Law Commons^™

Education Reform And Detroit’S Right To Literacy Litigation, Kristine L. Bowman

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Ongoing education reform litigation arising out of Detroit, Michigan presents an innovative claim: Children have an unenumerated federal constitutional right of access to literacy. On June 29, 2018, the district court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss. The case is now on appeal to the Sixth Circuit and is expected to be argued in the first half of 2019. This litigation has already broken new ground and, regardless of the ultimate outcome, it is valuable because it invites us to revisit fundamental questions about rights, remedies, and the role of courts in education reform.

#Metoo & Tax, Margaret Ryznar

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Recently, legislative efforts have taken aim at sexual harassment in the workplace. Among these may be a surprising but effective approach—disallowing tax deductions for sexual harassment settlements subject to non-disclosure agreements. This Essay analyzes such a 2017 tax reform provision.

Church History, Liberty, And Political Morality: A Response To Professor Calhoun, Ian Huyett

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

In his address, Professor Calhoun used American Christian abolitionism to illustrate the beneficial role that religion can play in political debate. Surveying the past two millennia, I argue that Christian political thought has protected liberty in every era of the church’s dramatic history. Along the way, I rebut critics—from the left and right—who urge that Christianity’s political influence has been unhelpful or harmful. I also seek to show that statements like “religion has no place in politics” are best understood as expressions of arbitrary bias.

Originalism And Congressional Power To Enforce The Fourteenth Amendment, Christopher W. Schmidt

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

In this Essay, I argue that originalism conflicts with the Supreme Court’s current jurisprudence defining the scope of Congress’ power to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment. Under the standard established in Boerne v. Flores, the Court limits congressional power under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to statutory remedies premised on judicially defined interpretations of Fourteenth Amendment rights. A commitment to originalism as a method of judicial constitutional interpretation challenges the premise of judicial interpretive supremacy in Section 5 jurisprudence in two ways. First, as a matter of history, an originalist reading of Section 5 provides support for broad judicial …

The Paradox Of Christian-Based Political Advocacy: A Reply To Professor Calhoun, Wayne R. Barnes

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Professor Calhoun, in his Article around which this symposium is based, has asserted that it is permissible for citizens to publicly argue for laws or public policy solutions based on explicitly religious reasons. Calhoun candidly admits that he has “long grappled” with this question (as have I, though he for longer), and, in probably the biggest understatement in this entire symposium, notes that Professor Kent Greenawalt identified this as “a particularly significant, debatable, and highly complex problem.” Is it ever. I have a position that I will advance in this article, but I wish to acknowledge at the outset that …

America's Creed: The Inevitable, Sometimes Dangerous, Mixing Of Religion And Politics, David M. Smolin

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Political and philosophical theorists have often advocated for the exclusion of some or all religious perspectives from full participation in politics. Such approaches create criteria—such as public accessibility, public reason, or secular rationale—to legitimate such exclusion. During the 1990s I argued, as an evangelical Christian, against such exclusionary theories, defending the rights to full and equal political participation by evangelical Christians, traditionalist Roman Catholics, and any others who would be restricted by such criteria.

Chilling: The Constitutional Implications Of Body-Worn Cameras And Facial Recognition Technology At Public Protests, Julian R. Murphy

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

In recent years body-worn cameras have been championed by community groups, scholars, and the courts as a potential check on police misconduct. Such has been the enthusiasm for body-worn cameras that, in a relatively short time, they have been rolled out to police departments across the country. Perhaps because of the optimism surrounding these devices there has been little consideration of the Fourth Amendment issues they pose, especially when they are coupled with facial recognition technology (FRT). There is one particular context in which police use of FRT equipped body-worn cameras is especially concerning: public protests. This Comment constitutes the …

Separation Of Church And State: Jefferson, Lincoln, And The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Show It Was Never Intended To Separate Religion From Politics, Samuel W. Calhoun

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

This Essay argues that it’s perfectly fine for religious citizens to openly bring their faith-based values to public policy disputes. Part II demonstrates that the Founders, exemplified by Thomas Jefferson, never intended to separate religion from politics. Part III, focusing upon Abraham Lincoln’s opposition to slavery, shows that religion and politics have been continuously intermixed ever since the Founding. Part IV, emphasizing the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., argues that no other reasons justify barring faith-based arguments from the public square.

Second Thoughts About Stun Guns, Rene Reyes

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (“SJC”) recently declared that the Commonwealth’s statutory ban on stun guns violates the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The SJC had previously upheld the statute against constitutional challenge in Commonwealth v. Caetano, but the reasoning behind this holding was rejected in a brief per curium opinion by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016. However, the guidance given by the Supreme Court in the Caetano litigation was far from unambiguous: it faulted the SJC’s reasoning without opining on the ultimate question of the ban’s constitutionality, thus leaving open the possibility that the statute could pass …

Dignity And Second Amendment Enforcement—Response To William D. Araiza’S, Arming The Second Amendment And Enforcing The Fourteenth, Darrell A. H. Miller

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

William Araiza’s insightful article, Arming the Second Amendment, has one essential, hidden component: dignity. Dignity helps explain the peculiar hydraulics of Congress’s power to enforce section five of the Fourteenth Amendment—a jurisprudence in which the less scrutiny the Court itself applies to a given class or right, the more scrutiny it applies to congressional efforts to protect that same class or right. Dignity helps explain the Court’s halting approach to Reconstruction Amendment enforcement power more generally – an approach in which constitutional versus unconstitutional legislation turns on seemingly insignificant regulatory distinctions. And dignity’s role in § 5 enforcement helps explain …

Big Law, Public Defender-Style: Aggregating Resources To Ensure Uniform Quality Of Representation, Eve Hanan

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Stories abound of public defenders who, overwhelmed with high caseloads, allow defendants to languish in pre-trial detention and guilty pleas to be entered without examining the merits of the case. Most defendants cannot afford to hire an attorney, and, thus, have no choice other than to accept the public counsel appointed by the court. In this Essay, I consider whether Professor Benjamin Edwards’ central argument in The Professional Prospectus: A Call for Effective Professional Disclosure that attorneys should provide potential clients with a prospectus disclosing their performance history_—applies to criminal defense. I reject the proposition that most people …

President Donald Trump And Federal Bench Diversity, Carl Tobias

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

The Once And (Maybe) Future Klein Principle, William D. Araiza

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

This Response considers Evan Zoldan’s argument, set forth in his recently-published Article, that one can find a coherent principle underlying the vexing case of United States v. Klein in the idea that government is prohibited from what Zoldan calls “self-dealing.” The promise is a seductive one: Klein, and in particular its language prohibiting Congress from dictating “rules of decision” to courts, has puzzled scholars for generations. As Zoldan explains, other understandings of Klein all encounter significant obstacles in the form of precedent that rebut other explanations of what that case really means.

Unfortunately, Zoldan’s valiant and careful effort encounters …

Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em?— Reconsidering The Activist State Attorney General In Light Of Climate Change, Tobacco Tactics, & Exxonmobil, Christopher C. Brewer

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

Clipping The Wings Of Industry: Uncertainty In Interpretation And Enforcement Of The Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Martha G. VáZquez

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

Reaching A Sense Of Justice: Understanding How The Facilitation Theory Of Prosecution Under Federal Criminal Law Can Be Used To Hold Hard Targets Accountable For Financial Crimes And Corporate Corruption, Thomas M. Dibiagio

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

A fundamental principle of criminal law is that to hold a defendant accountable, the prosecution must prove that he culpably participated in the criminal activity. To prove culpable participation, the government can prove a defendant’s direct knowledge of and active participation in the criminal conduct. However, because of the nature of financial crimes and corporate misconduct, culpable targets often are able to insulate themselves from the underlying criminal conduct and thereby, frustrate the prosecution’s ability to meet this evidentiary standard. The resulting impunity undermines the public’s trust and confidence in the fundamental fairness of the enforcement of the criminal laws. …

An Essay Concerning Some Problems With The Constitutional-Doubt Canon, Benjamin M. Flowers

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

The constitutional-doubt canon instructs that statutes should be interpreted in a way that avoids placing their constitutionality in doubt. This canon is often said to rest on the presumption that Congress does not intend to exceed its constitutional authority. That presumption, however, is inconsistent with the notion that government actors tend to exceed their lawful authority—a notion that motivates our constitutional structure, and in particular the series of checks and balances that the Constitution creates. This tension between the constitutional- doubt canon and the Constitution’s structure would be acceptable if the canon accurately reflected the manner in which the public …

The Risk Of Regulatory Arbitrage: A Response To Securities Regulation In Virtual Space, Wendy Gerwick Couture

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

In Securities Regulation in Virtual Space, Eric. C. Chaffee explores the potential applicability of the securities laws to virtual transactions based on virtual activity and argues that, although many of these transactions likely qualify as “investment contracts” under S.E.C. v. W.J. Howey Co., they should be excluded under the context clause because, among other reasons, application of the securities laws would stifle creativity within this innovative space. This Response proposes a reframing of the Howey test as a response to the risk of regulatory arbitrage, argues that the context clause should only exclude transactions that do not pose …