Law Commons^™

How To Choose The Least Unconstitutional Option: Lessons For The President (And Others) From The Debt Ceiling Standoff, Neil H. Buchanan, Michael C. Dorf

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The federal statute known as the “debt ceiling” limits total borrowing by the United States. Congress has repeatedly raised the ceiling to authorize necessary borrowing, but a political standoff in 2011 nearly made it impossible to borrow funds to meet obligations that Congress had affirmed earlier that very year. Some commentators urged President Obama to ignore the debt ceiling, while others responded that such borrowing would violate the separation of powers and therefore that the president should refuse to spend appropriated funds.

This Article analyzes the choice the president nearly faced in summer 2011, and which he or a successor …

Judicial Decision-Making, Social Science Evidence, And Equal Educational Opportunity: Uneasy Relations And Uncertain Futures, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Equal Protection Of Free Exercise: Two Approaches And Their History, Bernadette Meyler

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Contrary to critics of the Supreme Court's current equal protection approach to religious liberty, this Article contends that, from the very first federal free exercise cases, the Equal Protection and Free Exercise Clauses have been mutually intertwined. The seeds of an equal protection analysis of free exercise were, indeed, planted even before the Fourteenth Amendment within the constitutional jurisprudence of the several states. Furthermore, this Article argues, equal protection approaches should not be uniformly disparaged. Rather, the drawbacks that commentators have observed result largely from the Supreme Court's application of an inadequate version of equal protection. By ignoring the lessons …

Brown V. Board Of Education, Footnote 11, And Multidisciplinarity, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Too Young For The Death Penalty: An Empirical Examination Of Community Conscience And The Juvenile Death Penalty From The Perspective Of Capital Jurors, William J. Bowers, Benjamin Fleury-Steiner, Valerie P. Hans, Michael E. Antonio

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

As our analysis of jury decisionmaking in juvenile capital trials was nearing completion, the Missouri Supreme Court declared the juvenile death penalty unconstitutional in Simmons v. Roper. The court held that the execution of persons younger than eighteen years of age at the time of their crime violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. This decision patently rejected the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Stanford v. Kentucky, which permitted the execution of sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds. In deciding Simmons, the Missouri Supreme Court applied the U.S. Supreme Court's reasoning in Atkins v. Virginia to …

Capital Jurors As The Litmus Test Of Community Conscience For The Juvenile Death Penalty, Michael E. Antonio, Benjamin Fleury-Steiner, Valerie P. Hans, William J. Bowers

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This fall, the United States Supreme Court will consider the constitutionality of the juvenile death penalty in Simmons v. Roper. The Eighth Amendment issue before the Court in Simmons will be whether the juvenile death penalty accords with the conscience of the community. This article presents evidence that bears directly on the conscience of the community in juvenile capital cases as revealed through extensive in-depth interviews with jurors who made the critical life-or-death decision in such cases. The data come from the Capital Jury Project, a national study of the exercise of sentencing discretion in capital cases conducted with …

Profiling With Apologies, Sherry F. Colb

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Davey And The Limits Of Equality, Laura S. Underkuffler

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Are Single-Sex Schools Inherently Unequal?, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Hate And The Bar: Is The Hale Case Mccarthyism Redux Or A Victory For Racial Equality?, W. Bradley Wendel

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The application of the constitutional free expression guarantee to the activities of the organized bar is one of the most important unexplored areas of legal ethics. In this essay I will consider in particular the question of whether an applicant may be denied admission to the bar for involvement with hateful or discriminatory activities. This question reveals the tension between the first amendment principle, established after the agonizing struggles of the McCarthy era, that no one may be denied membership in the bar because of his or her beliefs alone, and the plenary authority of bar associations to make predictive …

Stopping A Moving Target, Sherry F. Colb

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Qualitative Dimension Of Fourth Amendment "Reasonableness", Sherry F. Colb

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Supreme Court doctrine protects two seemingly distinct kinds of interests under the heading of privacy rights: one "substantive," the other "procedural." The Fourth Amendment guarantee against "unreasonable searches and seizures" has been generally interpreted to protect procedural privacy. Searches are typically defined as governmental inspections of activities and locations in which an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy from observation. In the typical case, this reasonable expectation of privacy may be breached only where the government has acquired a quantitatively substantial objective basis for believing that the search would uncover evidence of a crime. Substantive privacy rights have not …

Unconscious Racism And The Criminal Law, Sheri Johnson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Ducking Dred Scott: A Response To Alexander And Schauer, Emily Sherwin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Assessing The Efficacy Of School Desegregation, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Freedom From Incarceration: Why Is This Right Different From All Other Rights?, Sherry F. Colb

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

American constitutional jurisprudence has long accepted the notion that the exercise of certain rights can only be restricted by the government if the restriction satisfies strict scrutiny. The Supreme Court has identified such rights as fundamental often by relying on an expansive interpretation of the word "liberty" in the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment. In this Article, Professor Colb argues that the Supreme Court has failed to recognize the right to physical liberty itself as a fundamental right. She demonstrates that at present conduct that is not itself constitutionally protected may serve as the basis for imprisonment even …

A Response To Professor Choper: Laying Down Another Ladder, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Langugage And Culture (Not To Say Race) Of Peremptory Challenges, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

An Empirical And Constitutional Analysis Of Racial Ceilings And Public Schools, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Comment On Cass Sunstein's Equality, Emily Sherwin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Scottsboro Boys In 1991: The Promise Of Adequate Criminal Representation Through The Years, Charles W. Wolfram

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

"Discrimination" On The Basis Of Religion: An Examination Of Attempted Value Neutrality In Employment, Laura S. Underkuffler

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Justice Kelleher And The Constitutions, Robert B. Kent

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Black Innocence And The White Jury, Sheri Johnson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Racial prejudice has come under increasingly close scrutiny during the past thirty years, yet its influence on the decisionmaking of criminal juries remains largely hidden from judicial and critical examination. In this Article, Professor Johnson takes a close look at this neglected area. She first sets forth a large body of social science research that reveals a widespread tendency among whites to convict black defendants in instances in which white defendants would be acquitted. Next, she argues that none of the existing techniques for eliminating the influence of racial bias on criminal trials adequately protects minority-race defendants. She contends that …

Race And The Decision To Detain A Suspect, Sheri Johnson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.