Law Commons^™

It's Not Just Ferguson: Missouri Supreme Court Should Consolidate The Municipal Court System, Thomas Harvey, John Mcannar, Michael-John Voss, Joshua Feinzig, Chris Mcallister

All Faculty Scholarship

The Missouri Supreme Court's unprecedented decision to take control of Ferguson's Municipal Court was based primarily on issues raised during sustained protest following the killing of Mike Brown and reports published by ArchCity Defenders and the Department of Justice. These reports highlighted racial disparity in traffic stops, excessive revenue generation, and excessive warrants and arrests and confirmed the lived experiences of poor and Black people in St. Louis: there is a racially discriminatory and profit-driven approach to law enforcement made possible only by the collaborative efforts of local government, police, and courts.

These condemned practices are not unique to Ferguson. …

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, …

Diversifying The Federal Bench: Is Universal Legitimacy For The U.S. Justice System Possible?, Nancy Scherer

Northwestern University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Certiorari And The Marriage Equality Cases, Carl Tobias

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat

Marriage equality has come to much of the nation. Over 2014, many district court rulings invalidated state proscriptions on same- sex marriage, while four appeals courts upheld these decisions. However, the Sixth Circuit reversed district judgments which struck down bans in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee. Because that appellate opinion created a patchwork of differing legal regimes across the country, this Paper urges the Supreme Court to clarify marriage equality by reviewing that determination this Term.

Deboer V. Snyder: A Case Study In Litigation And Social Reform, Wyatt Fore

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

On April 28, 2015, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for four cases from the Sixth Circuit addressing the constitutionality of state bans on same-sex marriage. This Note examines DeBoer v. Snyder, the Michigan marriage case, with the goal of providing litigators and scholars the proper context for our current historical moment in which (1) the legal status of LGBT people; and (2) the conventional wisdom about the role of impact litigation in social reform movements are rapidly evolving.

Bait And Switch: Why United States V. Morrison Is Wrong About Section Five, Kermit Roosevelt Iii

All Faculty Scholarship

As the title suggests, the article examines Morrison’s creation of the rule that the Section Five power cannot be used to regulate private individuals. This is one of the most meaningful and, thus far, durable constraints that the Court has placed on federal power. It is the more surprising, then, that it turns out to be based on essentially nothing at all. The Morrison Court asserted that its rule was derived by—indeed, “controlled by”—precedent, but a closer reading of the Reconstruction-era decisions it cites shows that this is simply not the case. An independent evaluation of the rule against regulation …