Law Commons^™

A Six-Three Rule: Reviving Consensus And Deference On The Supreme Court, Jed Handelsman Shugerman

Faculty Scholarship

Over the past three decades, the Supreme Court has struck down federal statutes by a bare majority with unprecedented frequency. This Article shows that five-four decisions regularly overturning acts of Congress are a relatively recent phenomenon, whereas earlier Courts generally exercised judicial review by supermajority voting.

One option is to establish the following rule: The Supreme Court may not declare an act of Congress unconstitutional without a two-thirds majority. The Supreme Court itself could establish this rule internally, just as it has created its nonmajority rules for granting certiorari and holds, or one Justice who would otherwise be the fifth …

Unpatriotic Acts: An Introduction, Sadiq Reza

Faculty Scholarship

John Walker Lindh. Zacarias Moussaoui. Jose Padilla. Richard Reid. Who reading these lines does not instantly recognize the names of these men? Or at least their assigned noms de guerre: American Taliban, 20th hijacker, dirty bomber, shoe bomber. For two and a half years these names and others have flitted through our daily copies of The New York Times like shadow characters in a play, along with black-and-white photographs underneath which black-and-white text tells us of their alleged (and sometimes proven) wrongdoing and the latest developments in their tribulations (and sometimes trials) with our government. But the men themselves are …