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Articles 1 - 30 of 124
Full-Text Articles in Law
When Fines Don't Go Far Enough: The Failure Of Prison Settlements And Proposals For More Effective Enforcement Methods, Tori Collins
When Fines Don't Go Far Enough: The Failure Of Prison Settlements And Proposals For More Effective Enforcement Methods, Tori Collins
Maine Law Review
The Eighth Amendment’s Punishments Clause provides the basis on which prisoners may bring suit alleging unconstitutional conditions of confinement. Only a small number of these suits are successful. The suits that do survive typically end in a settlement in which prison authorities agree to address the unconstitutional conditions. However, settlements such as these are easily flouted for two primary reasons: prison authorities are not personally held liable when settlements are broken, and prisoners largely lack the political and practical leverage to self-advocate beyond the courtroom. Because of this, unconstitutional prison conditions may linger for years after prison authorities have agreed …
Five Times More Likely: Haaland V. Brackeen And What It Could Mean For Maine Tribes, Eloise Melcher
Five Times More Likely: Haaland V. Brackeen And What It Could Mean For Maine Tribes, Eloise Melcher
Maine Law Review
In the 1970s Native activists realized that states were removing Native children from their families at disproportional rates when compared to non-Native children. The activists pushed for the enactment of the Indian Child Welfare Act, which became law in 1978. The law increases the burden on states before Native children can be taken from their families. As part of a larger movement to attack the Equal Protection Clause in the courts, Haaland v. Brackeen reached the Supreme Court in 2022. The plaintiffs in Brackeen argue that the Indian Child Welfare Act is unconstitutional for a variety of reasons, including that …
Your Biometric Data Is Concrete, Your Injury Is Imminent And Particularized: Articulating A Bipa Claim To Survive Article Iii Standing After Transunion V. Ramirez, Kelsey L. Kenny
Maine Law Review
Biometric data is a digital translation of self which endures in its accuracy for one’s entire lifespan. As integral elements of modern life continue to transition their operations exclusively online, the verifiable “digital self” has become indispensable. The immutable and sensitive nature of biometric data makes it peculiarly vulnerable to misappropriation and abuse. Yet the most frightening is the unknown. For an individual who has had their digital extension-of-self covertly stolen or leaked, the dangers that lie in the technology of the future are innumerable. The Illinois legislature recognized the danger associated with the cavalier collection and handling of biometric …
Primacy In Theory And Application: Lessons From A Half-Century Of New Judicial Federalism, Catherine R. Connors, Connor Finch
Primacy In Theory And Application: Lessons From A Half-Century Of New Judicial Federalism, Catherine R. Connors, Connor Finch
Maine Law Review
In his 1977 article, State Constitutions and the Protection of Individual Rights, Justice Brennan famously reminded jurists that our governmental system includes two constitutions applicable to each state, and New Judicial Federalism was born. Since then, state courts have applied their own Bills of Rights using different approaches with varying degrees of enthusiasm. The primacy approach, requiring state courts to consider the state constitution first, and turning to the federal constitution only if needed to resolve the case, is theoretically optimal but inconsistently followed, even in the few jurisdictions professing to adopt that approach. This Article posits that the reason …
Constitutional Authority, Common Resources, And The Climate, Anthony L. Moffa
Constitutional Authority, Common Resources, And The Climate, Anthony L. Moffa
Faculty Publications
This work sets out to re-examine and challenge the history of the property clause with an eye towards increased congressional reliance on it in the face of daunting threats to our natural environment. No one could seriously question the primary motivations of the Framers, but that does not foreclose the importance of searching for secondary motivations that deepen our understanding of arguably the Constitution’s most explicitly environmental provision. Eugene Gaetke’s work in the 1980’s and Peter Appel’s work twenty years later laid the groundwork for the argument here by pushing back on the originalist argument for a narrow interpretation of …
A Case Against School Choice: Carson Ex Rel. O.C. V. Makin And The Future Of Maine's Nonsectarian Requirement, Blake E. Mccartney
A Case Against School Choice: Carson Ex Rel. O.C. V. Makin And The Future Of Maine's Nonsectarian Requirement, Blake E. Mccartney
Maine Law Review
School choice advocates, such as the nonprofit libertarian law firm, The Institute for Justice, have spent decades arguing that states violate the Free Exercise Clause when they exclude private religious schools from public programs that otherwise provide public dollars to non-religious private schools. Recently, in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, the Supreme Court effectively agreed with that sentiment. After this victory, the Institute for Justice returned to the state of Maine to represent three sets of parents in a renewed effort to defeat Maine’s nonsectarian requirement in federal court. Maine’s nonsectarian requirement provides that private religious schools may not …
National Security Rules: America's Constitution Of Law And War, Kyle L. Greene
National Security Rules: America's Constitution Of Law And War, Kyle L. Greene
Maine Law Review
Contemporary debates over the appropriate allocation of war powers between the political branches overemphasize the rigidity of the Constitution’s framework. This style of academic discussion sacrifices the lessons of practice in search of steadfast, yet empty, principles. Even beyond the practical failings of this approach, there is no constitutional basis for the notion that either Congress or the President has a singular, fixed role when dealing with national security issues. In fact, the Founders developed a constitutional structure capable of continually reshaping—within parameters—the government’s division of national security power to match the nation’s security challenges. Rather than scouring the constitutional …
A Venerable Bulwark: Reaffirming The Primacy Approach To Interpreting Maine's Free Exercise Clause, Joshua Dunlap
A Venerable Bulwark: Reaffirming The Primacy Approach To Interpreting Maine's Free Exercise Clause, Joshua Dunlap
Maine Law Review
Does the Maine Constitution afford guarantees for individual rights that are independent of those afforded by the United States Constitution? As set forth in Part I, the answer to this question is “yes.” Because state constitutions are a “font of individual liberties,” the Law Court has adopted the primacy approach to interpreting the 200-year-old Maine Constitution. Under this approach, state courts must consider state constitutional claims before reaching any federal claims and must not give controlling weight to the interpretation given to the United States Constitution. This approach gives the state constitution the significance that it deserves as a consequential …
Environmental Indifference, Anthony L. Moffa
Environmental Indifference, Anthony L. Moffa
Faculty Publications
An incarcerated American underclass, disproportionately comprised of minority citizens, has been compelled to live in an unconstitutionally polluted environment. Exposure to radon gas in indoor air is just one example of that pollution. Fortunately, the legal effort to address that particular condition of confinement has already begun; the theoretical and practical discussion in this work strives to both highlight the importance of the issue and inform the doctrinal development. The Eighth Amendment precedent created on the specific issue of radon exposure will very likely control the courts’ treatment of other environmental harms ignored by prison officials. This work, using radon …
Reflections On The Church/State Puzzle, Kermit V. Lipez
Reflections On The Church/State Puzzle, Kermit V. Lipez
Maine Law Review
No abstract provided.
Taking It Too Far: Growth Management And The Limits To Land-Use Regulation In Maine, Michael A. Duddy
Taking It Too Far: Growth Management And The Limits To Land-Use Regulation In Maine, Michael A. Duddy
Maine Law Review
In 1989 Maine enacted the Comprehensive Planning and Land Use Regulation Act. The Act's legislative findings declared that “ the State has a vital interest in ensuring that a comprehensive system of land-use planning and growth management is established as quickly as possible.” However, whenever the state exercises its police power to regulate private land use, it faces a constitutional limit as to how far it can go. When the land-use restriction exceeds that limit, a regulatory taking occurs. This Comment argues that the Comprehensive Planning and Land Use Regulation Act, as it is being interpreted and implemented by state …
Jural Entities, Real Parties In Controversy, And Representative Litigants: A Unified Approach To The Diversity Jurisdiction Requirements For Business Organizations, Charles A. Szypszak
Jural Entities, Real Parties In Controversy, And Representative Litigants: A Unified Approach To The Diversity Jurisdiction Requirements For Business Organizations, Charles A. Szypszak
Maine Law Review
The rules that make the federal courts available for the resolution of controversies between citizens of different states have often been described as placing an undue burden on the federal system. Congress has for the most part turned a deaf ear to calls by jurists and commentators for reform or even abolition of federal diversity jurisdiction, leaving the courts to struggle with difficult issues about the proper contours of the jurisdictional requirements. One recurring difficult issue is the manner in which citizenship is to be attributed to the investors who compose various business organizations. The general rule has been that …
A Section-By-Section Analysis Of Maine's Freedom Of Access Act, Anne C. Lucey
A Section-By-Section Analysis Of Maine's Freedom Of Access Act, Anne C. Lucey
Maine Law Review
There seems to be no absolute freedom of information. Even President Lyndon B. Johnson's declaration made on July 4, 1966, as he signed the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) into law, indicates the limitations accompanying most right-to-know laws from their inception. A delicate balance must be struck between the public's access to public business and the public interest, between the public's access and a person's right to privacy, and, at the federal level, between the public's access and national security. Maine also crafted a limited freedom of information law, the Freedom of Access Act ("FOAA" or "the Act"), seven years …
Drug Testing In The Nonunionized Workplace: Search And Seizure, Procedural Due Process, And Maine's Drug-Testing Statute, Shawn K. Bell
Drug Testing In The Nonunionized Workplace: Search And Seizure, Procedural Due Process, And Maine's Drug-Testing Statute, Shawn K. Bell
Maine Law Review
As former President Reagan stated in Executive Order No. 12,564, "[d]rug use is having serious adverse effects upon a significant pro- portion of the national work force .... " One survey by the National Institute on Drug Abuse found that between ten and twenty-three percent of all employees use drugs at work. The costs to industry in lost productivity due to drugs are equally staggering. Employee drug and alcohol abuse resulted in an estimated $100 billion in lost productivity in 1986. Furthermore, employees with drug or alcohol abuse problems have an absentee rate sixteen times greater than the average employee, …
State V. Violette: Harsher Resentencing Encounters A Bolder Resumption Of Vindictiveness, Thomas C. Bradley
State V. Violette: Harsher Resentencing Encounters A Bolder Resumption Of Vindictiveness, Thomas C. Bradley
Maine Law Review
Twenty-one years ago, in Weeks v. State, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, adopted a rule to prevent judicial vindictiveness when resentencing defendants who had successfully appealed their conviction and been reconvicted. The Weeks court adopted as a state due process protection the United States Supreme Court's rule laid down the preceding year in North Carolina v. Pearce. The Pearce rule provides that harsher resentencing of such defendants creates a presumption of constitutionally prohibited vindictiveness unless the harsher sentence is explicitly based on some identifiable misconduct by the defendant since the prior sentencing. Thus, the Law …
State V. Pinkham: Erosion Of Meaningful Forth Amendment Protection For Vehicle Stops In Maine?, Roger M. Clement Jr.
State V. Pinkham: Erosion Of Meaningful Forth Amendment Protection For Vehicle Stops In Maine?, Roger M. Clement Jr.
Maine Law Review
In State v. Pinkham, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, held that a police officer's stop of a motorist to inquire and advise about the motorist's improper-but not illegal-lane usage did not necessarily violate the Fourth Amendment's proscription against unreasonable seizures. The Pinkham decision is the first time that the Law Court has validated the stop of a moving vehicle in the absence of either a suspected violation of law or an imminent, ongoing threat to highway safety. This Note considers whether the Law Court was correct in sustaining the police officer's stop of Ronald Pinkham. …
Taking It Too Far: Growth Management And The Limits To Land-Use Regulation In Maine, Michael A. Duddy
Taking It Too Far: Growth Management And The Limits To Land-Use Regulation In Maine, Michael A. Duddy
Maine Law Review
In 1989 Maine enacted the Comprehensive Planning and Land Use Regulation Act. The Act's legislative findings declared that “ the State has a vital interest in ensuring that a comprehensive system of land-use planning and growth management is established as quickly as possible.” However, whenever the state exercises its police power to regulate private land use, it faces a constitutional limit as to how far it can go. When the land-use restriction exceeds that limit, a regulatory taking occurs. This Comment argues that the Comprehensive Planning and Land Use Regulation Act, as it is being interpreted and implemented by state …
Jural Entities, Real Parties In Controversy, And Representative Litigants: A Unified Approach To The Diversity Jurisdiction Requirements For Business Organizations, Charles A. Szypszak
Jural Entities, Real Parties In Controversy, And Representative Litigants: A Unified Approach To The Diversity Jurisdiction Requirements For Business Organizations, Charles A. Szypszak
Maine Law Review
The rules that make the federal courts available for the resolution of controversies between citizens of different states have often been described as placing an undue burden on the federal system. Congress has for the most part turned a deaf ear to calls by jurists and commentators for reform or even abolition of federal diversity jurisdiction, leaving the courts to struggle with difficult issues about the proper contours of the jurisdictional requirements. One recurring difficult issue is the manner in which citizenship is to be attributed to the investors who compose various business organizations. The general rule has been that …
State V. Brown: How Limited A Right To Keep And Bear Arms?, June A. Jackson
State V. Brown: How Limited A Right To Keep And Bear Arms?, June A. Jackson
Maine Law Review
Most state constitutions contain a clause guaranteeing a right to keep and bear arms. With gun control legislation on the rise, these state constitutional guarantees have come under increasing scrutiny. In State v. Brown defendant Edward Brown, a convicted felon, challenged the Maine statute that forbade him to possess firearms on the ground that it violated his state constitutional right to bear arms. Similar statutes around the country limit the right to bear arms in various ways. Case law has tended to uphold these limitations and to establish that the right to bear arms is a limited right at best. …
Please Stop: The Law Court's Recent Roadblock Decisions, Jonathan A. Block
Please Stop: The Law Court's Recent Roadblock Decisions, Jonathan A. Block
Maine Law Review
Police checkpoints or “roadblocks” have become an increasingly utilized law enforcement tool. At best, these checkpoints result in only a minor inconvenience to motorists. When abused, however, roadblocks have the potential for invidious invasions of privacy and personal freedom. Roadblocks are designed to deter, and to a lesser extent detect, criminal activity by stopping everyone—both the guilty and the law-abiding—for a brief inspection, thereby impinging to some degree on one's freedom of travel, privacy, and “right to be let alone.” Such “seizures” must be “reasonable” under the Fourth Amendment in order to survive constitutional challenge. The major difference between roadblocks …
Privileged Violence, Principled Fantasy, And Feminist Method: The Colby Fraternity Case, Martha T. Mccluskey
Privileged Violence, Principled Fantasy, And Feminist Method: The Colby Fraternity Case, Martha T. Mccluskey
Maine Law Review
Colby College banned fraternities and sororities in 1984 after many years of unsuccessfully attempting to improve fraternity behavior. Sexual harassment and sex discrimination were major reasons for the college's decision. At first the college withheld official recognition of and financial benefits to the fraternities. Membership in fraternities was not punished, although Colby established a policy prohibiting any participation in fraternities. The college had hoped that without houses, financing, and other support from the administration, the fraternities would disband—particularly once all students who had belonged to the officially sanctioned groups had graduated. Although the sororities soon dissolved, most of the male …
The Constitutional Law Of Equality In Canada, Kathleen E. Mahoney
The Constitutional Law Of Equality In Canada, Kathleen E. Mahoney
Maine Law Review
On April 17, 1982, Canada repatriated its constitution from the Parliament at Westminster, sweeping away one of the final vestiges of its colonial past. At the same time, a Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was constitutionally entrenched, giving the people express constitutional rights for the first time. The equality provisions, in particular, represented a new era in Canadian constitutional law. The intense debate leading up to the entrenchment of the Charter raised profound questions about the basic nature of the country, its values, and its ability and willingness to acknowledge equality for women and other disadvantaged groups. Since the …
Defining Fishing, The Slippery Seaweed Slope, Ross V. Acadian Seaplants Ltd., Rebecca P. Totten
Defining Fishing, The Slippery Seaweed Slope, Ross V. Acadian Seaplants Ltd., Rebecca P. Totten
Ocean and Coastal Law Journal
In Maine, the intertidal zone has seen many disputes over its use, access, and property rights. Recently, in Ross v. Acadian Seaplants, Ltd., the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, held that rockweed seaweed in the intertidal zone is owned by the upland landowner and is not part of a public easement under the public trust doctrine. The Court held harvesting rockweed is not fishing. This case will impact private and public rights and also the balance between the State's environmental and economic interests. This Comment addresses the following points: first, the characteristics of rockweed and the …
Indian Nations And The Constitution, Joseph William Singer
Indian Nations And The Constitution, Joseph William Singer
Maine Law Review
This Constitution Day speech focuses on how the Constitution has been interpreted both to protect and to undermine the sovereignty of Indian nations. The good news is that both the text of the Constitution and the practice of the United States have recognized Indian nations as sovereigns who pre-existed the creation of the United States and who retain their inherent original sovereignty. The bad news is that the Constitution has often been interpreted by the Supreme Court to deny Indian nations protection for their property rights and their sovereignty. Most Americans are not aware of the history of interactions between …
Discretionary Gatekeeping: The Us Supreme Court's Management Of Its Original Jurisdiction Docket Since 1961, Vincent L. Mckusick
Discretionary Gatekeeping: The Us Supreme Court's Management Of Its Original Jurisdiction Docket Since 1961, Vincent L. Mckusick
Maine Law Review
There is a special drama when a state sues another state invoking the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United States. In the international arena, similar disputes between sovereign states would be settled through diplomatic negotiations or armed conflict, and the stakes in the Supreme Court trial are often as high as in international disputes. The same special drama attends a trial in the Supreme Court with the United States opposing one or more of the fifty States. In drafting Article III of the Constitution the Founders treated the states as quasi-sovereigns and, to match the dignity of …
Sniffing Out The Fourth Amendment: United States V. Place-Dog Sniffs-Ten Years Later, Hope Walker Hall
Sniffing Out The Fourth Amendment: United States V. Place-Dog Sniffs-Ten Years Later, Hope Walker Hall
Maine Law Review
In the endless and seemingly futile government war against drugs, protections afforded by the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution may have fallen by the wayside as courts struggle to deal with drug offenders. The compelling government interest in controlling the influx of drugs all too often results in a judicial attitude that the ends justify the means. Judges can be reluctant to exclude evidence of drugs found in an unlawful search pursuant to the exclusionary rule, which provides that illegally obtained evidence may not be used at trial. The exclusion of drugs as evidence in drug cases often …
Confronting Silence: The Constitution, Deaf Criminal Defendants, And The Right To Interpretation During Trial, Deirdre M. Smith
Confronting Silence: The Constitution, Deaf Criminal Defendants, And The Right To Interpretation During Trial, Deirdre M. Smith
Maine Law Review
For most deaf people, interactions with the hearing community in the absence of interpretation or technological assistance consist of communications that are, at most, only partly comprehensible. Criminal proceedings, with the defendant's liberty interest directly at stake, are occasions in which the need for deaf people to have a full understanding of what is said and done around them is most urgent. Ironically, the legal “right to interpretation” has not been clearly defined in either statutory or case law. Although the federal and state constitutions do not provide a separate or lesser set of rights for deaf defendants, their situation …
Five Years Under The Veterans Judicial Review Act: The Va Is Brought Kicking And Screaming Into The World Of Meaningful Due Process, Lawrence B. Hagel, Michael P. Horan
Five Years Under The Veterans Judicial Review Act: The Va Is Brought Kicking And Screaming Into The World Of Meaningful Due Process, Lawrence B. Hagel, Michael P. Horan
Maine Law Review
I have been asked to give you the “veterans' perspective” on whether the Court of Veterans Appeals has served the purpose for which it was created by Congress and also to describe what additional steps the court might take to further the ends desired by veterans. This is no easy task. It is difficult not because I do not have a lot to say. It is difficult because it is a charge to speak, in a sense, for all veterans. In order to understand what I mean, I think it may be helpful to give you a little background on …
Prosecutorial Summation: Where Is The Line Between "Personal Opinion" And Proper Argument?, James W. Gunson
Prosecutorial Summation: Where Is The Line Between "Personal Opinion" And Proper Argument?, James W. Gunson
Maine Law Review
Prosecutorial forensic misconduct has become front page news in Maine. Since April of 1993, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, has reversed convictions in three highly publicized cases based on remarks made by the prosecutor. In State v. Steen, the prosecutor asked the defendant to give his opinion concerning the veracity of other witnesses and suggested in closing argument that the favorable testimony given by the defense's expert witness resulted from the fee he had received. The Law Court vacated the gross sexual assault conviction, finding that the prosecutor's questions and closing argument “clearly suggested” to …
Multiculturalism And The Bill Of Rights, Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
Multiculturalism And The Bill Of Rights, Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
Maine Law Review
The Second Annual Frank M. Coffin Lecture on Law and Public Service was held on October 7, 1993. Professor Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. presented "Multiculturalism and the Bill of Rights."