Constitutional Law Commons^™

Immunity Under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, Ernest B. Fullwood

North Carolina Central Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Reincarnation Of The Death Penalty: Is It Possible?, Yale Kamisar

Articles

Fifty years ago Clarence Darrow, probably the greatest criminal defense lawyer in American history and a leading opponent of capital punishment, observed: The question of capital punishment has been the subject of endless discussion and will probably never be settled so long as men believe in punishment. Some states have abolished and then reinstated it; some have enjoyed capital punishment for long periods of time and finally prohibited the use of it. The reasons why it cannot be settled are plain. There is first of all no agreement as to the objects of punishment. Next there is no way to …

Federalizing Through The Franchise: The Supreme Court And Local Government, R. Perry Sentell Jr.

Scholarly Works

Decisionmaking at the local government level has been significantly affected by both national legislation and federal court decisions seeking to protect the right to vote. Indeed, Professor Sentell feels that the Supreme Court, through decisions invalidating restrictions on the franchise, has involved itself to an unparalleled degree in heretofore purely local affairs. In examining these decisions, the author queries if legitimate voting regulations may be now imposed by local governments. In so doing he focuses upon the Court's equal protection analysis of extraordinary majority vote requirements and elections restricted to certain segments of the electorate and upon the expansive judicial …

Hawkins V. Town Of Shaw: The Court As City Manager, C. Ronald Ellington, Lawrence F. Jones

Scholarly Works

For over one hundred years Congress and the federal courts have pursued the goal of racial equality in the United States. In areas such as voting rights, public accommodations, and housing, Congress and the courts have interacted closely, with broad judicial interpretations upholding major remedial legislation. Moreover, when confronted by official state sources of racial discrimination, courts have traditionally responded to the clear command of the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment without awaiting congressional action. Brown v. Board of Education stands as perhaps the best known instance in which a court has, on its own, ordered the elimination …

What Is "Right" About America, Lewis F. Powell Jr.

Powell Speeches

Powell gave this speech at the Leadership Banquet of the Key Club of Thomas Jefferson High School, Richmond, Virginia.

Constitutional Reflections On Abortion Reform, Patrick L. Baude

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

United States abortion law is evolving comparably. Even eight years ago, public opinion was deeply divided when a Phoenix housewife sought to avoid giving birth after taking Thalidomide. The Model Penal Code, promulgated that year, authorized abortion in cases of felonious intercourse, to avoid deformity, and to protect the physical or mental health of the mother; these faintly daring innovations are now in danger of being declared unconstitutional because they are too limited. In the last year, three courts have invalidated moderate abortion statutes and the New York legislature has permitted abortion at will in early pregnancy. The purpose of …

Legislation Requiring Child To Support Mother In State Asylum Is A Denial Of Equal Protection-Department Of Mental Hygiene V. Kirchner, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The California Department of Mental Hygiene brought suit under section 6650 of the state's Welfare and Institutions Code, a provision commonly known as a relative support statute, against the administratrix to recover 7,500 dollars from the intestate's estate. This amount represented the cost of food, housing, and treatment received by intestate's mother in a state mental hospital during the four years she had been confined there following a civil sanity hearing. Plaintiff was granted judgment on the pleadings. On appeal to the California Supreme Court, held, reversed. Since mental hospitals serve a proper public function, it is a denial …

Stability And Change In Constitutional Law, Robert B. Mckay

Vanderbilt Law Review

Constitutional law, like other law, is rooted in the conservative tradition of the legal system as a whole and thus more willingly pays court to the muse of history and the force of precedent than to the muse of sociology and the demand for revision. It is therefore not surprising that lawyers read constitutions as law, in the ordinary meaning of that word, and that judges apply constitutional provisions as they do other law...

The Constitution of the United States was not cast in legal mold by accident, but by design that was itself the product of ineluctable history. A …

Constitutional Law - Equal Protection - Racial Discrimination And The Role Of The State, William C. Griffith S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Constitutional history from the 1857 Dred Scott decision to the 1954 Brown decision records "a movement from status to contract" for the American Negro. Although uncertainty clouds the definition of "state action," the civil rights of the Negro under the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment have been clearly established. The Negro citizen has arrived; the Negro minority group remains one of the gravest social problems of twentieth century America. De facto school segregation, limited economic opportunity, and inadequate housing are problems not solved by invocation of the fourteenth amendment or incantation of the Declaration of Independence. Solution, …

Greenberg: Race Relations And American Law, Spencer L. Kimball

Michigan Law Review

A Review of RACE RELATIONS AND AMERICAN LAW. By Jack Greenberg.

Aliens - Deportation - Activity Consituting Membership In Communist Party, Mark Shaevsky

Michigan Law Review

Petitioner, an alien who had resided in the United States since 1914, joined the Communist Party in 1935 and during that year paid dues, attended meetings, and worked briefly at an official outlet for communist literature. He terminated his relationship with the party after approximately one year. At a hearing to consider his possible deportation, the petitioner disclaimed that he had held any belief in the forcible overthrow of government, stating that he had regarded the Communist Party solely as an instrument for securing economic necessities. The Board of Immigration Appeals upheld the hearing officer's finding that petitioner had been …

"Congress Shall Make No Law…":Ii, O. John Rogge

Michigan Law Review

The framers of the federal bill of rights by the First and Tenth Amendments sought to deny Congress power over utterances unless they were connected with criminal conduct other than advocacy. Any power over such utterances was to reside in the states. However, the Supreme Court departed from the framers' intent.

One of the factors in this development was the emergence of an undefined federal police power. This occurred largely under the commerce and postal clauses. It began over a century ago. As early as 1838 Congress passed a law requiring the installation of safety devices upon steam vessels. Beginning …

"Congress Shall Make No Law..."*, O. John Rogge

Michigan Law Review

It is the position of the writer that, at least so far as Congress is concerned, speech is as free as thought, and that unless and until speech becomes a part of a course of conduct which Congress can restrain or regulate no federal legislative power over it exists. State power, despite the Fourteenth Amendment, may be somewhat more extensive. Certainly the framers of the First Amendment intended that it should be. This article will deal with federal power over speech.

Constitutional Law - Post-Conviction Due Process - Right Of Indigent To Review Of Non-Constitutional Trial Errors, Robert C. Casad S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

The purpose of this comment is to examine a new development. in post-conviction due process: Griffin v. Illinois. This case announces a new principle of constitutional right under the Fourteenth Amendment based on an almost indistinguishable combination of due process and equal protection elements.

Chafee, Jr.: The Blessings Of Liberty, Nathaniel Nathanson

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Blessings of Liberty. By Zechariah Chafee, Jr.

Constitutional Law- Zoning - Private High Schools Excluded From Zone In Which Public High Schools Permitted, William D. Keeler S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Among the uses permitted in the "A" residence zone by the Wauwatosa, Wisconsin zoning ordinance were "(e) Public Schools and Private Elementary Schools." The city building inspector denied to plaintiff, a private, non-profit religious corporation, a permit for the construction of a private high school in that zone. Plaintiff brought an action in mandamus to compel the issuance of such a permit, alleging that the ordinance deprived plaintiff of property without due process of law, and denied to it the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. The lower court granted the writ. On appeal, held, …

Constitutional Law - Censorship Of Obscence Literature, Donald M. Wilkinson, Jr. S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

The right to a free expression of ideas, without interference from governmental authorities, is inherent in the very nature of a democracy. On the other hand, it is also clear that the greater interests of the state at large will conflict with certain forms of expression, and in such circumstances obviously the former must prevail. It is the purpose of this comment to discuss the constitutional limitations on the governmental suppression of literature on grounds of obscenity.

Constitutional Law - State Control Of Interstate Migration Of Indigents, Edward W. Adams

Michigan Law Review

The interstate migration of persons presents the United States with one of its most acute economic and social problems and carries in its wake a series of significant legal questions. Of paramount importance is the constitutional question whether the migration of indigents is subject to state control. To lend understanding to this problem, attention will be called first to the basic economic and social urges underlying interstate migration and second to the position of the indigent as defined by traditional legal concepts. To complete the discussion, suggestions will be offered for corrective federal legislation.

Recognition Of Validity And Incidents Of Marriages Between Blacks And Whites, Lewis F. Powell Jr.

Powell Writings

No abstract provided.

Book Reviews

Michigan Law Review

A collection of book reviews by multiple authors.

Social And Economic Interpretation Of The Fourteenth Amendment, Robert Eugene Cushman

Michigan Law Review

For those who love precision and definiteness the question of the application of the Fourteenth Amendment to social and economic problems remains an irritating enigma. The judicial construction of due process of law and the equal protection of the law has from the first discouraged systematic analysis and defied synthesis. More than one writer has emerged from the study of the problem with a neat and compact set of fundamental principles, only to have the Supreme Court discourteously ignore them in its next case. But paradoxical as it may seem, those who long for a wise and forward-looking solution of …

Due Process And Punishment, Clarence E. Laylin, Alonzo H. Tuttle

Michigan Law Review

To threaten such a man with punishment," wrote Sir James .LFitzjames Stephen,' "is like threatening to punish a man for not lifting a weight which he cannot move."