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2003

Supreme Court of the United States

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Full-Text Articles in Law

Retaining Judicial Authority: A Preliminary Inquiry On The Dominion Of Judges, Larry Catá Backer Dec 2003

Retaining Judicial Authority: A Preliminary Inquiry On The Dominion Of Judges, Larry Catá Backer

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Why do the people and institutions of democratic states, and in particular those of the United States, obey judges ? This article examines the foundations of judicial authority in the United States. This authority is grounded on principles of dominance derived from the organization of institutional religion. The judge in Western states asserts authority on the same basis as the priest - but not the priest as conventionally understood. Rather, the authority of the judge in modern Western democratic states is better understood when viewed through the analytical lens of priestly function developed in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Focusing …


Boring Lessons: Defining The Limits Of A Teacher's First Amendment Right To Speak Through The Curriculum, R. Weston Donehower Dec 2003

Boring Lessons: Defining The Limits Of A Teacher's First Amendment Right To Speak Through The Curriculum, R. Weston Donehower

Michigan Law Review

Margaret Boring's classes were anything but boring. She taught Advanced Acting at Owen High School in rural Buncombe County, North Carolina, and her classes' performances regularly won regional and state awards. In the fall of 1991, Ms. Boring chose a controversial play, Independence by Lee Blessing, for her students to perform. Independence "powerfully depicts the dynamics within a dysfunctional, single-parent family - a divorced mother and three daughters; one a lesbian, another pregnant with an illegitimate child." Prior to the first performance at the school, Ms. Boring informed the principal of the play's title but not its content. After the …


The "Horizontal Effect" Of Constitutional Rights, Stephen Gardbaum Dec 2003

The "Horizontal Effect" Of Constitutional Rights, Stephen Gardbaum

Michigan Law Review

Among the most fundamental issues in constitutional law is the scope of application of individual rights provisions and, in particular, their reach into the private sphere. This issue is also currently one of the most important and hotly debated in comparative constitutional law, where it is known under the rubric of "vertical" and "horizontal effect." These alternatives refer to whether constitutional rights regulate only the conduct of governmental actors in their dealings with private individuals (vertical) or also relations between private individuals (horizontal). In recent years, the horizontal position has been adopted to varying degrees, and after systematic scholarly and …


Delusions Of Grand Juries, Niki Kuckes Nov 2003

Delusions Of Grand Juries, Niki Kuckes

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Eldred's Aftermath: Tradition, The Copyright Clause, And The Constitutionalization Of Fair Use, Stephen M. Mcjohn Oct 2003

Eldred's Aftermath: Tradition, The Copyright Clause, And The Constitutionalization Of Fair Use, Stephen M. Mcjohn

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Eldred v. Ashcroft offered the Supreme Court broad issues about the scope of Congress's constitutional power to legislate in the area of intellectual property. In 1998, Congress added twenty years to the term of all copyrights, both existing and future copyrights. But for this term extension, works created during the 1920s and 1930s would be entering the public domain. Now such works will remain under copyright until 2018 and beyond. Eldred v. Ashcroft rejected two challenges to the constitutionality of the copyright extension. The first challenge contended that Congress had exceeded its power to grant copyrights for "limited Times" in …


Verdugo In Cyberspace: Boundaries Of Fourth Amendment Rights For Foreign Nationals In Cybercrime Cases, Stewart M. Young Oct 2003

Verdugo In Cyberspace: Boundaries Of Fourth Amendment Rights For Foreign Nationals In Cybercrime Cases, Stewart M. Young

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

This Comment examines the current legal framework governing Fourth Amendment rights for foreign nationals accused of committing crimes within the United States. Over the past three years, federal courts have tried several cases charging foreign nationals with committing crimes through the use of the Internet; these cases demonstrate a lack of clarity in the standard for warrant requirements regarding these searches. Utilizing these cases, this Comment creates a hypothetical case that presents the issues of Fourth Amendment rights for foreign nationals and seeks to determine how such a question should be answered. It advocates the clear application of United States …


Rhetorically Reasonable Police Practices: Viewing The Supreme Court's Multiple Discourse Paths, Kathryn R. Urbonya Oct 2003

Rhetorically Reasonable Police Practices: Viewing The Supreme Court's Multiple Discourse Paths, Kathryn R. Urbonya

Faculty Publications

This Article analyzes the United States Supreme Court's numerous and shifting rhetorical discourse paths for declaring whether particular governmental practices constituted unreasonable searches or seizures under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. It examines how the Court has manipulated classic discourse paths arising from text, history, precedent and structure. It reveals that among and within each of these categories, the Court has created conflicting approaches. The Article argues that the Court's construction of Fourth Amendment reasonableness has depended upon which discourse paths it has selected as well as how it has characterized the values embedded within the discourse …


Section 2: Judicial Confirmation Process, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School Sep 2003

Section 2: Judicial Confirmation Process, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.


Section 1: Moot Court, Locke V. Davey, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School Sep 2003

Section 1: Moot Court, Locke V. Davey, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.


Section 5: First Amendment & Election Law, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School Sep 2003

Section 5: First Amendment & Election Law, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.


Section 3: Gay Rights After Lawrence, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School Sep 2003

Section 3: Gay Rights After Lawrence, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.


Section 4: Civil Rights & Employment Law, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School Sep 2003

Section 4: Civil Rights & Employment Law, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.


Section 7: Federalism In The Rehnquist Court, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School Sep 2003

Section 7: Federalism In The Rehnquist Court, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.


Section 10: Also This Term, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School Sep 2003

Section 10: Also This Term, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.


Section 8: Business Law, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School Sep 2003

Section 8: Business Law, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.


Section 9: Looking Ahead, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School Sep 2003

Section 9: Looking Ahead, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.


Section 6: Criminal Procedure, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School Sep 2003

Section 6: Criminal Procedure, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.


Comparative Constitutionalism In A New Key, Paul W. Kahn Aug 2003

Comparative Constitutionalism In A New Key, Paul W. Kahn

Michigan Law Review

Law is a symbolic system that structures the political imagination. The "rule of law" is a shorthand expression for a cultural practice that constructs a particular understanding of time and space, of subjects and groups, as well as of authority and legitimacy. It is a way of projecting, maintaining, and discovering meaning in the world of historical events and political possibilities. The rule of law - as opposed to the techniques of lawyering - is not the possession of lawyers. It is a characterization of the polity, which operates both descriptively and normatively in public perception. Ours, we believe, is …


The Irrepressible Myth Of Marbury, Michael Stokes Paulsen Aug 2003

The Irrepressible Myth Of Marbury, Michael Stokes Paulsen

Michigan Law Review

Nearly all of American constitutional law today rests on a myth. The myth, presented as standard history both in junior high civics texts and in advanced law school courses on constitutional law, runs something like this: A long, long time ago - 1803, if the storyteller is trying to be precise - in the famous case of Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court of the United States created the doctrine of "judicial review." Judicial review is the power of the Supreme Court to decide the meaning of the Constitution and to strike down laws that the Court finds unconstitutional. As …


Alternative Forms Of Judicial Review, Mark Tushnet Aug 2003

Alternative Forms Of Judicial Review, Mark Tushnet

Michigan Law Review

The invention in the late twentieth century of what I call weak-form systems of judicial review provides us with the chance to see in a new light some traditional debates within U.S. constitutional law and theory, which are predicated on the fact that the United States has strong-form judicial review. Strong- and weak-form systems operate on the level of constitutional design, in the sense that their characteristics are specified in constitutional documents or in deep-rooted constitutional traditions. After sketching the differences between strong- and weak-form systems, I turn to design features that operate at the next lower level. Here legislatures …


Judging The Next Emergency: Judicial Review And Individual Rights In Times Of Crisis, David Cole Aug 2003

Judging The Next Emergency: Judicial Review And Individual Rights In Times Of Crisis, David Cole

Michigan Law Review

As virtually every law student who studies Marbury v. Madison learns, Chief Justice John Marshall's tactical genius was to establish judicial review in a case where the result could not be challenged. As a technical matter, Marbury lost, and the executive branch won. As furious as President Jefferson reportedly was with the decision, there was nothing he could do about it, for there was no mandate to defy. The Court's decision offered no remedy for Marbury himself, whose rights were directly at issue, and whose rights the Court found had indeed been violated. But over time, it became clear that …


Foreword: A Silk Purse?, John T. Noonan Jr. Aug 2003

Foreword: A Silk Purse?, John T. Noonan Jr.

Michigan Law Review

On March 2, 1801, President John Adams appointed forty-two persons to be justices of the peace in the District of Columbia. John Marshall, doubling as Secretary of State as well as Chief Justice, failed to deliver the commissions. Adams's term expired. James Madison, Marshall's successor as Secretary of State, withheld seventeen of the commissions. In 1802, William Marbury and three other appointees to this minor office brought mandamus against Madison in the Supreme Court. Madison was ordered to show cause why the writ should not issue. Congress abolished the June sitting of the Court. Only in 1803 was the case …


Mediated Popular Constitutionalism, Barry Friedman Aug 2003

Mediated Popular Constitutionalism, Barry Friedman

Michigan Law Review

There are divergent views in the legal academy concerning judicial review, but at their core these views share a common (and possibly flawed) premise. The premise is that the exercise of judicial review is countermajoritarian in nature. There is a regrettable lack of clarity in the relevant scholarship about what "countermajoritarian" actually means. At bottom it often seems to be a claim, and perhaps must be a claim, that when judges invalidate governmental decisions based upon constitutional requirements, they act contrary to the preferences of the citizenry. Some variation on this premise seems to drive most normative scholarship regarding judicial …


The Rhetorical Uses Of Marbury V. Madison: The Emergence Of A "Great Case", Davison M. Douglas Jul 2003

The Rhetorical Uses Of Marbury V. Madison: The Emergence Of A "Great Case", Davison M. Douglas

Faculty Publications

Marbury v. Madison is today indisputably one of the "great cases" of American constitutional law because of its association with the principle of judicial review. But for much of its history, Marbury has not been regarded as a seminal decision. Between 1803 and 1887, the Supreme Court never once cited Marbury for the principle of judicial review, and nineteenth century constitutional law treatises were far more likely to cite Marbury for the decision's discussion of writs of mandamus or the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction than for its discussion of judicial review. During the late nineteenth century, however, the exercise of …


Border Patrol, Carl E. Schneider Jul 2003

Border Patrol, Carl E. Schneider

Articles

Recently, the Supreme Court has encountered cases that concern perhaps our weightiest bioethical issue-how medical care is to be rationed. But this does not mean that the Court must therefore assess the justice of rationing, as many people incited by many journalists now fondly and firmly believe. In explaining why, we begin with a story about how Learned Hand remembered saying one day to Justice Holmes, "Well, sir, goodbye. Do justice!" Holmes turned quite sharply and said: "That is not my job. My job is to play the game according to the rules." If the Court doesn't do justice, what …


First Amendment Equal Protection: On Discretion, Inequality, And Participation, Daniel P. Tokaji Jun 2003

First Amendment Equal Protection: On Discretion, Inequality, And Participation, Daniel P. Tokaji

Michigan Law Review

The tension between equality and discretion lies at the heart of some of the most vexing questions of constitutional law. The considerable discretion that many official decisionmakers wield raises the spectre that violations of equality norms will sometimes escape detection. This is true in a variety of settings, whether discretion lies over speakers' access to public fora, implementation of the death penalty, or the recounting of votes. Is the First Amendment violated, for example, when a city ordinance gives local officials broad discretion to determine the conditions under which political demonstrations may take place? Is equal protection denied where the …


Reinforcing Representation: Congressional Power To Enforce The Fourteenth And Fifteenth Amendments In The Rehnquist And Waite Courts, Ellen D. Katz Jun 2003

Reinforcing Representation: Congressional Power To Enforce The Fourteenth And Fifteenth Amendments In The Rehnquist And Waite Courts, Ellen D. Katz

Michigan Law Review

A large body of academic scholarship accuses the Rehnquist Court of "undoing the Second Reconstruction," just as the Waite Court has long been blamed for facilitating the end of the First. This critique captures much of what is meant by those generally charging the Rehnquist Court with "conservative judicial activism." It posits that the present Court wants to dismantle decades' worth of federal antidiscrimination measures that are aimed at the "reconstruction" of public and private relationships at the local level. It sees the Waite Court as having similarly nullified the civil-rights initiatives enacted by Congress following the Civil War to …


Government Responsibility For The Acts Of Jailhouse Informants Under The Sixth Amendment, Maia Goodell Jun 2003

Government Responsibility For The Acts Of Jailhouse Informants Under The Sixth Amendment, Maia Goodell

Michigan Law Review

Once a criminal investigation has identified a suspect, and adversarial proceedings have begun, the Sixth Amendment confers a right to be represented by counsel at the "critical stages" of the process. The Supreme Court has made clear that the government cannot circumvent this requirement merely by designating a civilian informant to engage in questioning on its behalf. Less clear is when the government is responsible for the actions of an informant; particularly in the case of jailhouse informants, incarcerated individuals who question fellow inmates, government responsibility is a difficult issue for which no clear legal standard has emerged. An examination …


Attitudes About Attitudes, Michael J. Gerhardt May 2003

Attitudes About Attitudes, Michael J. Gerhardt

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


The Politicization Of Clarence Thomas, Jagan Nicholas Ranjan May 2003

The Politicization Of Clarence Thomas, Jagan Nicholas Ranjan

Michigan Law Review

Perception often shapes memory. In particular, the way one perceives a noteworthy public figure often shapes that figure's historical legacy. For example, history largely remembers John Coltrane as one of the greatest jazz saxophone players of our time. His improvisational skill, innovative style, and mastery over his instrument all serve to classify him in the public memory as the ultimate jazz performer. Yet, as the example of Coltrane might demonstrate, perception is unjustly deficient. Coltrane was not merely a great saxophone player; he was first and foremost a religious figure whose spirituality drove his creativity and manifested itself in prayerful …