Constitutional Law Commons^™

City Of Boerne V. Flores: A Landmark For Structural Analysis, Marci A. Hamilton

Articles

No abstract provided.

"A Revolution Which Seeks To Abolish Law, Must End Necessarily In Despotism": Louisa Mccord And Antebellum Southern Legal Thought, Alfred L. Brophy

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

Louisa McCord's essays provide a unique lens into the legal and political thought of antebellum Southern society, particularly her defense of slavery and the role of law in maintaining social order. She argued that law should ensure basic fairness in market transactions but should not interfere with the institution of slavery, which she viewed as a matter of sentiment rather than legal regulation. McCord's work challenges the notion that legal history is confined to the common law tradition, emphasizing the importance of understanding law as part of a broader societal outlook.

Neonaticide And The "Ethos Of Maternity": Traditional Criminal Law Defenses And The Novel Syndrome, Judith E. Macfarlane

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The note explores the legal and psychological dimensions of neonaticide, proposing the recognition of a Neonaticide Syndrome to better understand the mental state of perpetrators and inform legal defenses. It argues that such a syndrome, characterized by denial of pregnancy and psychotic breaks, could provide a framework for lenient sentencing and negate intent in homicide charges, similar to how Rape Trauma Syndrome and Battered Woman Syndrome are used in court. The analysis emphasizes the need for expert testimony to explain the mental state of defendants and the admissibility of such evidence under Frye and Daubert standards.

Deception In Political Advertising: The Clash Between The First Amendment And Defamation Law, Evan Richman

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Early Patent Publication: A Boon Or Bane? A Discussion On The Legal And Economic Effects Of Publishing Patent Applications After 18 Months Of Filing, John F. Duffy, Hayden Gregory, Robert Rines, Herbert Wamsley, Douglas Wyatt

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Inequities Of The Drug War: Legislative Discrimination On The Cocaine Battlefield, Andrew N. Sacher

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Origins Of The Fifth Amendment And Its Critics, Leonard W. Levy

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Kogen V. Chief Military Prosecutor, Theodor Or, Dalia Dorner, Jacob Turkel

Translated Opinions

Facts: Petitioners, prisoners in a military prison, participated in a prison uprising allegedly motivated by deficient prison conditions. The military authorities negotiated with the inmates, who demanded improvements in prison conditions and a commitment from the authorities not to prosecute them. The military authorities agreed to this last condition. Despite this agreement, however, the inmates were prosecuted. Petitioners here contest this latter decision.

Held: The Court noted that precedents allow for the government to repudiate an agreement if such a step is dictated by the public interest. Such a decision must take all the relevant interests into account, including the …

The Original Constitution And Its Decline: A Public Choice Perspective, John O. Mcginnis

Articles

Public choice offers an analysis of the Constitution that is broadly consonant with an important aspect of the Framers' own approach. The Framers' values were those largely of the Scottish enlightenment: they believed in progress of civilization-the accumulation of wealth and knowledge. In order to create a structure of society that would accomplish these ends, they relied on another Enlightenment axiom, namely that man is an object of natural science. By understanding the predictable manner in which individuals are likely to behave in given situations, the Framers could shape a constitution that would channel their behavior to meet their Enlightenment …

Warren E. Buffett On Corporate Constituency Laws And Other Newfangled Ideas: An Imaginary Conversation, Bevis Longstreth

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Legislative Veto In Times Of Political Reversal: Chadha And The 104th Congress, Michael E. Herz

Articles

No abstract provided.

Liability For Uncertainty: Making Evidential Damage Actionable, Ariel Porat, Alex Stein

Cardozo Law Review

Because factual uncertainty distorts the allocation of civil liability, this Article argues that the law should impose liability for uncertainty. Justified on both corrective justice and economic efficiency grounds, this liability should be imposed upon any person who negligently aggravates the uncertainty of a civil case by making its evidential base deficient. Because "evidence" belongs to the world of inferences rather than things, evidential damage may be inflicted in a variety of ways, far beyond destruction of documents and other physical tampering with evidence. Through adoption and refinement of this insight, the Article diagnoses the presence of evidential damage …

Dealing With Evidentiary Deficiency, Richard D. Friedman

Cardozo Law Review

Lack of information distorts litigation. Claims or defenses that a party might prove easily, or that might even be undisputed, in a world of perfect information can be difficult or impossible to prove in the real world of imperfect information. Some information deficiencies are inevitable, at least in the sense that we could not eliminate them without incurring undue social costs. In some cases, however, a person's conduct may have caused the deficiency. More generally, the person may have had available a reasonable alternative course of conduct that would have eliminated, or at least mitigated, the deficiency.

Greenberg V. Katzrin Local Council, Dov Levin, Eliezer Goldberg, Dalia Dorner

Translated Opinions

Facts: The Katzrin Local Council and the Golan Heights Regional Council allocated monies, from the fiscal year 1992 and onwards, to the Golan Heights Communities Association. The purpose of the Association was, inter alia, to endeavor towards the establishment of additional communities in the Golan Heights. In furtherance of this purpose, the Association conducted protest and lobbying activities intended to ensure continued Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Petitioners, residents of Katzrin and the Golan Heights, contested the constitutionality of these allocations, asserting that the local and regional councils could not proceed against the foreign and defense policies of the …

Justices At Work: An Introduction, Michel Rosenfeld

Cardozo Law Review

"Justices at Work," a day long conference which took place on September 19, 1995 at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, brought together Justices and constitutional scholars from seven different countries to consider a hypothetical constitutional case dealing with fundamental rights. This issue of the Law Review includes the facts of the hypothetical case, the applicable hypothetical statute, the briefs submitted to the International Moot Courtall of which were the product of a collaborative effort among the seven scholars involved-as well as a transcript of the proceedings and of the deliberations of the seven Justices: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg …

Horev V. Minister Of Transportation, Aharon Barak, Theodor Or, Mishael Cheshin, Shlomo Levin, Eliahu Mazza, Dalia Dorner, Tzevi Eliyahu Tal

Translated Opinions

Facts: The Minister of Transportation, assuming the powers of the Traffic Controller, ordered the closure of Bar-Ilan Street in Jerusalem to motor traffic on Sabbaths and Jewish holidays during hours of prayer. Petitioners are secular residents of the area and representatives of the secular population in Jerusalem, who claim that the decision of the Minister infringes their right to freedom of movement. One petitioner—the Association for the Rights of the Religious Community in Israel—counter-petitioned that Bar-Ilan should be closed to motor traffic for all hours on the Sabbath and Jewish holidays.

Held: The Court held that the Traffic Controller was …

Nof V. The State Of Israel – The Ministry Of Defense, Eliahu Mazza, Tzevi Eliyahu Tal, Tova Strasberg-Cohen

Translated Opinions

Facts: The petitioner, who had been growing a beard for many years, requested to exchange his protective kit and gas mask, which had been provided to him before the 1991 Gulf War, for a new kit, designed for those with beards. In order to obtain the special kit, the Civil Defense Authority required the petitioner to sign a statement that he grew a beard for religious reasons, in accordance with the applicable Civil Defense Regulations. The petitioner, who was not a religious man, refused to sign the statement. The petitioner appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the regulations were …

Station Film Co. V. The Film Review Board, Aharon Barak, Eliahu Mazza, Mishael Cheshin

Translated Opinions

Facts: Respondent no. 1 decided to allow the screening of the film "L'Empire Des Sens," on the condition that several scenes be omitted from the film, and that the film only be shown to adults. According to respondent no. 1, these scenes were of a pornographic nature, and there was a near certainty that screening these parts of the film would cause serious, grave and severe harm to societal sensibilities and public morality. Petitioner accepted that the film could only be shown to adults. In this petition, it contests the deletion of the omitted scenes, except for scenes …

The Human Constitution And Constitutive Law: A Prolegomenon, John O. Mcginnis

Articles

No abstract provided.

Does The Subject Matter? Viewpoint-Neutrality And Freedom Of Speech, Wojciech Sadurski

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Unsolved Problem Of The Unfunded Mandate, Edward A. Zelinsky

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Persistent Nation State And The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, Mark L. Movsesian

Cardozo Law Review

One hears a great deal these days about the decline of the nation state. The concept of a sovereign country whose inhabitants share a common ancestry or culture is said to be obsolescent, if not already obsolete. Several factors, apparently, are responsible: the creation of supranational institutions like the European Union and the World Trade Organization; the growing influence of nongovernmental organizations; the emergence of a new global economy; and the formation of a worldwide consumer culture, to name just a few. The law, it is argued, must adapt.

Hermann Heller - An Introduction, David Dyzenhaus

Cardozo Law Review

Hermann Heller (July 17, 1891 - November 4, 1933) came from a Jewish family in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He interrupted his law studies to volunteer for service in the Austrian army during the First World War. His experiences as a front-line fighter left him with a heart condition which contributed to his death at the age of forty-two. But his poor health did not dampen his deeply combative spirit-a spirit which he put at the service of German social democracy. In March 1920, together with Gustav Radbruch (who had just successfully promoted Heller's Habilitation, his senior doctorate, at Kiel), …

Condemned By Substance And Process: A Comment On “Doubly Condemned”: Adjustments To The Crime And Punishment Regime In The Late Slavery Period In The British Caribbean Colonies And “Under The Present Mode Of Trial, Improper Verdicts Are Very Often Given”: Criminal Procedure In The Trials Of Slaves In Antebellum Louisiana, Raymond T. Diamond

Cardozo Law Review

The substance of modem criminal law and the procedures through which that law is enforced are a subject of current debate. On the one hand, some call into question the use of criminal sanctions as a means of enforcing schemes of regulation meant to guarantee public welfare. By the same token, violent crime and crime that is otherwise malum in se has caused increasing levels of fear and concomitant calls for more vigorous enforcement of the criminal law. As a result, the rights that protect the accused from intrusions by a potentially tyrannical state and from arbitrary decision making by …

Comment On The First Slave (And Why He Matters) By Jonathan Bush, Peter Kolchin

Cardozo Law Review

In his Article The First Slave (And Why He Matters), Professor Jonathan Bush returns to a persistent question in the history of the colonial Chesapeake: the status of blacks in the seventeenth century. He frames this question, however, in a new way. Rather than seeking to determine whether or not blacks were slaves before the codification of slave law-a largely unanswerable question that revolves, at least in part, around what one means by "slaves"-he asks, how could the English have imposed slavery on blacks in America when slavery was non-existent in England and under English law? In response, he …

Abolitionist Feminism, Moral Slavery, And The Constitution: “On The Same Platform Of Human Rights”, David A.J. Richards

Cardozo Law Review

The analogy between race and gender plays an increasingly important role in the interpretation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. However, interpretive arguments about the analogy make little or no reference to the abolitionist historical background of the Reconstruction Amendments in general and the Fourteenth Amendment in particular. This might make some sense if the only legitimate interpretive appeal to history were Raoul Berger's version of originalism, namely, the specific denoted things (including persons and practices) to which the relevant drafters and ratifiers of the pertinent constitutional text would or would not have applied the language in …

Nahmani V. Nahmani, Tzevi Eliyahu Tal, Dalia Dorner, Eliezer Goldberg, Yaakov Kedmi, Jacob Turkel, Gavriel Bach, Eliahu Mazza, Tova Strasberg-Cohen, Theodor Or, Itzchak Zamir, Aharon Barak

Translated Opinions

Facts: Ruth and Daniel Nahmani, a married couple, were unable to have a child because of an operation that Ruth underwent. They therefore decided to try in-vitro fertilization of Ruth’s ova with Daniel‟s sperm, with a view to implanting the fertilized ova in a surrogate mother. Under Israeli law, surrogacy was not permitted and in-vitro fertilization was only permitted for implantation in the woman from whom the ova were taken. Because of the great expense of the in-vitro fertilization procedure in the United States, the couple petitioned the Supreme Court, sitting as the High Court of Justice, to allow …

The Fate Of “Megan’S Law” In New York, Alison Virag Greissman

Cardozo Law Review

Sexual crimes disgust, anger, and frighten Americans in a way that no other human act does. The transgressions of sex offenders leave victims with lifelong scars and violate society's most fundamental notions of right and wrong. Indeed, husbands beating their wives with frying pans, boyfriends punching their girlfriends with their fists, and men striking women with kitchen chairs and baseball bats in every city of our country are atrocities. Although barbaric, these examples of violent and often fatal attacks are not of the same nature as an assault in which a man desecrates a woman by invading the most intimate …

Golan V. Prisons Service, Eliahu Mazza, Mishael Cheshin, Dalia Dorner

Translated Opinions

Facts: The appellant asked the respondent for permission to publish articles about prison life in a local newspaper. The respondent refused. The appellant filed a petition in the District Court against this refusal, but his petition was rejected. Leave was given to appeal the District Court’s decision to the Supreme Court.

Held: (Majority opinion — Justices E. Mazza, D. Dorner) The respondent has a duty to uphold human rights, and it must make reasonable efforts and devote reasonable resources to do this.

(Minority opinion — Justice M. Cheshin) The respondent’s argument that it is not its task to censor newspaper …

Constitutional Reform And Social Difference In New Zealand, Jack H. Nagel

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

The article examines New Zealand's transition to a mixed-member proportional (MMP) electoral system, emphasizing its innovative approach to ensuring representation for the Maori minority. It argues that the MMP system, combined with dual constituencies (MMP-DC), offers a unique solution to the challenges of representing minority groups in plural societies, providing both descriptive and substantive representation without marginalization. The analysis highlights the historical and political processes that led to this system, which could serve as a model for other democracies facing similar challenges.