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Debt And Democracy: Towards A Constitutional Theory Of Bankruptcy, Jonathan C. Lipson
Debt And Democracy: Towards A Constitutional Theory Of Bankruptcy, Jonathan C. Lipson
All Faculty Scholarship
This article examines the relationship between bankruptcy and constitutional law. Article I, § 8, cl. 4 of the Constitution provides that Congress shall have the power to make “uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies.” While there are many good social, political and economic theories of bankruptcy, there has been surprisingly little effort to explore what it means to have constitutionalized financial distress. This article is a first step in that direction. Constitutional problems with bankruptcy are not new, but present three under-appreciated puzzles: First, why have we put a bankruptcy power in the Constitution, and what does its “peculiar” …
Can Glucksberg Survive Lawrence? Another Look At The End Of Life And Personal Autonomy, Yale Kamisar
Can Glucksberg Survive Lawrence? Another Look At The End Of Life And Personal Autonomy, Yale Kamisar
Articles
In Washington v. Glucksberg, the Court declined to find a right to physician-assisted suicide ("PAS") in the Constitution. Not a single Justice dissented. One would expect such a ruling to be quite secure. But Lawrence v. Texas, holding that a state cannot make consensual homosexual conduct a crime, is not easy to reconcile with Glucksberg. Lawrence certainly takes a much more expansive view of substantive due process than did Glucksberg. It is conceivable that the five Justices who made up the Lawrence majority-all of whom still sit on the Court-might overrule Glucksberg. For various reasons, …
The Accounting: Habeas Corpus And Enemy Combatants, Emily Calhoun
The Accounting: Habeas Corpus And Enemy Combatants, Emily Calhoun
Publications
The judiciary should impose a heavy burden of justification on the executive when a habeas petitioner challenges the accuracy of facts on which an enemy combatant designation rests. A heavy burden of justification will ensure that the essential institutional purposes of the writ--and legitimate, separated-powers government--are preserved, even during times of national exigency. The institutional purposes of the writ argue for robust judicial review rather than deference to the executive. Moreover, the procedural flexibility traditionally associated with the writ gives the judiciary the tools to ensure that a heavy burden of justification can be imposed.
Scrutiny Land, Randy E. Barnett
Scrutiny Land, Randy E. Barnett
Michigan Law Review
Scrutiny Land is the place where government needs to justify to a court its restrictions on the liberties of the people. In the 1930s, the Supreme Court began limiting access to Scrutiny Land. While the New Deal Court merely shifted the burden to those challenging a law to show that a restriction of liberty is irrational, the Warren Court made the presumption of constitutionality effectively irrebuttable. After this, only one road to Scrutiny Land remained: showing that the liberty being restricted was a fundamental right. The Glucksberg Two-Step, however, limited the doctrine of fundamental rights to those (1) narrowly defined …