Law Commons^™

Our Unsettled Ninth Amendment: An Essay On Unenumerated Rights And The Impossibility Of Textualism, Louis Michael Seidman

Louis Michael Seidman

The Ninth Amendment – our resident anarchic and sarcastic “constitutional jester” – mocks the effort of scholars and judges alike to tame and normalize constitutional law. It is not as if the stern disciplinarians haven’t tried. We now have two generations worth of painstaking, erudite, and occasionally brilliant scholarship that attempts to rein it in. Yet the amendment stubbornly resists control. It stands as a paradoxical, textual monument to the impossibility of textualism, an entrenched, settled instantiation of the inevitability of unsettlement. If it did not exist,

This essay has two parts. In Part I, I present a new and, …

Presidential Ambitions Of U.S. Supreme Court Justices: A History And An Ethical Warning, William G. Ross

William G. Ross

A remarkably large number of U.S. Supreme Court justices have had presidential aspirations while serving on the Court. Several have conducted covert presidential campaigns, and a few nineteenth century justices even campaigned openly from the bench. In at least three quarters of the elections between 1832 and 1956, one or more justices attempted to obtain a presidential or vice presidential nomination or were prominently mentioned as possible candidates. During the past half century, no Supreme Court justice appears to have entertained serious presidential ambitions, probably because no justice who has been appointed during the past fifty years has held any …

Jesus Follows The Socratic Method, Kristopher Eugene Nichols

Kristopher Eugene Nichols

This article, Jesus Follow the Socratic Method, is a detailed analysis and comparison of the trials of Socrates and Jesus of Nazareth. An investigation of these men and trials, two of the most famous in Western history, uncovers truths about human nature, the justice systems of these two ancient societies, and the power and danger of the spoken word to a vocal critical thinker in his own society. This article is twenty-two pages long, contains footnotes and follows the Bluebook format.

Radicals In Their Own Time: Four Hundred Years Of Struggle For Liberty And Equal Justice In America [Introduction & Selected Chapter Extracts], Michael Anthony Lawrence

Michael Anthony Lawrence

This book explores the lives of five individuals whose lifetimes, laid beginning to end, together form a nearly-continuous sweep of four hundred years of American history: Roger Williams (1603-1683), Thomas Paine (1737-1809), Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902); W.E.B Du Bois (1868-1963); and Vine Deloria (1933-2005). Radicals all, each did more than anyone during their respective eras to challenge and ultimately force government to honor Americans’ natural birthright of individual liberty and equal justice. Each, has had a profound impact on American history.

In discussing Williams, Paine, Stanton, Du Bois and Deloria, this book makes two important observations. First, each argued in …