Law Commons^™

Clear As Mud: Constitutional Concerns With Clear Affirmative Consent, C. Ashley Saferight

Cleveland State Law Review

Rape and sexual assault laws and policies have shifted significantly in recent years, including the introduction of affirmative consent. Unfortunately, both proponents and critics tend to confuse the issues and falsely equate affirmative consent as a substantive social standard versus a procedural standard for adjudication and punishment. Although affirmative consent generally does not represent a significant change in consent law in the United States, statutes and policies requiring a further requirement that affirmative consent be clear and unambiguous (“clear affirmative consent”) are problematic and raise constitutional concerns. When clear affirmative consent policies are used as an adjudicative standard, they increase …

The Problem With Procedure: Some Inconvenient Truth About Aspirational Goals, George Rutherglen

San Diego Law Review

Procedure aspires to lofty goals: fairness, efficiency, and speedy adjudication, or so says Rule 1. The rule states the aims of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in admirably succinct terms: “They should be construed and administered to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action and proceeding.” Who could oppose any of these goals? Yet for all its virtues as a concise summary of what the Federal Rules seek to achieve, this provision cannot be taken literally as a guide to interpretation. The goals it aspires to are, on even a cursory examination, deeply inconsistent with each …

Judicial Deference And Political Power In Fourteenth Amendment And Dormant Commerce Clause Cases, F. Italia Patti

San Diego Law Review

The Supreme Court lacks a coherent approach to deciding how much to defer to state legislatures when reviewing allegedly unconstitutional legislation. The Court grants very little deference to state legislatures in dormant Commerce Clause cases but significant deference to state legislatures in Fourteenth Amendment cases. The Court has never acknowledged this divergence, let alone justified it. Scholars have also failed to note this divergence or explore whether it can be justified. By ignoring this divergence, the Court and scholars have ignored a situation that exacerbates existing power imbalances and fails to recognize a more promising approach to judicial deference.

This …

Wealth-Based Penal Disenfranchisement, Beth A. Colgan

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article offers the first comprehensive examination of the way in which the inability to pay economic sanctions-fines, fees, surcharges, and restitution-may prevent people of limited means from voting. The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of penal disenfranchisement upon conviction, and all but two states revoke the right to vote for at least some offenses. The remaining jurisdictions allow for reenfranchisement for most or all offenses under certain conditions. One often overlooked condition is payment of economic sanctions regardless of whether the would-be voter has the ability to pay before an election registration deadline. The scope of wealth-based penal …

Solitary Confinement Of Juvenile Offenders And Pre-Trial Detainees, Nicole Johnson

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Commitment Through Fear: Mandatory Jury Trials And Substantive Due Process Violations In The Civil Commitment Of Sex Offenders In Illinois, Michael Zolfo

Chicago-Kent Law Review

In Illinois, a person deemed a Sexually Violent Person (“SVP”) in a civil trial can be detained indefinitely in treatment facilities that functionally serve as prisons. SVPs are not afforded the right to waive a jury trial, a right that criminal defendants enjoy. This results in SVPs facing juries that treat sex offenders as monsters or sub-humans, due to often sensationalistic media coverage and the use of sex offenders as boogeymen in political campaigns. The lack of a jury trial waiver results in more individuals being deemed SVPs, depriving many of their liberty without the due process of law, a …

The Privileges And Immunities Of Non-Citizens, R. George Wright

Cleveland State Law Review

However paradoxically, in some practically important contexts, non-citizens of all sorts can rightly claim what amount to privileges and immunities of citizens. This follows from a careful and entirely plausible understanding of the inherently relational, inescapably social, and essentially reciprocal nature of at least some typical privileges and immunities.

This Article contends that the relationship between constitutional privileges and immunities and citizenship is more nuanced, and much more interesting, than usually recognized. Crucially, allowing some non-citizens to invoke the privileges and immunities of citizens often makes sense. The intuitive sense that non-citizens cannot logically claim the privileges or immunities of …

Forgotten Cases: Worthen V. Thomas, David F. Forte

Cleveland State Law Review

According to received opinion, the case of the Home Bldg. & Loan Ass’n v. Blaisdell, decided in 1934, laid to rest any force the Contract Clause of the United States Constitution had to limit state legislation that affected existing contracts. But the Supreme Court’s subsequent decisions belies that claim. In fact, a few months later, the Court unanimously decided Worthen v. Thomas, which reaffirmed the vitality of the Contract Clause. Over the next few years, in twenty cases, the Court limited the reach of Blaisdell and confirmed the limiting force of the Contract Clause on state legislation. Only …

Solving The Nonresident Alien Due Process Paradox In Personal Jurisdiction, Robin J. Effron

Michigan Law Review Online

Personal jurisdiction has a nonresident alien problem. Or, more accurately, personal jurisdiction has two nonresident alien problems. The first is the extent to which the specter of the nonresident alien defendant has overshadowed-if not unfairly driven-the discourse and doctrine over constitutional personal jurisdiction. The second is that the constitutional right to resist personal jurisdiction enjoyed by the nonresident alien defendant in a civil lawsuit is remarkably out of alignment with that same nonresident alien's ability to assert nearly every other constitutional right. Neither of these observations is new, although the first problem has drawn far more scholarly attention than the …

Non-Alj Adjudicators In Federal Agencies: Status, Selection, Oversight, And Removal, Kent H. Barnett, Russell Wheeler

Georgia Law Review

This article republishes—in substantively similar form—our 2018 report to the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) concerning federal agencies’ adjudicators who are not administrative law judges (ALJs). (We refer to these adjudicators as “non-ALJ Adjudicators” or “non-ALJs.”) As our data indicate, non-ALJs significantly outnumber ALJs. Yet non-ALJs are often overlooked and difficult to discuss as a class because of their disparate titles and characteristics. To obtain more information on non-ALJs, we surveyed agencies on non-ALJs’ hearings and, among other things, the characteristics concerning non-ALJs’ salaries, selection, oversight, and removal. We first present our reported data on these matters, which …

Finality Of A Conviction: A Noncitizen's Right To Procedural Due Process, Daniela Mondragon

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming

With Liberty And Justice For Some: Denial Of Meaningful Due Process In School Disciplinary Actions In Ohio, Genevieve Vince

Cleveland State Law Review

Students face many different obstacles in school and arbitrary exclusion should not be one of them. Despite the Supreme Court stating that students do not shed their rights at the schoolhouse gate, they in fact do shed their rights. This Note examines how school disciplinary actions deny students meaningful due process. It discusses the foundation of modern due process, including what other rights have been incorporated into the contemporary understanding of due process as well as its historic roots. Additionally, this Note explores the case that established the procedures required of school administrators to comport with a student’s right to …

Justice For Noncitizens: A Case For Reforming The Immigration Legal System, Anna Paden Carson

VA Engage Journal

The immigration legal system exists as a function of the executive branch rather than the judicial branch, and many of the constitutional rights guaranteed in a judicial court do not continue into the immigration legal sphere. Noncitizen defendants in the immigration court system are not guaranteed the same due process rights or right to appointed counsel as United States citizens, which severely limits their chance of a successful outcome. Moreover, while many noncitizens await their trials in these courts, they are often placed in one of the 234 immigration detention facilities across the nation, which further exacerbates the direness of …

Apple Of Gold And Picture Of Silver: How Abraham Lincoln Would Analyze The Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, Frank J. Williams, William D. Bader, Andrew Blais

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Constitutionality Of Prison Privatization: An Analysis Of Prison Privatization In The United States And Israel, Stacey Jacovetti

Global Business Law Review

This note analyzes the constitutionality of the current state of prison privatization in the United States under the non-delegation doctrine and the due process clause. Furthermore, this note analyzes the Israeli Supreme Court's ruling holding prison privatization as unconstitutional under the Basic Law of the Right to Human Dignity and Liberty. Subsequently, an argument is made that the current authority for the utilization of private prisons in the United States is insufficient to establish the use of private prisons as constitutional. As such, this note argues that the overall scheme of privatization should provide for more detailed contracts--similar to those …

Constitutional Law—Fourth Amendment And Seizures— Accidental Seizures By Deadly Force: Who Is Seized During A Police Shootout? Plumhoff V. Rickard, 134 S. Ct. 2012 (2014)., Adam D. Franks

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

City Court, Watertown New York, People V. Rogers, Lisa Bartolomeo

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Court Of Appeals Of New York, People V. David, Courtney Blakeslee

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Shock Incarceration And Parole: A Process Without Process, Adam Yefet

Brooklyn Law Review

The idea that an inmate could possess a liberty interest in parole is a relatively recent development in Fourteenth Amendment law. It was not until 1979, in Greenholtz v. Inmates of the Nebraska Penal and Correctional Complex, that the Supreme Court examined Nebraska’s parole scheme and found that inmates could have a liberty interest in parole. The primary implication of Greenholtz was that parole statutes that contained certain mandatory language could confer upon inmates a liberty interest in parole. Applying the Greenholtz analysis, numerous parole schemes across the country were held to create a liberty interest and to require …

Missed Opportunities: The Unrealized Equal Protection Framework In Maher V. Roe And Harris V. Mcrae, Amelia Bailey

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Note focuses on two cases, Maher v. Roe and Harris v. McRae, and argues that they represent watershed moments in the reproductive rights movement because they positioned abortion as a fundamental right in name only. In both cases, the Supreme Court sanctioned severe funding restrictions and refused to grant poor women the right to state and federal assistance for elective and “nontherapeutic” abortions. “Non-therapeutic abortion” refers to those abortions performed or induced when the life of the mother is not endangered if the fetus is carried to term or when the pregnancy of the mother is not the …

Foreword: Private And Public Revisited Once Again, Mark A. Graber

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Substantive Due Process For Noncitizens: Lessons From Obergefell, Anthony O'Rourke

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

The state of Texas denies birth certificates to children born in the United States—and thus citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment—if their parents are undocumented immigrants with identification provided by their home countries’ consulates. What does this have to do with same-sex marriage? In a previous article, I demonstrated that the Supreme Court’s substantive due process analysis in United States v. Windsor is particularly relevant to the state’s regulation of undocumented immigrants. This Essay builds on my earlier analysis by examining United States v. Obergefell’s applications outside the context of same-sex marriage. Obergefell’s due process holding, I argue, can …

Book Review: Psychiatric Justice, Alice M. Batchelder

Akron Law Review

In an era in which extensive judicial emphasis has been placed on "due process of law" in criminal proceedings, both in the federal courts and in the state courts, Dr. Szasz's book serves as a jarring reminder that in at least one vital area of the concept of due process, much remains to be done. The emerging definition of due process has enunciated the rights guaranteed the individual by the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments; and viewed within that framework, this book, although published in 1965, remains particularly timely, for Szasz, speaking as a psychiatrist, endeavors to demonstrate how …

Student Rights Under The Due Process Clause . . . Suspensions From Public Schools; Goss V. Lopez, Glenn W. Soden

Akron Law Review

IN ADDRESSING ITSELF to the constitutionality of Section 3316.66 of the Ohio Revised Code,' the United States Supreme Court in Goss v. Lopez has ruled for the first time upon the extent to which the rights of students are to be protected under the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment in conjunction with any disciplinary removal from a public school. By its action the Court has tacitly undertaken to lift the cloud on student rights which has existed under the common law doctrine of in loco parentis, and interpose procedural safeguards upon any decision of school officials to deprive …

Automobile Guest Statute; Unconstitutional; Equal Protection; Due Process; Right To Seek Legal Redress; Primes V. Tyler, Margaret Fuller Corneille

Akron Law Review

IN JULY 1975, the Supreme Court of Ohio in the case of Primes v. Tyler' joined a small but growing number of states' which have declared automobile guest statutes' unconstitutional. The circumstances of the Primes case are similar to those encountered in countless other suits brought by injured guest passengers since the Ohio guest statute was enacted in 1933.' George Primes, III and Donald G. Tyler were members of an informal golf group which shared a car pool arrangement. Tyler, driving for the car pool, was involved in an automobile accident in which Primes, a passenger, was injured. Primes brought …

A Legal Note On The Nixon Pardon: Equal Justice Vis-À-Vis Due Process, Luis Kutner

Akron Law Review

THE FIRST TWO MAJOR ACTS of the Ford Presidency-the offer of earned amnesty (at least insofar as draft resisters in the Vietnam conflict are concerned) and the pardon granted to former President Richard M. Nixonwere charitable, wise and just. This article, of course, will discuss the presidential pardon for Mr. Nixon.

The Original Understanding Of The Fourteenth Amendment In Illinois, Ohio, And Pennsylvania, James E. Bond

Akron Law Review

This article reviews the state ratification debates in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois. Then as now these states were major electoral battlegrounds. In all three states the two parties fielded strong candidates and ran well-organized campaigns. Many of the nationally recognized proponents of the 14th amendment hailed from these states. Those among them who faced re-election were marked men. President Johnson himself made his famous "swing around the circle," defending "My Policy" in major cities in all three states. The President was only the most prominent of the many well-known outsiders who criss-crossed these states in a desperate attempt to influence …

Mu'min V. Virginia: Sixth And Fourteenth Amendments Do Not Compel Content Questions In Assessing Juror Impartiality, Cheryl A. Waddle

Akron Law Review

This note synopsizes the Supreme Court's prior decisions regarding the adequacy of voir dire in capital cases surrounded by prejudicial pretrial publicity. This note will then discuss Mu'Min and explore the weaknesses in the Court's analogies to its prior decisions. Next, the note will propose arguments in favor of mandating content questioning. Finally, this note will explore possible nonconstitutional reasons for requiring content questioning in cases where juror partiality should be presumed.

Riggins V. Nevada Fails To Resolve The Conflict Over Forcibly Medicating The Incompetent Criminal Defendant, Richard L. Ferrell Iii

Akron Law Review

The purpose of this casenote is to assess the propriety of the Riggins Court's decision and highlight some problems with the Court's reasoning. This note begins by discussing antipsychotic drugs and their side effects. Next, this note explores the ways in which courts have responded to the state's power to compel such medication, followed by an explanation of the types of objections raised to prevent this intrusion. Then, this casenote analyzes the Court's discussion of Riggins' eighth amendment claim, his liberty interest in avoiding forced medication, and the trial prejudice which anti-psychotic drugs can cause. Finally, this note analyzes the …

Teaching Free Speech From An Incomplete Fossil Record, Michael Kent Curtis

Akron Law Review

The second part of this symposium has been devoted to how we teach the Constitution. It has emphasized what gets left out. The reader will see a pattern. Paul Finkelman is a leading scholar on the law of slavery and the Constitution. Paul thinks – and I believe he is correct – that the immense influence of slavery on American constitutional law is too often neglected in our constitutional law courses. James Wilson has studied how political philosophers – Aristotle, Rousseau, James Harrington, and others – have understood the distribution of wealth as a central factor affecting how the constitution …