Constitutional Law Commons^™

Justifying A Prudential Solution To The Williamson County Ripeness Puzzle, Katherine M. Crocker

Georgia Law Review

In the much-maligned 1985 case Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, the Supreme Court articulated a rule of "ripeness" requiring most Fifth Amendment regulatory- takings claimants to seek 'just compensation" in state court before attempting to litigate in federal court. Williamson County and its progeny have opened a Pandora's box of unforeseen complications, spawning many more questions than they purported to answer. At the forefront is what kind of requirement the rule is anyway. This Article contends that reading Williamson County as grounded in the Constitution (specifically, in Article III or the Fifth Amendment) runs …

When Silence Ought To Be Golden: Why The Supreme Court Should Uphold The Selective Silence Doctrine In The Wake Of Salinas V. Texas, Evelyn A. French

Georgia Law Review

At the Supreme Court recently resolved in Salinas v. Texas, a person who voluntarily agrees to be interviewed by the police and remains silent to a particular question, but does not invoke his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent, cannot rely on his Fifth Amendment right to protect his silence from being used as evidence of his guilt at trial. A question left open by the Court, however, is whether a defendant in a post-Miranda interrogation can rely on his right to remain silent by refusing to answer certain questions and not fear these refusals will be used as evidence …

The Stealth Press Clause, Sonja R. West

Scholarly Works

In this piece, however, I pause to push back on the conventional wisdom that the Court actually has refused to view the press as constitutionally special. Contrary to what we have been told, I contend the Supreme Court has indeed recognized the press as constitutionally unique from nonpress speakers. The justices have done so implicitly and often in dicta, but nonetheless they have continually and repeatedly treated the press differently. While rarely acknowledged explicitly, this "Stealth Press Clause" has been hard at work carving out special protections for the press,guiding the Court's analysis and offering valuable insights into how we …

Why Wynne Should Win, Dan T. Coenen

Scholarly Works

In Maryland State Comptroller of the Treasury v. Wynne, the Court could reshape core features of dormant Commerce Clause law. Maryland’s theory in the case is that it can lay an income tax on every penny of an individual resident’s income even if some of that income is earned entirely outside the state and therefore, in keeping with standard state practice, already taxed elsewhere. On its face, this approach exposes interstate income earners to overlapping income taxation. Maryland’s scheme thus violates a cardinal principle of dormant Commerce Clause law, “forbidding” state laws that expose interstate commerce “to the risk …

The Prudential Third Party Standing Of Family-Owned Corporations, Matthew I. Hall, Benjamin Means

Scholarly Works

On November 26, 2013, the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether for-profit corporations or their shareholders have standing to challenge federal regulations that implement the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). At issue in the two cases consolidated for appeal, Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties, are regulations mandating that employers with fifty or more employees offer health insurance that includes coverage for all contraceptives approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The plaintiffs assert that providing certain types of contraceptive care would be contrary to their religious beliefs and allege, therefore, that the mandate violates the Religious …

First Amendment Neighbors, Sonja R. West

Scholarly Works

An abdication of the Press Clause reflects the most basic of analytical errors: It treats the text of the Press Clause as redundant and ignores the specialized functions that the Framers meant for the Press Clause to play. Failing to give the Press Clause constitutional recognition by declaring it too difficult to interpret or by dismissing it as "mere surplusage" is utterly at odds with our constitutional traditions. The Religion Clauses provide an example on how to give the text of the Press Clause true meaning.

In interpreting the Religion Clauses, the Supreme Court has taken a different attitude than …

Beyond A Reasonable Doubt: The Constitutionality Of Georgia's Burden Of Proof In Executing The Mentally Retarded, Veronica M. O'Grady

Georgia Law Review

In 2002, the Supreme Court in Atkins v. Virginia announced that executing mentally retarded defendants violates the Constitution. Georgia's standard for determining whether a criminal defendant is mentally retarded-and therefore ineligible for the death penalty- is the highest in the nation, requiring defendants to prove mental retardation to a jury, during the guilt and innocence phase, beyond a reasonable doubt. As in the case of Warren Lee Hill, Jr., this high burden necessarily results in Georgia executing defendants who are almost certainly mentally retarded,arguably violating the Atkins directive. Though once the first state to create a ban on executing the …

Censorship 101, Sonja R. West

Popular Media

This article looks at censorship in the public school setting.

Saving The Trees One Constitutional Provision At A Time: Judicial Activism And Deforestation In India, Lennon Banks Haas

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Texas Hold ’Em - The State Refuses To Allow Same-Sex Couples Married Elsewhere To Get Divorced. Is This The Next Constitutional Showdown Over Marriage Equality?, Sonja R. West, Dahlia Lithwick

Popular Media

The court papers don’t tell us all that much about what happened between the couple described only as “J.B.” and “H.B.” We can assume there once was love and then, at some point, there wasn’t. Their parting, we’re told, was amicable. The problem is that J.B. and H.B. are both men. The other problem is that they live in Texas. The two were married in Massachusetts in 2006, where same-sex marriage has been legal since 2004. They later moved to Texas, and now want to get divorced. Texas, however, won’t let them. And they cannot get divorced in Massachusetts either, …

Functioning Just Fine: The Unappreciated Value Of The Supreme Court Confirmation Process, Lori A. Ringhand, Paul M. Collins Jr.

Scholarly Works

Scholars, politicians, and legal commentators from across the ideological spectrum seem to agree that the U.S. Supreme Court confirmation process is broken and needs to be fixed. Reform proposals vary, but share a common assumption that if we do not do something the legitimacy of the Court will be at risk.

This Article presents an alternative view, arguing that the confirmation process is in fact functioning just fine. The way we confirm Supreme Court nominees today is not perfect, but nor is it all that bad. If there is a crisis facing the high Court today, it lies not in …

What Is Anthony Kennedy Thinking?, Sonja R. West

Popular Media

Supreme Court watchers have long made a national sport out of parsing Justice Anthony Kennedy’s every word. From issues as diverse as the death penalty, terrorism, and gay rights, Kennedy has been the only conservative justice to vote with the court’s more liberal wing. It’s not surprising, therefore, that as we wait for the court’s decision on same-sex marriage bans, the search for clues to Kennedy’s thinking has shifted into high gear.

In March, during the oral argument about California’s same-sex marriage ban, Kennedy said that he was “trying to wrestle” with a “difficult question” about the constitutionality of same-sex …

The Problem With Misdemeanor Representation, Erica J. Hashimoto

Scholarly Works

The failure to appoint counsel in misdemeanor cases may represent one of the most widespread violations of federal constitutional rights in criminal cases. A decade ago, in Alabama v. Shelton, the Supreme Court held that indigent defendants sentenced to suspended terms of incarceration in misdemeanor cases have a constitutional right to appointed counsel, even if the defendant is never actually incarcerated. Several factors contribute to this omission. First, some jurisdictions have simply refused to honor the Court's holding. Second, potentially unconstitutional barriers to the appointment of counsel-including prohibitively high fees imposed on defendants, failures to fully inform defendants of their …

Constructive Upheaval: Railway Labor Executives'ass'n V. Gibbons And The "Choice Of Clause" Challenge To Traditions Of Statutory Construction, Jordan C. Seal

Georgia Law Review

When confronted with constitutional challenges to
Congress's legislative authority, courts must build their
analyses on an interpretation of the statute's language.
Such cases implicate principles of statutory construction
that lay the groundwork for the rulings that follow.
Throughout American judicial history, courts have
favored flexible interpretation to protect Congress's
enactments from constitutional attack. The Supreme
Court's decision in Railway Labor Executives' Association
v. Gibbons dramatically departed from that tradition,
suggesting instead that legislation should be categorized
as a particular type of law to ensure that Congress does
not overstep the boundaries of its enumerated powers.
Although its shift in perspective …

Safe Haven No Longer: The Role Of Georgia Courts And Private Probation Companies In Sustaining A De Facto Debtors' Prison System, Sarah D. Bellacicco

Georgia Law Review

Georgia was specifically established as a colony for debtors-a haven where they could be safe from imprisonment. It is a haven no longer. Georgia courts are regularly imprisoning people for failing to pay debts, often through probation revocation of probationers who have failed to pay a fine or fee imposed as a condition of probation. Some of these probationers are on probation solely because they could not pay a fine on the day of sentencing, a practice which greatly increases the amount they owe due to the additional probation fees imposed. In Bearden v. Georgia, the Supreme Court held that …

Interagency Litigation And Article Iii, Joseph W. Mead

Georgia Law Review

Agencies of the United States often find themselves on
opposite sides of the "v. " in disputes ranging from alleged
unfair labor practices in federal agencies, to competing
statutory interpretations, to run-of-the mill squabbles over
money. Yet Article III's case-or-controversy requirement

includes--at a minimum-adverse parties and standing.
Courts have disagreed with one another over the extent to
which litigation between the sovereign and itself meets
Article III standards. Despite the volume of scholarship
on Article III standing, relatively little attention has been
paid to Article III's requirement of adverse parties in
general, or the justiciability of intrabranch litigation in
particular. …

A Response To Beyond Separation: Professor Copeland’S Ambitious Proposal For “Integrative” Federalism, Elizabeth Weeks

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

State Interests And The Duration Of Abortion Rights, Randy Beck

Scholarly Works

Few areas of the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence have attracted as much attention in recent decades as the case law recognizing a constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy has exercised more influence over the Court’s abortion jurisprudence than perhaps any other sitting Justice. His jointly authored plurality opinion in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey reaffirmed the basic right to an abortion first recognized in Roe v. Wade, applying that right to regulations effective from the outset of pregnancy. Later opinions, particularly Justice Kennedy’s dissent in Stenberg v. Carhart and his majority opinion in Gonzales v. …

Plunging Into Endless Difficulties: Medicaid And Coercion In National Federation Of Independent Business V. Sebelius, Elizabeth Weeks Leonard, Nicole Huberfield, Kevin Outterson

Scholarly Works

Of the four discrete questions before the Court in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, the Medicaid expansion held the greatest potential for destabilization from both a statutory and a constitutional perspective. As authors of an amicus brief supporting the Medicaid expansion, and scholars with expertise in health law who have been cited by the Court, we show in this article why NFIB is likely to fulfill that promise.

For the first time in its history, the Court held federal legislation based upon the spending power to be unconstitutionally coercive. Chief Justice Roberts’ plurality (joined for future voting purposes …

State Action Problems, Christian Turner

Scholarly Works

The state action doctrine is a mess. Explanations for why federal courts sometimes treat the private actions of private parties as public actions subject to the Constitution, like the Supreme Court did in Shelley v. Kraemer, are either vastly overinclusive or fail to explain our law and values. A better approach is to understand the state action doctrine in institutional terms. I introduce a two-step, institutionally focused state action theory that is a natural consequence of a broader public/private theory of legal systems. In the first step, a court identifies a “state action problem,” meaning a privately made law that …

Creating Hammer V. Dagenhart, Logan E. Sawyer Iii

Scholarly Works

Hammer v. Dagenhart is among the best known cases in the canon of constitutional law. It struck down the first federal child labor law on the grounds that Congress’s commerce power allowed it to prohibit the interstate shipment of harmful goods, like impure food and drugs, but not harmless goods, like the products of child labor. Withering criticism of the decision spread from Justice Holmes’s famous dissent to law reviews, treatises, casebooks, and constitutional law classes. For nearly a century the decision has been scorned as inconsistent with precedent, incoherent as policy, and driven solely by the Court’s reactionary commitment …

Law's Public/Private Structure, Christian Turner

Scholarly Works

Often derided for its incoherence or uselessness, the public/private distinction is rarely studied explicitly outside the state action doctrine in Constitutional Law. To ignore this distinction, however, is to miss the most fundamental sorting criterion in our law. Distinguishing whether public or private entities control (a) law creation and definition and (b) prosecution leads to a simple yet powerful taxonomy of legal systems. The taxonomy characterizes legal systems in terms of control over decisionmaking by our most basic institutional forms: the public and private. Thus, the proper categorization of laws within the system, for example whether a policy should be …

Why Obama’S Words Didn’T Go Far Enough, Sonja R. West, Dahlia Lithwick

Popular Media

When President Obama announced his support of same-sex marriage, he talked broadly about “equality” and “fairness.” He spoke of “opposing discrimination against gays and lesbians” and making sure that nobody is treated as “less than full citizens when it comes to their legal rights.” It was a powerful moment—historic and emotional. In the Aaron Sorkin version, the orchestra would have soared at this point as the supporting cast members exchanged teary-eyed yet knowing nods.

But then President Obama described how these rights should be protected and the music stopped with a squawk. Same-sex marriage, he said, is not in fact …

Due Process As Separation Of Powers, Nathan S. Chapman, Michael W. Mcconnell

Scholarly Works

From its conceptual origin in Magna Charta, due process of law has required that government can deprive persons of rights only pursuant to a coordinated effort of separate institutions that make, execute, and adjudicate claims under the law. Originalist debates about whether the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendments were understood to entail modern “substantive due process” have obscured the way that many American lawyers and courts understood due process to limit the legislature from the Revolutionary era through the Civil War. They understood due process to prohibit legislatures from directly depriving persons of rights, especially vested property rights, because it was …

Avoiding Independent Agency Armageddon, Kent H. Barnett

Scholarly Works

In Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated Congress’ use of two layers of tenure protection to shield Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) members from the President’s removal. The SEC could appoint and remove PCAOB members. An implied tenure-protection provision protected the SEC from the President’s at-will removal. And a statutory tenure-protection provision protected PCAOB members from the SEC’s at-will removal. The Court held that these “tiered” tenure protections unconstitutionally impinged upon the President’s removal power because they prevented the President from holding the SEC responsible for PCAOB’s actions in the same …

Civil Recourse, Damages-As-Redress, And Constitutional Torts, Michael Wells

Scholarly Works

In Torts as Wrongs, Professors John Goldberg and Benjamin Zipursky discuss the connection between "tortious wrongdoing" and "civil recourse." Their civil recourse theory "sees tort law as a means for empowering individuals to seek redress against those who have wronged them." Goldberg and Zipursky show that modern tort theory is dominated by "loss allocation," which uses liability and damages as instruments for assigning losses to deter unwanted behavior and to compensate the plaintiff. Under loss allocation, the central principle of damages is full compensation that is, to make the plaintiff whole. The core component of damages, though not the only …

An Essay On Originalism And The 'Individual Mandate': Rounding Out The Government’S Case For Constitutionality, Dan T. Coenen

Scholarly Works

The Supreme Court now has under advisement the landmark federal health care law case. Much attention has focused on the law’s minimum coverage provision—or so-called “individual mandate” — and, in particular, its constitutionality under the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause. In a separate and much lengthier article, I offer two main observations about the arguments made to the Court on that issue. First, I show that the challengers of the minimum coverage provision emphasized originalist reasoning in their briefs and oral arguments, while the federal government did not. Second, I explain why — contrary to the impression …

The Originalist Case Against Congressional Supermajority Voting Rules, Dan T. Coenen

Scholarly Works

Controversy over the Senate’s filibuster practice dominates modern discussion of American legislative government. With increasing frequency, commentators have urged that the upper chamber’s requirement of sixty votes to close debate on pending matters violates a majority-rulebased norm of constitutional law. Proponents of this view, however, tend to gloss over a more basic question: Does the Constitution’s Rules of Proceedings Clause permit the houses of Congress to adopt internal parliamentary requirements under which a bill is deemed “passed” only if it receives supermajority support? This question is important. Indeed, the House already has such a rule in place, and any challenge …

Affordable Care Act Litigation: The Standing Paradox, Elizabeth Weeks Leonard

Scholarly Works

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) litigation presents a standing paradox. In the current posture, it appears that states lack standing to challenge the federal law on behalf of individuals, while individuals possess standing to challenge the federal law on behalf of states. This Article contends that there is no principled reason for this asymmetry and argues that standing doctrine should apply as liberally to states as individuals, assuming states allege the constitutional minimum requirements for standing and especially where the legal challenge turns on allocation of power between the federal government and states. The Article proceeds by …

Justice John Paul Stevens, Originalist, Diane Marie Amann

Scholarly Works

Commentators, including the author of a recent book on the Supreme Court, often attempt to give each Justice a methodological label, such as “practitioner of judicial restraint,” “legal realist,” “pragmatist,” or “originalist.” This Essay first demonstrates that none of the first three labels applies without fail to Justice John Paul Stevens; consequently, it explores the extent to which Justice Stevens’s jurisprudence paid heed to the fourth method, “originalism.” It looks in particular at Justice Stevens’s opinions in recent cases involving firearms, national security, and capital punishment. Somewhat at odds with conventional wisdom, the Essay reveals Justice Stevens as a kind …