Law Commons^™

The Complexities Of Conscience: Reconciling Death Penalty L Aw With Capital Jurors’ Concerns, Meredith Martin Rountree, Mary R. Rose

Buffalo Law Review

Jurors exercise unique legal power when they are asked to decide whether to sentence someone to death. The Supreme Court emphasizes the central role of the jury’s moral judgment in making this sentencing decision, noting that it is the jurors who are best able to “express the conscience of the community on the ultimate question of life or death.” Manylower courts nevertheless narrow the range of admissible evidence at the mitigation phase of a capital trial, insisting on a standard of legal relevance that interferes with the jury’s ability to exercise the very moral judgment the Supreme Court has deemed …

Federalism And The Limits Of Subnational Political Heterogeneity, James A. Gardner

Journal Articles

With an epidemic of democratic backsliding now afflicting many of the world’s democracies, including the United States, some scholars have suggested that federalism might serve as a useful defense for liberal democracy by impeding the ability of an authoritarian central government to stamp it out at the subnational level. In this Essay, I dispute that contention. An examination of both federal theory on one hand and the behavior and tactics of central control employed by ancient and early modern empires on the other leads to the conclusion that the protective value of federalism against the effects of national authoritarianism is …

The Illiberalization Of American Election Law: A Study In Democratic Deconsolidation, James A. Gardner

Journal Articles

For many years, the dominant view among American election law scholars has been that the U.S. Supreme Court’s constitutional jurisprudence of democratic practice got off to a promising start during the mid-twentieth century but has since then slowly deteriorated into incoherence. In light of the United States’ recent turn toward populist authoritarianism, that view needs to be substantially revised. With the benefit of hindsight, it now appears that the Supreme Court has functioned, in its management of the constitutional jurisprudence of democracy, as a vector of infection—a kind of super-spreader of populist authoritarianism.

There is, sadly, nothing unusual these days …

Solidarity As A Constitutional Value, Tamar Hostovsky Brandes

Buffalo Human Rights Law Review

No abstract provided.

Subnational Constitutionalism In The United States: Powerful States In A Powerful Federation, James A. Gardner

Contributions to Books

Published as Chapter 19 in Routledge Handbook of Subnational Constitutions and Constitutionalism, Patricia Popelier, Nicholas Aroney & Giacomo Delledonne, eds.

The United States has an extremely robust network of subnational constitutions. It is one of the few federations in the world in which subnational entities are understood to be fully competent polities with virtually complete constituent powers of self-organization and self-authorization. The authority to adopt a subnational constitution is consequently understood to be an incident of subnational sovereignty, a concept in turn derived from a conception of the basic federal order itself as highly decentralized.

Lake Erie Bill Of Rights Struck Down: Why The Rights Of Nature Movement Is A Nonviable Legislative Strategy For Municipalities Plagued By Pollution, Kathleen M. Mannard

Buffalo Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

One Man’S Trash: Constitutional Principles Of Federalism And Privacy Implicated In San Francisco’S Mandatory Recycling Ordinance And Future Similar Legislation, J. Tyler Smith

Buffalo Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Temporary Eminent Domain, Amnon Lehavi

Buffalo Law Review

Times of emergency call for drastic measures. These steps may include the physical takeover of privately-owned assets by the government for a certain period of time and for various purposes, aimedat addressing the state of emergency. When will such acts amount to a taking, and what compensation should be paid to the property owner? How do temporary physical appropriations during times of emergencydiverge, if at all, from temporary takeovers in more ordinary times?

The doctrinal and theoretical analysis of potential temporary takings has been done mostly in the context of non-physical government intervention with private property, such as when a …

Whither The Neutral Agency? Rethinking Bias In Regulatory Administration, Daniel B. Rodriguez

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Illiberalism And Authoritarianism In The American States, James A. Gardner

Journal Articles

Federalism contemplates subnational variation, but in the United States the nature and significance of that variation has long been contested. In light of the recent turn, globally and nationally, toward authoritarianism, and the concurrent sharp decline in public support not merely for democracy but for the philosophical liberalism on which democracy rests, it is necessary to discard or to substantially revise prior accounts of the nature of state-to-state variation in the U.S. All such accounts implicitly presuppose a common commitment, across the political spectrum, to the core tenets of democratic liberalism, and consequently that subnational variations in policy preferences and …