Law Commons^™

Social Norms In Fourth Amendment Law, Matthew Tokson, Ari Ezra Waldman

Michigan Law Review

Courts often look to existing social norms to resolve difficult questions in Fourth Amendment law. In theory, these norms can provide an objective basis for courts’ constitutional decisions, grounding Fourth Amendment law in familiar societal attitudes and beliefs. In reality, however, social norms can shift rapidly, are constantly being contested, and frequently reflect outmoded and discriminatory concepts. This Article draws on contemporary sociological literatures on norms and technology to reveal how courts’ reliance on norms leads to several identifiable errors in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.

Courts assessing social norms generally adopt what we call the closure principle, or the idea that …

Griggs At Midlife, Deborah A. Widiss

Michigan Law Review

Not all Supreme Court cases have a midlife crisis. But it is fair to say that Griggs v. Duke Power Co., which recently turned forty, has some serious symptoms. Griggs established a foundational proposition of employment discrimination law known as disparate impact liability: policies that significantly disadvantage racial minority or female employees can violate federal employment discrimination law, even if there is no evidence that the employer “intended” to discriminate. Griggs is frequently described as one of the most important decisions of the civil rights era, compared to Brown v. Board of Education for its “momentous social consequences.” In 1989, …

The Replacement Dilemma: An Argument For Eliminating A Non-Class Replacement Requirement In The Prima Facie Stage Of Title Vii Individual Disparate Treatment Discrimination Claims, Marla Swartz

Michigan Law Review

Although manifestations of discrimination in the workplace have changed greatly over time, employment discrimination continues to be a tremendous problem in society. By enacting Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ("Title VII"), Congress shielded employees from arbitrary adverse employment actions arising from discrimination related to race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Three years later, Congress passed the Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA"), guaranteeing the same protections against discrimination based on age.4 Finally, the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA"), passed in 1990, prohibited discrimination based on personal disability. Ten years after Congress enacted the Civil Rights …

Rights Against Rules: The Moral Structure Of American Constitutional Law, Matthew D. Adler

Michigan Law Review

The Bill of Rights, by means of open-ended terms such as "freedom of speech," "equal protection," or "due process," refers to moral criteria, which take on constitutional status by virtue of being thus referenced. We can disagree about whether the proper methodology for judicial application of these criteria is originalist or nonoriginalist. The originalist looks, not to the true content of the moral criteria named by the Constitution, but to the framers' beliefs about that content; the nonoriginalist tries to determine what the criteria truly require, and ignores or gives less weight to the framers' views. Bracketing this disagreement, however, …

Postconviction Review Of Jury Discrimination: Measuring The Effects Of Juror Race On Jury Decisions, Nancy J. King

Michigan Law Review

In Part I, I review the empirical evidence concerning the effect of jury discrimination on jury decisions. Using the work of social and cognitive psychologists, I argue that the influence of jury discrimination on jury decisions is real and can be measured by judges in certain circumstances. The empirical studies suggest criteria that courts could use to identify the cases in which jury discrimination is most likely to affect the verdict. I also refute the argument that white judges can never predict the behavior of jurors of racial backgrounds different than their own and conclude that judicial estimates of the …

Legislative Apportionment And Representative Government: The Meaning Of Baker V. Carr, Jo Desha Lucas

Michigan Law Review

In three recent cases the Supreme Court has reopened the question of the extent to which federal courts will review the general fairness of state schemes of legislative apportionment. It is a question on which the Court has had nothing to say for over a decade, leaving the bar to patch together the current state of the law from the outcome of cases disposed of without opinion considered against a backdrop of language used in earlier decisions.

Federal Courts-Criminal Procedure-Effect Of Excusing Procedure On Composition Of Jury Panel, Robert P. Griffin

Michigan Law Review

Petitioner was found guilty of violating the Harrison Narcotics Act in the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia by a jury composed wholly of federal employees. During the course of voir dire examination, petitioner moved to strike the entire panel, asserting that it did not represent a proper cross-section of the community. This motion was denied. Petitioner exhausted his ten peremptory challenges, and, upon finding that only government employees remained on the jury, then challenged the jury as impaneled for cause. The challenge was overruled. Conviction was affirmed by the circuit court of appeals. On certiorari to the …