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Articles 1 - 30 of 125
Full-Text Articles in Law
Constitutional Limits On The Imposition And Revocation Of Probation, Parole, And Supervised Release After Haymond, Nancy J. King
Constitutional Limits On The Imposition And Revocation Of Probation, Parole, And Supervised Release After Haymond, Nancy J. King
Vanderbilt Law Review
In its Apprendi line of cases, the Supreme Court has held that any fact found at sentencing (other than prior conviction) that aggravates the punishment range otherwise authorized by the conviction is an “element” that must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury. Whether Apprendi controls factfinding for the imposition and revocation of probation, parole, and supervised release is critically important. Seven of ten adults under correctional control in the United States are serving terms of state probation and post-confinement supervision, and roughly half of all prison admissions result from revocations of such terms. But scholars have yet …
Constitutional Limits On The Imposition And Revocation Of Probation, Parole, And Supervised Release After Haymond, Nancy J. King
Constitutional Limits On The Imposition And Revocation Of Probation, Parole, And Supervised Release After Haymond, Nancy J. King
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
In its Apprendi line of cases, the Supreme Court has held that any fact found at sentencing (other than prior conviction) that aggravates the punishment range otherwise authorized by the conviction is an "element" that must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury. Whether Apprendi controls factfinding for the imposition and revocation of probation, parole, and supervised release is critically important. Seven of ten adults under correctional control in the United States are serving terms of state probation and post-confinement supervision, and roughly half of all prison admissions result from revocations of such terms. But scholars have yet …
Bringing Predictability To The Chaos Of Punitive Damages, W. Kip Viscusi, Benjamin J. Mcmichael
Bringing Predictability To The Chaos Of Punitive Damages, W. Kip Viscusi, Benjamin J. Mcmichael
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Punitive damages remain unique in the American legal system. Awarded in the civil context with none of the protections offered in criminal law, courts levy punitive damages to punish and deter. The Supreme Court of the United States has clearly stated that courts may only seek to achieve these two goals when imposing punitive damages. A closer reading of the Court's punitive damages jurisprudence, however, reveals another goal that has largely been ignored: predictability. Unlike punishment and deterrence, predictability is not a purpose for which to award punitive damages. Instead, the Court requires that, when awarded, the level of punitive …
The Public Right To Education, Matthew P. Shaw
The Public Right To Education, Matthew P. Shaw
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Public education is "the most important function of state and local government" and yet not a "fundamental right or liberty." This Article engages one of constitutional law's most intractable problems by introducing "the public right to education" as a doctrinal pathway to a constitutional right to education process in three steps. First, it identifies that the otherwise right-to-education foreclosing case, San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, only contemplated education as a fundamental right or liberty interest. Second, by identifying public education as a due process protected property interest, this Article presents a viable pathway for circumventing Rodriguez. Third, mindful …
The Loudest Voice At The Supreme Court: The Solicitor General’S Dominance Of Amicus Oral Argument, Darcy Covert, Annie J. Wang
The Loudest Voice At The Supreme Court: The Solicitor General’S Dominance Of Amicus Oral Argument, Darcy Covert, Annie J. Wang
Vanderbilt Law Review
The Solicitor General (“SG”) is often called the “Tenth Justice,” a title that captures his unique relationship with the Supreme Court and his independence from the executive branch. No phenomenon better reflects this relationship than the Court’s practice of permitting amici to participate in oral argument. Although amicus oral argument is nominally available to all litigants, the modern Court grants this privilege almost exclusively to the SG. Scholars and Court watchers have long argued that this practice is justified because the SG uses it to pursue the rule of law and an objective sense of “justice.”
This Article challenges that …
The Perfect Match: Solving The Due Process Problem Of Signature Matching With Federal Agency Regulation, Rachel Blumenstein
The Perfect Match: Solving The Due Process Problem Of Signature Matching With Federal Agency Regulation, Rachel Blumenstein
Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law
Local election commissions in the United States disenfranchise Americans when they erroneously reject voters’ mail-in ballots for failed signature matches. Disenfranchisement is not only problematic because it is dangerous to the health of American democracy, but also because signature matching violates the procedural due process protections voters are entitled to when they exercise their right to vote. Furthermore, the practice of signature matching is one of many ballot access restrictions that disproportionately impact minority voters under the guise of voter fraud prevention. Expanding the Election Assistance Commission’s mandate to allow it to develop more accurate methods of ballot verification can …
Litigating Citizenship, Cassandra B. Robertson, Irina D. Manta
Litigating Citizenship, Cassandra B. Robertson, Irina D. Manta
Vanderbilt Law Review
By what standard of proof-—and by what procedures—-can the U.S. government challenge citizenship status? That question has taken on greater urgency in recent years. News reports discuss cases of individuals whose passports were suddenly denied, even after the government had previously recognized their citizenship for years or even decades. The government has also stepped up efforts to reevaluate the naturalization files of other citizens and has asked for funding to litigate more than a thousand denaturalization cases. Likewise, citizens have gotten swept up in immigration enforcement actions, and thousands of citizens have been erroneously detained or removed from the United …
Wealth-Based Penal Disenfranchisement, Beth A. Colgan
Wealth-Based Penal Disenfranchisement, Beth A. Colgan
Vanderbilt Law Review
This Article offers the first comprehensive examination of the way in which the inability to pay economic sanctions-fines, fees, surcharges, and restitution-may prevent people of limited means from voting. The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of penal disenfranchisement upon conviction, and all but two states revoke the right to vote for at least some offenses. The remaining jurisdictions allow for reenfranchisement for most or all offenses under certain conditions. One often overlooked condition is payment of economic sanctions regardless of whether the would-be voter has the ability to pay before an election registration deadline. The scope of wealth-based penal …
The Due Process And Other Constitutional Rights Of Foreign Nations, Ingrid Wuerth
The Due Process And Other Constitutional Rights Of Foreign Nations, Ingrid Wuerth
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The rights of foreign states under the U.S. Constitution are becoming more important as the actions of foreign states and foreign state-owned enterprises expand in scope and the legislative protections to which they are entitled contract. Conventional wisdom and lower court cases hold that foreign states are outside our constitutional order and that they are protected neither by separation of powers nor by due process. As a matter of policy, however, it makes little sense to afford litigation-related constitutional protections to foreign corporations and individuals but to deny categorically such protections to foreign states.
Careful analysis shows that the conventional …
Keeping It Off The Record: Student Social Media Monitoring And The Need For Updated Student Records Laws, Alice Haston
Keeping It Off The Record: Student Social Media Monitoring And The Need For Updated Student Records Laws, Alice Haston
Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law
An increasing number of school districts work with private companies to monitor public social media and to notify administrators of alarming student information. Although these services help address challenging school safety issues, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and state law offer little guidance on how districts should store student social media data. This Note encourages states to pass student records laws similar to recent California legislation and urges the Department of Education to clarify the relationship between student social media and education records under FERPA. New state and federal initiatives would help ensure that third parties may …
The Rules Of #Metoo, Jessica A. Clarke
The Rules Of #Metoo, Jessica A. Clarke
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
In their article Unsexing Pregnancy, David Fontana and Naomi Schoenbaum undertake the important project of disentangling the social aspects of pregnancy from those that relate to a pregnant woman’s body. They argue that the law should stop treating the types of work either parent can do—such as purchasing a car seat, finding a pediatrician, or choosing a daycare—as exclusively the domain of the pregnant woman. The project’s primary aim is to undermine legal rules that assume a gendered division of labor in which men are breadwinners and women are caretakers. But Fontana and Schoenbaum argue their project will also have …
Discovery Cost Allocation, Due Process, And The Constitution's Role In Civil Litigation, Martin H. Redish
Discovery Cost Allocation, Due Process, And The Constitution's Role In Civil Litigation, Martin H. Redish
Vanderbilt Law Review
The issue of discovery cost allocation, long ignored by both courts and scholars, has become something of a cause celebre in the last few years. An article which I coauthored on the subject was part of that renewed interest.' In 2011, my former student, Colleen McNamara, and I wrote an article urging a dramatic change not only in the manner of how discovery costs are allocated, but an entirely new way of understanding the concept of discovery costs. 2 Since the original promulgation of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 1938, it has been universally assumed that discovery costs …
Rethinking Conspiracy Jurisdiction In Light Of Stream Of Commerce And Effects-Based Jurisdictional Principles, Alex Carver
Rethinking Conspiracy Jurisdiction In Light Of Stream Of Commerce And Effects-Based Jurisdictional Principles, Alex Carver
Vanderbilt Law Review
For decades, some courts have been willing to exercise personal jurisdiction over nonresident defendants based solely on the forum contacts of their coconspirators. This practice, termed "conspiracy jurisdiction," has proven controversial among courts and commentators alike. On one hand, the actions of one member of a conspiracy are ordinarily attributable to other members of the conspiracy, and jurisdiction-conferring acts should arguably be no exception. On the other hand, attributing forum contacts from one actor to another based solely on their joint membership in a civil conspiracy seems to stretch due process protections to the breaking point. This Note provides new …
Cartel Criminalization In Europe: Addressing Deterrence And Institutional Challenges, Francesco Ducci
Cartel Criminalization In Europe: Addressing Deterrence And Institutional Challenges, Francesco Ducci
Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law
This Article analyzes cartel criminalization in Europe from a deterrence and institutional perspective. First, it investigates the idea of criminalization by putting it in perspective with the more general question of what types of sanctions a jurisdiction might adopt against collusive behavior. Second, it analyzes the institutional element of criminalization by (1) discussing the compatibility of administrative enforcement with the potential de facto criminal nature of administrative fines under European law and (2) evaluating the trade-offs between an administrative and a criminal model of enforcement. Although a "panoply" of sanctions against both corporations and individuals may be necessary under a …
Restore, Revert, Repeat: Examining The Decompensation Cycle And The Due Process Limitations On The Treatment Of Incompetent Defendants, Margaret W. Smith
Restore, Revert, Repeat: Examining The Decompensation Cycle And The Due Process Limitations On The Treatment Of Incompetent Defendants, Margaret W. Smith
Vanderbilt Law Review
Though correctional facilities are one of the largest providers of mental health care in the country, the treatment provided often fails to address the needs of many mentally ill inmates. Indeed, after receiving treatment at a state mental health facility, many pretrial detainees who have been recently restored to competency revert to an incompetent state-or decompensate-upon their return to jail, at which point they must return to the state treatment facility to be restored to competency once again. This Note is the first to explore this "decompensation cycle," highlighting the significance of the problem and demonstrating how mental health treatment …
Manipulation Of Suspects And Unrecorded Questioning, Christopher Slobogin
Manipulation Of Suspects And Unrecorded Questioning, Christopher Slobogin
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Fifty years after Miranda, courts still do not have clear guidance on the types oftechniques police may use during interrogation. While first-generation tactics (a.k.a. the third degree) are banned, second-generation tactics such as those found in the famous Reid Manual continue to be used by interrogators. The Supreme Court has sent only vague signals as to which of these second- generation techniques, if any, are impermissible, and has made no mention of newly developed third-generation tactics that are much less reliant on manipulation. This Article divides second-generation techniques into four categories: impersonation, rationalization, fabrication, and negotiation. After concluding, based on …
Keeping Gideon's Promise: Using Equal Protection To Address The Denial Of Counsel In Misdemeanor Cases, Lauren Sudeall, Brandon Buskey
Keeping Gideon's Promise: Using Equal Protection To Address The Denial Of Counsel In Misdemeanor Cases, Lauren Sudeall, Brandon Buskey
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees criminal defendants the right to counsel, and the U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that right is applicable to all defendants in felony cases, even those unable to afford a lawyer. Yet, for defendants facing misdemeanor charges, only those defendants whose convictions result in incarceration are entitled to the assistance of counsel.
The number of misdemeanor prosecutions has increased dramatically in recent years, as have the volume and severity of collateral consequences attached to such convictions; yet, the Court's right to counsel jurisprudence in this area has remained stagnant. Critics of the …
A Regulatory Theory Of Legal Claims, Maria J. Glover
A Regulatory Theory Of Legal Claims, Maria J. Glover
Vanderbilt Law Review
Procedural law in the United States seeks to achieve three interrelated goals in our system of litigation: efficient processes that achieve "substantive justice" and deter wrongdoing, accurate outcomes, and meaningful access to the courts. For years, however, procedural debate, particularly in the context of due process rights in class actions, has been redirected toward more conceptual questions about the nature of legal claims-are they more appropriately conceptualized as individual property or as collective goods? At stake is the extent to which relevant procedures will protect the right of individual claimants to exercise control over their claims. Those with individualistic conceptions …
Contorting Common Article 3, Michael A. Newton
Contorting Common Article 3, Michael A. Newton
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This short Essay describes the circularity of support between the ICRC and the Pre-Trial Chambers of the ICC. Its successive sections describe the problematic potential of extending the substantive coverage of Common Article 3 to encompass members of the same armed group who commit criminal acts against one another.' In particular, the Revised Commentary fails to address the due process ramifications of an enlarged Common Article 3, even as the development of the text documented by the readily available negotiating record warrants an alternative understanding. Lastly, the ICRC position could indicate a radical shift in the very design of the …
The Incompatibility Of Due Process And Naked Statistical Evidence, G. Alexander Nunn
The Incompatibility Of Due Process And Naked Statistical Evidence, G. Alexander Nunn
Vanderbilt Law Review
Qualitative evidence is a cornerstone of the modern trial system. Parties often invoke eyewitness testimony, character witnesses, or other forms of direct and circumstantial evidence when seeking to advance their case in the courtroom, enabling jurors to reach a verdict after weighing two competing narratives.' But what if testimonial, experience-based evidence were removed from trials? In a legal system that draws its legitimacy from centuries of tradition-emphasizing notions of fairness even above absolute accuracy. Would a jury, not to mention the public at large, reject a verdict that imposes liability or guilt on a defendant in the complete absence of …
Predictive Due Process And The International Criminal Court, Samuel C. Birnbaum
Predictive Due Process And The International Criminal Court, Samuel C. Birnbaum
Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law
The International Criminal Court (ICC) operates under a regime of complementarity: a domestic state prosecution of a defendant charged before the ICC bars the Court from hearing the case unless the state is unable or unwilling to prosecute the accused. For years, scholars have debated the role of due process considerations in complementarity. Can a state that has failed to provide the accused with adequate due process protections nonetheless bar a parallel ICC prosecution? One popular view, first expressed by Professor Kevin Jon Heller, holds that due process considerations do not factor into complementarity and the ICC could be forced …
Revitalizing Dormant Commerce Clause Review For Interstate Coordination, Jim Rossi, Alexandra B. Klass
Revitalizing Dormant Commerce Clause Review For Interstate Coordination, Jim Rossi, Alexandra B. Klass
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Interstate coordination presents one of the most difficult challenges for American federalism as well as for energy markets and policy. Existing laws vest the approval of large-scale energy infrastructure projects such as interstate oil pipelines and high-voltage, interstate electric transmission lines with state and local levels of government. At the same time, state siting and eminent domain regimes routinely enable and even encourage state regulators to hold out from approving interstate infrastructure projects, hobbling any hope for interstate coordination. This Article analyzes how judicial review under dormant Commerce Clause principles and doctrine can promote better interstate coordination by discouraging regulatory …
Prisoners And Habeas Privileges Under The Fourteenth Amendment, Lee Kovarsky
Prisoners And Habeas Privileges Under The Fourteenth Amendment, Lee Kovarsky
Vanderbilt Law Review
The U.S. Reports contain no answer to a million-dollar question: are state prisoners constitutionally entitled to a federal habeas forum? The Supreme Court has consistently ducked the basic constitutional issue, and academic work on the question idles on familiar themes. The strongest existing argument that state prisoners are constitutionally entitled to a federal habeas forum involves a theory of incorporation under the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause. I provide a new and different account: specifically, that the Fourteenth Amendment's Privileges and Immunities Clause ("PI Clause") guarantees a habeas privilege as a feature of national citizenship, and that the corresponding habeas …
Sexual Privacy In The Internet Age: How Substantive Due Process Protects Online Obscenity, Jennifer M. Kinsley
Sexual Privacy In The Internet Age: How Substantive Due Process Protects Online Obscenity, Jennifer M. Kinsley
Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law
Obscenity is one of the narrow categories of speech that has historically lacked First Amendment free-speech protection, and courts and scholars alike have wrestled with the indefinable and often unworkable nature of the obscenity test. The advent of the Internet has both intensified and yet potentially resolved these problems. Recent Supreme Court cases, such as Lawrence v. Texas, suggest that sexually explicit expression that falls outside the scope of the First Amendment may nevertheless be entitled to privacy protection under Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process. Yet Lawrence's potential applicability to online obscenity has created tension in lower-court decisions and produced …
Sneering At The Law: An Argument For Punitive Damages In Copyright, R. Collins Kilgore
Sneering At The Law: An Argument For Punitive Damages In Copyright, R. Collins Kilgore
Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law
The Copyright Act limits statutory damages in a copyright action to one award for every work that a plaintiff can prove a defendant infringed. The maximum amount a plaintiff may recover for each work is $30,000, except in the case of willful infringement, for which that amount may be increased to a maximum of $150,000. This Note explains how this dual limitation in the Copyright Act--the one-award-per-work limitation and the cap on statutory damage amounts--allows infringers to manipulate court procedures and corporate structure so that their acts of copyright infringement may maintain profitability despite the imposition of maximum statutory damages. …
Mass Torts And Due Process, Sergio J. Campos
Mass Torts And Due Process, Sergio J. Campos
Vanderbilt Law Review
As the old saying goes, hard cases make bad law. But hard cases also reveal the limits of legal doctrine. In this Article, I turn to a class of hard cases--mass torts--to rethink the law of procedural due process under the Due Process Clause. Mass torts have long perplexed courts and scholars. They include torts caused by asbestos and other toxic chemicals, pharmaceuticals, oil spills, and other mass-produced products and services. The plaintiffs not only suffer significant injuries, but the sheer number of plaintiffs, each with claims that raise unique fact and legal issues, stretch judicial resources to the limit. …
Eyewitnesses And Exclusion, Brandon L. Garrett
Eyewitnesses And Exclusion, Brandon L. Garrett
Vanderbilt Law Review
The dramatic moment when an eyewitness takes the stand and points to the defendant in the courtroom can be pivotal in a criminal trial. That piece of theater, however compelling to jurors, is staged: it is obvious where the defendant is sitting, and, importantly, the memory of the eyewitness should have been tested before trial using photo arrays or lineups. Such courtroom displays have been accepted for so long that their role in the U.S. Supreme Court's due process jurisprudence regulating eyewitness identifications has been neglected. The due process test that regulates tens of thousands of eyewitness identifications each year …
My Fellow Americans, We Are Going To Kill You: The Legality Of Targeting And Killing U.S. Citizens Abroad, Mike Dreyfuss
My Fellow Americans, We Are Going To Kill You: The Legality Of Targeting And Killing U.S. Citizens Abroad, Mike Dreyfuss
Vanderbilt Law Review
Silent and cold. At twenty thousand feet, the temperature is minus ten degrees Fahrenheit. At almost a thousand miles per hour, sound cannot keep up. Heat and noise struggle in the turbulence. Three miles away, seven thousand miles from American soil, an American citizen driving an empty road has ten seconds to live. As a leader in an organization actively engaged in armed conflict against the United States, this American citizen has become an enemy of the United States. In response to the threat he poses to his fellow Americans, his government added him to a kill list, targeted him, …
When A Promise Isn't A Promise: Public Employers' Ability To Alter Pension Plans Of Retired Employees, Gavin Reinke
When A Promise Isn't A Promise: Public Employers' Ability To Alter Pension Plans Of Retired Employees, Gavin Reinke
Vanderbilt Law Review
The economic downturn has placed enormous pressure on state budgets. The recession hit state pension funding plans for public employees particularly hard. Some projections indicate that, even with as much as an 8% return on their pension fund investments, seven states' funds will be out of money by 2020, and half of states' funds will be fully depleted by 2027.
State legislatures are scrambling to pass measures designed to return their pension funds to solvency. Most proposals only call for decreases in the amount of pension benefits provided to future retirees, but four states have gone much further. Colorado, Minnesota, …
Due Process Rights And The Targeted Killing Of Suspected Terrorists, Benjamin Mckelvey
Due Process Rights And The Targeted Killing Of Suspected Terrorists, Benjamin Mckelvey
Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), with the approval of the Obama Administration, conducts targeted killings of individual suspected terrorists. These killings have significantly increased since the Iraq war and are now a central component of U.S. counterterrorism strategy. The targeted killing program consists mainly of missile strikes from Predator drones, which are unmanned aerial vehicles operated by the CIA. In May 2010, President Obama's National Security Council approved the targeted killing of Anwar al-Aulaqi, a U.S. citizen and suspected al-Qaeda senior leader believed to be hiding in Yemen. As the first American targeted for extrajudicial lethal force, Aulaqi's situation quickly …