Law Commons^™

No Child Left Behind Bars: Applying The Principles Of Strict Scrutiny When Sentencing Juveniles Tried As Adults, Max Chu

William & Mary Law Review

The Commonwealth of Virginia was the first in the nation to pass legislation that provides judges with the discretion to veer away from the mandatory minimum sentence and to impose trauma-informed and age-appropriate sentences for juvenile offenders convicted of felonies and tried as adults. Although Virginia’s new law, House Bill 744 (HB 744), is a pioneering step in the right direction, this Note argues that the law may now provide judges with too much discretion. In other words, HB 744 alone, without more guidance, does not go far enough to protect the rights of juvenile offenders.

Therefore, this Note proposes …

You Can't Have Your Vote And Dilute It Too: Closing The Voting Rights Act Loophole In Gerrymandering Claims, Megan B. Kelly

William & Mary Law Review

The problem with creating and enforcing redistricting standards arises poignantly in racial gerrymandering cases that involve VRA section 2 compliance. In many ways, the rights that the Equal Protection Clause seeks to protect are at odds with the rights that section 2 seeks to protect. On the one hand, equal protection asserts a certain color-blindness, an interest in minimizing the focus on race and, in doing so, maximizing equality for all. On the other hand, the VRA suggests, and in fact requires, line-drawers keep at least one eye on race when drawing lines.

These opposing rights create a tension, which …

Race-Based Remedies In Criminal Law, Ion Meyn

William & Mary Law Review

This Article evaluates the constitutional feasibility of using race-based remedies to address racial disparities in the criminal system. Compared to white communities, communities of color are over-policed and over-incarcerated. Criminal system stakeholders recognize that these conditions undermine perceptions of legitimacy critical to ensuring public safety. As jurisdictions assiduously attempt race-neutral fixes, they also acknowledge the shortcomings of such interventions. Nevertheless, jurisdictions dismiss the feasibility of deploying more effective race-conscious strategies due to the shadow of a constitutional challenge. The apprehension is understandable. Debates around affirmative action in higher education and government contracting reveal fierce hostility toward race-based remedies.

This Article, …

The Thirteenth Amendment And Equal Protection: A Structural Interpretation To "Free" The Amendment, Larry J. Pittman

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

The hope is that the Court will one day hold that the Thirteenth Amendment has its own equal protection clause or component and that strict scrutiny will not be used for benign racial classifications designed to eradicate current badges and incidents of slavery. This Article critiques the Court’s decision in the Civil Rights Cases regarding the scope of section 1 of the Amendment and it offers a holistic or structural interpretation of the Amendment to include an equal protection component and a lesser standard of review than strict scrutiny. Essentially, the Thirteenth Amendment, if properly used, could become a public …

Unequal Protection: Rethinking The Standards And Safeguards For Absentee Ballot Schemes, Kira M. Simon

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

"De-Americanization" During The Trump Administration: Derivative Citizenship And Deceased Parents In The United States, Katheryn J. Maldonado

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

The Trump Administration’s war on immigration will be marked in history as one replete with white supremacy and terror. Much attention has been focused in the realm of undocumented immigrants, detention centers, and family separations because of the pervasiveness of those issues and the gravity of the human rights violations occurring in the United States. However, little focus has been given to immigrants who are lawful permanent residents or naturalized citizens at risk of denaturalization and deprivation of their constitutional rights. This Note highlights the effects of the Trump Administration’s war on immigration on citizens and green card holders in …

Kidnapping Reconsidered: Courts Merger Tests Inadequately Remedy The Inequities Which Developed From Kidnapping's Sensationalized And Racialized History, Samuel P. Newton

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Political And Non-Political Speech And Guns, Gregory P. Magarian

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

The Epistemic Function Of Fusing Equal Protection And Due Process, Deborah Hellman

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

The fusion of equal protection and due process has attracted significant attention with scholars offering varied accounts of its purpose and function. Some see the combination as productive, creating a constitutional violation that neither clause would generate alone. Others see the combination as merely strategic, offered to make a claim acceptable at a particular historical moment but not genuinely necessary. This Article offers a third alternative. Judges have and should bring both equal protection and due process together to learn what each clause independently requires. On this Epistemic vision of constitutional fusion, a focus on equality helps judges learn what …

Gender-Stereotyping Theory, Freedom Of Expression, And Identity, Carlos A. Ball

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Article argues that the expressive components of gender-stereotyping theory serve to delink the equality protections afforded by that theory from fixed and predetermined identity categories in helpful and positive ways. Many have viewed American antidiscrimination law as being normatively grounded in the notion that there are certain identities that, because of their stable and immutable characteristics, deserve equality-based protections. Gender-stereotyping theory can help make the normative case for a more pluralistic understanding of equality, one that is grounded in the need to protect the fluid and multiple ways in which gender is performed or expressed rather than focusing, as …

The Forgotten Relatives In The Fight Against Family Separation: A Constitutional Analysis Of The Statutory Definition Of Unaccompanied Minors In Immigration Detention, Alysa Williams

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

There's Nothing Rational About It: Heightened Scrutiny For Sexual Orientation Is Long Overdue, Daniel J. Galvin Jr.

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

In this Article, I argue that sexual orientation meets the burden established by Supreme Court jurisprudence for suspect classification and, therefore, should receive heightened scrutiny under Fourteenth Amendment equal protection analysis. After decades of using the fundamental rights analysis to aid lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals in their pursuit of equality, addressing the fundamental right to marry and the fundamental right to privacy, the Supreme Court must address the elephant in the courtroom: that sexual orientation meets all of the factors set by the Court in equal protection cases for suspect classification.

Gays, lesbians, and bisexual individuals (LGBs) meet the …

Unequal Enforcement Of The Law: Targeting Aggressors For Mass Atrocity Prosecutions, Nancy Amoury Combs

Faculty Publications

It is a central tenet of the laws of war that they apply equally to all parties to a conflict. For this reason, a party that illegally launches a war benefits from all the same rights as a party that must defend against the illegal aggression. Countless philosophers have shown that this so-called equal application doctrine is morally indefensible and that defenders should have more rights and fewer responsibilities than aggressors. The equal application doctrine retains the support of legal scholars, however, because they reasonably fear that applying different rules to different warring parties will substantially reduce overall compliance with …

The New Jim Crow’S Equal Protection Potential, Katherine Macfarlane

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

In 1954, the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education opinion relied on social science research to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson’s separate but equal doctrine. Since Brown, social science research has been considered by the Court in cases involving equal protection challenges to grand jury selection, death penalty sentences, and affirmative action. In 2016, Justice Sotomayor cited an influential piece of social science research, Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, in her powerful Utah v. Strieff dissent. Sotomayor contended that the Court’s holding overlooked the unequal racial impact of suspicionless …

Highway Robbery: Due Process, Equal Protection, And Punishing Poverty With Driver’S License Suspensions, Thomas Capretta

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Embracing The Chinese Exclusion Case: An International Law Approach To Racial Exclusions, Lauri Kai

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Restroom Use, Civil Rights, And Free Speech "Opportunism", Timothy Zick

Faculty Publications

Commentators have expressed concerns that litigants are invoking the First Amendment's Free Speech Clause strategically, in order to compensate for the weakness or futility of other constitutional claims. The phenomenon has been given a label- "opportunism "-and scholars have examined some of its causes and consequences. This Article takes a closer and somewhat skeptical look at the concept offree speech "opportunism." It imagines that the Free Speech Clause will be invoked in challenges to laws or policies that restrict public restroom use based on a person's gender. Would such challenges be "opportunistic, " as the term has been defined? What …

Rights Dynamism, Timothy Zick

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Has The Future Already Been Forgotten? A Post-2007 Transgender Legal History Told Through The Eyes Of The Late, (Rarely) Great Employment Non-Discrimination Act, Katrina C. Rose

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Same-Sex Parents And Their Children: Brazilian Case Law And Insights From Psychoanalysis, Helena Campos Refosco, Martha Maria Guida Fernandes

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

This Article argues that maternal and paternal functions can be performed by same-sex parents from a psychological point of view. Consequently, the legal recognition of their relationship with their children meets the principle of human dignity pursuant to the Brazilian Federal Constitution.

The Dynamic Relationship Between Freedom Of Speech And Equality, Timothy Zick

Faculty Publications

This Article examines the dynamic intersection between freedom of speech and equal protection, with a particular focus on the race and LGBT equality movements. Unlike other works on expression and/or equality, the Article emphasizes the relational and bi-directional connections between freedom of speech and equal protection. Freedom of speech has played a critical role in terms of advancing constitutional equality. However, with regard to both race and LGBT equality, free speech rights also failed in important respects to facilitate equality claims and movements. Advocacy and agitation on behalf of equality rights have also left indelible positive and negative marks on …

The Lawfulness Of The Same-Sex Marriage Decisions: Charles Black On Obergefell, Toni M. Massaro

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Orange Is The New Equal Protection Violation: How Evidence-Based Sentencing Harms Male Offenders, Shaina D. Massie

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Procedurally Criminal: How Peremptory Challenges Create Unfair And Unrepresentative Single-Gender Juries, Chelsea V. King

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Section 7: Same-Sex Marriage, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

Flunking The Class-Of-One/Failing Equal Protection, William D. Araiza

William & Mary Law Review

This Article considers the equal protection “class-of-one” doctrine in light of recent developments, both at the Supreme Court and in the lower courts. After Part I explains the background and current state of the doctrine, Part II considers how that doctrine provides insights into such basic equal protection concepts as discriminatory intent and animus. It also critiques the Court’s analysis of the class-of-one, arguing that the Court has mishandled these concepts and in so doing caused doctrinal anomalies and lower court confusion. Part II offers an alternative approach to the class-of-one that corrects those problems while still addressing the concerns …

Crossing The Final Border: Securing Equal Gender Protection In Immigration Cases, Michelle L. Sudano

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Lawrence's Stealth Constitutionalism And Same-Sex Marriage Litigation, Eric Berger

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Constitutional law scholarship often focuses on two taxonomies: doctrinal categories and interpretive methodologies. Consequently, constitutional scholars sometimes neglect other important facets of constitutional decisionmaking, particularly extra-doctrinal stealth determinations that courts render frequently in constitutional opinions. The U.S. Supreme Court regularly confronts the questions underlying these determinations, but despite their centrality to constitutional decisionmaking, these issues often escape careful scrutiny.

Lawrence v. Texas exemplifies the phenomenon. Lawrence framed its central question at a broad level of generality; relied on hybrid reasoning, using equal-protection rationales to support a substantive due process holding; declined to identify a level of scrutiny; and invoked changing …

Equality Between Adults And Children: Its Meaning, Implications, And Opposition, James G. Dwyer

Faculty Publications

Family law scholars have devoted much attention to equality among groups of adults and some attention to equality between groups of children. There has been little exploration, however, of the notion of equality between adults and children. In this Article, I first explain what it means at a basic, theoretical level to speak of such equality. I then identify some practical implications. Finally, I consider why there is great resistance to many practical implications of children's equality, even among those who would consider themselves advocates for child welfare.

Commentary On Marriage Grants: Article Iii & Same-Sex Marriage, Neal Devins, Tara Leigh Grove

Popular Media

No abstract provided.