Law Commons^™

Progressive And Conservative Constitutionalism, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

American constitutional law in general, and fourteenth amendment jurisprudence in particular, is in a state of profound transformation. The "liberal-legalist" and purportedly politically neutral understanding of constitutional guarantees that dominated constitutional law and theory during the fifties, sixties, and seventies, is waning, both in the courts and in the academy. What is beginning to replace liberal legalism in the academy, and what has clearly replaced it on the Supreme Court, is a very different conception - a new paradigm - of the role of constitutionalism, constitutional adjudication, and constitutional guarantees in a democratic state. Unlike the liberal-legal paradigm it is …

Review Essay: Liberalism And The Supreme Court, Donald P. Kommers

Journal Articles

In Liberalism and American Constitutional Law, Rogers M. Smith of Yale University takes stock of the American liberal tradition and its impact on the Supreme Court's constitutional jurisprudence. It argues that the tradition's political vision lacks philosophical coherence and that our constitutional law, by reflecting this incoherence, has failed to provide the legal community with a public philosophy suited to the needs of American society in the late twentieth century.His goal is to demonstrate the superiority of "rational liberty," both as a philosophical theory and practical guide to constitutional policymaking, over three major competing versions of liberal constitutionalism. To wit: …

Error Correction, Lawmaking, And The Supreme Court’S Exercise Of Discretionary Review, Arthur D. Hellman

Articles

Controversies involving the United States Supreme Court generally center on the content of Court’s decisions, but in recent years, much attention has focused on the Court’s processes – in particular, two very different aspects of the Court’s modes of doing business. At one end of the spectrum, the number of cases receiving plenary consideration – full briefing, oral argument, and (almost invariably) a signed opinion – has shrunk to levels lower than any since the Civil War. At the other end, the Court has effectively resolved many high-profile disputes through unexplained orders granting or denying emergency relief in cases in …

The Business Of The Supreme Court Under The Judiciary Act Of 1925: The Plenary Docket In The 1970'S, Arthur D. Hellman

Articles

During the last decade, the Supreme Court has been deciding 65 to 70 cases a Term after oral argument. That represents a sharp decline from the 1970s and 1980s, the era of the Burger Court, when the Court was deciding about 150 cases a Term. The Burger Court’s docket, in turn, reflected a shift from the 1960s, when the docket was smaller. In short, what is “normal” for the plenary docket varies from one era to another. The period of the Burger Court retains a special interest in that regard because that was the only period after World War II …

Florida's Legislative Response To Furman: An Exercise In Futility?, Charles W. Ehrhardt, Harold Levinson

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Book Reviews, Robert H. Birkby, Elliot E. Cheatham

Vanderbilt Law Review

Law and Politics in the Supreme Court By Martin Shapiro New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1964. Pp. 333. $6.95.

reviewer: Robert H. Birkby

======================

Lives of the Lord Chancellors, 1885-1940 By R. F. V. Heuston Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964, Pp. xxiii, 632.

reviewer: Elliot E. Cheatham

The Reapportionment Cases: Cognitive Lag, The Malady And Its Cure, E. F. Roberts, Paul T. Shultz Iii

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The reapportionment cases have been considered by many to be the product of a liberal, activist Court which is endeavoring to reshape America’s political life according to its own views. The authors of this article assert that, to the contrary, the Court actually is reacting to the incontrovertible fact of the modern predominance of urban complexities which have rendered inappropriate our older political boundaries. In this sense, they consider the Court’s decisions conservative rather than liberal- because the Court’s purpose is to maintain a version of federalism along state boundaries which may have become outmoded even before the Court entered …

The Supreme Court, Politics, And Modern Society, Donald P. Kommers

Journal Articles

Donald P. Kommers reviews Charles S. Hyneman's The Supreme Court on Trial (New York: Atherton Press, 1963).

Congress And The Courts, Silas H. Strawn

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.