Law Commons^™

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 …

Mid-Decade Congressional Redistricting In A Red And Blue Nation, Patrick Marecki

Vanderbilt Law Review

Following the 2002 elections, Republicans in Texas and Colorado achieved unified control of their state governments. In both states, Republicans introduced congressional redistricting legislation and enacted a new redistricting map. Just a year earlier, following the release of the decennial census, each state had enacted a congressional redistricting map that had governed the 2002 elections. The second round of legislation marked the first time in United States history that a state reopened redistricting for partisan political purposes after a redistricting plan had been adopted following the release of the decennial census, had been upheld as constitutional, and had been used …

The Origins And Constitutionality Of State Unit Voting In The Electoral College, Matthew J. Festa

Vanderbilt Law Review

On November 1, 2000, a Joint Resolution was introduced in Congress proposing a constitutional amendment to change the Article II system of electing the President and Vice President' by abolishing the Electoral College. Acknowledging the fact that "there have been more congressionally proposed constitutional amendments on this subject than any other," the sponsoring Senator noted that the issue "could become supremely important in a few days," because "we have the possibility that the winning candidate for President might not win the popular vote in our country.' One prominent legal scholar has described the mere possibility of such an event as …

Threading The Needle: Resolving The Impasse Between Equal Protection And Section 5 Of The Voting Rights Act, Lindsay R. Errickson

Vanderbilt Law Review

When it comes to legislative reapportionment, the Peach State is in a pickle. Consider this: the results of the 1990 census entitled Georgia to an additional representative in the United States Congress, bringing the state's total number of seats to eleven.' In order to comply with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (the "Voting Rights Act"), the state's legislative district map was re- drawn three times during the 1990s before the legal battle over redistricting finally ground to a halt in 1997. Barely giving the state's General Assembly and the federal courts a chance to catch their collective breath, the …

United States V. Virginia's New Gender Equal Protection Analysis With Ramifications For Pregnancy, Parenting, And Title Vii, Candace S. Kovacic-Fleischer

Vanderbilt Law Review

In this Article, Professor Kovacic-liTeischer argues that the Supreme Court's recent decision in United States v. Virginia raises gender equal protection analysis to the level of strict scrutiny. Professor Kovacic-Fleischer asserts that the Court's refusal to accept as immutable VMI's single-sex institutional design, and the Court's requirement that VMT make adjustments and alterations that will enable qualified women to undertake VM's curriculum evidences this shift in gender equal protection analysis. Professor Kovacic-Fleischer then turns to the significance of the Court's citation to California Federal Savings & Loan Association v. Guerra. She asserts that this citation indicates that the Court effectively …

It's Not Easy Bein' Green: The Psychology Of Racism, Environmental Discrimination, And The Argument For Modernizing Equal Protection Analysis, Edward P. Boyle

Vanderbilt Law Review

More than 120 years have passed since the states ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, making equal protection of the laws a constitutional right for all citizens. Since the Amendment's passage, courts and academics have struggled to define exactly what government actions are prohibited by the Equal Protection Clause. Courts and scholars generally have understood equality to mean that similar groups should be treated similarly. This definition recognizes that differences exist be- tween people and that ensuring that all people are treated equally in spite of these differences would inhibit progress. The United States Supreme Court, however, has not interpreted the Clause …

Tension Between The First And Twenty-First Amendments In State Regulation Of Alcohol Advertising, Brian S. Steffey

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Recent Development examines the tension between the first and twenty-first amendments when a state uses its twenty-first amendment power to regulate advertisements of alcoholic beverages that qualify for first amendment protection. Part II of this Recent Development explores the Court's standard of review in cases in which the twenty-first amendment impinges upon a fourteenth amendment right. Part II also reviews the scope of constitutional protection that the first amendment accords commercial speech. Part III examines three recent cases in which states have regulated alcohol advertising. Part IV criticizes these decisions for misapplying the appropriate standard and for relying extensively …

Constitutional Constraints On Initiative And Referendum, David J. Jordan

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Note examines possible constitutional constraints on initiative and referendum. Part II briefly discusses typical initiative and referendum procedures and contrasts these with representative legislative processes. Part III examines the constitutional significance of the differences highlighted in Part II. Finally, Part IV concludes that because of the peculiar political dynamics of initiative and referendum, which diminish normal safeguards of minority interests, courts may appropriately apply heightened due process and equal protection standards when reviewing direct legislation.

Recent Cases, James S. Hutchinson, James R. Newson, Iii, Andrew W. Byrd, Judith Mi. Janssen, John E. Tavss

Vanderbilt Law Review

Civil Procedure--Attorney-Client Privilege-- Privilege Protects Communications Made by Corporate Employee To Secure Legal Advice and a Matter Committed to a Professional Legal Advisor Is Prima Facie Committed To Secure Legal Advice

James S. Hutchinson

attorney-client privilege, the "predominance" test, legal activities

In summary, courts have not yet resolved how to determine who may qualify as the corporate client for purposes of the attorney-client privilege...

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Constitutional Law-- Confrontation Clause-Admission at Trial of Slain Informant's

Prior Grand Jury Testimony Against Defendants Does …

Recent Equal Protection Decisions--Fundamental Right To Travel Or "Newcomers" As A Suspect Class?, Thomas R. Mccoy

Vanderbilt Law Review

The thesis of this article is two-fold. First, the Court's acceptance and application of the Shapiro-Dunn reasoning in Maricopa unintentionally demonstrated the intellectual inadequacy of that much-discussed line of reasoning. Read together, the Court's opinions in Shapiro, Dunn, and Maricopa establish a set of theoretical principles whose derivation is logically defective, whose consistent application would require unacceptable results in many other cases,and whose existence now forces the Court to distinguish arbitrarily other cases that, in terms of those theoretical principles, simply are not distinguishable from Shapiro, Dunn, and Maricopa. Secondly, despite the logical inadequacy and practical disutility of the theoretical …

Constitutional Requirements For Standardized Ability Tests Used In Education, Lewis D. Beckwith

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Note examines the groundwork for possible legal remedies to correct the abuses of tests and testing procedures used by some educators. Because the standardized ability tests administered as prerequisites to college admission are perhaps the most significant obstacles to an individual's educational development, the discussion herein is directed primarily to them. This Note attempts to demonstrate that existing legal doctrines provide an adequate basis for challenging some of the standardized ability tests used in determining college entrance requirements as violations of equal protection and procedural due process. It also discusses the scope of a proper remedy for individuals aggrieved …

Post--Brown Private White Schools--An Imperfect Dualism, James E. Smith

Vanderbilt Law Review

Federal courts have endeavored to assure that private discrimination practiced by schools is truly private. In this endeavor, courts have enjoined any significant state involvement as violative of the equal protection clause. The courts have shown no inclination to prohibit the private discrimination itself, however, and it appears unlikely that courts in the near future will take the innovative step of barring discrimination practiced by private white academies.

Equal Protection, Economic Legislation,And Racial Discrimination, William Silverman

Vanderbilt Law Review

The drive to end racial discrimination now extends beyond blatant racial distinctions to less obvious and less intentional forms of unequal treatment; nonetheless, there still exist laws and governmental programs that are racially neutral on their face but that may have a racially discriminatory impact in practice. Such discrimination can take place when economic and social welfare legislation, lacking a sound economic grounding, attacks symptoms rather than causes and thereby unintentionally compounds the problems facing black people. At the same time, laws that are at the root of unequal treatment seem to go unchallenged. From the point of view of …

Equal Protection--Defacto Racio-Economic Classifications Not Constitutionally Suspect, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

The fourteenth amendment's prohibition that "no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws has long been held to require not only that each person be afforded a "fair" administration of state statutory commands, but also that the laws themselves be "equal."' This requirement of equal laws, however, has not been interpreted to mean that statutes must apply uniformly to all persons; rather the courts have held that legislatures may fashion laws that affect separate classes of persons unequally, as long as the classifi- cations involved are reasonable. While this judicial standard of …

Book Reviews, John A. Gorfinkel, Arthur S. Miller, Bruce L. Mcdonald

Vanderbilt Law Review

American Conflicts Law By Robert A. Leflar Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc., 1968. Pp. lxxvi, 677. $19.50

reviewer: John A. Gorfinkel

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The Policy-Making Process By Charles E. Lindblom EnglewoodCliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1968. Pp. 122. $4.95 (Cloth), $1.95 (Paper).

reviewers: Arthur S.Miller, Bruce L. McDonald

Constitutional Law -- 1963 Tennessee Survey, James C. Kirby, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

A 1963 survey of Tennessee cases having to do with various issues of constitutional law, including legislative apportionment, desegregation, equal protection and due process.

The Waite Court And The Fourteenth Amendment, Howard J. Graham

Vanderbilt Law Review

Underscoring so much while leaving so much unsaid, this book is a powerful plea for post-1937 trends and constructions--not merely in the Supreme Court, but now in Congress. How does the nation, the Court, the Congress, make good a lost century? Chief Justice Waite's triumph--decidedly more modest in my estimation than in Dr. Magrath's--was that he dared, tried, succeeded--at least by half. The country's failure was that it so long did not--has not yet--even by half. Twenty years and three constitutional amendments after emancipation too many of our forebears, including all members of this Court except the former Union colonel …

Constitutional Law -- 1961 Tennessee Survey (Ii), James C. Kirby, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

Only three cases are assigned to this field for the abbreviated survey period and in one of these, the court avoided the constitutional question. In the other two cases the constitutional issues were not difficult and the results reached should cause neither surprise nor controversy among survey readers.

Equal Protection -- Racial Discrimination Home Rule--Self Executing Constitutional Provisions Miscellanous

Constitutional Law--1960 Tennessee Survey, James C. Kirby Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

Eminent Domain--Just Compensation.-Landowners sued the Tennessee Commissioner of Highways and Public Works for compensation for a taking of property for the state's superhighway program in Brooksbank v. Leech. The trial court sustained a demurrer on the ground that the suit was barred by sovereign immunity. In order to dispose of this question on appeal the supreme court first determined whether the legislature had provided an adequate statutory method for just compensation, the absence of which would have rendered the taking unconstitutional under both article I, section 21, of the Constitution of Tennessee and the due process clause of the United …