Constitutional Law Commons^™

No State Shall Abridge: The Fourteenth Amendment And The Bill Of Rights, Mark A. Grannis

Michigan Law Review

A Review of No State Shall Abridge: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Bill of Rights by Michael Kent Curtis

The Rise Of Modern Judicial Review: From Constitutional Interpretation To Judge-Made Law, Ward A. Greenberg

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Rise of Modern Judicial Review: From Constitutional Interpretation to Judge-Made Law by Christopher Wolfe

Intergenerationalism And Constitutional Law, Ira C. Lupu

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Constitutional Law by Geoffrey R. Stone, Louis M. Seidman, Cass R. Sunstein and Mark V. Tushnet and Constitutional Law: Cases -- Comments -- Questions by William B. Lockhart, Yale Kamisar, Jesse H. Choper, and Steven H. Shiffrin

Commerce Clause Restraints On State Taxation: Purposeful Economic Protectionism And Beyond, Walter Hellerstein

Michigan Law Review

Few questions in recent years have spawned as much controversy and as little academic interest as the scope of commerce clause restraints on state tax power. The Supreme Court has handed down an extraordinary number of significant decisions addressed to the limitations the commerce clause imposes on state taxation. Yet these decisions have barely caught the eye of the nation's leading law reviews or constitutional scholars. Even those observers who have recognized the Court's renaissance of interest in the dormant commerce clause have largely confined their attention to state regulation, as distinguished from state taxation, of interstate commerce. If there …

Preventative Pretrial Detention And The Failure Of Interest-Balancing Approaches To Due Process, Albert W. Alschuler

Michigan Law Review

This article, echoing Highmore's treatise of 1783, maintains that neither a legitimate nor a very important governmental interest can justify preventive detention in the absence of significant proof of past wrongdoing or an inability to control one's behavior. Both the Supreme Court's neglect of this issue and Congress' similar neglect in the preventive detention provisions of the Federal Bail Reform Act of 1984 reveal the extent to which cost-benefit analysis has captured American law and threatened core concepts of individual dignity.

The article does not oppose all forms of preventive pretrial detention. To the contrary, it recognizes that the detention …

The Rise And Fall Of The "Doctrine" Of Separation Of Powers, Philip B. Kurland

Michigan Law Review

As the Constitution of the United States nears its two hundredth anniversary, there is a frenzy of celebration. However awesome the accomplishment, I submit that it is no slander to recognize that the 1787 document was born of prudent compromise rather than principle, that it derived more from experience than from doctrine, and that it was received with an ambivalence in no small part attributable to its ambiguities. Indeed, its most stalwart supporters doubted its capacity for a long life. It should not be surprising, then, that even today there is disagreement over whether the Constitution of 1787 is now …

Fifth Amendment Privilege For Producing Corporate Documents, Nancy J. King

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that a person should be able to assert her fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination when her act of producing corporate documents pursuant to a subpoena causes her to make testimonial admissions that are incriminating. Part I briefly examines the two approaches the Supreme Court has used to decide claims of self-incrimination for records production. First, it explains the Court's traditional entity doctrine which, by focusing on the nature of the documents and the capacity in which they are held, has prohibited records producers from invoking the fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination if the records produced are those …

Community, Citizenship, And The Search For National Identity, Frederick Schauer

Michigan Law Review

As a test of this proposition, I want to explore the issue of alienage restrictions. Under what circumstances is it justifiable to draw lines based on whether a person is a citizen? Lines drawn on the basis of citizenship are a useful test of how seriously we take the idea of the nation as a relevant community and, more tangentially, of how seriously we take the idea of community itself. To the extent that we are skeptical of such lines, our concerns are to that extent individual-oriented, primarily focused on the adverse consequences of excluding some people from benefits or …

Expert Services And The Indigent Criminal Defendant: The Constitutional Madate Of Ake V. Oklahoma, John M. West

Michigan Law Review

This Note attempts to define the boundaries of the indigent criminal defendant's constitutional right to expert assistance, in the light of Ake v. Oklahoma. Part I briefly reviews the Ake decision and examines its constitutional background. Part II inquires into Ake's implications for experts other than psychiatrists and in contexts other than the insanity defense, arguing that the principles that guided the Ake decision have validity well beyond the facts of that case. Part III asks whether the Ake doctrine should be limited to capital cases. Rejecting such a limitation, it concludes that the right to expert assistance …

The Constitution As Mirror: Tribe's Constitutional Choices, Richard A. Posner

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Constitutional Choices by Laurence H. Tribe

Liberalism And American Constitutional Law, Eric Brunstad

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Liberalism and American Constitutional Law by Rogers M. Smith

Cloning And The Constitution: An Inquiry Into Governmental Policymaking And Genetic Experimentation, Barry J. Swanson

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Cloning And the Constitution: An Inquiry Into Governmental Policymaking and Genetic Experimentation by Ira H. Carmen

State Constitutional Law: Federalism In The Common Law Tradition, Ellen A. Peters

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Developments in State Constitutional Law edited by Bradley D. McGraw

Hyperspace, Girardeau A. Spann

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Supreme Court and Constitutional Democracy by John Agresto

Cameras In The Courtroom: Guidelines For State Criminal Trials, Nancy T. Gardner

Michigan Law Review

This Note analyzes the conflicting interests involved in televising state criminal trials and proposes a model set of guidelines for consideration by states that decide to permit electronic media in their courtrooms. The Note favors restrictions on broadcasters once in the courtroom and advocates that the defendant's right to a fair trial receive more scrupulous protection than the broadcast media's interest in attendance and the public's "right to know." Part I presents the constitutional principles with which any set of guidelines must comply. Part II analyzes the policy considerations that should guide the formulation of state guidelines, and concludes that …

The Formulaic Constitution, Robert F. Nagel

Michigan Law Review

This essay explores the ways in which the formulaic style is different from other, older forms of constitutional doctrine. It argues that the modern style affects the content that the Court finds in the Constitution and that it illuminates the current interpretive functions of the judiciary. Perhaps most importantly, the formulaic style establishes an identifiable relationship between the Court and the public and thus constrains how the Court's version of the Constitution bears upon the larger political culture.

An Examination Of Whether Incarcerated Juveniles Are Entitled By The Constitution To Rehabilitative Treatment, Andrew D. Roth

Michigan Law Review

This Note attempts to resolve the arguments presented in the literature and the case law and determine whether the federal Constitution mandates a right to treatment for involuntarily incarcerated juveniles. Part I examines the varied situations that have given rise to right to treatment claims. Part II elucidates the three principal theories on which right to treatment claims have been based: (1) that because the purpose of incarcerating juveniles is to promote their welfare, rehabilitation is mandated by the due process requirement that the nature of the commitment "bear some reasonable relation to the purpose for which the individual is …

The Availability Of Jury Trials In Copyright Infringement Cases: Limiting The Scope Of The Seventh Amendment, Andrew W. Stumpff

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that statutory copyright damages are properly regarded as equitable and hence that no right to a jury trial exists in cases brought to recover such damages. More generally, the Note maintains that the seventh amendment's distinction between equitable and legal causes of action has produced irrational consequences, and proposes that "legal" issues be defined narrowly so as to limit the scope of the seventh amendment. Part I analyzes the debate over statutory copyright damages, concluding that historical and statutory construction arguments require these damages to be construed as legal. Part II examines some of the problems that …

The Second Death Of Federalism, William W. Van Alstyne

Michigan Law Review

In 1976, in National League of Cities v. Usery, the Supreme Court distinguished acts of Congress regulating commercial relations from acts of Congress commanding the terms of state services. Last Term, in Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, the Court abandoned the distinction and held that it was principally for Congress to determine federalism questions. In this Comment, Professor Van Alstyne criticizes the Court on both counts.

Anti-Formalism In Recent Constitutional Theory, Mark V. Tushnet

Michigan Law Review

The focus in constitutional theory on judicial review rests on a much deeper political theory than the phrase "countermajoritarian difficulty" standing alone suggests. Majoritarian or democratic decision making is itself a solution to a set of problems that arise from a particular view of human nature and political action. In this Article, I identify, explicate, and criticize some recent developments in constitutional theory which are of interest to the extent that they reject that view of human nature and politics. I take as my focus important articles by Robert Burt, Robert Cover, Owen Fiss, Frank Michelman, and Cass Sunstein. I …

The Delegation Doctrine: Could The Court Give It Substance?, David Schoenbrod

Michigan Law Review

Part I of this Article demonstrates the need for a new approach to the delegation doctrine. It shows that the Court has failed to articulate a coherent test of improper delegation and that the alternative tests offered by commentators are not sufficient. Part II then sets forth a proposed test of improper delegation. The basic principles of an approach prohibiting delegations of legislative power are outlined and illustrated. This Article does not, however, attempt anything so grand as to suggest a final definition of the doctrine or to pass broadly on the validity of statutes. Such an encompassing analysis is …

The Rise Of The Supreme Court Reporter: An Institutional Perspective On Marshall Court Ascendancy, Craig Joyce

Michigan Law Review

This Article will first explore the antecedents to, and beginnings of, the reporter system under Alexander J. Dallas and William Cranch. Next, the Article will examine the transformation of the system under the Court's first official Reporter, the scholarly Henry Wheaton. Finally, the Article will recount the struggle between Wheaton and his more practical successor, Richard Peters, Jr., that culminated in 1834 in the Court's declaration that its decisions are the property of the people of the United States, and not of the Court's Reporters.

America's Unwritten Constitution: Science, Religion, And Political Responsibility, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of America's Unwritten Constitution: Science, Religion, and Political Responsibility by Don K. Price

Of Cultural Determinism And The Limits Of Law, Paul R. Dimond, Gene Sperling

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality? by Thomas Sowell

Capital Punishment: For Or Against, Jan Gorecki

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Death Penalty -- A Debate by Ernest van den Haag and John Conrad

The Burden Of Brown: Thirty Years Of School Desegregation, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Burden of Brown: Thirty Years of School Desegregation by Raymond Wolters

On What The Constitution Means, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of On What the Constitution Means by Sotirios A. Barber

Just And Painful: A Case For The Corporal Punishment Of Criminals, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Just and Painful: A Case for the Corporal Punishment of Criminals by Graeme Newman

The Dilemmas Of Individualism: Status, Liberty, And American Constitutional Law, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Dilemmas of Individualism: Status, Liberty, and American Constitutional Law by Michael J. Phillips

Backing Off Bivens And The Ramifications Of This Retreat For The Vindication Of First Amendment Rights, Joan Steinman

Michigan Law Review

In Part I of this Article, Chappell and Bush are analyzed against the backdrop of the preceding Bivens cases. The analysis explains how these cases presented situations that were similar to one another but unlike any the Supreme Court previously had faced in Bivens cases. It demonstrates how the Court departed from the line of analysis that its previous Bivens cases had established, in a way that makes it more difficult for at least some plaintiffs seeking vindication of their constitutional rights to succeed in having a money damage remedy implied directly under the Constitution. The Article then argues that …