Law Commons^™

Conflict In The Court? Supreme Court Recusal From Marbury To The Modern Day, James Sample

James Sample

For justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, controversies pitting personal conflicts ¬¬— whether actual or merely alleged — against the constitutional commitment to the rule of law increasingly form the basis of a caustic and circular national dialogue that generates substantially more heat than light. While the profile of these controversies is undoubtedly waxing, the underlying tensions stretch back at least to Marbury v. Madison. For all its seminal import, in Marbury, Chief Justice John Marshall adjudicated a case involving, inter alia, the validity of judicial commissions Marshall had himself signed and sealed while serving simultaneously as the outgoing Secretary …

Protecting The Government's Obligations: The Public Debt Clause And The President's Duty To Disregard The Statutory Debt Limit, Jacob D. Charles

Jacob D. Charles

The statutory debt limit restricts the amount of funds that can be borrowed to meet the government’s obligations. The Fourteenth Amendment’s Public Debt Clause mandates that all the government’s legally authorized obligations be met. This Article argues that the Clause protects these obligations from actions that create “substantial doubt” about their validity, including actions short of default or repudiation. The Article proposes a test to determine substantial doubt that analyzes (1) the political and economic environment at the time of the government’s actions, and (2) the subjective apprehension exhibited by debtholders. Applying this test, the Article argues that Congress’s actions …

Equality Qua Equality: A Comparative Critique Of The Tiers Of U.S. Equal Protection Doctrine, Lorenzo Di Silvio

Lorenzo Di Silvio

On February 23, 2011, the Obama Administration announced that it would no longer defend the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. Of great significance in this announcement was the Administration’s position that classifications on the basis of sexual orientation warrant heightened judicial scrutiny. Notwithstanding this announcement, the level of review applied to sexual-orientation classifications—and the manner in which a court determines whether a particular type of classification deserves more searching review—is an open question, the answer to which typically dictates the outcome of challenges to government classifications. Apart from this outcome determinativeness, affording heightened scrutiny to some classifications but …

The Supreme Court's Understanding Of The Sex-Gender Distinction, Brett Hammon

Brett Hammon

No abstract provided.

Is This The End Of The Second Reconstruction?, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

No abstract provided.

To Testify Or Not To Testify: The Dilemma Facing Children With Multiple Cases Before The Same Judge In Delinquency Court., Katherine I. Puzone

Katherine I. Puzone

In Juvenile Court, children often have more than one case pending, especially children living in group foster homes and those at alternative schools. In many jurisdictions, all of a child’s cases are assigned to the same judge. If the child is arrested at a later time, the new case is also assigned to the same judge. That means that if a child exercises her right to go to trial in each case, the same judge will hear every case. If they are set for trial on the same day, and they often are, the judge will hear each case in …

Beyond Law Enforcement: Camreta V. Greene, Child Protection Investigations, And The Need To Reform The Fourth Amendment Special Needs Doctrine, Josh Gupta-Kagan

Josh Gupta-Kagan

The Fourth Amendment “special needs” doctrine distinguishes between searches and seizures that serve the “normal need for law enforcement” and those that serve some other “special need,” excusing non-law enforcement searches and seizures from the warrant and probable cause requirements. The Supreme Court has never justified drawing this bright line exclusively around law enforcement searches and seizures but not those that threaten important non-criminal constitutional rights.

Child protection investigations illustrate the problem: Millions of times each year, state child protection authorities search families’ homes, and seize children for interviews about alleged maltreatment. Only a minority of these investigations involve an …

Surviving Castle Rock: An International Symbol For Human Rights Violations In The United States, Max D. Siegel

Max D Siegel

In 2005, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales and held that Jessica Gonzales did not have a constitutional right to police enforcement of a restraining order. The decision highlighted the Court’s reluctance to recognize citizens’ affirmative rights, fortifying a deeply ingrained conceptualization of the Constitution of the United States as a “Negative Constitution” that creates a government with restraints on its actions and extremely limited obligations to its citizens. In August 2011, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights released a report publicizing its finding that by failing to take affirmative measures to …

No State Actor Left Behind: Rethinking Section 1983 Liability In The Context Of Disciplinary Alternative Schools And Beyond, Emily Chiang

Emily Chiang

In an era in which seemingly no institutions are immune from privatization, determining the boundaries of state action has never been more important. This Article seeks to clarify the doctrine of state action as applied to publicly-funded, privately-run institutions serving individuals involuntarily placed there by the state. It does so by using disciplinary alternative schools as a classic example of one such institution, wherein the individuals served have constitutional rights that are both particularly vulnerable to infringement and which cannot be vindicated without a finding of state action. In particular, the Article (1) introduces the phenomena of disciplinary alternative schools …