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Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Constitutional Law

Legal Writing and Research

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Full-Text Articles in Law

Where The Constitution Falls Short: Confession Admissibility And Police Regulation, Courtney E. Lewis Jan 2019

Where The Constitution Falls Short: Confession Admissibility And Police Regulation, Courtney E. Lewis

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

A confession presented at trial is one of the most damning pieces of evidence against a criminal defendant, which means that the rules governing its admissibility are critical. At the outset of confession admissibility in the United States, the judiciary focused on a confession’s truthfulness. Culminating in the landmark case Miranda v. Arizona, judicial concern with the reliability of confessions shifted away from whether a confession was true and towards curtailing unconstitutional police misconduct. Post-hoc constitutionality review, however, is arguably inappropriate. Such review is inappropriate largely because the reviewing court must find that the confession was voluntary only by …


A Gun To Whose Head? Federalism, Localism, And The Spending Clause, Daniel S. Cohen Jan 2019

A Gun To Whose Head? Federalism, Localism, And The Spending Clause, Daniel S. Cohen

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

President Trump’s executive order rescinding federal funds from “sanctuary jurisdictions” has brought a critical, but overlooked, question of constitutional law to the forefront of the political debate: how does the Spending Clause apply to local governments? The purpose of the Spending Clause is to empower the federal government to bargain with the states to enact policies it cannot enact itself. This power, however, is constrained within the confines of federalism. The Supreme Court has sought to restrict the Spending Clause by crafting the Dole-NFIB framework, a test to determine whether a federal grant has compromised federalism. At its …