Law Commons^™

Enhancing Public Access To Agency Law, Cary Coglianese, Bernard W. Bell, Michael Herz, Margaret Kwoka, Orly Lobel

Articles

"A just, democratic society governed by the rule of law requires that the law be available, not hidden. This principle extends to legal materials produced by administrative agencies, all of which should be made widely accessible to the public. Federal agencies in the United States do disclose online many legal documents—sometimes voluntarily, sometimes in compliance with statutory requirements. But the scope and consistency of these disclosures leaves considerable room for improvement. After conducting a year-long study for the Administrative Conference of the United States, we identified seventeen possible statutory amendments that would improve proactive online disclosure of agency legal materials. …

Gambling In Territorial Hawaii, Robert M. Jarvis

University of Pennsylvania Asian Law Review

This article collects and discusses gambling cases decided during Hawaii’s territorial period (1898–1959). Previous commentators have overlooked these decisions, even though they provide a rich source of information about life during this distinct period of Hawaii’s history.

Freedom Of Contract And M&A Termination Fees: Peculiar Case Of South Korea Vs. United States, Joseph Cho

University of Pennsylvania Asian Law Review

This manuscript offers a comprehensive survey of the liquidated damages regimes in the Republic of Korea and the United States, specifically within the framework of corporate mergers and acquisitions. In the Republic of Korea, liquidated damages play a crucial role in pre-estimating potential damages arising from contract breaches, offering numerous benefits such as reducing the creditor’s evidentiary burden and fostering contractual compliance. Notably, the Korean Civil Code provides checks against excessive predetermined damages. In contrast, the U.S. perspective is enriched by a series of case laws, emphasizing the compensatory intent of liquidated damages. A comparative analysis reveals intriguing intersections between …

Regulating The Unregulated: The Beginning Of The End Of A Laissez-Faire Era Of The Crypto "Wild West", Bo Hyun Kim

University of Pennsylvania Asian Law Review

The crypto market has been left largely unregulated on a global scale for over a decade. 1 Recently, multiple jurisdictions are aligning efforts to tame the increasingly volatile crypto “Wild West” as evidenced by the influx of forthcoming legislations, consultations between operators and regulators, and regulatory crackdowns. 2 A cross-comparative analysis of the regulatory framework in the United States, the European Union, and Korea indicates that the proposed scopes of legislations cover an expansive breadth of assets. However, there are further needs for supplementary regulations following the enactment of the newly proposed regulations to close certain critical gaps that remain …

An Absent "No" Is Not A "Yes": A Legal Analysis Of Consent In Japan's Amended Penal Code And International Rape Legislation Standards, Larissa Truchan

University of Pennsylvania Asian Law Review

On June 16, 2023, the Japanese government passed a law to partially amend the Penal Code that explicitly outlines eight scenarios prosecutable as the crime of rape that make “it difficult for the victim to form, express, or fulfill the intention not to consent.” This article will reveal that the June 2023 amendment does not criminalize all “non-consensual sexual intercourse,” as its text suggests, but is premised on defining coercive circumstances that may interfere with a victim’s presumed duty to demonstrate their “intention not to consent.” As a result, Japanese courts will continue to possess the subjective power to determine …

Overseeing The Administrative State, Jill Fisch

Articles

"In a series of recent cases, the Supreme Court has reduced the regulatory power of the Administrative State. Pending cases offer vehicles for the Court to go still further. Although the Court’s skepticism of administrative agencies may be rooted in Constitutional principles or political expediency, this Article explores another possible explanation—a shift in the nature of agencies and their regulatory role. As Pritchard and Thompson detail in their important book, A HISTORY OF SECURITIES LAW IN THE SUPREME COURT, the Supreme Court was initially skeptical of agency power, jeopardizing Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR)’s ambitious New Deal plan. The Court’s acceptance …

Toward Abolitionist Remedies: Police (Non)Reform Litigation After The 2020 Uprisings, Cara Mcclellan, Jamelia N. Morgan

Articles

In the summer of 2020, across the country, Americans took to the street in protest of Mr. George Floyd’s murder and the police killings of countless other Black people. In too many cases, police responded to protesters with excessive force and the very brutality that had led people to protest police in the first place. In the wake of these horrific displays of force, over 40 lawsuits were filed nationwide that challenged police conduct at protests. Smith v. City of Philadelphia, one of the lawsuits brought on behalf of residents and protesters in Philadelphia, was unique because the tragic underlying …

First Amendment And Consumer Advertisement, S. Kelvin Fang

University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law

No abstract provided.

The Brilliance In Slaughterhouse: A Judicially Restrained And Original Understanding Of "Privileges Or Immunities", Lawrence Lessig

University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law

No abstract provided.

Immigration In The Shadow Of Death, Eunice Lee

University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law

In this piece, I examine the immigration enforcement and adjudication system as a whole from the perspective of life and death. Drawing upon social theory frames as well as legal scholarship, I look to how doctrines and laws continually devalue and risk noncitizens’ lives. Although scholarly work has examined how differing aspects of immigration law and enforcement take lives—e.g., via detention, cross-border shootings, and deportation— explorations have yet to consider the system as a whole from this perspective.

My contribution illuminates how laws as well as legal doctrines serve as mechanisms for assigning differential value to human life, ultimately taking …

"The Key-Stone To The Arch": Unlocking Section 13'S Original Meaning, Kevin Bendesky

University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania holds that Section 13 of the State’s constitution, which prohibits all “cruel punishments,” is coextensive with the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits only punishments that are both “cruel and unusual.” Rather than analyze the state provision independently, the court defers to the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Eighth Amendment. This, says the court, is because Pennsylvania history does not provide evidence that the Commonwealth’s prohibition differs from the federal one. And without that historical basis, the court believes it is bound by federal precedent. This is mistaken.

History reveals that Pennsylvanians had a distinct, original …

The Federal War On Guns: A Story In Four-And-A-Half Acts, Brandon E. Beck

University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law

“History is a jangle of accidents, blunders, surprises and absurdities, and so is our knowledge of it, but if we are to report it at all we must impose some order upon it.”

Beginning in the early 1990s, the Executive Branch took a novel approach to the enforcement of federal firearms offenses. It replaced traditional notions of restraint with a newfound willingness to exercise its power broadly, leading to a sharp increase in the number of federal firearms offenders that continues today. A recent development, however, threatens to dismantle the core of the federal firearms scheme. Decided in 2022, the …

What Is The Matter With Dobbs?, Andrew Coan

University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law

Contrary to its critics, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is not illegitimate or lawless. It is a highly consequential but fundamentally ordinary example of the inextricable connections between morality and constitutional law. If abortion is akin to murder, Dobbs could not—and should not—have come out any other way. If abortion is essential to personal autonomy and equal citizenship, the case was wrongly decided and should be reversed at the earliest opportunity.

The appropriate response to decisions like Dobbs is to criticize the moral judgments underlying them. Depending on the circumstances, institutional responses, such as court packing and jurisdiction stripping, …

Lavatories Of Democaracy: Recognizing A Right To Public Toilets Through International Human Rights And State Constitutitonal Law, Rick Weinmeyer

University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law

The United States is a public toilet nightmare. Truly public toilets are a rarity, while the restrooms provided by private businesses are inconsistently available via “customer only” policies and the discriminatory actions of owners and their employees. Some jurisdictions have made tepid attempts at providing more bathrooms, but all have failed. The result: an accumulation of entirely preventable public health harms, including outbreaks of infectious disease, illness, and dignitary harms.

This Article is the first to provide a comprehensive review of U.S. toilet law—the laws and policies that determine where bathrooms are provided and who has access to them—and diagnose …

A Sword And A Shield: An Antidiscrimination Analysis Of Academic Freedom Protections, Apratim Vidyarthi

University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law

Academic freedom is an essential principle undergirding education in the United States. Its purpose is to further the freedom of thought and inquiry in the academic profession by advancing knowledge and the search for truth. Academic freedom goes back more than a century, and is now intertwined with First Amendment doctrine. Yet today’s academic freedom doctrine suffers from serious problems, some of which perpetuate discrimination in the classroom and systemically in educational institutions.

The definition of academic freedom in theory is misaligned with that in case law. Courts have done little to analyze what protections academic freedom provides, and case …

Concretizing Abstract Rights: Damages For Intangible Constitutional Injuries Under The Prison Litigation Reform Act, Abigail Kasdin

University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law

No abstract provided.

The Shadow Constitution: Rescuing Our Inheritance From Neglect And Disuse, Stephen Menendian

University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law

The United States Constitution is the foundation of American law and one of the most venerated documents in the American political community. Although most constitutional scholarship focuses on the meaning of the more heavily litigated provisions, such as the equal protection clause and the due process clause, prior scholarship has also identified and pressed for the revival or re-interpretation of many neglected or largely overlooked provisions of the United States Constitution. Much of this prior scholarship, however, is narrowly focused on a particular provision or small set of interrelated provisions. This article surveys twelve constitutional provisions characterized in prior scholarship …

Vol. 45 Masthead

University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Clarifying Judicial Aggrandizement, Allen Sumrall, Beau J. Baumann

University of Pennsylvania Law Review Online

Scholars argue that the Roberts Court has been engaged in a judicial “power grab.” Some scholars describe the Court as “juristocratic,” others “aggrandizing.” The Court’s supporters argue that these critics’ charges only thinly veil the critics’ policy differences with the Court. Is the Roberts Court’s power materially different from other Courts? If the charge is about “judicial activism,” do the critics hold the Warren Court to the same standard?

Scholarship about the Roberts Court has encountered a long-running difficulty; “judicial power” is an amorphous braid of norms, ideas, and institutional arrangements. We advance a taxonomy for understanding different aspects of …

Vol. 27 Masthead

University of Pennsylvania Journal of Law and Social Change

No abstract provided.

Background As Foreground: Section Three Of The Fourteenth Amendment And January 6th, Gerard N. Magliocca

University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law

[I]t is undoubted that those provisions of the constitution which deny to the legislature power to deprive any person of life, liberty, and property, without due process of law, or to pass a bill of attainder or an ex post facto, are inconsistent in their spirit and general purpose with a provision which, at once without trial, deprives a whole class of persons of offices held by them, for cause, however grave. It is true that no limit can be imposed on the people when exercising their sovereign power in amending their own constitution of government. But it is a …

Equal Protection Against Policing, Evan Bernick

University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law

No abstract provided.

Dobbs V. Jackson Women's Health Organization: Reckoning With Its Impact And Charting A Path Forward, Hillary A. Schneller, Diana Kasdan, Risa E. Kaufman, Alexander Wilson

University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization undid 50 years of precedent guaranteeing the constitutional right to abortion in the United States. At the one-year anniversary of the decision, and as the devastating consequences continue to play out across the country, this article analyzes Dobbs and its impact. It also charts a way forward for rebuilding a more robust Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence. It draws on the authors’ individual perspective and expertise, and the Center for Reproductive Rights’ role as lead counsel in the case and as a global human rights organization advancing reproductive rights in the United States and around the …

Transportation: The Hidden Right To Exclude, Saleema Snow

University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law

No abstract provided.

Reassessing The Rule Of Law Legacy Of The Khmer Rouge Tribunal, Randle C. Defalco

University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law

The focal point of transitional justice efforts in Cambodia have been recently-completed criminal prosecutions at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (“ECCC”). Like other international criminal justice institutions, the ECCC has been framed as not only a criminal court, but also as an institution capable of helping achieve various transitional justice goals such as improving the rule of law and respect for human rights domestically in Cambodia. This Article identifies troubling connections between the ECCC experience and the Cambodian government’s increasing use of rule by law tactics in recent years. The Article identifies two related ways in which …

Volume 45, Issue 3 Masthead

University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Finfluencers And The Reasonable Retail Investor, Sue Guan

University of Pennsylvania Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

Missing Doctrines In Fifth Circuit Caselaw: Injury And Causation In Environmental Litigators' Standing, Karen Joo

University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law

No abstract provided.

Sovereignty And Separation: John Taylor Of Caroline And The Division Of Powers, Noah C. Zimmermann

University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law

No abstract provided.

Defrosting Regulatory Chill, Guillermo J. Garcia Sanchez

University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law

In Homer’s Odyssey, King Odysseus asked his men to tie him to the mast of his ship with the hope that he would not jump into the sea after listening to the Sirens. The Odyssey’s hero made a pact to bind himself in the future. He knew that the temptation would be impossible to resist without restraints. Similarly, the creators and advocates of international investment agreements believe that providing rights to foreign investors through international treaties will chill State policies that would harm the interests of investors in the future. The “rope” to tie the State is the threat of …