Law Commons^™

Applying Citizens United To Ordinary Corruption: With A Note On Blagojevich, Mcdonnell, And The Criminalization Of Politics, George D. Brown

Notre Dame Law Review

Federal criminal law frequently deals with the problem of corruption in the form of purchased political influence. There appear to be two distinct bodies of federal anticorruption law: one concerning constitutional issues in the prevention of corruption through campaign finance regulation, and one addressing corruption in the form of such crimes as bribery, extortion by public officials, and gratuities to them. The latter body of law primarily presents issues of statutory construction, but it may be desirable for courts approaching these issues to have an animating theory of what corruption is and how to deal with it. At the moment, …

Judicial Candor And Extralegal Reasoning: Why Extralegal Reasons Require Legal Justifications (And No More), Eric Dean Hageman

Notre Dame Law Review

This Note’s first Part explores two landmark Supreme Court cases, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey and NFIB, that may have been decided based on extralegal considerations. Part II describes three prominent theories of judicial candor with an eye to the results they might yield with respect to extralegal reasoning. Part III offers and defends a new, partial theory of judicial candor. This theory is that a judge who employs extralegal reasoning should omit discussion of her reliance on that reasoning and justify her decision with legal reasoning.

The first two Parts will demonstrate that there is a …