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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Privatization Of The Civil Commitment Process And The State Action Doctrine: Have The Mentally Ill Been Systematically Stripped Of Their Fourteenth Amendment Rights?, William Brooks
Scholarly Works
No abstract provided.
Unenumerated Rights Under The U.S. Constitution, Thomas B. Mcaffee
Unenumerated Rights Under The U.S. Constitution, Thomas B. Mcaffee
Scholarly Works
The symbol of modern constitutional law, for good or ill, is Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court’s abortion decision. From the beginning, the big question has been, where in the text of the Constitution do were find this “right of privacy” that secures the right to choose abortion? Some scholars have argued that such a right could not be found in the text or structure of the Constitution. One powerful counter stems from a textual approach to giving effect to the Constitution. In this article, the author argues that, if we look carefully enough at the text and history, …
A Symposium Précis, Thomas E. Baker
A Symposium Précis, Thomas E. Baker
Faculty Publications
This article is an introduction to and overview of the Drake University Law School symposium The Constitution and the Internet, held in February of 2001. It highlights important issues including the Constitution and the Internet, civil liberty and the application of a 200 year old document to the modern age of rapidly changing technology.
United States Supreme Court: 2001 Term, Paul C. Giannelli
United States Supreme Court: 2001 Term, Paul C. Giannelli
Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
James Madison And The Constitution's “Convention For Proposing Amendments", Robert G. Natelson
James Madison And The Constitution's “Convention For Proposing Amendments", Robert G. Natelson
Robert G. Natelson
This article traces the progress of James Madison's thought on the Constitution's "convention for proposing amendments as a way for states to assert themselves against the federal government. Madison saw the convention as an important part of the Constitution, and a constitutional alternative to nullification.
Thick And Thin: Interdisciplinary Conversations On Populism, Law, Political Science, And Constitutional Change, Mark A. Graber
Thick And Thin: Interdisciplinary Conversations On Populism, Law, Political Science, And Constitutional Change, Mark A. Graber
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Everything I Need To Know About Presidents I Learned From Dr. Seuss, Gary S. Lawson
Everything I Need To Know About Presidents I Learned From Dr. Seuss, Gary S. Lawson
Faculty Scholarship
Oaths are out of fashion these days. This is an era in which it is widely considered unreasonable to expect the President of the United States to obey basic principles of law and justice, much less to honor something as abstract as an oath. Perjury the violation of a legally binding oath-is publicly defended as proof of the offender's humanity rather than his criminality. And one should not even mention in polite company something as gauche as honoring an oath of marriage. Those pesky vows of marital fidelity were, after all, just words.
Making Sense Of The Eleventh Amendment: International Law And State Sovereignty, Thomas H. Lee
Making Sense Of The Eleventh Amendment: International Law And State Sovereignty, Thomas H. Lee
Faculty Scholarship
The Judicial Power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State. - Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America The thesis of this article is that the Eleventh Amendment, ratified in 1798, represented the incorporation into the American domestic constitutional law of federalism (specifically, the doctrine of state sovereign immunity) the late eighteenth-century international law rule that only states have rights against other states …
Does The Federal Constitution Incorporate The Declaration Of Independence?, Thomas B. Mcaffee
Does The Federal Constitution Incorporate The Declaration Of Independence?, Thomas B. Mcaffee
Scholarly Works
A standard view at the time of the adoption of the Constitution was that “a constitution does not in itself imply any more than a declaration of the relation which the different parts of the government have to each other, but does not imply security for the rights of individuals.” The drafters of the state constitutions had “assumed that government had all power except for specific prohibitions contained in a bill of rights.” When the federal Constitution was transmitted to the states by Congress, Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts defended the omission of a bill of rights based on the federal …
The Constitution As Based On The Consent Of The Governed—Or, Should We Have An Unwritten Constitution?, Thomas B. Mcaffee
The Constitution As Based On The Consent Of The Governed—Or, Should We Have An Unwritten Constitution?, Thomas B. Mcaffee
Scholarly Works
It is useful to embrace continuity in describing basic differences we have in giving effect to the Constitution, especially if particular ways of communicating help us convey and understand what is at stake. The individual who originated the term “non-interpretivist” to describe judicial review implementing the unwritten constitution, for example, continues to believe that the best approach to constitutional interpretation is not “textualist,” but is properly characterized as “supplemental.” In his view, “much American constitutional adjudication, including but not limited to decisions under due process liberty and the right of privacy, involves the interpretation of an unwritten and essentially common …
Free-Standing Due Process And Criminal Procedure: The Supreme Court's Search For Interpretive Guidelines, Jerold H. Israel
Free-Standing Due Process And Criminal Procedure: The Supreme Court's Search For Interpretive Guidelines, Jerold H. Israel
Articles
When I was first introduced to the constitutional regulation of criminal procedure in the mid-1950s, a single issue dominated the field: To what extent did the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment impose upon states the same constitutional restraints that the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments imposed upon the federal government? While those Bill of Rights provisions, as even then construed, imposed a broad range of constitutional restraints upon the federal criminal justice system, the federal system was (and still is) minuscule as compared to the combined systems of the fifty states. With the Bill of Rights provisions …
When Did The Constitution Become Law, Gary S. Lawson
When Did The Constitution Become Law, Gary S. Lawson
Faculty Scholarship
Conventional wisdom and Supreme Court doctrine hold that the federal Constitution became legally effective on March 4, 1789, when the first session of Congress began. This conclusion is wrong, or at least seriously incomplete. Evidence from the Constitution, its adoption, and contemporaneous understandings reflected in treaties, statutes, and state constitutions demonstrates that the Constitution did not have a single effective date. Instead, different parts of the Constitution took effect in stages, beginning on June 21, 1788, when New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the document, and continuing at least until April 30, 1789, when President Washington was sworn …
'Bush' V. 'Gore': What Was The Supreme Court Thinking?, Richard D. Friedman
'Bush' V. 'Gore': What Was The Supreme Court Thinking?, Richard D. Friedman
Articles
One of the most astonishing episodes in American political history ended last month with perhaps the most imperial decision ever by the United States Supreme Court. In one stroke, the Court exercised power that belonged to Congress, the legislature of Florida, Florida's courts and administrators, and, most importantly, the people of the state.
Avoiding Constitutional Questions As A Three-Branch Problem, William K. Kelley
Avoiding Constitutional Questions As A Three-Branch Problem, William K. Kelley
Journal Articles
This article criticizes the cardinal rule of statutory construction known as the avoidance canon - that statutes must be interpreted to avoid raising serious constitutional questions - as failing to respect the proper constitutional roles of both Congress and the Executive. It argues that the avoidance canon in practice cannot be grounded in legislative supremacy, which is the common justification for it offered by the Supreme Court, because it assumes without foundation that Congress would always prefer not to come close to the constitutional line in enacting statutes. Instead, the avoidance canon creates pressure for courts to adopt statutory meanings …
Virtue And The Constitution Of The United States, John M. Finnis
Virtue And The Constitution Of The United States, John M. Finnis
Journal Articles
In this Article, Finnis reflects on the following five questions: (1) Does the Constitution require or presuppose, or thwart or even forbid, a formative project of government inculcating in citizens the civic virtue necessary to promote and sustain a good society?; (2) To what extent can the institutions of civil society support or even supplant government in inculcating civic virtue?; (3) What is the content of the civic virtue that should be inculcated in circumstances of moral disagreement, and how does it relate to traditional moral virtue?; (4) Does it include respect for and appreciation of diversity?; (5) Should a …
Are We Buyers Or Hosts? A Memetic Approach To The First Amendment, Jeffrey E. Stake
Are We Buyers Or Hosts? A Memetic Approach To The First Amendment, Jeffrey E. Stake
Articles by Maurer Faculty
The First Amendment is often analyzed using the metaphor of the marketplace of ideas. Making use of memetic analysis, this article suggests that ideas should not be treated as inert products that we choose but as living things that sometimes exert some influence over their environment. Some of the ideas are more adept at surviving than others, and the ones that survive will not necessarily be good for humans. To account for the ability of some memes to replicate dangerously, the First Amendment should be read to allow governments to punish a speaker who advocates or threatens physical injury (other …