Law Commons^™

Criminal Law And Procedure, Marla G. Decker, Stephen R. Mccullough

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Are Decss T-Shirts Dirty Laundry? Wearable, Non-Executable Computer Code As Protected Speech, Sara Crasson

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Voyeur War? The First Amendment, Privacy & Images From The War On Terrorism, Clay Calvert

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Democratic Public Domain: Reconnecting The Modern First Amendment And The Original Progress Clause (A.K.A. Copyright And Patent Clause), Malla Pollack

Malla Pollack

Empirical investigation of public usage of the word "progress" in the United States of 1789 demonstrates that the word meant "dissemination." The original meaning of art. I, sec. 8, cl. 8, therefore, is that Congress has the right to grant only such temporally limited exclusive rights in writings and new technology as encourage the dissemination of knowledge and new technology to the population. This article explains the major differences between current United States positive intellectual property law and the logical dictates of this original constitutional meaning. Additionally, the article asserts that the original meaning of clause 8 supports modern calls …

Missouri's Interfacing Of The First Amendment And Right Of Publicity: Is The Predominant Purpose Test Really That Desirable, Michael S. Kruse

Missouri Law Review

Many jurisdictions have struggled with the difficult question of how they should interface the interest of a celebrity in his or her right of publicity and the interest society holds in the freedom of artistic expression. The United States Supreme Court has not definitively addressed this issue, and, as a result, the approach to dealing with these types of First Amendment claims varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. This Note examines how the Missouri Supreme Court recently confronted this issue. To appreciate the court's analysis, it is important to understand the interests that the right of publicity seeks to protect and …

Eminent Domain Actions Targeting First Amendment Land Uses, Shelley Ross Saxer

Missouri Law Review

This Article advocates that courts should distinguish between typical land use regulation and should impose stricter constitutional limitations on the eminent domain power. Under our current concept of public welfare the potential for government abuse of its eminent domain power is great. The government's attempt to eliminate an undersirable, but constitutionally protected, use from its community through condemnation must be carefully scrutinized to ensure that there is not an impermissible motive behind the action. Eminent domain actions targeting land uses protected by the First Amendment should be subject to heightened scrutiny.

Small Town Police Forces, Other Governmental Entities And The Misapplication Of The First Amendment To The Small Group Defamation Theory--A Plea For Fundamental Fairness For Mayberry, David A. Elder

David A. Elder

No abstract provided.

Securing Deliberative Democracy, James E. Fleming

Faculty Scholarship

The brochure for the conference frames the questions for our panel on The Constitutional Essentials of Political Liberalism as "What are the implications of Rawls's conceptions of justice as fairness and political liberalism for constitutional theory? Might his account of constitutional essentials provide a useful guiding framework for conceiving the scheme of basic liberties embodied in the American Constitution? How thin are the commitments of our Constitution as compared with our richer commitments to constitutional justice and political justice? What are the implications of Rawls's work for theory of judicial review and for enforcement of constitutional rights and obligations outside …

Ub Viewpoint – Journalists May Face Contempt For Protecting Sources, Eric Easton

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Adjudicative Speech And The First Amendment, Christopher J. Peters

All Faculty Scholarship

While political speech - speech intended to influence political decisions - is afforded the highest protection under the First Amendment, adjudicative speech - speech intended to influence court decisions - is regularly and systematically constrained by rules of evidence, canons of professional ethics, judicial gag orders, and similar devices. Yet court decisions can be as important, both to the litigants and to society at large, as political decisions. How then can our practice of severely constraining adjudicative speech be justified as consistent with First Amendment principles?

This Article attempts to answer that question in a way that is informative about …

Austria's Pre-War Brown V. Board Of Education, Maria L. Marcus

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This article discusses the Austrian Constitutional Court's 1931 decision in which it held that the University of Vienna's regulations dividing students into ethnically based groups was unconstitutional. The article compares the similarities and differences between this case and later critical American equal opportunity cases including Brown v. Board of Education and suggests that an understanding of the current racial challenges is most effective by examining both global and American perspectives. This article explores the balance between maintaining universities autonomy and ensuring that racism does not foster in an institution free from judicial intervention. In discussing two cases, this article points …

Public Confidence Laws Gone Awry: A Modern Circuit Split Reveals That Some Federal Courts Manipulate Standing Rules To Promulgate Severe First Amendment Restrictions On The Spouses And Children Of Public Employees, Nicholas R. Farrell

Vanderbilt Law Review

Federal courts in the United States have consistently upheld the constitutional doctrine that "[t]he essential rights of the First Amendment in some instances are subject to the elemental need for order without which the guarantees of civil rights to others would be a mockery." Given the central role of government workers in maintaining that order, the First Amendment rights of public employees have been particularly susceptible to restriction. For example, in 1940, Congress enacted the Hatch Act, which declared unlawful certain political activities of federal employees. Specifically, section nine of the Act prohibited officers and employees in the executive branch …

Direct-To-Consumer Genetic Tests, Government Oversight, And The First Amendment: What The Government Can (And Can't) Do To Protect The Public's Health, Gail H. Javitt, Erica Stanley, Kathy Hudson

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Dr. King, Bull Connor, And Persuasive Narratives, Shaun B. Spencer

Faculty Publications

This article describes an in-class exercise that illustrates the use of persuasive narrative techniques in a U.S. Supreme Court decision. The article first describes the background to the Supreme Court’s decision in Walker v. City of Birmingham. Next, the article examines persuasive narrative techniques through the lens of an in-class exercise in which students identify the Justices’ narrative devices and consider how those devices preview the Justices’ legal arguments. Finally, the article describes why the Walker case and the exercise are valuable not only to teach persuasive narratives, but also to raise broader issues of lawyering and social justice.

Fire, Metaphor, And Constitutional Myth-Making, Robert L. Tsai

Faculty Scholarship

From the standpoint of traditional legal thought, metaphor is at best a dash of poetry adorning lawyerly analysis, and at worst an unjustifiable distraction from what is actually at stake in a legal contest. By contrast, in the eyes of those who view law as a close relative of ordinary language, metaphor is a basic building block of human understanding. This article accepts that metaphor helps us to comprehend a court's decision. At the same time, it argues that metaphor plays a special role in the realm of constitutional discourse. Metaphor in constitutional law not only reinforces doctrinal categories, but …

Fire, Metaphor, And Constitutional Myth-Making, Robert Tsai

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

From the standpoint of traditional legal thought, metaphor is at best a dash of poetry adorning lawyerly analysis, and at worst an unjustifiable distraction from what is actually at stake in a legal contest. By contrast, in the eyes of those who view law as a close relative of ordinary language, metaphor is a basic building block of human understanding. This article accepts that metaphor helps us to comprehend a court's decision. At the same time, it argues that metaphor plays a special role in the realm of constitutional discourse. Metaphor in constitutional law not only reinforces doctrinal categories, but …

Symbolic Counter-Speech, Howard M. Wasserman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

If The Shoe Fits: Kasky V. Nike And Whether Corporate Statements About Business Operations Should Be Deemed Commercial Speech, Jason A. Cade

Scholarly Works

This Note argues that the Kasky court was correct to recognize that today's commercial speech encompasses communications beyond traditional advertisements about products or services. Corporations are aware that a sizeable number of consumers rely on their statements about their business operations when making investment and purchasing decisions. In order to ensure the accuracy of these statements, and thereby protect the integrity of the market, this speech is properly considered commercial speech.

Demonstrations, Security Zones, And First Amendment Protection Of Special Places, Mary M. Cheh

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

There has been a marked increase in government suppression of public protests and demonstrations. Certain areas, such as public space near the White House, have been effectively placed off limits to demonstrators. Protestors are put out of sight, down the road, or otherwise away from the object of their protest. The Secret Service has created security zones insulating the President and his entourage from the sights and sounds of opposition marches and demonstrations. And police are using sophisticated tactics, such as surveillance, infiltration, disinformation, and pre-emptive arrests to undermine and frustrate the ability of protestors to conduct their marches and …

Sexual Misconduct And Ecclesiastical Immunity, Ira C. Lupu, Robert W. Tuttle

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This paper critically analyzes the possibility and structure of First Amendment defenses to actions, both private and public, arising out of sexual misconduct by members of the clergy. Part I traces the expansion of relevant theories of tort and criminal liability, and the waning of immunities, constitutional and statutory, that once applied to such actions. Part II of the paper advances a normative theory of the constitutional distinctiveness of religion, and ties that theory to the possibility of ecclesiastical immunity. Most conceptions of such immunity represent assertions of the liberty of religious organizations, and are grounded in the Constitution's Free …

“The Corporate Conscience” And Other First Amendment Follies In Pacific Gas & Electric

San Diego Law Review

No abstract provided.

Political Representation And Accountability Under Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Tobias Barrington Wolff

All Faculty Scholarship

The U.S. military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy constitutes a singular type of speech regulation: an explicit prohibition on identity speech by a defined population of individuals that mandates a state of complete social invisibility in both military and civilian life. The impact of such a regulation upon the public speech values protected by the First Amendment should not be difficult to apprehend. And yet, as the tenth anniversary of the policy approaches, First Amendment scholars have largely ignored this seemingly irresistible subject of study, and the federal courts have refused to engage with the policy's implications for public speech …

Assimilation, Toleration, And The State's Interest In The Development Of Religious Doctrine, Richard Garnett

Journal Articles

Thirty-five years ago, in the context of a church-property dispute, Justice William Brennan observed that government interpretation of religious doctrine and judicial intervention in religious disputes are undesirable, because when civil courts undertake to resolve [doctrinal] controversies..., the hazards are ever present of inhibiting the free development of religious doctrine and of implicating secular interests in matters of purely ecclesiastical concern. This statement, at first, seems wise and fittingly cautious, even unremarkable and obvious. On examination, though, it turns out to be intriguing, elusive, and misleading. Indeed, Justice Brennan's warning presents hazards of its own, and its premises - if …

Speech And Strife, Robert L. Tsai

Faculty Scholarship

The essay strives for a better understanding of the myths, symbols, categories of power, and images deployed by the Supreme Court to signal how we ought to think about its authority. Taking examples from free speech jurisprudence, the essay proceeds in three steps. First, I argue that the First Amendment constitutes a deep source of cultural authority for the Court. As a result, linguistic and doctrinal innovation in the free speech area have been at least as bold and imaginative as that in areas like the Commerce Clause. Second, in turning to cognitive theory, I distinguish between formal legal argumentation …

Ohio Joins The New Judicial Federalism Movement: A Little To-Ing And A Little Fro-Ing , Marianna Brown Bettman

Cleveland State Law Review

Bettman analyzes Ohio Supreme Court decisions construing the Speech, Press, Search and Seizure, Free Exercise, and Establishment Clause analogues of the Ohio Constitution. Here in Ohio, she concludes, New Judicial Federalism remains in its infancy. The Ohio Supreme Court is still struggling with the fundamentals of state constitutional interpretation. It remains heavily dependant on federal methodology when construing analogous provisions of the state constitution. Bettman gives us the unique perspective of a law professor who previously served as an Ohio appellate court judge. This perspective sensitizes her to the current political make-up of the Ohio Supreme Court. Today's court, she …

Her Own Good Name: Two Centuries Of Talk About Chastity, Lisa R. Pruitt

Lisa R Pruitt

Since the earliest days of U.S. legal history, women have sought legal redress for statements about their sexual behavior or otherwise about them as sexual beings. These female plaintiffs have typically employed defamation law to sue on the basis of communications that undermined their reputations for sexual propriety, which the law referred to as chastity. In this Article, Professor Pruitt tracks women’s use of defamation law from the earliest recorded cases to the turn of the twenty-first century, noting how changing society and evolving legal doctrines have altered judicial responses to these claims.

Defamation law was historically highly responsive to …