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Justice Sonia Sotomayor: The Court’S Premier Defender Of The Fourth Amendment, David L. Hudson Jr.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor: The Court’S Premier Defender Of The Fourth Amendment, David L. Hudson Jr.
Seattle University Law Review
This essay posits that Justice Sotomayor is the Court’s chief defender of the Fourth Amendment and the cherished values it protects. She has consistently defended Fourth Amendment freedoms—in majority, concurring, and especially in dissenting opinions. Part I recounts a few of her majority opinions in Fourth Amendment cases. Part II examines her concurring opinion in United States v. Jones. Part III examines several of her dissenting opinions in Fourth Amendment cases. A review of these opinions demonstrates what should be clear to any observer of the Supreme Court: Justice Sotomayor consistently defends Fourth Amendment principles and values.
Steps Toward Abolishing Capital Punishment: Incrementalism In The American Death Penalty, Melanie Kalmanson
Steps Toward Abolishing Capital Punishment: Incrementalism In The American Death Penalty, Melanie Kalmanson
William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal
While scholars seem united on the sentiment that abolition is the ultimate resting place for capital sentencing in the United States, their arguments vary as to how the system will reach that point. For example, Carol and Jordan Steiker argue that the systemic disarray of capital sentencing in the United States is a result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s attempt to constitutionalize capital sentencing. This Article contends that the U.S. Supreme Court’s constitutional jurisprudence that has developed since 1972, when the Court reset capital sentencing in Furman v. Georgia, has aided the Court in gradually narrowing capital punishment, as a …
Second Guessing Double Jeopardy: The Stare Decisis Factors As Proxy Tools For Original Correctness, Justin W. Aimonetti
Second Guessing Double Jeopardy: The Stare Decisis Factors As Proxy Tools For Original Correctness, Justin W. Aimonetti
William & Mary Law Review Online
In Gamble v. United States, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the 170-year-old dual-sovereignty doctrine. That doctrine permits both the federal and state governments—as “separate sovereigns”—to each prosecute a defendant for the same offense. Justice Thomas concurred with the majority opinion in Gamble, but wrote separately to reject the traditional stare decisis formulation. In particular, the factors the majority used to evaluate stare decisis, in his view, amount to nothing more than marbles placed subjectively on either side of the stare decisis balancing scale. He would have preferred, instead, an inquiry into whether the precedent was demonstrably erroneous as an original matter, …