Constitutional Law Commons^™

A Brief Comment On The Current Eleventh Amendment Jurisprudence Of The Supreme Court, Richard Henry Seamon

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No abstract provided.

Looking Back On Planned Parenthood V. Casey, Christina B. Whitman

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Scholarship that tells us what is really at stake in the lives of people affected makes the law honest and responsive. Whether or not it directly shapes doctrine, this type of scholarship can capture imagination and influence judgment. The Michigan Law Review has published some of the best of this work: Yale Kamisar's articles on coerced confessions, Terry Sandalow's essay on affirmative action, Joe Sax and Phillip Hiestand's description of the emotional impact of living in a slum, Martha Chamallas and Linda Kerber's demonstration of how injuries that uniquely befall women have been dismissed as merely emotional wrongs, and, most …

Restoring Politics To The Commerce Clause: The Case For Abandoning The Dormant Commerce Clause Prohibition Of Discriminatory Taxation, Edward A. Zelinsky

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Popular Sovereignty And The Electoral College, John O. Mcginnis

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The Conundrum Of Children, Confrontation, And Hearsay, Richard D. Friedman

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The adjudication of child abuse claims poses an excruciatingly difficult conundrum. The crime is a terrible one, but false convictions are abhorrent. Often the evidence does not support a finding of guilt or innocence with sufficient clarity to allow a decision free of gnawing doubt. In many cases, a large part of the problem is that the prosecution's case depends critically on the statement or testimony of a young child. Even with respect to adult witnesses, the law of hearsay and confrontation is very perplexing, as anyone who has studied American evidentiary law and read Supreme Court opinions on the …

Solving The Apprendi Puzzle, Kyron Huigens

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Dial-In Testimony, Richard D. Friedman, Bridget Mary Mccormack

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For several hundred years, one of the great glories of the common law system of criminal justice has been the requirement that prosecution witnesses give their testimony in the presence of the accused" face to face," in the time-honored phrase-under oath, subject to cross-examination, and, unless unfeasible, in open court. In the United States, this principle is enshrined in the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment, which provides that "[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him." But now a new way is developing for witnesses for the prosecution …

Proposed Amendments To Fed. R. Crim. P. 26: An Exchange: Remote Testimony, Richard D. Friedman

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Recently, the Supreme Court declined to pass on to Congress a proposed change to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 26 submitted to it by the Judicial Conference. In this Article, Professor Friedman addresses this proposal, which would allow for more extensive use of remote, video-based testimony at criminal trials. He agrees with the majority of the Court that the proposal raised serious problems under the Confrontation Clause. He also argues that a revised proposal, in addition to better protecting the confrontation rights of defendants, should include more definite quality standards, abandon its reliance on the definition of unavailability found in …

Presidential Review As Constitutional Restoration, John O. Mcginnis

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A Measure Of Freedom, James W. Nickel

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Are Tax "Benefits" For Religious Institutions Constitutionally Dependent On Benefits For Secular Entities?, Edward A. Zelinsky

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The Supreme Court generally conditions tax exemptions, deductions, and exclusions for religious organizations and activities upon the simultaneous extension of such benefits to secular institutions and undertakings. The Court's position flows logically from its acceptance of the premise that tax exemptions, deductions, and exclusions constitute subsidies. However, the "subsidy" label is usually deployed in a conclusory and unconvincing fashion. The First Amendment is best understood as permitting governments to refrain from taxation to accommodate the autonomy of religious actors and activities; hence, tax benefits extended solely to religious institutions should pass constitutional muster as recognition of that autonomy.

In Defense Of Making Government Pay: The Deterrent Effect Of Constitutional Tort Remedies, Myriam E. Gilles

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Legal economists are concerned with setting optimal deterrence levels. Armed with information concerning the public and private costs and benefits of a particular harmful activity, the legal economist seeks to set a “price” for the activity which, to some socially optimal extent, minimizes external costs while retaining external benefits. If the economist's information is perfect, he can predict precisely how an economically rational actor will respond to a particular price and achieve optimal deterrence of activities whose costs outweigh their benefits.

Free? Exercise, Marci A. Hamilton

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Kyllo V. United States And The Partial Ascendance Of Justice Scalia's Fourth Amendment, Richard Henry Seamon

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The Asymmetry Of State Sovereign Immunity, Richard Henry Seamon

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This Article discusses whether a State has sovereign immunity from claims for just compensation. The Article concludes that the States are indeed immune from just compensation suits brought against them in federal court; States are not necessarily immune, however, from just-compensation suits brought against them in their own courts of general jurisdiction. Thus, the States' immunity in federal court is not symmetrical to the States' immunity in their own courts. This asymmetry, the Article explains, is the result of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Due Process Clause obligates a State to provide a means of paying …

Free-Standing Due Process And Criminal Procedure: The Supreme Court's Search For Interpretive Guidelines, Jerold H. Israel

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When I was first introduced to the constitutional regulation of criminal procedure in the mid-1950s, a single issue dominated the field: To what extent did the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment impose upon states the same constitutional restraints that the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments imposed upon the federal government? While those Bill of Rights provisions, as even then construed, imposed a broad range of constitutional restraints upon the federal criminal justice system, the federal system was (and still is) minuscule as compared to the combined systems of the fifty states. With the Bill of Rights provisions …

From Miranda To §3501 To Dickerson To...(Symposium: Miranda After Dickerson: The Future Of Confession Law), Yale Kamisar

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Once the Court granted [certiorari in Dickerson] court-watchers knew the hour had come. At long last the Court would have to either repudiate Miranda, repudiate the prophylactic-rule cases [the cases viewing Miranda's requirements as not rights protected by the Constitution, but merely "prophylactic rules"] or offer some ingenious reconciliation of the two lines of precedent. The Supreme Court of the United States, however, doesn't "have to" do anything, as the decision in Dickerson once again reminds us.

Miranda And Some Puzzles Of 'Prophylactic' Rules, Evan H. Caminker

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Constitutional law scholars have long observed that many doctrinal rules established by courts to protect constitutional rights seem to "overprotect" those rights, in the sense that they give greater protection to individuals than those rights, as abstractly understood, seem to require.' Such doctrinal rules are typically called "prophylactic" rules.2 Perhaps the most famous, or infamous, example of such a rule is Miranda v. Arizona,' in which the Supreme Court implemented the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination4 with a detailed set of directions for law enforcement officers conducting custodial interrogations, colloquially called the Miranda warnings. 5

Why Federalism Must Be Enforced: A Response To Professor Kramer, Marci A. Hamilton

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The United States Supreme Court has issued a series of opinions that turn on the Constitution's inherent principles of federalism, decisions that have alarmed many a legal scholar. Some scholars have attacked the Court for overstepping its bounds, and others have criticized the Court on the ground that the federal/state balance should be maintained through the political process rather than judicial review. The most recent advocate of this position, Professor Larry Kramer, recently argued in the Columbia Law Review that the political party structure ensures that state interests are taken into account at the federal level, and therefore the Supreme …

The Muddy Boundaries Between Res Judicata And Full Faith And Credit, Stewart E. Sterk

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The Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution requires states to respect and recognize the legal decisions of other states, but its application is limited when it comes to judgments that attempt to control future behavior or infringe on a state's sovereignty. The article argues that while the clause ensures finality and uniformity, it does not obligate states to enforce sister-state injunctions or orders that dictate conduct beyond their borders. This distinction is particularly evident in cases involving family law, where states retain flexibility to modify or ignore prior judgments based on evolving circumstances, such as the best …

Constitutional Migration And The Bounds Of Comparative Analysis, Michel Rosenfeld

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The article explores the complexities and challenges of comparative constitutional analysis, highlighting how constitutional ideas and norms migrate across nations. It emphasizes that while such analysis is necessary and can provide valuable insights, it must be approached with caution, considering the unique cultural, historical, and political contexts of each country. The author argues that foreign constitutional materials can influence domestic law both directly and indirectly, but their application must account for contextual differences to avoid misinterpretation or misuse.

The Supreme Court In Real Time: Haste, Waste, And Bush V. Gore, Michael Herz

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'Bush' V. 'Gore': What Was The Supreme Court Thinking?, Richard D. Friedman

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One of the most astonishing episodes in American political history ended last month with perhaps the most imperial decision ever by the United States Supreme Court. In one stroke, the Court exercised power that belonged to Congress, the legislature of Florida, Florida's courts and administrators, and, most importantly, the people of the state.

'Appropriate' Means-Ends Constraints On Section 5 Powers, Evan H. Caminker

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With the narrowing of Congress' Article I power to regulate interstate commerce and to authorize private suits against states, Section Five of the Fourteenth Amendment provides Congress with an increasingly important alternative source of power to regulate and police state conduct. However, in City of Boerne v. Flores and subsequent cases, the Supreme Court has tightened the doctrinal test for prophylactic legislation based on Section Five. The Court has clarified Section Five's legitimate ends by holding that Congress may enforce Fourteenth Amendment rights only as they are defined by the federal judiciary, and the Court has constrained Section Five's permissible …

The Foreign Affairs Of Federal Systems: A National Perspective On The Benefits Of State Participation, Daniel Halberstam

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In recent years, the constitutional law of foreign relations has come under intense academic scrutiny, and with it the traditionally accepted constitutional balance between the federal government and the States. In the course of this renewed debate, revisionist scholars have challenged the previously dominant view that States have no place in foreign affairs.

The World Trade Constitution, John O. Mcginnis, Mark L. Movsesian

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Conventional wisdom holds that the World Trade Organization (WTO) necessarily poses a threat to sovereignty and representative government within its member nations. Professors McGinnis and Movsesian refute this view. They argue that the WTO can be understood as a constitutive structure that, by reducing the power of protectionist interest groups, can simultaneously promote international trade and domestic democracy. Indeed, in promoting both free trade and accountable government, the WTO reflects many of the insights that inform our own Madisonian Constitution. Professors McGinnis and Movsesian reject recent proposals to grant the WTO regulatory authority, endorsing instead the WTO's limited adjudicative power …

Where Hannah Arendt Went Wrong, David Abraham

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Wrong Turn In Cyberspace: Using Icann To Route Around The Apa And The Constitution, A. Michael Froomkin

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The Internet relies on an underlying centralized hierarchy built into the domain name system (DNS) to control the routing for the vast majority of Internet traffic. At its heart is a single data file, known as the "root." Control of the root provides singular power in cyberspace.

This Article first describes how the United States government found itself in control of the root. It then describes how, in an attempt to meet concerns that the United States could so dominate an Internet chokepoint, the U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC) summoned into being the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers …

Constitutional Federalism, Individual Liberty, And The Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act Of 1998, Adam C. Pritchard

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This Article proceeds in four parts. Part I provides background on the historical development of constitutional federalism, the Supreme Court's decisions in this area, and the apparent demise of constitutional limits on federal power. Part II then reviews the Court's revival of constitutional federalism over the last decade. Based on this review, I argue that the Supreme Court's current federalism doctrine can be understood as a "constrained libertarianism" that attempts to use constitutional structure as a check on government interference with individual liberty. In this model, states are respected in our constitutional system because of the counterbalance that they provide …

Lilly V. Virginia Glimmers Of Hope For The Confrontation Clause?, Richard D. Friedman

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In 1662, in The Case of Thomas Tong and Others, which involved charges of treason against several defendants, the judges of the King's Bench conferred on a crucial set of points of procedure. As reported by one of the judges, Sir John Kelyng, the judges agreed unanimously that a pretrial confession made to the authorities was evidence against the Party himself who made the Confession, and indeed, if adequately proved could support a conviction of that party without additional witnesses to the treason itself. But -- again unanimously, and quite definitively -- the judges also agreed that the confession cannot …