Law Commons^™

Special Report - Federal Criminal Code Revision: Some Problems With Culpability Provisions, Paul F. Rothstein

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The age of federal codification is upon us. The Federal Rules of Evidence and the new bankruptcy and copyright revisions are but examples. By far the most ambitious undertaking in this regard is the effort to recodify federal criminal law.

The federal criminal code project, spanning more than a decade was most recently embodied in the last Congress in S. 1437, which passed the Senate, and H.R. 13959, which competed in the House with S. 1437. Neither bill passed the House. Thus, the Congress closed without a new Code. But both the bills will be back with us, introduced with …

Congressional Control Of Administrative Regulation: A Study Of Legislative Vetoes, Harold H. Bruff, Ernest Gellhorn

Publications

Several administrative programs contain provisions allowing Congress to veto agency rules, and there is now a bill before Congress to extend this veto power to all agency rulemaking. In this Article, Professor Bruff and Dean Gellhorn analyze the histories of five federal programs subject to the legislative veto to determine the effect of the veto on the rulemaking process and on the relationships between the branches of government. Extrapolating from this practical experience, they suggest that a general legislative veto is unlikely to increase the overall efficiency of the administrative process, may impede the achievement of reasoned decisionmaking based on …

Congressional Power Under The Appointments Clause After Buckley V. Valeo, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note examines the constitutional power of Congress to control the selection of government officers. It first discusses the article II grant itself and concludes that the Court in Buckley correctly interpreted that provision to prohibit direct appointment by Congress of officers who are found to possess "significant authority." The Note then explores possible means not explicitly foreclosed in Buckley by which Congress might influence such appointments and argues that these alternatives are restricted by the same constitutional principles that prohibit direct congressional appointments.

Congressional Control Of Agency Privilege, Mark A. Luscombe

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This note seeks to provide an introductory and largely historical analysis of "agency privilege:" the refusal of federal executive officials to furnish information and documents to congressional bodies absent the invocation of a claim of privilege by the President. After a brief survey of the origins of agency privilege in part I, the history and nature of the competing interests of congressional investigations and autonomy of executive departments and agencies will be discussed in part II. Part III explores the constitutional basis of the claim and analyzes other justifications proffered in specific circumstances. Part IV weighs the merits of various …

Congressional Immunity: A Criticism Of Exisiting Distinctions And A Proposal For A New Definitional Approach, X. L. Suarez

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Separation Of Powers: Congrssional Riders And The Veto Power, Richard A. Riggs

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

It has been suggested that in order to avoid this potential crisis statutory authority to veto nongermane riders be granted to the President. One author has contended that no such statute is needed, that the President presently has such power under Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution. On the other hand, bills have been introduced in both houses of Congress which might have specifically denied that power to the President. This article examines whether there is any constitutional ground on which the President could take the unprecedented action of separately vetoing congressional riders.

Policing The Executive Privilege, Keith Borman

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In response to the increasing number of confrontations over the use of the executive privilege, Senator William Fulbright has placed before the Senate a bill designed to avoid the confusion that now exacerbates the tension between the legislative and executive branches of government. This relatively uncomplicated bill defines procedures for the assertion of the executive privilege and provides sanctions to be imposed when these procedures are abused or ignored. This note reviews the nature of the controversy between the two branches of government which has contributed to the introduction of the proposed legislation, and then proceeds to examine the provisions …

Recent Developments, Various Editors

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Williams V. Florida: End Of A Theory - Part I, O. John Roger

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Williams V. Florida: End Of A Theory - Part Ii, O. John Rogge

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Comment On Powell V. Mccormack, Terrance Sandalow

Articles

The rapid pace of constitutional change during the past decade has blunted our capacity for surprise at Supreme Court decisions. Nevertheless, Powell v. McCormack is a surprising decision. Avoidance of politically explosive controversies was not one of the most notable characteristics of the Warren Court. And yet, it is one thing for the Court to do battle with the Congress in the service of important practical ends or when the necessity of doing so is thrust upon it by the need to discharge its traditional responsibilities. It is quite another to tilt at windmills, especially at a time when the …

The Constitution, Congress, And Presidential Elections, Albert J. Rosenthal

Michigan Law Review

It has been recommended by a prestigious commission of the American Bar Association and endorsed by the ABA's House of Delegates. The Bar Association of the City of New York, which had previously recommended a different proposed amendment, has now shifted its support to direct popular vote, as has Senator Birch Bayh, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. A Gallup poll indicates that 66 per cent of the nation supports this amendment, with only 19 per cent opposed.

It must be remembered, however, that a decision to amend the Constitution is, as …

Toward The Techno-Corporate State - An Essay In American Constitutionalsim, Arthur Selwyn Miller

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Some Doubts Concerning The Proposal To Elect The President By Direct Popular Vote, Albert J. Rosenthal

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Release Of Government-Owned Technical Data Under The Freedom Of Information Law: Between Scylla And Charybdis, James A. Dobkin

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Free Will In The Frontiers Of Federalism, John R. Brown

Michigan Law Review

In an assembly dedicated, as this one is, to frontiers in law and legal education in celebration of the centennial of this great Law School and forecasting what is to be expected in the next one hundred years, the idea of states' rights-of the federal-state relationship-has seemed almost ironic.

Self-Incrimination And Congressional Investigations, E. G. Trimble

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Congress, The Constitution And Crosskey, James A. Durham

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Federal Control Of Health And Safety Standards In Peacetime Private Atomic Energy Activities, Samuel D. Estep

Michigan Law Review

This article is directed to the question of the power of Congress to provide for such regulation of those who handle radioactive materials in private industry and not to the policy question of whether Congress ought to attempt such regulation.

Constitutional Law - Congressional Powers - Validity Of The 1951 Gamblers' Occupation Tax Act, James W. Callison S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

The Revenue Act of 1951 levied a tax on persons engaged in the business of accepting wagers, requiring such persons to register their names and places of business and residence with the Collector of Internal Revenue. The act also required the disclosure of the name and address of each person receiving wagers for the registrant, or, if the registrant himself received wagers for another, the name of that person. Violations of the act were punishable by fine and imprisonment. Defendant was indicted for willful failure to register and pay the tax. The district court granted defendant's motion to dismiss on …

Defense Of The Old Court And A Plea For Some Certainty In The Law, Douglas Mckay Sr.

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Congressional Silence: A Tool Of Judicial Supremacy, Frank Edward Horack Jr.

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Amending Of The Federal Constitution, Lester Bernhardt Orfield

Michigan Legal Studies Series

MOST treatises on constitutional law dispose of the federal amending clause in summary fashion. The commentators have thought fit to stress chiefly the division of authority between the federal government and the states. They have attached a high degree of significance to the dogma of separation of powers. A great deal of attention has been devoted to the doctrines of judicial review, the supremacy of the Federal Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. The taxation and the commerce clauses have come in for their full share of consideration. In recent years extensive studies have been made of the due process …

The Newberry Case, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

Senator Newberry of Michigan and sixteen others were convicted in the United States District Court on the charge that they "unlawfully and feloniously did conspire, combine, confederate, and agree together to commit the offense [in the Newberry indictment] on his part of wilfully violating the act of Congress approved June 25, 1910, as amended, by giving, contributing, expending, and using and by causing to be given, contributed, expended and used in procuring his nomination and election at said primary and general elections, a greater sum than the laws of Michigan permitted and above ten thousand dollars," etc. The Act of …

Power Of Congress To Declare Peace, Edward S. Corwin

Michigan Law Review

In the course of the discussion which has been aroused in Congress by the proposal to declare hostilities with Germany at an end by joint resolution, Senator Thomas of Colorado has brought forward evidence showing that on one occasion the Convention which framed the Constitution voted down unanimously a motion to vest Congress with the power to "make peace." This evidence is good so far as it goes, but it does not support all of Senator Thomas's deductions from it, nor indeed has he given an altogether complete account of it. The proposal in question was made and rejected by …

Child Labor Law Case, Commerce Power Of Congress And Reserved Powers Of The States, Henry M. Bates

Articles

The decision in the Child Labor Law case, Hammer v. Dagenhart, - U. S. -, 62 L. ed. -, decided June 3, 1918, would have caused much less surprise twenty-five years ago than it did when announced last June, for it is based upon two constitutional provisions concerning which the much wider and more varied experience of the last quarter century had developed theories, better defined and sounder than those of the earlier period. Those two provisions are the Tenth Amendment regarding the powers reserved to the States and the Commerce Clause. There has been an astonishing amount of faulty …

Marbury V Madison And The Doctrine Of Judical Review, Edward S. Corwin

Michigan Law Review

What is the exact legal basis of the power of the Supreme Court to pass upon the constitutionality of acts of Congress? Recent literature on the subject reveals a considerable variety of opinion. There are radicals who hold that the power owes its existence to an act of sheer usurpation by the Supreme Court itself, in the decision of Marbury v. Madison. There are conservatives who point to clauses of the Constitution which, they assure us, specifically confer the power. There are legists who refuse to go back of Marbury v. Madison, content in the ratification which, they assert, subsequent …

The Corporation Tax Decision, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

Seldom, if ever, in the history of the country has the Supreme Court been called upon within a comparatively short period of time to decide so many questions of widespread interest and vital importance as has been the case during the last year or two. Attempts on the part of the state and national governments to regulate and control corporations, which in recent years have come to exercise such a large and not always wholesome influence upon affairs generally, have been the occasion for the consideration by the court of many of the important cases recently presented. Among these are …

The Constitutionality Of The Federal Corporation Tax, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

During the special session of Congress held the past summer there was enacted as an amendment to the new Tariff Law what is generally known as the Federal Corporation Tax.1 At the time of its consideration in Congress and since its enactment there has been considerable discussion regarding the constitutionality of the measure, and no little doubt has been expressed as to its validity.

Presidential Inability, Thomas M. Cooley

Articles

The protracted illness of President Garfield led to much discussion and a variety of opinions as to what constitutes a disability in the Presidential office which will justify the Vice-president in assuming its duties.