Law Commons^™

A Prudential Take On A Prudential Takings Doctrine, Katherine Mims Crocker

Michigan Law Review Online

The Supreme Court is set to decide a case requesting reconsideration of a doctrine that has long bedeviled constitutional litigants and commentators. The case is Knick v. Township of Scott, and the doctrine is the “ripeness” rule from Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank that plaintiffs seeking to raise takings claims under the Fifth Amendment must pursue state-created remedies first—the so-called “compensation prong” (as distinguished from a separate “takings prong”). This Essay argues that to put the compensation prong in the best light possible, the Court should view the requirement as a “prudential” rule rather than (as it …

The Future Of Confession Law: Toward Rules For The Voluntariness Test, Eve Brensike Primus

Michigan Law Review

Confession law is in a state of collapse. Fifty years ago, three different doctrines imposed constitutional limits on the admissibility of confessions in criminal cases: Miranda doctrine under the Fifth Amendment, Massiah doctrine under the Sixth Amendment, and voluntariness doctrine under the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. But in recent years, the Supreme Court has gutted Miranda and Massiah, effectively leaving suspects with only voluntariness doctrine to protect them during police interrogations. The voluntariness test is a notoriously vague case-by-case standard. In this Article, I argue that if voluntariness is going to be the framework for …

J.D.B. V. North Carolina And The Reasonable Person, Christopher Jackson

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

This Term, the Supreme Court was presented with a prime opportunity to provide some much-needed clarification on a "backdrop" issue of law-one of many topics that arises in a variety of legal contexts, but is rarely analyzed on its own terms. In J.D.B. v. North Carolina, the Court considered whether age was a relevant factor in determining if a suspect is "in custody" for Miranda purposes, and thus must have her rights read to her before being questioned by the police. Miranda, like dozens of other areas of law, employs a reasonable person test on the custodial question: it asks …

Cleansing Moments And Retrospective Justice, Margaret M. Russell

Michigan Law Review

We live in an era of questioning and requestioning long-held assumptions about the role of race in law, both in criminal prosecutions specifically and in the legal process generally. Certainly, the foundational framework is not new; for decades, both legal literature and jurisprudence have explored in great detail the realities of racism in the legal system. Even among those who might prefer to ignore the role of race discrimination in more than two centuries of American law, denial is no longer a viable or intellectually defensible option. Rather, debate now centers upon whether or not the extensive history of American …

Some Effects Of Identity-Based Social Movements On Constitutional Law In The Twentieth Century, William N. Eskridge Jr.

Michigan Law Review

What motivated big changes in constitutional law doctrine during the twentieth century? Rarely did important constitutional doctrine or theory change because of formal amendments to the document's text, and rarer still because scholars or judges "discovered" new information about the Constitution's original meaning. Precedent and common law reasoning were the mechanisms by which changes occurred rather than their driving force. My thesis is that most twentieth century changes in the constitutional protection of individual rights were driven by or in response to the great identity-based social movements ("IBSMs") of the twentieth century. Race, sex, and sexual orientation were markers of …

Miranda'S Failure To Restrain Pernicious Interrogation Practices, Welsh S. White

Michigan Law Review

As Yale Kamisar's writings on police interrogation demonstrate, our simultaneous commitments to promoting law enforcement's interest in obtaining confessions and to protecting individuals from overreaching interrogation practices have created a nearly irreconcilable tension. If the police must be granted authority to engage in effective questioning of suspects, it will obviously be difficult to insure that "the terrible engine of the criminal law . . . not . . . be used to overreach individuals who stand helpless against it." If we are committed to accommodating these conflicting interests, however, some means must be found to impose appropriate restraints on the …

The Paths Not Taken: The Supreme Court's Failures In Dickerson, Paul G. Cassell

Michigan Law Review

Where's the rest of the opinion? That was my immediate reaction to reading the Supreme Court's terse decision in Dickerson, delivered to me via email from the clerk's office a few minutes after its release. Surely, I thought, some glitch in the transmission had eliminated the pages of discussion on the critical issues in the case. Yet, as it became clear that I had received all of the Court's opinion, my incredulity grew.

Miranda'S Mistake, William J. Stuntz

Michigan Law Review

The oddest thing about Miranda is its politics - a point reinforced by the decision in, and the reaction to, Dickerson v. United States. In Dickerson, the Supreme Court faced the question whether Miranda ought to be overturned, either directly or by permitting legislative overrides. The lawyers, the literature, and the Court split along right-left - or, in the Court's case, right-center - lines, with the right seeking to do away with Miranda's restrictions on police questioning, and the left (or center) seeking to maintain them. The split is familiar. Reactions to Miranda have always divided along ideological lines, with …

Miranda, Dickerson, And The Puzzling Persistence Of Fifth Amendment Exceptionalism, Stephen J. Schulhofer

Michigan Law Review

Dickerson v. United States preserves the status quo regime for judicial oversight of police interrogation. That result could be seen, in the present climate, as a victory for due process values, but there remain many reasons for concern that existing safeguards are flawed - that they are either too restrictive or not restrictive enough. Such concerns are partly empirical, of course. They depend on factual assessments of how much the Miranda rules do restrict the police. But such concerns also reflect a crucial, though often unstated, normative premise; they presuppose a certain view of how much the police should be …

Miranda, The Constitution, And Congress, David A. Strauss

Michigan Law Review

Are Miranda warnings required by the Constitution, or not? If they are, why has the Supreme Court repeatedly said that the rights created by Miranda are "not themselves rights protected by the Constitution"? If not, why can't an Act of Congress, such as 18 U.S.C. 3501, declare them to be unnecessary? These were the central questions posed by United States v. Dickerson. It is not clear that the majority opinion ever really answered them. The majority said that "Miranda is constitutionally based," that Miranda has "constitutional underpinnings," that Miranda is "a constitutional decision," and that Miranda "announced a constitutional rule." …

Separated At Birth But Siblings Nonetheless: Miranda And The Due Process Notice Cases, George C. Thomas Iii

Michigan Law Review

Paraphrasing Justice Holmes, law is less about logic than experience. Courts and scholars have now had thirty-four years of experience with Miranda v. Arizona, including the Court's recent endorsement in Dickerson v. United States last Term. Looking back over this experience, it is plain that the Court has created a Miranda doctrine quite different from what it has said it was creating. I think the analytic structure in Dickerson supports this rethinking of Miranda. To connect the dots, I offer a new explanation for Miranda that permits us to reconcile Dickerson and the rest of the post-Miranda doctrine with the …

In The Stationhouse After Dickerson, Charles D. Weisselberg

Michigan Law Review

Miranda v. Arizona established the high water mark of the protections afforded an accused during a custodial interrogation. During the decades that followed, the United States Supreme Court allowed Miranda's foundation to erode, inviting a direct challenge to the landmark ruling. In Dickerson v. United States, the Court turned back such a challenge and placed Miranda upon a more secure, constitutional footing. This Article explores the impact of Dickerson in the place where Miranda was meant to matter most: the stationhouse. As I have described elsewhere, Supreme Court decisions have influenced a number of California law enforcement agencies to instruct …

Just Compensation, Incentives, And Social Meanings, Hanoch Dagan

Michigan Law Review

In Takings and Distributive Justice, I proposed a progressive interpretation of the Compensation Clause. In his response, published in this issue, Professor Lunney challenges the plausibility and the desirability of my interpretation and proposes an alternative. This Essay compares our approaches. It concludes that Professor Lunney's careful examination of the public choice analysis of takings does refine my theory. Contrary to Professor Lunney's claims, however, these refinements reinforce - rather than undermine - the viability of a progressive takings doctrine. Parts I and II set the stage by summarizing the principal claims made, respectively, in my original Article and in …

Takings, Efficiency, And Distributive Justice: A Response To Professor Dagan, Glynn S. Lunney Jr.

Michigan Law Review

In A Critical Reexamination of the Takings Jurisprudence, I addressed an efficiency problem that arises when the government attempts to change property rights in a manner that burdens a very few for the benefit of the very many. Specifically, in the absence of compensation, the collective action advantage of the few in organizing to oppose the proposed measure will often give them a decided edge against the many. As a result of that advantage, the few will too often be able to persuade the legislature not to act, even when an objective evaluation of the proposal's costs and benefits would …

Casting Light On Cultural Property, John J. Costonis

Michigan Law Review

Theorists of private property invite comparison to theorists of light. For centuries, the latter have debated whether light is best understood as a wave or as a photon. The rivalry has been intense because each hypothesis explains some characteristics of light very well, but others very poorly. Wave theory outstrips photon theory in explaining such phenomena as light's frequencies and diffraction patterns. But photon theory, which reduces light to a succession of particles, more effectively explains such subatomic phenomena as changes in an atom's orbital shell produced by the interaction of photons and electrons. Property theorists too can be viewed …

Who "Owns" A Cultural Treasure?, Jason Y. Hall

Michigan Law Review

Because of the thoughtfulness of its arguments, the range and depth of its presentation of specific cases, and the fairness with which it reveals, thinks through, and allows some validity to opposing points of view, Playing Darts with a Rembrandt is a valuable contribution to understanding which parties have, and should have, rights in key objects that comprise our collective heritage. That I am not persuaded by some of the specific arguments in the book in no way reduces my admiration for what it accomplishes.

Ultra Vires Takings, Matthew D. Zinn

Michigan Law Review

When does legislative or administrative regulatory action "go[] too far" and effectively amount to an .appropriation of private property for which the Fifth Amendment requires just compensation? This question has turned out to be one of the thorniest in American constitutional law. The Supreme Court has identified several circumstances in which one can expect to find a regulatory taking, but its numerous pronouncements on the subject give no clear rule to distinguish compensable takings from noncompensable interference with property rights. Notwithstanding its volume, the commentary on the Takings Clause by and large addresses only proper governmental action that rises to …

A Tempered "Yes" To The "Exculpatory No", Scott D. Pomfret

Michigan Law Review

What circumstances trigger a person's duty to tell the truth? Immanuel Kant claimed without qualification that all circumstances require truthtelling, even when speaking the truth injures the speaker. John Henry Cardinal Newman made exceptions for lies that achieved some positive end. Hugo Grotius permitted lies to adversaries. The philosophy of twentieth-century common sense largely permits white lies. Perhaps surprisingly, some courts have found that Kant's absolute prohibition of falsehood more accurately characterizes a speaker's duty to tell the truth to the federal government under 18 U.S.C. § 1001 than these other, more relaxed standards. According to this view, the prohibition …

Determining Ripeness Of Substantive Due Process Claims Brought By Landowners Against Local Governments, David S. Mendel

Michigan Law Review

Landowners who sustain economic harm from arbitrary and capricious applications of land use regulations may sue the local government entities responsible for applying those regulations under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the local government entities deprived them of substantive due process in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. A landowner who brings this claim - an "as-applied arbitrary and capricious substantive due process" claim - may in appropriate cases seek declaratory and injunctive relief, damages, and attorney's fees. Despite controversy among courts and commentators over both the definition of property interests protected by the Due Process Clause and the standard …

A Peculiar Privilege In Historical Perspective: The Right To Remain Silent, Albert W. Alschuler

Michigan Law Review

Supreme Court decisions have vacillated between two incompatible readings of the Fifth Amendment guarantee that no person "shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." The Court sometimes sees this language as affording defendants and suspects a right to remain silent. This interpretation - a view that countless repetitions of the Miranda warnings have impressed upon the public - asserts that government officials have no legitimate claim to testimonial evidence tending to incriminate the person who possesses it. Although officials need not encourage a suspect to remain silent, they must remain at least neutral toward …

Counter-Revolution In Constitutional Criminal Procedure? Two Audiences, Two Answers, Carol S. Steiker

Michigan Law Review

For the purposes of my argument, I adapt Professor Meir Dan-Cohen's distinction (which he in turn borrowed from Jeremy Bentham) between "conduct" rules and "decision" rules. Bentham and Dan-Cohen make this distinction in the context of substantive criminal law; for their purposes, "conduct" rules are addressed to the general public in order to guide its behavior (for example, "Let no person steal") and "decision" rules are addressed to public officials in order to guide their decisionmaking about the consequences of violating conduct rules (for example, "Let the judge cause whoever is convicted of stealing to be hanged"). But as any …

The Public Safety Exception To Miranda: Analyzing Subjective Motivation, Marc Schuyler Reiner

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues, however, that the appropriate inquiry under Quarles is whether an actual and reasonable belief in an emergency motivated the interrogating officer. This Note proposes a two-prong test to facilitate this inquiry. The subjective motivation prong evaluates the officer's subjective motivation as revealed by objective factors: the. content of the officer's questions, when he asked them, and when the suspect received Miranda warnings. The objective reasonableness prong looks at the objective circumstances to determine the reasonableness of the officer's belief in an emergency.

Part I demonstrates that the Quarles opinion actually contemplates and requires analysis of the officer's …

The Public Safety Exception To Miranda: Analyzing Subjective Motivation, Marc Schuyler Reiner

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues, however, that the appropriate inquiry under Quarles is whether an actual and reasonable belief in an emergency motivated the interrogating officer. This Note proposes a two-prong test to facilitate this inquiry. The subjective motivation prong evaluates the officer's subjective motivation as revealed by objective factors: the. content of the officer's questions, when he asked them, and when the suspect received Miranda warnings. The objective reasonableness prong looks at the objective circumstances to determine the reasonableness of the officer's belief in an emergency.

Part I demonstrates that the Quarles opinion actually contemplates and requires analysis of the officer's …

Chopping Miranda Down To Size, Michael Chertoff

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Confessions, Truth, and the Law by Joseph D. Grano

Fifth Amendment First Principles: The Self-Incrimination Clause, Akhil Reed Amar, Renée B. Lettow

Michigan Law Review

In Part I of this article, we examine the global puzzle of the Self-Incrimination Clause and the local confusion or perversion lurking behind virtually every key word and phrase in the clause as now construed. In Part II we elaborate our reading of the clause and show how it clears up the local problems and solves the overall puzzle.

Reply: Self-Incrimination And The Constitution: A Brief Rejoinder To Professor Kamisar, Akhil Reed Amar, Renée B. Lettow

Michigan Law Review

A Reply to Yale Kamisar's Response to the "Fifth Amendment Principles: The Self-Incrimination Clause"

Griffin V. California: Still Viable After All These Years, Craig M. Bradley

Michigan Law Review

In a recent article in the Michigan Law Review, Donald Ayer levels a series of attacks on the Griffin decision. Specifically, he maintains that the decision is at once too broad, because it requires "almost automatic reversal where there are any remarks explicitly focused on the defendant's silence and the inference of guilt to be drawn from it" regardless of the strength of the prosecution's case, and too narrow, because it fails to prevent the natural prejudice against the nontestifying defendant that may arise in the minds of the jurors without any encouragement from prosecutor or judge. Ayer also …

The Fifth Amendment And The Inference Of Guilt From Silence: Griffin V. California After Fifteen Years, Donald B. Ayer

Michigan Law Review

This Article will begin with an examination of the historic (and present) purposes underlying the fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination, upon which any justification of the no-comment rule must ultimately rest. It will explore the danger that these purposes may be thwarted not only when defendants are actually compelled to be witnesses against themselves, but also when significant burdens are placed on defendants who choose not to testify. In Griffin, the Court reasoned that comment on the defendant's silence amounted to such an impermissible burden. But the Court failed to examine the weight of this burden. This failure makes …

Taxpayer Rights In Noncustodial Irs Investigations After Beckwith V. United States, Curtis L. Christensen

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The recent Supreme Court decision in Beckwith v. United States, holding that Miranda does not extend to noncustodial tax investigations, has important implications with respect to the News Release doctrine and the involuntary consent grounds considered in motions to suppress evidence. This article will examine Beckwith and its potential significance with respect to these other doctrines, discussing the factors which the IRS and the courts should consider in order to assure fair treatment of taxpayers during investigations.

The Conclusive Presumption Doctrine: Equal Process Or Due Protection?, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

In Vlandis v. Kline and United States Department of Agriculture v. Murry, decided during its past term, the Supreme Court invoked the conclusive presumption doctrine to invalidate statutory provisions, that restricted access to certain state and federal government benefits. This term, in Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur, the Court used the same rationale to strike down school board rules requiring teachers to take maternity leaves without pay. The essence of the doctrine is as follows: When a statutory provision imposes a burden upon a class of individuals for a particular purpose and certain individuals within the burdened class …