Law Commons^™

Boumediene V. Bush And The New Common Law Of Habeas, Baher Azmy

Baher Azmy

In Boumediene v. Bush, the Supreme Court issued yet another sharp rebuke of the Bush Administration’s wartime detention practices. In ruling that the protections of the Suspension Clause reach extraterritorially to Guantanamo (and perhaps beyond) and striking down the jurisdiction-stripping provision of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, the Court went significantly farther than had the triad of prior enemy combatant cases – Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, Rasul v. Bush and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. Indeed, for the first time in its history, the Court invalidated the collaborative efforts of the political branches during wartime.

In so doing, Boumediene elevated the judiciary …

Killing Capital Punishment In New Jersey: The First State In Modern History To Repeal Its Death Penalty Statute., Robert J. Martin

Robert J. Martin

This article examines how opponents of the death penalty were successful in lobbying and eventually achieving statutory repeal of New Jersey’s death penalty statute in December 2007. The primary goal of the article is to offer inspiration and guidance for similar efforts in the thirty-five states that still authorize capital punishment. In reviewing lessons learned from New Jersey, the article demonstrates that abolition proved both difficult and doubtful. Led by a small group of organizers and sympathetic legislators, the advocates of abolition faced multiple challenges. The article focuses special attention on their key strategic decisions: pursuit of both legislation and …

The Bridge Connecting Pontius Pilate's Sentencing Of Jesus To The New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission's Concerns Over Executing The Innocent: When Human Beings With Human Flaws Determine Guilt Or Innocence And Life Or Death, James B. Johnston

James B Johnston

No abstract provided.

Brandenburg In A Time Of Terror, Thomas Healy

Thomas Healy

No abstract provided.

Presidential Power In Comparative Perspective: The Puzzling Persistence Of Imperial Presidency In Post-Authoritarian Africa, Kwasi H. Prempeh

H. Kwasi Prempeh

One of the paradoxes of modern democratic government is the phenomenon of the chief executive who rules without regard to formal checks and balances. As democratic institutions and constitutional government have spread to regions of the world once dominated by authoritarian regimes, a longstanding feature of the ancien régime—the imperial presidency—has persisted. While constitutional scholars have shown a great deal of interest in new constitutional courts in the world’s newest democracies, the contemporaneous phenomenon of persistent imperial presidency has been largely ignored. Although relatively little attention has been paid to it in comparative constitutional discourse, Africa, too, has witnessed, since …

Presidential Power In Comparative Perspective: The Puzzling Persistence Of Imperial Presidency Of Post-Authoritarian Africa, H. Kwasi Prempeh

H. Kwasi Prempeh

ABSTRACT One of the paradoxes of modern democratic government is the phenomenon of the chief executive who rules without regard to formal checks and balances. As democratic institutions and constitutional government have spread to regions of the world once dominated by authoritarian regimes, a longstanding feature of the ancien régime—the imperial presidency—has persisted. While constitutional scholars have shown a great deal of interest in new constitutional courts in the world’s newest democracies, the contemporaneous phenomenon of persistent imperial presidency has been largely ignored. Although relatively little attention has been paid to it in comparative constitutional discourse, Africa, too, has witnessed, …