Law Commons^™

The Democratic Constitution: Reflections On Abortion, Affirmative Action, And The Independent Counsel, Neal Devins

Neal E. Devins

The annual St. George Tucker Lecture by Professor Neal Devins presented on October 7, 1998.

Supreme Court Preview 2014-2015: Moot Court, Neal Devins, Michael Scodro, Andrew Pincus, Joan Biskupic, Garrett Epps, Irving Gornstein, Tara Leigh Grove, Allison Orr Larsen, Dahlia Lithwick, Erin E. Murphy, David Savage, Richard Wolf

Tara L. Grove

No abstract provided.

Supreme Court Preview 2014-2015: First Amendment, Timothy Zick, Walter E. Dellinger Iii, Paul Smith, Dahlia Lithwick

Timothy Zick

No abstract provided.

Right Of The Occupiers, Jimmy Barrett, Timothy Zick

Timothy Zick

No abstract provided.

Supreme Court Preview 2014-2015: Criminal, Jeffrey Bellin, Beth Brinkman, Jeffrey Fisher, Gregory Garre, Kannon Shanmugam

Jeffrey Bellin

No abstract provided.

Think You Know A Lot About Our Constitution?, Jesse Rutledge, Allison Orr Larsen

Allison Orr Larsen

You may know that it was signed in Philadelphia in 1787, that the oldest signer was Benjamin Franklin and that it doesn’t include the word “democracy.” William & Mary Law Professor Allison Orr Larsen, an expert in constitutional law, can tell you a lot more about it. With Constitution Day (Sept. 17, 2018) upon us, Professor Larsen talks about the document’s strengths and weaknesses and its major misconceptions. And she discusses what she thinks will have to happen before it is amended again.

Supreme Court Preview 2014-2015: Moot Court, Neal Devins, Michael Scodro, Andrew Pincus, Joan Biskupic, Garrett Epps, Irving Gornstein, Tara Leigh Grove, Allison Orr Larsen, Dahlia Lithwick, Erin E. Murphy, David Savage, Richard Wolf

Allison Orr Larsen

No abstract provided.

Battering The Poor: How Georgia’S Mandatory Family Violence Classes Deny Indigent Defendants Equal Protection Of The Law, Whitney Scherck

Whitney Scherck

Thirty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court in Bearden v. Georgia held that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prevents a court from incarcerating an individual for failure to pay a fine unless it first inquires into their reasons for failing to do so and determines that the defendant willfully failed to make bona fide efforts to pay. However, recently, a new kind of legal debt has emerged. As states’ budgets tighten, so-called user fees are becoming an increasingly common way for legislatures to toughen the criminal justice system without having to come up with funding for it. …

Kill-Lists And Accountability, Gregory S. Mcneal

Gregory S. McNeal

This article is a comprehensive examination of the U.S. practice of targeted killings. It is based in part on field research, interviews, and previously unexamined government documents. The article fills a gap in the literature, which to date lacks sustained scholarly analysis of the accountability mechanisms associated with the targeted killing process. The article makes two major contributions: 1) it provides the first qualitative empirical accounting of the targeted killing process, beginning with the creation of kill-lists extending through the execution of targeted strikes; 2) it provides a robust analytical framework for assessing the accountability mechanisms associated with those processes. …

The Feud Between The Queen And The Diva: How A Property Dispute Underscores The Relevance Of A South Beach Gay Bar, Justin Karr

Justin Karr

The article recounts how the gay community was instrumental in the economic and cultural revival of South Beach as its known today. But, with the area currently experiencing a decline in gay tourism, the article suggests why the city is keen to observe the cultural and social benefit provided by a robust gay population. The article details the bar’s lobby of the local government for an expansion of its outdoor drag entertainment, despite the protests of the neighboring boutique hotel, which the bar asserts is homophobic intolerance of the shows’ gay theme.

The article discusses the importance that the modern …

Cybersecurity And Executive Power, David W. Opderbeck

David W. Opderbeck

The article analyzes the Constitutional authority of the U.S. President to shut down or limit public access to the Internet in a time of national emergency. The threats posed by cybercrime, cyberwarfare, and cyberterrorism are significant. It is imperative that national governments and international policymakers develop defenses and contingency plans for such attacks. At the same time, the threats to civil liberties posed by current legislative cybersecurity proposals are equally real. Executive power to disrupt Internet access in the name of security can become as potent a weapon against democracy as a hacker’s attempt to take down the power grid. …

Traditional Culture V. Westernization: On The Road Toward The Rule Of Law In China, Haiting Zhang

haiting zhang

Meaningful studies on China cannot ignore traditional Chinese culture and its influence in the country. A study of the rule of law of China is no exception. Generally speaking, China is not governed primarily by the rule of law. China has traditionally been an agrarian state—a characteristic that has historically fostered a strong family system. China’s agrarian nature also shaped traditional characteristics of Chinese culture in which rule of law is largely non-existent. Historically, the rule of man, a traditional Chinese value, has served as one of the major obstacles to China achieving legal modernization. Substantial legal westernization is an …

A New Clear And Present Danger: Security, Freedom And Ordered Liberty On The Home Front During The War Against Terrorism, Beau James Brock

Beau James Brock

Regardless of the foreign policy rationalizations for failing to respond to Osama Bin Laden’s declaration of war against the United States prior to September 11th, we are faced with a de facto state of war, for over a full decade now, that will require an ever vigilant and determined commitment in order to secure the domestic security of our land. The use of available technology to break through our opponents’ intelligence networks has been a vital instrument of victory in past wars and will be in this struggle we now face. But, where is the line marking appropriate federal action …

"Throwing Away The Key: An Examination Of New York's Sex Offender Civil Commitment Statute", Joseph E. Fahey

Joseph E Fahey

No abstract provided.

Renewing Intraparty Democracy: Assessing Competition, Deliberation, And Associational Rights Of Political Parties, Jonathan J. Thessin

Jonathan J Thessin

Among the many schools of thought on the design of political institutions are two particularly fashionable ones: competitive market theories and deliberative democracy theories. Competitive democrats argue for destabilizing the two-party system by enabling third parties to compete effectively; by contrast, deliberative democrats argue for more discussion before political decisions are made. Neither theory, however, pays sufficient attention to the internal character of parties. Oftentimes, dominant parties lock up political institutions and restrict meaningful discussion not only by imposing ballot restrictions on third parties but also by restricting access to party leadership.

This article argues for a shift away from …

Renewing Intraparty Democracy: Assessing Competition, Deliberation, And Associational Rights Of Political Parties, Jonathan J. Thessin

Jonathan J Thessin

Among the many schools of thought on the design of political institutions are two particularly fashionable ones: competitive market theories and deliberative democracy theories. Competitive democrats argue for destabilizing the two-party system by enabling third parties to compete effectively; by contrast, deliberative democrats argue for more discussion before political decisions are made. Neither theory, however, pays sufficient attention to the internal character of parties. Oftentimes, dominant parties lock up political institutions and restrict meaningful discussion not only by imposing ballot restrictions on third parties but also by restricting access to party leadership.

This article argues for a shift away from …

Overcoming Lochner In The Twenty-First Century: Taking Both Rights And Popular Sovereignty Seriously As We Seek To Secure Equal Citizenship And Promote The Public Good, Thomas B. Mcaffee

Thomas B. McAffee

Professor McAffee reviews substantive due process as the textual basis for modern fundamental rights constitutional decision-making. He contends that we should avoid both the undue literalism that rejects the idea of implied rights, as well as the attempt to substitute someone's preferred moral vision for the limits, and compromises, that are implicit in -- and intended by -- the Constitution's text. He argues, moreover, that we can largely harmonize the various goals of our constitutional system, by both taking rights seriously and by understanding that securing rights does not sum up, or exhaust, the Constitution's purposes.

In Their Own Image: The Reframing Of The Due Process Clause By The United States Supreme Court, J. Ralph Beaird

Scholarly Works

A distinguished constitutional scholar recently pointed out that "many of the important decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States are not based on law in the popular sense of that term." It is true, he noted, that "the court endeavors to identify Constitutional clauses upon which to hang its pronouncements." "[S]ome key words and phrases in the Constitution," however, "are so highly indeterminate that they cannot really qualify as law in any usual sense." Rather, he said, "they are semantic blanks--verbal vacuums that may be filled readily with any one of many possible meanings." Thus, it is not …