Constitutional Law Commons^™

Introduction: Persecution Through Prosecution: Revisiting Touro Law Center’S Conference In Paris On The Dreyfus Affair And The Leo Frank Trial, Rodger D. Citron

Touro Law Review

This piece provides the introduction for the Dreyfus affair. It gives a brief overview of the actual Dreyfus affair and outlines the articles in this volume.

The Mighty Work Of Making Nations Happy: A Response To James Davison Hunter, Patrick Mckinley Brennan

Working Paper Series

This article is an invited response to James Davison Hunter’s much-discussed book To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World (Oxford University Press, 2010). Hunter, a sociologist at UVA and a believing Protestant, claims that law’s capacity to contribute to social change is “mostly illusory” and that Christians, therefore, should practice “faithful presence” in the public square rather than seek to influence law directly. My response is that it is, in fact, law’s stunning ability to alter and limit available choices that makes it an object of deservedly fierce contest. The wild …

Freedom From Ignorance: The International Duty To Provide Public Education, Areto A. Imoukhuede

Faculty Scholarship

This paper argues that public education is an international human right that the U.S. ought to recognise and protect. Recognising a right to public education would correct a major inconsistency in U.S. law by bringing education rights docrtine more in line with international human rights law. This piece discusses how current U.S. education rights doctrine is inconsistent with U.S. tradition and legal precedent. It then demonstrates how international law recognises public education as a fundamental duty of government before arguing for why the U.S. is obligated to follow international law regarding the right to public education.

Back To The Bad Old Days: President Putin's Hold On Free Speech In The Russian Federation, Rebecca Favret

Richmond Journal of Global Law & Business

No abstract provided.

Hollingsworth V. Perry, Brief For Foreign And Comparative Law Experts Harold Hongju Koh Et. Al. As Amici Curiae Supporting Respondents, Harold Hongju Koh, Sarah H. Cleveland, Laurence R. Helfer, Ryan Goodman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Minnesota Bounties On Dakota Men During The U.S.-Dakota War, Colette Routel

Faculty Scholarship

The U.S.-Dakota War was one of the formative events in Minnesota history, and despite the passage of time, it still stirs up powerful emotions among descendants of the Dakota and white settlers who experienced this tragedy. Hundreds of people lost their lives in just over a month of fighting in 1862. By the time the year was over, thirty-eight Dakota men had been hanged in the largest mass execution in United States history. Not long afterwards, the United States abrogated its treaties with the Dakota, confiscated their reservations along the Minnesota River, and forced most of the Dakota to remove …

Protecting The Lydias, Linas, And Tinas From Sex Trafficking: A Call To Eliminate Ambiguities Of 18 U.S.C. § 1591, Tiffanie N. Choate

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Right To Plea Bargain With Competent Counsel After Cooper And Frye: Is The Supreme Court Making The Ordinary Criminal Process Too Long, Too Expensive, And Unpredictable In Pursuit Of Perfect Justice, Bruce A. Green

Faculty Scholarship

In Lafler v. Cooper and Missouri v. Frye, the Supreme Court recently ruled in favor of criminal defendants who were deprived of a favorable plea offer because of their lawyers’ professional lapses. In dissent, Justice Scalia complained that “[t]he ordinary criminal process has become too long, too expensive, and unpredictable,” because of the Court’s criminal procedure jurisprudence; that plea bargaining is “the alternative in which...defendants have sought relief,” and that the two new decisions on the Sixth Amendment right to effective representation in plea bargaining would add to the burden on the criminal process. This essay examines several aspects of …

Of Civil Wrongs And Rights: Kiyemba V. Obama And The Meaning Of Freedom, Separation Of Powers, And The Rule Of Law Ten Years After 9/11, Katherine L. Vaughns, Heather L. Williams

Faculty Scholarship

This article is about the rise and fall of continued adherence to the rule of law, proper application of the separation of powers doctrine, and the meaning of freedom for a group of seventeen Uighurs—a Turkic Muslim ethnic minority whose members reside in the Xinjiang province of China—who had been held at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base since 2002. Most scholars regard the trilogy of Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, and Boumediene v. Bush as demonstrating the Supreme Court’s willingness to uphold the rule of law during the war on terror. The recent experience of the Uighurs …

Military Commissions And The Paradigm Of Prevention, David Cole

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Why military commissions? Given the United States’s track record of success in trying terrorists in civilian criminal courts, and the availability of courts-martial to try war crimes, why has the United States government, under both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations alike, insisted on proceeding through untested military commissions instead? In May 2009, President Obama defended military commissions with the following claims:

Military commissions have a history in the United States dating back to George Washington and the Revolutionary War. They are an appropriate venue for trying detainees for violations of the laws of war. They allow for …

Firearms Policy And The Black Community: An Assessment Of The Modern Orthodoxy, Nicholas J. Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

The heroes of the modern civil rights movement were more than just stoic victims of racist violence. Their history was one of defiance and fighting long before news cameras showed them attacked by dogs and fire hoses. When Fannie Lou Hamer revealed she kept a shotgun in every corner of her bedroom, she was channeling a century old practice. And when delta share cropper Hartman Turnbow, after a shootout with the Klan, said “I don’t figure I was being non-nonviolent, (yes non-nonviolent) I was just protecting my family”, he was invoking an evolved tradition that embraced self-defense and disdained political …

Should Public Buildings Be Used For Worship, Stephen Wermiel

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Reading (Into) Windsor: Presidential Leadership, Marriage Equality, And Immigration Policy, Victor C. Romero

Faculty Scholarship

Following the demise of the federal Defense of Marriage Act in United States v. Windsor, the Obama Administration directed a bold, equality-based reading of Windsor to immigration law, treating bi-national same-sex couples the same as opposite-sex couples. This Essay argues that the President's interpretation is both constitutionally and politically sound: Constitutionally, because it comports with the Executive's power to enforce immigration law and to guarantee equal protection under the law; and politically, because it reflects the current, increasingly tolerant view of marriage equality. Though still in its infancy, President Obama's policy of treating same-sex beneficiary petitions generally the same as …

Symmetry For Symmetry’S Sake: Why Bose Does Not Require Independent Review Of A Trial Court’S First-Amendment-Favorable Findings Of Fact, Joshua Wurtzel

Cardozo Law Review de•novo

This Note argues that Bose does not support the symmetrical application of independent review of facts by appellate courts in First Amendment cases, regardless of whether the First Amendment claimant won or lost below. While symmetrical procedures and results may be desirable in most parts of the law, symmetry is not required where that symmetry will inhibit a greater constitutional interest. In the independent review context, symmetrical application of Bose results in the reversal of First Amendment wins that would otherwise be upheld under clear error review. This result is clearly antithetical to Bose’s purpose of enhancing First Amendment protections.

Neo-Democracy, National Security, And Liberty, David Cole

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In his new book, Liberty and Security, Conor Gearty, professor of law at the London School of Economics and one of the United Kingdom’s leading authorities on civil liberties and national security, argues that many Western nations are in effect “neo-democracies” that fail systematically to live up to the fundamental egalitarian premises of true democracy, and that this development is seen in particular in the context of counter-terrorism policy. This review assesses that claim, and maintains that while Gearty is correct that many counter-terrorism measures are predicated on double standards, that critique is insufficient to answer the many difficult questions …

Why Jeremy Waldron Really Agrees With Me, Louis Michael Seidman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Herewith a response to Jeremy Waldron's review of my book, On Constitutional Disobedience. I conclude that Waldron actually agrees with all of my key claims.

Shifting Borders And The Boundaries Of Rights: Examining The Safe Third Country Agreement Between Canada And The United States, Efrat Arbel

All Faculty Publications

This article analyzes the Canadian Federal Court and Federal Court of Appeal decisions assessing the Safe Third Country Agreement between Canada and the United States (STCA). It examines how each court’s treatment of the location and operation of the Canada-US border influences the results obtained. The article suggests that both in its treatment of the STCA and in its constitutional analysis, the Federal Court decision conceives of the border as a moving barrier capable of shifting outside Canada’s formal territorial boundaries. The effect of this decision is to bring refugee claimants outside state soil within the fold of Canadian constitutional …

Social Justice And The Charter: Comparison And Choice, Margot Young

All Faculty Publications

At a time of radical inequality, the changes sought by social justice advocacy are urgently needed. Yet repeatedly, courts fail to respond adequately to this challenge. A core issue plagues social justice jurisprudence under sections 7 and 15: the difficulty inevitable in the contemplation and expression of the social and political forms in which oppression and social injustice occur. This problem manifests doctrinally in ways specific to the rights at issue. In section 15 cases, the casting of comparator groups has been deeply problematic, and in both section 15 and section 7 cases, the courts fail to deliver a nuanced …

The Other Section 7, Margot Young

All Faculty Publications

The somewhat rudimentary notions of liberty, life and security of the person that are corralled by traditional section 7 jurisprudence are not the sole indicator of what the section potentially ought to, and indeed may ultimately, protect and ensure. It is now fairly well established that the rights section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects apply well outside the sphere of criminal law. Two strands of expansion exist, one less controversial than the other. First, it is relatively clear that section 7 encompasses executive administration of the law. The second path of expansion allows section 7 …

Reconciling Positivism And Realism: Kelsen And Habermas On Democracy And Human Rights, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

It is well known that Hans Kelsen and Jürgen Habermas invoke realist arguments drawn from social science in defending an international, democratic human rights regime against Carl Schmitt’s attack on the rule of law. However, despite embracing the realist spirit of Kelsen’s legal positivism, Habermas criticizes Kelsen for neglecting to connect the rule of law with a concept of procedural justice (Part I). I argue, to the contrary (Part II), that Kelsen does connect these terms, albeit in a manner that may be best described as functional, rather than conceptual. Indeed, whereas Habermas tends to emphasize a conceptual connection between …

Arizona’S Senate Bill 1070: A Case Study On State-Sponsored Immigration Policy, Ryan Murphy

Master's Theses

This study assesses the origins of Arizona’s state-sponsored immigration policy. It attempts to identify the social dynamics within Arizona that contributed to the overwhelming public support for SB 1070. Since it has been two years after the law was passed, this analysis determines what impact the law has had thus far within the state. Finally, it postulates the future of Arizona’s immigration policy.

Shall The Twain Never Meet? Competing Narratives And Discourses Of The Rule Of Law In Singapore, Jack Tsen-Ta Lee

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This article aims to assess the role played by the rule of law in discourse by critics of the Singapore Government’s policies and in the Government’s responses to such criticisms. It argues that in the past the two narratives clashed over conceptions of the rule of law, but there is now evidence of convergence of thinking as regards the need to protect human rights, though not necessarily as to how the balance between rights and other public interests should be struck. The article also examines why the rule of law must be regarded as a constitutional doctrine in Singapore, the …

United States V. Alvarez-Machain: Kidnapping In The "War On Drugs" - A Matter Of Executive Discretion Or Lawlessness?, Michael G. Mckinnon

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Created Equal: How The Declaration Of Independence Recognizes And Guarantees The Right To Life For The Unborn, Mark Trapp

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Substance And Method In The Year 2000, Akhil Reed Amar

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Art Of Persuasion: International/Comparative Human Rights, The Supreme Court Of Canada And The Reconstitution Of The Canadian Security Certificate Regime, Graham Hudson

PhD Dissertations

In this dissertation, the author explores the jurisprudential foundations of the “relevant and persuasive” doctrine, which authorizes Canadian judges to rely on international and comparative human rights when interpreting the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Viewed in its best light, this doctrine improves respect for human rights in two distinct ways: securing Canada’s compliance with its international human rights obligations and enhancing the responsiveness of state law to the global and multicultural context of Canadian society. However, actual jurisprudence suggests that the doctrine has helped undermine principles of respect for constitutional supremacy and respect for international law, in part because …

Racial Disparities In Sentencing In The U.S. And Georgia, Kamal Rattray, Nicole Lee

Georgia Journal of Public Policy

Incarceration represents the ultimate use of coercive power, and in the state of Georgia, that power is being disproportionately levied upon people of color, particularly African Americans.1 According to 2011 statistics from the Georgia Department of Corrections, the total prison population statewide was approximately 53,341 inmates. The majority of that number were Blacks (33,069 inmates), followed by Whites (17,752 inmates), Hispanics (2,306 inmates) and other ethnic groups.

The European Convention On Human Rights And National Constitutional Reordering, Alec Stone Sweet

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Constitutionalism Beyond The State? The Administrative Character Of European Governance Revisited, Peter L. Lindseth

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Patriotism Beyond The Nation-State: Human Rights, Constitutional Necessity, And The Limits Of Pluralism, Jan-Werner Müller

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.