Law Commons^™

November 8, 2013: Legislative Prayer, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Legislative Prayer“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Mutual Pharmaceutical Co. V. Bartlett And Its Implications, Brian Wolfman, Anne King

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The authors state that the U.S. Supreme Court’s preemption ruling in Mutual Pharmaceutical Co. v. Bartlett, which generally shields generic drug manufacturers from state-law damages liability for design-defect claims, may also have broader implications for preemption jurisprudence. In this article they describe the Supreme Court’s decision in Mutual and evaluate how it may affect future products-liability litigation.

Part I provides an overview of the case’s factual background and of federal generic drug regulation, while Part II discusses the Court’s majority opinion and the dissents. Part III analyzes the implications of the decision, offering ideas on how plaintiffs injured by …

October 26, 2013: In God We Trust In The Public Schools, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “In God We Trust in the Public Schools“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

July 11, 2013: Should We Discard The Constitution?, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Should We Discard the Constitution?“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

July 2, 2013: Is Opposition To Gay Marriage Irrational?, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Is Opposition to Gay Marriage Irrational?“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Functioning Just Fine: The Unappreciated Value Of The Supreme Court Confirmation Process, Lori A. Ringhand, Paul M. Collins Jr.

Scholarly Works

Scholars, politicians, and legal commentators from across the ideological spectrum seem to agree that the U.S. Supreme Court confirmation process is broken and needs to be fixed. Reform proposals vary, but share a common assumption that if we do not do something the legitimacy of the Court will be at risk.

This Article presents an alternative view, arguing that the confirmation process is in fact functioning just fine. The way we confirm Supreme Court nominees today is not perfect, but nor is it all that bad. If there is a crisis facing the high Court today, it lies not in …

June 29, 2013: The Other Side Of The Us Supreme Court Decisions, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “The Other Side of the US Supreme Court Decisions“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Decision Theory And Babbitt V. Sweet Home: Skepticism About Norms, Discretion, And The Virtues Of Purposivism, Victoria Nourse

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this writing, the author applies a “decision theory” of statutory interpretation, elaborated recently in the Yale Law Journal, to Professor William Eskridge’s illustrative case, Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter of Communities for a Great Oregon. In the course of this application, she takes issue with the conventional wisdom that purposivism, as a method of statutory interpretation, is inevitably a more virtuous model of statutory interpretation. First, the author questions whether we have a clear enough jurisprudential picture both of judicial discretion and legal as opposed to political normativity. Second, she argues that, under decision theory, Sweet Home is …

May 16, 2013: Was Schempp Such A Triumph?, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Was Schempp Such a Triumph?“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Supreme Court Institute Annual Report, 2012-2013, Georgetown University Law Center, Supreme Court Institute

SCI Papers & Reports

During the 2012-2013 academic year–corresponding to the U.S. Supreme Court’s October Term (OT) 2012–the Supreme Court Institute (SCI) provided moot courts for advocates in 100% of the cases heard by the Court this Term, offered a variety of programs related to the Supreme Court, and hosted several delegations of foreign visitors. A list of all SCI moot courts held in OT 2012–arranged by argument sitting and date of moot and including the name and affiliation of each advocate and the number of student observers–follows the narrative portion of this report.

The Oath: The Obama White House And The Supreme Court By Jeffrey Toobin (Book Review), John Paul Jones

Law Faculty Publications

For anyone with an interest in the politics of courts, Jeffrey Toobin’s The Oath is a good read. Laypersons might see it as a busman’s holiday for lawyers working in American appellate courts, but NAACA members surely appreciate more than most how unique a judicial institution is the Supreme Court of the United States. Thus, there is much to which those working backstage in other venues can relate, but much more offering them frissons of the unusual.

A "Progressive Contraction Of Jurisdiction": The Making Of The Modern Supreme Court, Carolyn Shapiro

125th Anniversary Materials

The Supreme Court in 1888 was in crisis. Its overall structure and responsibilities, created a century earlier by the Judiciary Act of 1789, were no longer adequate or appropriate. The Court had no control over its own docket - at the beginning of the 1888 term, there were 1,563 cases pending - and the justices’ responsibilities, which included circuit riding, were impossible to meet. Shaped as it was by a law almost as old as the country itself, the Supreme Court in 1888 - and the federal judicial system as a whole - would be barely recognizable to many today. …

The Commerce Clause And Executive Power: Exploring Nascent Individual Rights In National Federal Of Independent Business V. Sebelius (2012), Ronald Kahn

Schmooze 'tickets'

No abstract provided.

February 12, 2013: The Absurdity Of Corporate Religious Freedom, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “The Absurdity of Corporate Religious Freedom“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

January 5, 2013: Restoring The Lost Constitution, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Restoring the Lost Constitution“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Religious Freedom And Women's Health - Litigation On Contraception, Timothy Stoltzfus Jost

Scholarly Articles

Not available.

Promises Made To Be Broken? Standstill Agreements In Change Of Control Transactions, Christina M. Sautter

Journal Articles

Many promises are made in the negotiation of a merger but not all promises are necessarily enforceable or consistent with a board of directors’ fiduciary duties. This article explores the enforceability of one such promise: the buyer’s standstill agreement. When a publicly traded company explores a sale, that company, the target, customarily requires each potential buyer to execute a standstill agreement. A typical standstill prevents potential buyers from publicly making or announcing a bid for the target during the sale process without the target’s prior consent and for a period of approximately twelve to eighteen months from the conclusion of …

Foreword: Supreme Court Narratives: Law, History, And Journalism, James F. Simon

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Is Prayer Constitutional At Municipal Council Meetings?, Thomas A. Schweitzer

Scholarly Works

The author discusses Galloway v. Town of Greece, a case which challenges official prayers at town council meetings. To provide the necessary background information for understanding the issues in Galloway, the author begins with a brief discussion of two other cases, Lemon v. Kurtzman and Marsh v. Chambers. The author then examines the district and circuit court decisions in Galloway and the Establishment Clause issues posed by the case. Next, the author notes issues raised by other lower court decisions involving legislative prayer after Marsh.

Towards the end of the article, to clarify and decide the constitutional issues, the author …

Patents At The Supreme Court: It Could Have Been Worse, Gregory Dolin

All Faculty Scholarship

In the last few years in particular, the Court has expanded the zone of exclusion from patent eligibility, limited the availability of injunctive relief for patentees whose patents have been adjudged to be valid and infringed, and broadened the scope of the patent exhaustion doctrine. To be sure, not all of the Supreme Court’s decisions were “anti-patent.” Nonetheless, the overall trajectory of the Court’s patent jurisprudence has been toward a narrower set of patent rights. Thus, there was significant trepidation in the patent bar and the academy when the Supreme Court decided to hear three patent cases in the OT …

Supreme Court Strikes Down Doma’S Key Provision, Ducks On Prop 8, Arthur S. Leonard

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Will Supreme Court Rule On Doma?, Arthur S. Leonard

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

A Monist Supremacy Clause And A Dualistic Supreme Court: The Status Of Treaty Law As U.S. Law, D. A. Jeremy Telman

Law Faculty Publications

Hans Kelsen identified three possible relationships between the international and domestic legal orders. Dualism understands the international and domestic legal orders as separate and independent. Monism describes a single and comprehensive legal order but can operate with either domestic law or international law as a higher order law. Like many domestic legal orders, that of the United States has never fully worked out which of these three options specifies the status of international law in its domestic legal order. While the text of the United States Constitution suggests a form of monism in which international law is automatically part of …

Substantive Due Process In Exile: The Supreme Court's Original Interpretation Of The Due Process Clause Of The Fourteenth Amendment, Natalie Banta

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Public’S Constitutional Thinking And The Fate Of Health Care Reform: Ppaca As Case Study, Bruce G. Peabody, Peter J. Woolley

Res Gestae

No abstract provided.

Supreme Court Review: Legalistic Argle-Bargle, Molly Mcburney, Kristen Barnes, Bernadette Genetin, Wilson Huhn, William Jordan, Marge Koosed, Rich Lavoie, Brant Lee, Elizabeth Reilly, Bill Rich, Kalyani Robbins, Jeff Samuels, Tracy Thomas, Katharine Van Tassel

Akron Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Popular Constitutional Values: The Links Between Public Opinion And The Supreme Court's 2011 Term, Peter J. Woolley, Bruce G. Peabody

Res Gestae

No abstract provided.

Supreme Court Of The United States, October Term 2013 Preview, Georgetown University Law Center, Supreme Court Institute

Supreme Court Overviews

No abstract provided.

Commandeering And Constitutional Change, Jud Campbell

Law Faculty Publications

Coming in the midst of the Rehnquist Court’s federalism revolution, Printz v. United States held that federal commandeering of state executive officers is “fundamentally incompatible with our constitutional system of dual sovereignty.” The Printz majority’s discussion of historical evidence, however, inverted Founding-era perspectives. When Federalists such as Alexander Hamilton endorsed commandeering during the ratification debates, they were not seeking to expand federal power. Quite the opposite. The Federalists capitulated to states’ rights advocates who had recently rejected a continental impost tax because Hamilton, among others, insisted on hiring federal collectors rather than commandeering state collectors. The commandeering power, it turns …

Justice Scalia's Truthiness And The Virtues Of Judicial Candor, Allen K. Rostron

Faculty Works

Antonin Scalia is by far the Supreme Court’s greatest wit and most colorful personality. His judicial opinions are also remarkably passionate and frank. He has received intense criticism for supposedly being “too political” in some of his opinions, such as his scorching dissent in last year’s case about Arizona laws aimed at illegal immigrants or his bitter denunciation of the Court’s last major ruling on the detention of suspected terrorists. But what purpose is really served by judges hiding their motivations behind a false veneer of detachment and stilted formalism? Scalia can be so refreshingly candid in his judicial work …