brought the issue of open carry protests to the forefront of public discourse. Armed protesters cling to their First and Second Amendment rights as shields to justify the semiautomatic firearms slung about their backs, but is this faith …

Reviving The Voting Rights Act Post-Shelby County: A New Standard For Vote Denial And Voter Id Law Analysis Under Section Two, Elizabeth Cermak

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

Since the United States Supreme Court struck down section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act ("VRA") and effectively disabled its section 5 enforcement provision in Shelby County v. Holder, States across the country have passed and updated election laws with far less accountability than during the pre-Shelby era. Among the most controversial are "voter ID" laws, which require voters to present identification before casting a ballot. Prior to 2013, section 5 of the VRA had been used to challenge these laws in federal proceedings in Texas, Florida, South Carolina, and New Hampshire. The combined decisions of Shelby and Crawford v. …

Federalism Friction In The First Year Of The Trump Presidency, Vikram David Amar

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

Over the last twelve months or so, federalism principles have been repeatedly invoked by state and local governments in a range of lawsuits and legislative proposals seeking to block or temper federal policy initiatives emanating from the new Administration of President Donald Trump. In this essay, I hope to sketch out a few of the more high-profile federalism flashpoints that have emerged over the past year or so, and offer some preliminary assessments of some of the decisions that lower courts (and legislative bodies) have been rendering in some of them. I try to highlight areas of agreement and areas …

Jeopardizing Their Communities, Their Safety, And Their Lives: Forced Concealed Carry Reciprocity's Threat To Federalism, Hannah E. Shearer

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

The Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act (H.R. 38) is a gun bill that would force each state to recognize and enforce the concealed carry laws of every other state. State laws governing the concealed carry of firearms vary widely in how effectively they screen out reckless or unlawful gun carriers. Weaker state laws let more people carry with fewer background checks or other restrictions, and H.R. 38 would extend the geographic scope of the weakest concealed carry laws in the nation, without requiring that Congress actually adopt a weak national standard. This Essay argues that forced reciprocity violates the division of …

Striking The Right Balance: Hate Speech Laws In Japan, The United States, And Canada, Craig Martin

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

This Article engages in a comparative examination of three different approaches to finding the right balance between legal limits on hate speech and the right to freedom of expression. The Japanese and American systems have struggled to find both a sufficiently important purpose to justify hate speech laws, or an appropriate limiting principle to narrow their scope. Neither system views hate speech laws as implicating equal protection rights, and so the balance is heavily in favor of freedom of speech. The American doctrine views hate speech laws as justifiable only if they can come within other ill-fitting categories of lesser-protected …

The History Of Japanese Racism, Japanese American Redress, And The Dangers Associated With Government Regulation Of Hate Speech, Hiroshi Fukurai, Alice Yang

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

This Article analyzes the historical roots of the Japanese government's rhetoric of racial supremacy that merged with nationalist agendas to rationalize and promote Japanese colonial aggression, military ventures, and brutal rule in Asia in the first half of the twentieth century. Next, this Article examines the movement in the U.S. to obtain redress for Japanese Americans who suffered mass removal and incarceration during World War II. This Article explores why grassroots activism and political lobbying succeeded in obtaining the passage of American redress legislation in 1988 and the possible lessons of this campaign for other victims of government policies. Finally, …

Hating Hate Speech: Why Current First Amendment Doctrine Does Not Condemn A Careful Ban, Rory K. Little

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

In the wake of the 2017 Charlottesville protests and the recent revival of "white supremacy" rallies, some constitutional scholars have asserted once again that a "hate speech ban" is unconstitutional under the First Amendment. There are certainly strong policy and historical arguments to oppose such a ban, although the Supreme Court upheld such a ban in 1942 and has never overruled that precedent. The doctrinal objection to such a ban is based on a restrictive adoption of Brandenburg v. Ohio, and a failure to fully explicate the alternative ground for prohibition found in the Supreme Court's repeated definition of "fighting …

Proceed With Caution: Hate Speech Regulation In Japan, Junko Kotani

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

The Diet of Japan enacted the Hate Speech Elimination Act in 2016 amid heated debates over the appropriate role that the government should play in confronting the vulgar racist hate speech that had been permeating the country. The Act, however, does not criminalize or make illegal hate speech and is thus criticized by Professor Craig Martin. This Article argues that while the principles of freedom of speech under the Constitution of Japan may tolerate criminalization of narrowly defined hate speech, one should be cautious in advocating for immediate criminalization of racist hate speech in the country. This Article provides an …

Illuminating The Dark Act, Samantha Ricci

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

Labeling is a primary method of providing information about food such as the production, ingredients, and nutrition facts-but what happens when labels become less accessible? This Note explores the justice implications of the first genetically modified organism (GMO) labeling bill, The Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act, or known to opponents as The DARK Act (Denying Americans the Right to Know). This Act allows for a "QR" code, website, or 1-800 number to constitute a label for GMO labeling requirements. This Act discriminates against 100 million Americans who do not own smart phones or have access to Wi-Fi or data, …

The President's Constitutional Responsibility To Confront Climate Change And Invest In Renewable Energy For National Security, Bishop Garrison

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

Climate change is having a direct effect on the United States as well as the rest of the world. The national security community has long identified climate change as an ongoing security threat. For decades, plans of action have been established to address it, but the issue is still treated from a more partisan space than with the heft of a danger with lasting consequences. If national security leaders have deemed it a hazard, it follows that the leader of the Free World-the president of the United States-has a duty under the U.S. Constitution to protect against such a threat. …

Constitutionally Compromised Democracy: The United States District Clause, Its Historical Significance, And Modern Repercussions, Bradley Raboin

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

The United States is widely considered the most prominent example of the modem democratic state. Yet, America's most prolific historical document remains imbued with a seemingly impossible contradiction. The District of Columbia, the Constitutionally mandated territory housing the federal government and serving as the literal epicenter of American democracy, does not actually provide representation to citizens living in that district. Incredibly, the very place created to house a government "for the people, of the people, and by the people," does not even allow the people residing therein to partake in that government.

This Article examines this Constitutional conflict within American …

Sex Offender Regulations And The Rule Of Law: When Civil Regulatory Schemes Circumvent The Constitution, Ryan W. Porte

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

The U.S. Supreme Court last decided the issue of whether post-incarceration sex offender regulations constituted punishment or nonpunitive regulations over twenty years ago. In coming to its conclusion, the Supreme Court assessed the regulations as they were written in the 1990s and the early 2000s and maintained the assumption that offenders constituted a greater danger to the public than other classes of criminals. In 2018, post-incarceration sex offender regulations are far more restrictive than they were two decades ago and scientific studies tend to refute the public belief that sex offenders are more recidivistic than other criminals. Recognizing this, some …

How The Lone Star State's Refusal To Expand Medicaid Is Leaving Pregnant Women More Alone Than Ever, Naomi Strauss

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

Texas's maternal mortality rates are alarmingly high, reflecting a larger trend across the United States. By analyzing structural and social factors, this Note suggests that increasingly restrictive access to family planning and women's health clinics across Texas has contributed to this public health crisis. Further complicating matters, the limited availability of quality maternal health data makes it hard to disentangle causes and effects. In order to correct this disturbing trend which stands in stark contrast to the rest of the developed world-states should expand Medicaid coverage and access to services for all. California, for example, has implemented programs, which have …

Rluipa And Method-Of-Execution Claims After Glossip: The Free Exercise Exception To Glossip's Known-And-Available Alternative Requirement, Griffin Estes

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

Since the Court's decision in Glossip v. Gross, a capital inmate has the burden of proposing an alternative method-of-execution to be administered in lieu of the statutorily proscribed method if the inmate believes that the method-of-execution to be used in their execution would violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on "cruel and unusual punishments." Many inmates have specific religious beliefs and it is possible that a condemned inmate might have a religious objection to capital punishment. The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act ("RLUIPA") represents Congress's sensitivity toward the religious liberties of inmates. This Note applies the RLUIPA framework to …