Constitutional Law Commons^™

Unconstitutionality In Georgia: Problems Of Nothing, R. Perry Sentell Jr.

Scholarly Works

Professor Sentell's Article examines the apparently well-established principle in Georgia that an unconstitutional statute is an absolute nullity. Against the backdrop of City of Atlanta v. Gower, Professor Sentell first focuses on the developmen of-the-void-from-inception doctrine and then reviews its application in Georgia. Finally, he concludes that this principle has had a substantial impact upon constitutional and legislative law in this state.

Book Review: Sexual Freedom And The Constitution (1973), Wayne Mccormack

Scholarly Works

Book Review of SEXUAL FREEDOM AND THE CONSTITUTION, by Walter Barnett (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1973).

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 …

Municipal Annexation In Georgia: Nay-Sayers Beward (Plantation Pipe Line Co. V. City Of Bremen), R. Perry Sentell Jr.

Scholarly Works

In the Fall 1967 issue of the Georgia Law Review, there appeared a somewhat ambitious effort to survey the law of municipal annexation in Georgia. That rather stuffy treatment at least served to demonstrate the existence of a history on the subject dating from the beginning of time in this State. It also purported to make one or two daring thrusts at formulating principles then apparently settled and at identifying legal points around which further evolution might be anticipated.

Some apparently believed that these thrusts were more negative than daring and that they reflected an approach which was basically …

The Principle Of Nondivisiveness And The Constitutionality Of Public Aid To Parochial Schools, C. Ronald Ellington

Scholarly Works

The establishment clause issues in the three cases now before the Supreme Court [Tilton v. Richardson, Lemon v. Kurtzman, DiCenso v. Robinison] will be explored in this article in the light of a postulate and three derivative maxims which, it is suggested, are implicit in the Court's earlier religion clause cases, particularly Walz v. Tax Commission. It is the author's view that the establishment clause intends that government no be a divisive force in matters of religion and that analysis grounded in such a premise provides the surest delineation of the interests at stake in …

Warrantless Searches And Seizures, Mack Allen Player

Scholarly Works

The fourth amendment to the Constitution has two basic clauses. The first, the reasonableness clause, protects the people against unreasonable searches and seizures. The second, the warrant clause, sets forth conditions under which a warrant may issue. Searches and seizures made pursuant to a warrant are, quite obviously, governed by the commands of the warrant clause. However, the effect of the warrant clause upon searches and seizures made without warrants is not clear from the amendment itself, and the Supreme Court has failed to develop a consistent interpretation of the proper role of that clause.

Beyond The Verge Of Religious Establishment: The Sunday Closing Laws, Emmett N. Young

LLM Theses and Essays

This LL.M. thesis argues that state Sunday closing laws, commonly known as "blue laws," violate the First Amendment, advancing beyond the permissible "verge" of state power identified in Everson v. Board of Education . The work analyzes four landmark 1961 Supreme Court decisions — McGowan v. Maryland , Two Guys from Harrison-Allentown, Inc. v. McGinley , Braunfeld v. Brown, and Gallagher v. Crown Kosher Super Market — in which the Court upheld Sunday laws as valid civil regulations. Tracing their history from medieval England to modern America, the thesis contends that the purported secularization of such statutes through legislative exceptions …

False Or Suppressed Evidence: Why A Need For The Prosecutorial Tie, Ronald L. Carlson

Scholarly Works

Many United States Supreme Court decisions have overturned criminal convictions for the reason that the government employed false evidence to obtain the conviction or failed to disclose relevant evidence important to the defense. In reversing federal or state judgments, the Court often has located direct proof of wrongdoing by the prosecutor. The notorious "bloody shorts" case is an example in point.' There, the state introduced as evidence a pair of men's "blood-stained" undershorts to achieve conviction of the accused. When the blood turned out to be red paint, the Supreme Court granted habeas corpus relief to the defendant because "[it …

Avery V. Midland County: Reapportionment And Local Government Revisited, R. Perry Sentell Jr.

Scholarly Works

Earlier in the pages of this Review the judicial application of the "one-man-one-vote" standard to local government is discussed in detail. As noted, the United States Supreme Court did not completely evolve this standard for state legislatures until June, 1964. Since that time, the state courts and the lower federal courts have been inundated with litigation raising the question of the basic applicability of the standard to local governments in this country, as well as a host of accompanying inquiries. This litigation and the courts' reactions to it were extensively traced. At the close of its term, however, the Court …

The Eleventh Amendment: Adoption And Interpretation, Doyle Mathis

Georgia Law Review

One of the controversies involving the states and the federal government is the question of suits against the states, brought by citizens of other states in the federal courts. This controversy is centered around the United States Supreme Court decision in Chisholm v. Georgia and the eleventh amendment to the United States Constitu- tion. This article is a study of the events leading to the adoption of the eleventh amendment and the subsequent attempts to gain access to the federal courts in such cases. An effort is made also to clarify Supreme Court interpretation of the eleventh amendment by considering …

Substantive Due Process And Felony Treatment Of Pot Smokers: The Current Conflict, F.H. Von U.

Georgia Law Review

The Supreme Court, in recent years, has consistently reaffirmed a trend toward a fuller recognition of individual liberties. When these cherished incidents of American citizenship have conflicted with the real or imagined needs of society, the Court has applied a vital and expanding concept of due process to determine the proper balance of interests. It is now recognized that the State must demonstrate a truly rational basis for punishing individual conduct, aid where proscriptive rather than regulatory measures are enacted, legislation must carefully avoid jeopardizing harmless conduct, however offensive to public taste. Restrictive legislation must be grounded in fact, and …

The Continuing Challenge Of The Fourteenth Amendment, Thurgood Marshall

Georgia Law Review

I HAVE come here to Athens tonight to help you commemorate a great event of the past. This year marks the centennial of an occurrence which has had, and will continue to have, great impact on the people in this room. It was in 1868, on July 28 to be exact, that Secretary of State Seward certified that the fourteenth amendment had been ratified by three-quarters of the states and had become part of the Constitution. This event is not simply an isolated historical landmark for the students of this school. Historically, the ratification of the Civil War Amendments marked …

The Supreme Court, The Individual And The Criminal Process, E. Hunter Taylor Jr.

Scholarly Works

The sweeping social changes presently occurring in this country are having important effects on the law. The impact of this philosophical revolution upon th elaw is manifesting itself most directly and vividly in the Supreme Court of the United States where the entire concept of "individual liberty and freedom" is undergoing far-reaching change. One of the most important changes is occurring in the development of constitutional rules of criminal procedure, particularly those applicable to the states through the fourteenth amendment. Most of the particular longstanding announced aims of the Court, e.g., protection against the conviction of the innocent and prevention …

Appointed Counsel In Criminal Prosecutions: A Study Of Indigent Defense, Ronald L. Carlson

Scholarly Works

Attorney Carlson surveyed Iowa for the American Bar Association's study of the defense of indigent accused persons, and in this Article the results of that study are disclosed. The author sets forth recent constitutional developments involving appointments of counsel in criminal cases, then reviews criminal procedure and practice as it relates to the indigent. Survey techniques utilized in the study are revealed, and the responses obtained from jurists, prosecutors, and defense attorneys throughout the jurisdiction are detailed. Finally, he advances recommendations to assist in meeting the challenge of justice for the poor.