Constitutional Law Commons^™

The Power Of Words: A Comment On Hamann And Vogel’S Evidence-Based Jurisprudence Meets Legal Linguistics—Unlikely Blends Made In Germany, Mark C. Suchman

BYU Law Review

By offering an international and interdisciplinary point of comparison, Hamann and Vogel demonstrate that current American forays into corpus-based legal scholarship reflect only a small sliver of the full range of possibilities for such research. This Comment considers several key branching points that may lie ahead, as the nascent literature begins to mature. In particular, the Comment examines two vexing ambiguities in the corpus-linguistic agenda: the first centers on the ambiguous meaning of legal “empiricism”; the second, on the ambiguous relationship between words and actions. To achieve its full potential, legal corpus linguistics will need to move beyond mere description, …

Who Decides? The Title Ix Religious Exemption And Administrative Authority, Elise S. Faust

BYU Law Review

The Title IX religious exemption demonstrates how statutory religious exemptions can help further social change by neutralizing potential conflict with religious dissenters. Part of the reason for its success is that it is narrowly constructed and automatically applies to qualifying institutions. However, the regulations contradict the statutory text by potentially giving the Department of Education discretion to grant or deny exemptions. Were the Department to fully exercise this power, its actions would conflict with both the language of the statute and the Constitution. The Department of Education’s recent scrutiny of the “controlled by” language of the exemption provides an example …

Why Religious Freedom? Why The Religiously Committed, The Religiously Indifferent, And Those Hostile To Religion Should Care, Brett G. Scharffs

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

When Facts Don't Matter, Eric Berger

BYU Law Review

We are used to thinking that facts shape legal outcomes, but sometimes the Supreme Court wants nothing to do with facts. In some high-profile constitutional decisions, the Roberts Court has ignored important congressional findings, deeming irrelevant facts that document the very mischief Congress sought to remedy. Similarly, in these same cases the Court exploits the muddy line between facial and as-applied challenges to avoid confronting particular facts. The Justices in these cases do not question the veracity of seemingly relevant facts. Rather, they write their opinions as though these facts don’t matter. This Article examines the Court’s penchant for brushing …

Take The Fifth . . . Please!: The Original Insignificance Of The Fifth Amendment’S Due Process Of Law Clause, Gary Lawson

BYU Law Review

The Fifth Amendment’s Due Process of Law Clause adds nothing to the Constitution’s original meaning. Every principle for limiting federal executive, judicial, and even legislative powers that can plausibly be attributed to the idea of “due process of law”—from the principle of legality forbidding executive or judicial action in the absence of law, to the requirement of notice before valid judicial judgments, to the limitation on arbitrary governmental action that today goes under the heading of “substantive due process”—is already contained in the text and structure of the Constitution of 1788. The Fifth Amendment Due Process of Law Clause confirms …

How The Constitution Shall Not Be Construed, Lochlan F. Shelfer

BYU Law Review

The dominant historical narrative of the Ninth Amendment views the Clause as an exclusively “Federalist” provision with one purpose: to protect against the fear among Federalists that the very enumeration of any rights in a Constitution would imply that the universe of unenumerated natural rights was left unprotected, or that federal power would be expanded by implication.

This narrative of the Ninth Amendment, however, is incomplete in that it ignores the Clause’s Anti-Federalist side. This Article argues that the Ninth Amendment was proposed and ratified partly in response to the Anti-Federalist fear that particular rights-guaranteeing provisions of the Constitution could …

Why Judicial Deference To Administrative Fact-Finding Is Unconstitutional, John Gibbons

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Making The Premises About Constitutional Meaning Express: The New Originalism And Its Critics, Andre Leduc

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

Quasi-Constitutional Protections And Government Surveillance, Emily Berman

BYU Law Review

The post-Edward Snowden debate over government surveillance has been vigorous. One aspect of that debate has been widespread criticism of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), alleging that the FISC served as a rubber stamp for the government, consistently accepting implausible interpretations of existing law that served to expand government surveillance authority; engaging in tortured analyses of statutory language; and ignoring fundamental Fourth Amendment principles. This Article argues that these critiques have entirely overlooked critical aspects of the FISC’s jurisprudence. A close look at that jurisprudence reveals a court that did, in fact, vigorously defend the interests customarily protected by …

On Doctrinal Confusion: The Case Of The State Action Doctrine, Christopher W. Schmidt

BYU Law Review

In this Article, I use a case study of the Fourteenth Amendment’s state action doctrine as a vehicle to consider, and partially defend, the phenomenon of persistent doctrinal confusion in constitutional law. Certain areas of constitutional law are messy. Precedents seem to contradict one another; the relevant tests are difficult to apply to new facts and new issues; the principles that underlie the doctrine are difficult to discern. They may become a “conceptual disaster area,” as Charles Black once described the state action doctrine. By examining the evolution of the state action doctrine, this notoriously murky field of constitutional law, …

Before There Were Mouseholes: Resurrecting The Non-Delegation Doctrine, Joel Hood

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

The Particulate Constitution: Uncertainty And New Originalism, Elise Carter

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Half-Baked Law: How The Supreme Court's Decision In Koontz V. St. Johns River Water Management District Misses A Key Ingredient To Fifth Amendment Protection, Garrett W. Messerly

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Originalism Talk: A Legal History, Mary Ziegler

BYU Law Review

Progressives have long recognized the tremendous political appeal of originalism. For many scholars, originalism appears to have succeeded because it achieves results consistent with conservative values but promises judicial neutrality to the public. By drawing on new historical research on anti-abortion constitutionalism, this Article argues for a radically different understanding of the originalist ascendancy. Contrary to what we often think, conservative social movements at times made significant sacrifices in joining an originalist coalition. These costs were built in to what this Article calls originalism talk—the use of arguments, terms, and objectives associated with conservative originalism.

Scholars have documented the costs …

The Original Understanding Of Constitutional Legitimacy, Ilan Wurman

BYU Law Review

This Article argues that three influential schools of originalism, which we might label libertarian, progressive, and conservative, adhere to particular understandings of constitutional legitimacy, which then inform their particular constitutional hermeneutics. The Article demonstrates that as originally understood by the Founders, however, constitutional legitimacy depended on all three conceptions advocated by these schools of thought—that is, the Constitution had to protect natural rights, it had to enable self-government, and it had to be ratified by popular sovereignty. Further, the Article gives considerable treatment—remarkably for the first time in the law review literature— to James Madison’s letter in response to Thomas …

Constitutional Interpretation And History: New Originalism Or Eclecticism?, Stephen M. Feldman

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

The goal of originalism has always been purity. Originalists claim that their methods cleanse constitutional interpretation of politics, discretion, and indeterminacy. The key to attaining purity is history. Originalist methods supposedly discern in history a fixed constitutional meaning. Many originalists now claim that the most advanced method—the approach that reveals the purest constitutional meaning—is reasonable-person originalism. These new originalists ask the following question: When the Constitution was adopted, how would a hypothetical reasonable person have understood the text? This Article examines historical evidence from the early decades of nationhood to achieve two goals. First, it demonstrates that reasonable-person originalism is …

What Lies Beneath: Interpretive Methodology, Constitutional Authority, And The Case Of Originalism, Christopher J. Peters

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reconciling Originalism With The Father Of Conservatism: How Edmund Burke Answers The Disruption Dilemma In N.L.R.B. V. Noel Canning, Brad Masters

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Unconstitutionality Of Religious Vilification Laws In Australia: Why Religious Vilification Laws Are Contrary To The Implied Freedom Of Political Communication Affirmed In The Australian Constitution, Augusto Zimmerman Dr.

BYU Law Review

This article explains the weakness of the argument that religious vilification laws promote harmony and tolerance among religious groups. Rather, they are based on a form of postmodern theory that denies the existence of truth and could be used as a weapon by certain individuals to silence any criticism of their beliefs. These laws have become an invitation to people with extreme views to avoid debate by claiming that they, rather than their beliefs, have been attacked. The author then explains the philosophical underpinnings of religious vilification laws and argues that there is no a priori reason why religious speech …

Cross, Crucifix, Culture: An Approach To The Constitutional Meaning Of Confessional Symbols, Frederick Mark Gedicks, Pasquale Annicchino

Faculty Scholarship

In the United States and Europe the constitutionality of government displays of confessional symbols depends on whether the symbols also have nonconfessional secular meaning (in the U.S.) or whether the confessional meaning is at least absent (in Europe). Yet both the United States Supreme Court (USSCt) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) lack a workable approach to determining whether secular meaning is present or confessional meaning absent.

The problem is that the government can nearly always articulate a possible secular meaning for the confessional symbols that it uses, or argue that the confessional meaning is passive and ineffective. …

“. . . Speak Now Or Forever Hold Your Peace . . .” —The Influence Of Constitutional Argument On Same-Sex Marriage Legislation Debates In Australia, Neville Rochow

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Unnecessary And Restrictive Constitutional Amendments Concerning Religious Freedom In Mexico, Javier Saldaña Serrano

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Shinto Cases: Religion, Culture, Or Both—The Japanese Supreme Court And Establishment Of Religion Jurisprudence, Frank S. Ravitch

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Liberal Democracy And The Right To Religious Freedom, Aldir Guedes Soriano

BYU Law Review

Foremost, this paper examines the current situation of the rights to religious freedom and democracy around the world, which deserve attention and concern. Civil liberties are currently in crossfire. This article examines the foundations of the right to religious freedom. Depending on the philosophical foundations, there are two different rationales for the right to religious freedom: liberal and anti-liberal. According to the liberal tradition, the best reason to protect religious freedom rests upon the autonomy of the individual conscience. It is clear that a constitutional democracy does not allow the establishment of any religion by the government, using either executive …

The Meaning Of Science In The Copyright Clause, Ned Snow

BYU Law Review

The Constitution premises Congress's copyright power on promoting "the Progress of Science." The word Science therefore seems to define the scope of copyrightable subject matter. Modern courts and commentators have subscribed to an originalist view of Science, teaching that Science meant general knowledge at the time of the Framing. Under this interpretation, all subject matter may be copyrighted because expression about any subject increases society's store of general knowledge. Science, however, did not originally mean general knowledge. In this Article, I examine evidence surrounding the Copyright Clause and conclude that at the Framing of the Constitution, Science meant a system …

Let Me Count The Ways: The Unconstitutionality Of Same-Sex-Marriage Bans, Mark Strasser

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

“You Have The Right To Remain Silent”: Does The U.S. Constitution Require Public Affirmation Of Same-Sex Marriage?, Robert A. Destro

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

The Spanish Law On Same-Sex Marriage: Constitutional Arguments, Carmen Garcimartin

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

Equality Principles As Asserted Justifications For Mandating The Legalization Of Same-Sex Marriage In American And Intercountry-Comparative Constitutional Law, Lynn D. Wardle

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

The Meaning And Good Of Equality: Toward Enhanced Constitutional Principles, Scott Fitzgibbon

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.