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Full-Text Articles in Law

A Right To Confrontation Or Insinuation? The Supreme Court's Holding In Portuondo V. Agard, J. Fielding Douthat Jr. Jan 2000

A Right To Confrontation Or Insinuation? The Supreme Court's Holding In Portuondo V. Agard, J. Fielding Douthat Jr.

University of Richmond Law Review

Imagine that you are charged with a crime that you did not commit. Forced to attend your own trial, you choose to testify on your own behalf. The prosecutor conducts his best spin to discredit you, but his attempts are largely unsuccessful. Not only is your story consistent with that of other witnesses, but it is a plausible accounting of the disputed facts. The reason: your story is the truth. Nevertheless, in summation, the prosecutor attacks your credibility. His argument, however, addresses no inconsistencies, no physical evidence, and no concrete reason to cast doubt on your story. Instead, he argues …


Looking Sideways, Looking Backwards, Looking Forwards: Judicial Review Vs. Democracy In Comparative Perspective, Ran Hirschl Jan 2000

Looking Sideways, Looking Backwards, Looking Forwards: Judicial Review Vs. Democracy In Comparative Perspective, Ran Hirschl

University of Richmond Law Review

For the [past] two centuries, the Constitution [has been] as central to American political culture as the New Testament was to medieval Europe. Just as Milton believed that "all wisdom is enfolded" within the pages of the Bible, all good Americans, from the National Rifle Association to the ACLU, have believed no less of this singular document.


University Of Richmond Law Review Jan 2000

University Of Richmond Law Review

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.


Reanimator: Mark Tushnet And The Second Coming Of The Imperial Presidency, Neal Devins Jan 2000

Reanimator: Mark Tushnet And The Second Coming Of The Imperial Presidency, Neal Devins

University of Richmond Law Review

A world without judicial review? Not that long ago-when the Left fought tooth and nail to defend the legacy ofthe Warren and (much of the) Burger Courts-the thought of taking the Constitution away from the courts would have been horrific. Witness, for example, Edward Kennedy's depiction of "Robert Bork's America!' as "a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, [and] rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids." Bork's sin, of course, was embracing a kind of populist constitutional discourse, that is, the notion that the founders "banked …


Against Constitutional Law (Populist Or Otherwise), Michael Mandel Jan 2000

Against Constitutional Law (Populist Or Otherwise), Michael Mandel

University of Richmond Law Review

Mark Tushnet has written a great critique of constitutional judicial review. With his sure grasp of the scholarship, his commit- ment to the issues and the real people behind them, and his methodical, flawless reasoning, he has effectively blasted the theoretical foundations of judicial constitutional law to smithereens. As such, he has made a valuable contribution to legal scholarship that will remain so for a long time to come.


Comparing Alternative Approaches About Congress's Role In Constitutional Law, Charles Tiefer Jan 2000

Comparing Alternative Approaches About Congress's Role In Constitutional Law, Charles Tiefer

University of Richmond Law Review

Mark Tushnet's Taking the ConstitutionAway from the Courts presents many aspects of the theme expressed in its title. I find most interesting the aspect concerning Congress's role in constitutional law. I like this aspect because I spent almost two decades working on constitutional law in Congress, principally as the House of Representatives' Solicitor and Deputy General Counsel representing the House of Representatives in countless constitutional controversies, and I have written a good deal about it. Tushnet provides us with an alternative perspective from which we can view Congress both during that time and since. Tushnet's book is kind enough to …


Populist Natural Law (Reflections On Tushnet's "Thin Constitution"), Frank I. Michelman Jan 2000

Populist Natural Law (Reflections On Tushnet's "Thin Constitution"), Frank I. Michelman

University of Richmond Law Review

Constitutional review is the activity of measuring action choices of governments against a pre-existing set of publicly known or ascertainable, "higher" norms for the conduct of government. Anyone can do it: chief executives pondering vetoes or preparing state messages; legislators contemplating legal change; police chiefs reviewing department manuals; school board members debating curriculum guides; city planners routing highway expansions; citizens lobbying and pundits castigating any or all of the above; dinner partners talking politics; candidates running for office; voters turning out rascals. "American-style judicial review," let us say, is constitutional review conducted by a nonpopular, unelected, life-tenured body, whose decisions, …


Response: Politics, National Identify, And The Thin Constitution, Mark Tushnet Jan 2000

Response: Politics, National Identify, And The Thin Constitution, Mark Tushnet

University of Richmond Law Review

Any author would be pleased at having his or her work taken as seriously as mine has been by the contributors to this Symposium. As I wrote in Taking the ConstitutionAway from the Courts, my aim was not so much to place on the table a serious policy proposal-elimination of judicial review-but rather was to broaden a discussion about constitutionalism and judicial review that has been far too narrow. For a decade or more, constitutional theory and theorists have been overly concerned with questions about constitutional interpretation that are the legacy of controversies over the Warren Court's liberal activism. The …


Herbert Wechsler's Complaint And The Revival Of Grand Constitutional Theory, Keith E. Whittington Jan 2000

Herbert Wechsler's Complaint And The Revival Of Grand Constitutional Theory, Keith E. Whittington

University of Richmond Law Review

In 1988, Mark Tushnet noted the "revival of grand theory in constitutional law." Tushnet was somewhat unusual in specifying the object of contemporary constitutional theory so precisely. As he noted, what had been revived in the late twentieth century was an "interest in comprehensive normative theories of constitutional law." There was relatively little broad concern with constitutionalism in this revival, but quite a lot of concern with justifying and elaborating the preferred constitutional decisions of the Supreme Court in specific cases. Having "just published a book on constitutional theory that I unsurprisingly but undoubtedly erroneously regard as the last word …


Commerce Clause, Enforcement Clause, Or Neither? The Constitutionality Of The Violence Against Women Act In Brzonkala V. Morrison, Christine M. Devey Jan 2000

Commerce Clause, Enforcement Clause, Or Neither? The Constitutionality Of The Violence Against Women Act In Brzonkala V. Morrison, Christine M. Devey

University of Richmond Law Review

On September 21, 1994, two men raped Christy Brzonkala in her dormitory room at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univer- sity("VirginiaTech"). Unfortunately,this kind of event is not a rare occurrence in the United States. "According to the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics ("BJS"), women are the victims of more than 4.5 million violent crimes each year. This alarming figure includes approximately 500,000 rapes or other sexual assaults." In light of these statistics, and "after four years of hearings, Congress enacted [the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 ("VAWA" or "the Act")], a comprehensive federal statute designed to …


Students Under Siege? Constitutional Considerations For Public Schools Concerned With School Safety, Jennifer L. Barnes Jan 2000

Students Under Siege? Constitutional Considerations For Public Schools Concerned With School Safety, Jennifer L. Barnes

University of Richmond Law Review

Imagine the following scenario: The principal at River City High School receives a telephone call from an anonymous informant, notifying her that he had observed a knife in "Jimmy's" backpack, and indicated that he might also have access to a gun. The principal recalls that Jimmy is the student who has dyed his hair blue and who wanders the halls wearing a black trench coat and a T-shirt that reads "School Sucks," in violation of the school district's dress code. She checks Jimmy's file and discovers that he has been absent on numerous occasions during the school year and has …