Constitutional Law Commons^™

Death At The Door Of Relief: The Criminalization Of Humanitarian Work And Asylum, William Fox

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The note argues that the criminalization of humanitarian aid to migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border violates international human rights law and exacerbates a growing refugee crisis. It contends that the U.S. government's "prevention through deterrence" policy funnels migrants into dangerous conditions, leading to increased deaths and human rights violations. The analysis calls for structural reforms, including expanded humanitarian parole, temporary protected status, and refugee resettlement programs, to align U.S. policy with its international obligations and mitigate the crisis.

Enhancing Fairness And Compassion In Military Disciplinary Proceedings, Rinat Kitai-Sangero

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review

This Article critically assesses the disciplinary proceedings carried out by judicial officers within the military, shedding light on the absence of crucial procedural guarantees, such as the right to legal representation and an impartial judge. After comparing the Israeli disciplinary proceedings with the Summary Court-Martial system in the United States and considering arguments used to justify the lack of procedural guarantees, the Article emphasizes the emotional distress experienced by soldiers who feel powerless due to power imbalances with their commanders and the severity ofprison sentences they may face. While the Article primarily focuses on the Israeli army, its main arguments …

Taxing Wealth: A Comparative Analysis Of National Wealth Taxes And How A Federal Wealth Tax Can Overcome Administrative Challenges, Jason Nadboy

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review

The note advocates for the implementation of a progressive federal wealth tax in the United States to address wealth inequality and generate revenue for social programs. It argues that while administrative challenges exist, they can be overcome by learning from international examples and implementing robust enforcement mechanisms.

Incentivizing Innovation In The Realm Of Social Goods: Patent Law's Unintended Inhibiting Effect On Environmental Technological Advancement, Ethan Graham

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

The note argues that while Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology holds significant potential to address climate change by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, its development and deployment are hindered by the gatekeeping mechanism of patents. These patents, though intended to incentivize innovation, often stifle progress by restricting access to critical technologies. The analysis highlights the urgency of climate action, the limitations of current legal frameworks, and the need for policy reforms to accelerate DAC innovation and mitigate global warming.

Satire And Actual Malice: Expanding The Reasonable Reader Analysis For The Modem Era, Cory Crystal

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Trademark Fair Use Is No Joke, Christine Haight Farley

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

The article critiques the Supreme Court's decision in Jack Daniel's Properties v. VIP Products, arguing that the Court missed an opportunity to clarify the relationship between trademark law and the First Amendment. While the Court acknowledged the importance of protecting parodies, it failed to develop a comprehensive framework for balancing trademark rights with free speech. Instead, it introduced a narrow rule that limits the application of the Rogers test, potentially undermining speech protections in trademark disputes. The article contends that the Court's reliance on the likelihood of confusion test is insufficient to address the broader First Amendment implications of …

Against Gap-Filling, Noah C. Chauvin

Cardozo Law Review de•novo

Legal scholars delight in gap-filling. They frequently claim that their works have identified a gap in the literature and to have filled (or begun filling) that gap. However, all too often, these same papers fail to explain why the gap needed to be filled at all. Indeed, despite a robust tradition of meta-scholarship, the legal literature is largely devoid of a theory of academic gap-filling. This essay fills that gap, arguing that gap-filling for the sake of gap-filling is an error for three interconnected reasons. First, gaps might exist for a good reason. Second, concern with gap-filling is often a …

Movement For Quality Government V. Knesset, Esther Hayut, Yael Willner, Alex Stein, Gila Canfy-Steinitz, Yechiel Meir Kasher, Noam Sohlberg, David Mintz, Yosef Elron, Isaac Amit, Ruth Ronnen, Uzi Vogelman, Khaled Kabub, Anat Baron, Ofer Grosskopf, Daphne Barak-Erez

Translated Opinions

Movement for Quality Government v. Knesset concerned challenges to Amendment No. 3 to Basic Law: The Judiciary (the “reasonableness amendment”). In view of the controversy surrounding the amendment and the fundamental constitutional question it raised in regard to the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction to review Basic Laws, the Court took the unprecedented step of sitting en banc. A translation of the official abstract issued by the Court appears here.

On January 1, 2024, a majority of the Court (12 of 15 justices) held that the Court held the authority to conduct judicial review of Basic Laws and to intervene in …

Movement For Quality Government In Israel V. The Knesset, Esther Hayut, Yael Willner, Alex Stein, Gila Canfy-Steinitz, Yechiel Meir Kasher, Noam Sohlberg, David Mintz, Yosef Elron, Isaac Amit, Ruth Ronnen, Uzi Vogelman, Khaled Kabub, Anat Baron, Ofer Grosskopf, Daphne Barak-Erez

Translated Opinions

Movement for Quality Government v. Knesset concerns challenges to Amendment No. 3 to Basic Law: The Judiciary (the “reasonableness amendment”). In view of the controversy surrounding the amendment and the fundamental constitutional question it raised in regard to the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction to review Basic Laws, the Court took the unprecedented step of sitting en banc. We translate here Chief Justice Hayut's majority opinion.

On January 1, 2024, a majority of the Court (12 of 15 justices) held that the Court held the authority to conduct judicial review of Basic Laws and to intervene in exceptional, extreme cases in …

Crypto: The Prospect Of Regulatory Competition, Charles M. Yablon

Articles

No abstract provided.

Shadow Districts, Quinn Yeargain

Cardozo Law Review

Redistricting disputes—for congressional, state legislative, and local districts—have proven all-consuming in politics. Litigation over the legality of districts, under both federal and state law, is near constant when decennial redistricting occurs. But largely omitted from redistricting litigation and scholarship, however, are the districts drawn to elect members of statewide boards. These boards have outsized authority over some of the most salient disputes in politics today, with state boards of education setting policies for what can be taught in classrooms and how LGBT students are treated by the public education system, public utility commissions adopting policies for renewable energy production and …

No Bullying Allowed Here: Adopting A Misuse Doctrine To Defeat Trademark Bullies, Jessica Shechtman

Cardozo Law Review

In order to maintain trademark rights, trademark owners are encouraged to enforce and police their trademarks through civil actions. Enforcing trademark rights is encouraged and incentivized by the Lanham Act because failure to do so may result in harsh consequences for trademark owners. Some of these consequences include weakening of strength or abandonment of the mark, which may result in loss of trademark rights. However, large companies go above and beyond to police and protect their trademarks. At times, this overenforcement is unethical and crosses a fine line between following the law and abusing the law, causing a number of …

A $53m Settlement That Will Improve Conditions In Ny Prisons And Jails, Alexander A. Reinert

Cardozo News 2023

This article appeared in the 2023 edition of Cardozo Life magazine.

Professor Alexander Reinert has seen his work bring about major changes in prison and jail conditions in New York City and New York State many times. In April 2023, he was co-counsel with lawyers of Cuti Hecker Wang LLP in a historic settlement in Miller v. City of New York, which involved detainees held in restrictive isolation at two jails on Rikers Island and one unit at what was then the Manhattan Detention Complex.

American Constitution Society Presents: Voting Rights Going Into 2024, Cardozo American Constitution Society (Acs), Katherine A. Shaw

2023–2024 Flyers

No abstract provided.

Symposium On A Pluralist Theory Of Constitutional Justice, Floersheimer Center For Constitutional Democracy

2023–2024 Flyers

No abstract provided.

Symposium On A Pluralist Theory Of Constitutional Justice, Floersheimer Center For Constitutional Democracy

2023 Event Invitations

Illiberalism and populism challenge liberal constitutionalism and its nexus to distributive justice in its three dimensions of material welfare, identitarian recognition and democratic representation. A Pluralist Theory of Constitutional Justice by University Professor Michel Rosenfeld (Oxford University Press 2022) develops a pluralist approach leading to the “justice essentials” designed to meet the above challenge and to reinvigorate liberal constitutionalism.

A Rights-Based Approach To Determining Venue For Immigration Removal Hearings, Maleah Bradley

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

The Annual Scotus Term Preview, Floersheimer Center For Constitutional Democracy

2023 Event Invitations

Join Professors Rebecca Ingber, Michael Herz, Kate Shaw and Luís C. Calderón Gómez as they talk about what to expect from the Supreme Court in the upcoming term.

The panelists will flag and discuss the most important cases to be heard this Term, including litigation over mifepristone, guns, taxation of unrealized income and the future of the administrative state.

The Scotus Term Preview, Floersheimer Center For Constitutional Democracy

2023–2024 Flyers

No abstract provided.

Adolescent Brain Development And Crime: Why New York State Should Increase The Age Of Criminal Culpability To Twenty-One Years Old, Julia Patz

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The note argues that New York State should increase the age of criminal culpability from eighteen to twenty-one years old, aligning with scientific evidence on adolescent brain development. It contends that the current age threshold is arbitrary and unsupported by research, which shows that brain development, particularly in areas responsible for decision-making and impulse control, continues well into the mid-twenties. The note advocates for this policy change to improve outcomes for young offenders and reduce the harms caused by adult incarceration.

The Forgotten Jurisprudence Of Parole And State Constitutional Doctrines Of Vagueness, Kristen Bell

Cardozo Law Review

The majority of carceral sentences in the United States include the possibility of discretionary release on parole. Most such sentences, however, are unconstitutionally vague. Their unconstitutionality has gone unnoticed because contemporary scholarship and litigation about vague laws have focused on the U.S. Constitution in lieu of state constitutions. This Article unearths historic state court decisions holding that sentences that end through the discretionary judgment of a parole board are “void for uncertainty.” Although state void for uncertainty doctrines share some similarity with the federal vagueness doctrine, they are far more demanding as applied to criminal punishment. By urging revival of …

Montana Is Trying To Ban Tiktok. What Does The First Amendment Have To Say?, Deborah Pearlstein, John Dellamore

Online Publications

Last month, Montana became the first U.S. state to pass a bill banning TikTok from operating within its borders. If Governor Greg Gianforte signs some version of the bill, it will become the first statewide ban in the country to take direct aim at the popular social media app, which various U.S. government officials have warned poses a serious national security threat. But while Montana may be the first to act, significant gaps remain in the public debate surrounding both the nature of the threat that TikTok presents, and the constitutional questions that trying to regulate it might create.

A More Perfect Union For Whom?, Emmanuel Hiram Arnaud

Articles

Amending the federal Constitution has been instrumental in creating and developing the North American constitutional project. The difficult process embedded in Article V has been used by “The People” to expand rights and democracy, fix procedural deficiencies, and even overturn Supreme Court precedent. Yet, it is no secret that the amendment process has fallen to the wayside and that a constitutional amendment in our present age of extreme political polarization feels impossible.

Our nation’s history suggests otherwise. In John F. Kowal and Wilfred U. Codrington III’s exciting and inspirational new book, they explain that interest in constitutional amendments has coincided …

Harm Egalitarianism, Michael E. Herz

Articles

In the last few years, law schools and law professors have given new attention to how questions of race can be interwoven into courses that are not explicitly about race. Much has been written about how to do so in both first-year and upper-level courses, and, from all reports, the law school classroom has meaningfully changed. My sense, though it is completely impressionistic and unscientific, is that the typical Administrative Law course may have changed less than many others. It seems fair to say, at least, that there has not developed a standard suite of topics that a professor wanting …

The Constitutional Crisis In Israel, Floersheimer Center For Constitutional Democracy, Israeli Supreme Court Project

2023 Event Invitations

In the 1990s, Israel underwent a "constitutional revolution." Israel is now in the midst of a heated debate over the proper balance of powers between the judiciary and the legislature in a democracy. Our speakers will address the legal, social, and political aspects of the current crisis and place it in the context of Israel's complex history of constitutionalism.

An Examination Of U.S. And U.K. Procedures Governing Sexual Misconduct Investigations In Universities, Marc Siegel

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review

The note critiques the lack of a unified regulatory framework for addressing sexual misconduct in U.K. universities, contrasting it with the structured, albeit controversial, Title IX system in the U.S. It argues that the U.K.'s voluntary approach has led to inconsistent, unjust outcomes and advocates for the adoption of a comprehensive regulatory regime similar to Title IX to ensure fairness, accountability, and consistency in handling such cases.

Confidentiality Over Privacy, Stacey A. Tovino

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Due Process Owed To Noncitizens: Standardizing The Burden In Sec. 1226(A) Bond Hearings With The Help Of Hernandez-Lara And Velasco Lopez, Sharon Shaji

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Dual Sovereignty In The U.S. Territories, Emmanuel Hiram Arnaud

Articles

This Essay examines the emergence and application of the “ultimate source” test and sheds light on the dual sovereign doctrine’s patently colonial framework, particularly highlighting the paternalistic relationship it has produced between federal and territorial prosecutorial authorities.

Misuse Of Originalism: The Legal Landscape Of The 2nd Amendment Post-Bruen, American Constitution Society, Cardozo Public Interest Law Students Association

2022–2023 Flyers

No abstract provided.