Law Commons^™

Reforming The Contested Convention: Rethinking The Presidential Nomination Process, Michael T. Morley

Scholarly Publications

The presidential nomination process used by the Democratic and Republican Parties is an ill-considered, unstable pastiche of competing components that generally operate in fundamentally different manners. The process is comprised of three main elements: the selection of delegates to the national convention (generally through state and district party conventions or other intraparty processes), the determination of the presidential candidates for whom those delegates will vote (generally through state-by-state primaries and caucuses), and the national convention itself.

The ritual of holding primary elections and caucuses across the nation creates the widespread public expectation that the results of those proceedings—the will of …

Policing Criminal Justice Data, Wayne A. Logan, Andrew Guthrie Ferguson

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Reproduction Reconceived, Courtney Megan Cahill

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Separation Of Powers, Executive Authority, And Suspension Of Disbelief, Nat Stern

Scholarly Publications

The growth of federal executive power to a magnitude not foreseen at the Constitution's adoption has been largely enabled by favorable rulings by the Supreme Court. Though not invariably sustaining executive prerogative, the Court has rejected challenges to executive power on a scale sufficient to afford the Executive enormous latitude to carry out and shape federal policy. In assessing whether the Executive has overstepped its bounds in particular cases, scholars and Justices alike frequently debate whether a formalist or functional approach more faithfully implements the Constitution's system of separation of powers. Transcending these two schools of interpretation, however, is a …

Inefficient Inequality, Shi-Ling Hsu

Scholarly Publications

For the past several decades, much American lawmaking has been animated by a concern for economic efficiency. At the same time, broad concerns over wealth and income inequality have roiled American politics, and still loom over lawmakers. It can be reasonably argued that a tension exists between efficiency and equality, but that argument has had too much purchase over the past few decades of lawmaking. What has been overlooked is that inequality itself can be allocatively inefficient when it gives rise to collectively inefficient behavior. Worse still, some lawmaking only masquerades as being efficiency-promoting; upon closer inspection, some of this …

On Marriage Equality And Transformation Through Preservation, Courtney Cahill

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Early Termination Of A Trust, Jeffrey H. Kahn, Douglas A. Kahn

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Liberalism, Philanthrophy, And Praxis: Realigning The Philanthropy Of The Republic And Social Teaching Of The Church, Rob Atkinson

Scholarly Publications

This Article seeks a common ground for theists of the Abrahamist religious faiths and agnostics in the Socratic philosophical tradition on the role that the liberal state should play in advancing the two coordinate aims of traditional philanthropy: helping society's least well off and advancing the highest forms of human excellence. It focuses particularly on Abrahamists who are orthodox Catholics and Socratics who are left-liberals, distinguishing their broad views on the liberal state's proper philanthropic role from the far narrower views of libertarians and other right-liberals. It concludes that adherents of Catholic Social Teaching and advocates of secular left-liberalism can …

The Uneasy Case For The Retirement Of Professor Douglas A. Kahn, Jeffrey H. Kahn

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Is An American Value Added Tax Inevitable?, Steve R. Johnson

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

De Facto Class Actions? Plaintiff- And Defendant-Oriented Injunctions In Election Law, Voting Rights And Other Constitutional Cases, Michael T. Morley

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Fixing Bail, Samuel R. Wiseman

Scholarly Publications

A large portion of the jail population consists of criminal defendants whose guilt has yet to be established. A growing number of states have attempted to reduce jail populations in light of budget concerns, and many federal and state statutes already direct judges to detain defendants only if alternative conditions will not protect society or prevent pretrial flight. Despite these legislative directives, judges continue to jail too many defendants pretrial. Indeed, although statutes often direct judges not to impose financial conditions leading to detention, many pretrial detainees are in jail because they could not afford the bond set by a …

Popularizing Hearsay, Justin Sevier

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Growing Up With Scout And Atticus: Getting From To Kill A Mockingbird Through Go Set A Watchman, Rob Atkinson

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Contract Meta-Interpretation, Shawn J. Bayern

Scholarly Publications

This Article provides a general framework for resolving the contract law’s ambivalence between textualism and contextualism, one of the most difficult questions in modern contract interpretation. Simply put, the Article’s argument is that courts need to determine the parties’ preferences as to how their contracts should be interpreted; this “meta-interpretive” inquiry can then direct the court’s interpretation or construction of the parties’ substantive rights and duties. Moreover, the Article argues that while contextualist interpretation is not, and should not be, mandatory for all interpretive questions under contract law, contextualism is necessary to resolve the initial “meta-interpretive” question: What interpretive regime …

The New Elections Clause, Michael T. Morley

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Privacy Petitions And Institutional Legitimacy, Lauren Henry Scholz

Scholarly Publications

This Article argues that a petitions process for privacy concerns arising from new technologies would substantially aid in gauging privacy social norms and legitimating regulation of new technologies. An accessible, transparent petitions process would empower individuals who have privacy concerns by making their proposals for change more visible. Moreover, data accumulated from such a petitions process would provide the requisite information to enable institutions to incorporate social norms into privacy policy development. Hearing and responding to privacy petitions would build trust with the public regarding the role of government and large companies in shaping the modern privacy technical infrastructure. This …

A Test To Identify And Remedy Anti-Gay Bias In Child Custody Decisions After Obergefell, Nat Stern, Karen Oehme, Mark Joseph Stern

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Shareholder Political Primacy, Jay B. Kesten

Scholarly Publications

Corporate political activity raises an important and diffcult question of corporate law: who decides when the corporation should speak and what it should say? In several cases, the Supreme Court has provided a clear answer: shareholders, acting through the procedures of corporate democracy. While this holding has attracted substantial academic and public criticism, there has been no sustained evaluation (beyond identifying the potential agency costs of corporate political activity) of the possibility that the Supreme Court's appeal to the fraught concept of "corporate democracy," though woefully under-theorized, might be the best allocation of power in the limited context of corporate …

Emerging Legal And Institutional Responses To Sea-Level Rise In Florida And Beyond, David L. Markell

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Revisiting Congresssional Delegation Of Interpretative Primacy As The Foundation For Chevron Defense, Mark Seidenfeld

Scholarly Publications

Although congressional delegation is the rationale used most often to justify the Chevron doctrine, most scholars who have written about this justification have recognized that it is a fiction, albeit, they claim, a useful one. In “Chevron’s Foundation,” I proposed an alternative foundation for the Chevron doctrine—a judicial self-limitation justification for Chevron deference—based on an implicit understanding of Article III that courts should not resolve cases by making policy choices where alternative means for deciding these cases exists. In this essay, I first revisit my original critique of the delegation rationale and explicitly respond to the arguments …

Mind The Gap: A Systematic Approach To The International Criminal Court's Arrest Warrants Enforcement Problem, Nadia Banteka

Scholarly Publications

International Criminal Courts and Tribunals ("ICCTs") have been established on a belying enforcement paradox between their significant mandate and their inherent lack of enforcement powers due to the absence of systemic law enforcement. This Article is premised on the idea that ICCTs fail to procure substantial results due to their delusive persistence in rejecting the factoring of politics in their operation. Thus, I suggest a perspective for arrest warrant enforcement that not only recognizes the relevance of politics but also capitalizes on it. I argue that by fully comprehending its enforcement tools and making use of its political role, the …

Dangerous Liaisons: The Responsibility To Protect And A Reform Of The U.N. Security Council, Nadia Banteka

Scholarly Publications

This Article responds to current literature, which unitarily advocates for a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) reform solution to the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) deadlock, particularly in the context of the situation in Syria. This Article argues, contra the consensus, that a reformed UNSC would hinder the crystallization of R2P as a customary norm and its application to humanitarian crises. Part I of this Article argues that the interaction between R2P and the newly advanced concept of Responsibility Not to Veto (RN2V) can be examined under two hypotheses: one substantive and one procedural. The substantive hypothesis treats RN2 V as …

Trauma-Informed Co-Parenting: How A Shift In Compulsory Divorce Education To Reflect New Brain Development Research Can Promote Both Parents' And Childrens' Best Interests, Nat Stern, Karen Oehme, Anthony J. Ferraro, Lisa S. Panisch, Mallory Lucier-Greer

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Political Support And Structural Constitutional Law, David Landau

Scholarly Publications

The field of comparative constitutional law has paid insufficient attention to judicial decisions on structural issues. This Article seeks to begin the process of constructing a comparative analysis of structural constitutional jurisprudence. Using both theoretical analysis and a case study, it seeks to demonstrate that courts are more likely to be successful in their programs of structural constitutional law when they enjoy support from other political and social actors. This simple point has significant implications for constitutional theory. First, it suggests that the structural safeguards theory long assumed in United States constitutional law may have only limited applicability. Under common …

Non-Contention Jurisdiction And Consent Decrees, Michael T. Morley

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Three Problems (And Two Solutions) In The Law Of Partnership Formation, Shawn J. Bayern

Scholarly Publications

This Article considers several foundational questions concerning the formation of general partnerships, a topic that has received little modern attention and that is governed largely by classical axioms rather than adaptive modern considerations. Its three main topics concern (1) the timing of partnership formation, (2) the aggregation of multiple distinct questions under the single heading of “partnership formation,” and (3) the rarely challenged proposition that general partners ought to be liable for partnership obligations, a doctrine that is surprisingly at odds with the rest of modern business-entity law.

Next Generation Compliance, David L. Markell, Robert L. Glicksman

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

The Future Of American Tax Administration: Conceptual Alternatives And Political Realities, Steve R. Johnson

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Choice At Work: Young V. United Parcel Service, Pregnancy Discrimination, And Reproductive Liberty, Mary Ziegler

Scholarly Publications

In deciding Young v. United Parcel Service, the Supreme Court has intervened in ongoing struggles about when and whether the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 (PDA) requires the accommodation of pregnant workers. Drawing on original archival research, this Article historicizes Young, arguing that the PDA embodied a limited principle of what the Article calls meaningful reproductive choice. Feminist litigators first forged such an idea in the early 1970s, arguing that heightened judicial scrutiny should apply whenever state actors placed special burdens on women who chose childbirth or abortion.

A line of Supreme Court decisions completely rejected this understanding …