Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
-
- First Amendment (63)
- Courts (61)
- Criminal Procedure (48)
- Criminal Law (41)
- Law and Society (39)
-
- Legislation (37)
- Civil Rights and Discrimination (36)
- Religion Law (34)
- Jurisprudence (29)
- Legal History (29)
- President/Executive Department (28)
- State and Local Government Law (27)
- Fourteenth Amendment (26)
- Evidence (23)
- Judges (23)
- Law and Politics (23)
- Education Law (18)
- Jurisdiction (17)
- Juvenile Law (17)
- Law and Gender (17)
- Torts (17)
- Legal Remedies (15)
- Litigation (15)
- Administrative Law (14)
- Law Enforcement and Corrections (14)
- Civil Procedure (13)
- Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility (13)
- Property Law and Real Estate (13)
- Keyword
-
- Constitutional law (61)
- First Amendment (48)
- Supreme Court (33)
- Constitution (32)
- Federalism (25)
-
- United States Supreme Court (24)
- Constitutional Law (22)
- Religion (20)
- California (19)
- Abortion (16)
- Equal protection (15)
- Evidence (15)
- Congress (14)
- Privacy (13)
- Separation of powers (13)
- United States (13)
- Fourth Amendment (12)
- Right to counsel (11)
- Due Process (10)
- Fourteenth Amendment (10)
- Legislation (10)
- Separation of Powers (10)
- Defendant (9)
- Due process of law (9)
- Eminent domain (9)
- Fifth Amendment (9)
- Government (9)
- Speech (9)
- Crime (8)
- Criminal procedure (8)
Articles 31 - 60 of 332
Full-Text Articles in Constitutional Law
Rounding Up The Three-Fifths Clause: Eradicating Prison Gerrymandering In The South, Abigail N. Falk
Rounding Up The Three-Fifths Clause: Eradicating Prison Gerrymandering In The South, Abigail N. Falk
Pepperdine Law Review
This Comment examines the phenomenon of prison gerrymandering, a practice that involves counting prisoners as residents of the counties where their state correctional facilities are located—rather than in their home communities—for redistricting and representational purposes. This practice of counting inflates the voting power of rural, white districts with large prison complexes and diminishes the voting power of minority communities. Prison gerrymandering has become especially pervasive across southern states while many of the South’s northern counterparts have eradicated this practice through legislative reform. This Comment proposes a solution to stop prison gerrymandering in the South, arguing a strategy to produce a …
Legalization Without Disruption: Why Congress Should Let States Restrict Interstate Commerce In Marijuana, Scott Bloomberg, Robert A. Mikos
Legalization Without Disruption: Why Congress Should Let States Restrict Interstate Commerce In Marijuana, Scott Bloomberg, Robert A. Mikos
Pepperdine Law Review
Over the past twenty-five years, states have developed elaborate regulatory systems to govern lawful marijuana markets. In designing these systems, states have assumed that the Dormant Commerce Clause (“DCC”) does not apply; Congress, after all, has banned all commerce in marijuana. However, the states’ reprieve from the doctrine may soon come to an end. Congress is on the verge of legalizing marijuana federally, and once it does, it will unleash the DCC, with dire consequences for the states and the markets they now regulate. This Article serves as a wake-up call. It provides the most extensive analysis to date of …
Is Misdemeanor Cash Bail An Unconstitutional Excessive Fine?, Barnett J. Harris
Is Misdemeanor Cash Bail An Unconstitutional Excessive Fine?, Barnett J. Harris
Pepperdine Law Review
The Excessive Fines Clause is one of the least developed clauses pertaining to criminal procedure in the Bill of Rights. In fact, the Supreme Court has only interpreted the Clause a few times in its entire history. Yet, on any given day, hundreds of thousands of people languish in jails without having been convicted of anything, because most of these people are unable to meet the bail amount a judge sets. This Essay examines the surprisingly under-explored relationship between misdemeanor cash bail & pretrial detention and the Excessive Fines and Excessive Bail Clauses of the Eighth Amendment, using the Supreme …
The United States Of California: Ninth Circuit Tips The Dormant Commerce Clause Scales In Favor Of The Golden State's Animal Welfare Legislation, Tanner Hendershot
The United States Of California: Ninth Circuit Tips The Dormant Commerce Clause Scales In Favor Of The Golden State's Animal Welfare Legislation, Tanner Hendershot
Pepperdine Law Review
In November 2018, California voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 12, the Prevention of Cruelty to Farm Animals Act. This law requires in-state and out-of-state farmers to provide additional living space for egg-laying hens, breeding pigs, and calves raised for veal by 2022 if the farmers wish to continue doing business within the state. In response, North American Meat Institute (NAMI), whose members account for approximately 95% of the country’s output of various meat products, filed a lawsuit in federal district court seeking a preliminary injunction against Proposition 12’s enforcement. NAMI contended Proposition 12 violated the Dormant Commerce Clause, a legal doctrine …
Jury Nullification As A Spectrum, Richard Lorren Jolly
Jury Nullification As A Spectrum, Richard Lorren Jolly
Pepperdine Law Review
Jury nullification traditionally refers to the jury’s power to deliver a verdict that is deliberately contrary to the law’s clearly dictated outcome. A spirited scholarship is built around this conception, with some painting nullification as democratic and others as anarchic. But this debate is largely unmoored from experience. In practice, courts have formally eliminated the jury’s authority to review the law and have established procedures that make it easier to prevent and overturn seemingly nullificatory verdicts. Thus, outside of a jury’s verdict acquitting a criminal defendant, jury nullification as traditionally understood does not exist. In no other context is a …
Not White Enough, Not Black Enough: Reimagining Affirmative Action Jurisprudence In Law School Admissions Through A Filipino-American Paradigm, Joseph D. G. Castro
Not White Enough, Not Black Enough: Reimagining Affirmative Action Jurisprudence In Law School Admissions Through A Filipino-American Paradigm, Joseph D. G. Castro
Pepperdine Law Review
Writing the majority opinion upholding the use of racial preferences in law school admissions in 2003, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor anticipated that racial preferences would no longer be necessary in twenty-five years. On the contrary, 2021 has seen the astronomic rise of critical race theory, the popularity of race-driven “diversity” initiatives in higher education, and the continued surge of identity politics in the mainstream. So much has been written on affirmative action—what else could this Comment add to the conversation? Analyzing the Court’s application of strict scrutiny through a Filipino- American paradigm, this Comment ultimately concludes that affirmative action in …
Impartial Justice: Restoring Integrity To Impeachment Trials, Justin D. Rattey
Impartial Justice: Restoring Integrity To Impeachment Trials, Justin D. Rattey
Pepperdine Law Review
In recent decades, we have witnessed the diminution of the impeachment process by various actors—especially political parties. But the Founders envisioned a vastly different process, one that was insulated from partisanship. In Alexander Hamilton’s words, impeachment trials were assigned to the Senate because the Senate is “a tribunal sufficiently dignified [and] sufficiently independent.” Examples from the most recent impeachment trials of President Donald J. Trump reflect the Senate’s loss of dignity and independence, with Senator McConnell pledging to work with the White House throughout the first impeachment process and senators from both parties conceding that they made up their minds …
Blurred Lines: How To Rationally Understand The “Rational Understanding” Doctrine After Madison V. Alabama, Cassidy Young
Blurred Lines: How To Rationally Understand The “Rational Understanding” Doctrine After Madison V. Alabama, Cassidy Young
Pepperdine Law Review
In Madison v. Alabama, the Supreme Court held that a capital inmate’s inability to remember his crime did not render him incompetent to be executed. The Court reasoned that an individual who suffers from episodic memory loss may still “rationally understand” society’s reasons for sentencing him to death for a crime he once committed. This Note explores the impact of memory loss on a person’s self-identity, and consequently challenges the notion that a capital inmate who no longer remembers his crime can truly have a rational understanding of it. Specifically, this Note examines how memory loss substantially weakens the two …
Overruling Roe V. Wade: Lessons From The Death Penalty, Paul Benjamin Linton
Overruling Roe V. Wade: Lessons From The Death Penalty, Paul Benjamin Linton
Pepperdine Law Review
In Furman v. Georgia (1972), the Supreme Court struck down the Georgia and Texas death penalty statutes, thereby calling into question the validity of every other state death penalty statute. In their concurring opinions, Justices Brennan and Marshall expressed the view that, given society’s gradual abandonment of the death penalty, capital punishment violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishments.” Justice Powell and three other justices dissented, arguing that the Court had misread the state of the law regarding society’s acceptance of the death penalty. Four years after Furman, in a quintet of cases, the Court held that …
No Amendment? No Problem: Judges, “Informal Amendment,” And The Evolution Of Constitutional Meaning In The Federal Democracies Of Australia, Canada, India, And The United States, John V. Orth, John Gava, Arvind P. Bhanu, Paul T. Babie
No Amendment? No Problem: Judges, “Informal Amendment,” And The Evolution Of Constitutional Meaning In The Federal Democracies Of Australia, Canada, India, And The United States, John V. Orth, John Gava, Arvind P. Bhanu, Paul T. Babie
Pepperdine Law Review
This article considers the way in which judges play a significant role in developing the meaning of a constitution through the exercise of interpretive choices that have the effect of “informally amending” the text. We demonstrate this by examining four written federal democratic constitutions: those of the United States, the first written federal democratic constitution; India, the federal constitution of the largest democracy on earth; and the constitutions of Canada and Australia, both federal and democratic, but emerging from the English unwritten tradition. We divide our consideration of these constitutions into two ideal types, identified by Bruce Ackerman: the “revolutionary” …
Hybrid Federalism And The Employee Right To Disconnect, Paul M. Secunda
Hybrid Federalism And The Employee Right To Disconnect, Paul M. Secunda
Pepperdine Law Review
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) administers specific workplace and health standards that generally and expressly preempt the entire field of workplace safety and health law. However, where such federal OSHA standards do not exist or states have developed their own approved OSHA plans, OSHA does not merely set a regulatory floor either. A type of “hybrid federalism” has been established, meaning a strong federal-based field preemption approach to labor and employment law issues, but tied to a conflict preemption approach. Applying this hybrid preemption approach to the employee right to disconnect problem provides the best opportunity to …
A Defense Of The Electoral College In The Age Of Trump, John Yoo
A Defense Of The Electoral College In The Age Of Trump, John Yoo
Pepperdine Law Review
In the aftermath of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, where Donald J. Trump lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes but still secured victory in the Electoral College, renewed efforts to delegitimize or abolish the Electoral College system have surfaced. Critics, calling for a direct national vote for President, attacked the legitimacy of the election and decried the Constitution’s method of presidential selection as antiquated and undemocratic. Some legal scholars even suggested that the Electoral College must be abolished to disentangle it from America’s racist past and history of slavery. Recently, though, reformers in several States have banded …
Our Campaign Finance Nationalism, Eugene D. Mazo
Our Campaign Finance Nationalism, Eugene D. Mazo
Pepperdine Law Review
Campaign finance is the one area of election law that is most difficult to square with federalism. While voting has a strong federalism component—elections are run by the states and our elected officials represent concrete geographical districts—our campaign finance system, which is rooted in the First Amendment, almost entirely sidesteps the boundaries of American federalism. In so doing, our campaign finance system creates a tenuous connection between a lawmaker’s constituents, or the people who elect him, and the contributors who provide the majority of his campaign cash. The recent explosion of outside spending in American elections by wealthy individuals and …
Federalism Limits On Non-Article Iii Adjudication, F. Andrew Hessick
Federalism Limits On Non-Article Iii Adjudication, F. Andrew Hessick
Pepperdine Law Review
Although Article III of the Constitution vests the federal judicial power in the Article III courts, the Supreme Court has created a patchwork of exceptions permitting non-Article III tribunals to adjudicate various disputes. In doing so, the Court has focused on the separation of powers, concluding that these non-Article III adjudications do not unduly infringe on the judicial power of the Article III courts. But separation of powers is not the only consideration relevant to the lawfulness of non-Article III adjudication. Article I adjudications also implicate federalism. Permitting Article I tribunals threatens the role of state courts by expanding federal …
Property Convergence In Takings Law, Maureen E. Brady
Property Convergence In Takings Law, Maureen E. Brady
Pepperdine Law Review
Although one of the key questions in a federal system is how authority should be allocated between the state and national governments, property law has rarely generated serious controversy on this front. Instead, property entitlements and the rules governing resource use have typically been the province of state and local actors. The Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized that property rights are created at the state level. And while federal regulations—for example, environmental regulations—certainly limit property rights, state and local land-use laws and state nuisance and trespass rules serve as major constraints on property’s use and enjoyment. This feature of property …
The Past, Present, And Future Of Federalism: A Symposium Introduction, Derek T. Muller
The Past, Present, And Future Of Federalism: A Symposium Introduction, Derek T. Muller
Pepperdine Law Review
No abstract provided.
“Drive-By” Jurisdiction: Congressional Oversight In Court, Daniel Epstein
“Drive-By” Jurisdiction: Congressional Oversight In Court, Daniel Epstein
Pepperdine Law Review
On July 9, 2020, in Trump v. Mazars USA, LLP and Trump v. Deutsche Bank AG, the Supreme Court held that the lower courts did not adequately consider the separation of powers concerns attendant to congressional subpoenas for presidential information. Given that the question presented in Mazars concerned whether Congress had a legitimate legislative purpose in subpoenaing the President’s personal records, the Supreme Court’s decision is anything but a model of clarity. The Court simultaneously opined that disputes “involving nonprivileged, private information” “do[ ] not implicate sensitive Executive Branch deliberations” while claiming “congressional subpoenas for the President’s information unavoidably pit …
A More Perfect Union: The Emoluments Clause, Grant C. Rasak
A More Perfect Union: The Emoluments Clause, Grant C. Rasak
Pepperdine Law Review
America’s Framers crafted the Emoluments Clause to preserve institutional integrity, mitigate undue influences, and best serve the American People. The Emoluments Clause influenced the course of the Constitutional Convention, as the Pennsylvania Delegation championed resolute reforms. Benjamin Franklin, working alongside James Wilson, advocated for strengthening domestic and international practices by crafting the Emoluments Clause. The Framers proposed a system of self-government which sought to establish public trust, mitigate corrupt practices, and promote institutional integrity. The Pennsylvania Delegation summoned Wilson, under the tutelage of Franklin, to champion the Emoluments Clause. Wilson proposed a new notion of national unity by placing profound …
Court Expansion And The Restoration Of Democracy: The Case For Constitutional Hardball, Aaron Belkin
Court Expansion And The Restoration Of Democracy: The Case For Constitutional Hardball, Aaron Belkin
Pepperdine Law Review
Neither electoral politics, norms preservation, nor modest good government reform can restore the political system because they cannot mitigate the primary threat to the American democracy, Republican radicalism. Those who believe otherwise fail to appreciate how and why radicalism will continue to impede democratic restoration regardless of what happens at the ballot box, misdiagnose the underlying factors that produce and sustain GOP radicalism, and under-estimate the degree of democratic deterioration that has already taken place. Republicans do not need to prevail in every election to forestall the restoration of democracy or to prevent Democrats from governing. The only viable path …
Federal Protection For "Fur-Babies": A Legislative Proposal, Rebecca Ferrari
Federal Protection For "Fur-Babies": A Legislative Proposal, Rebecca Ferrari
Pepperdine Law Review
Americans love their animals, but America doesn’t protect them. Across the country, animals continue to be classified as mere property, undeserving of any basic rights and unprotected by the animal welfare statutes that do exist, but often remain unenforced. This Article proposes a comprehensive animal protection system that includes the following components: (a) general prohibitions against animal crushing, cruelty, neglect, and abuse; (b) a civil action provision that will allow humane society officers to investigate violations of those prohibitions; (c) a provision establishing animal legal advocates to work alongside the officers and prosecute violations; and (d) an animal-suit provision to …
Men's Reproductive Rights: A Legal History, Mary Ziegler
Men's Reproductive Rights: A Legal History, Mary Ziegler
Pepperdine Law Review
This Article offers the first legal history of men’s procreative rights, filling a gap in scholarship on assisted reproduction, constitutional law, and social movements. A rich literature addresses women’s procreative rights in contexts from abortion to infertility. By comparison, we know relatively little about the history of the debate about reproductive rights for men. This void is particularly troubling at a time when the law of reproductive rights is increasingly up for grabs, especially in the context of assisted reproduction technologies (ART). Men’s rights advocates—and the abortion-rights supporters responding to them—championed a jurisprudential approach to parenting that casts a long …
Comparing Literary And Biblical Hermeneutics To Constitutional And Statutory Interpretation, Robert J. Pushaw Jr.
Comparing Literary And Biblical Hermeneutics To Constitutional And Statutory Interpretation, Robert J. Pushaw Jr.
Pepperdine Law Review
Interpreters determine the meaning of language. To interpret literary and biblical texts, scholars have developed detailed rules, methods, and theories of human understanding. This branch of knowledge, “hermeneutics,” features three basic approaches. First, “textualists” treat words as directly conveying their ordinary meaning to a competent reader today. Second, “contextualists” maintain that verbal meaning depends on generally shared linguistic conventions in the particular historical and cultural environment of the author—and that therefore translations or commentaries are necessary to make the writing intelligible to a modern reader. Third, “hermeneutic circle” scholars argue that texts have no objective meaning. Rather, a person’s subjective …
The Court Can’T Even Handle Me Right Now: The Arpaio Pardon And Its Effect On The Scope Of Presidential Pardons, Tyler Brown
The Court Can’T Even Handle Me Right Now: The Arpaio Pardon And Its Effect On The Scope Of Presidential Pardons, Tyler Brown
Pepperdine Law Review
The Constitution grants the president the power to pardon individuals for offenses against the United States. Courts have interpreted this power broadly, and the American public has historically accepted its use, even in the face of several controversial pardons over the last five decades. However, after President Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio—a former Arizona sheriff who was held in criminal contempt of court for continuing to illegally detain suspected undocumented immigrants—scholars, activists, and political figures questioned whether this pardon was unconstitutional. This Comment discusses the Court’s interpretation of the pardoning power, controversial pardons in modern history, and the details of the …
The Problem Of Purely Procedural Preemption Presented By The Federal Hear Act, William L. Charron
The Problem Of Purely Procedural Preemption Presented By The Federal Hear Act, William L. Charron
Pepperdine Law Review
The underlying purpose of the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2016 (the HEAR Act), which is to return Nazi-looted artwork to victims or their families, is undeniably laudable. Restituting Nazi-looted artwork is and has been a moral objective of this country since the conclusion of World War II. It is equally clear that victims and their families can often face obstacles to gathering evidence from the war that would demonstrate Nazi theft in court. The HEAR Act strives to address these concerns by imposing a federal statute of limitations over all state law causes of action that would enable …
Ericsson, Inc. V. Regents Of The University Of Minnesota And A New Frontier For The Waiver By Litigation Conduct Doctrine, Jason Kornmehl
Ericsson, Inc. V. Regents Of The University Of Minnesota And A New Frontier For The Waiver By Litigation Conduct Doctrine, Jason Kornmehl
Pepperdine Law Review
Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity is one of the most confusing areas of constitutional law. The waiver by litigation conduct doctrine represents a particularly complex aspect of Eleventh Amendment immunity. Courts, for example, have not precisely defined the extent to which waiver in a prior proceeding might extend to a future one. The Patent Trial and Appeals Board recently considered this issue in a novel context. In Ericsson, Inc. v. Regents of the University of Minnesota, the Patent Trial and Appeals Board applied the waiver by litigation conduct doctrine in an inter partes review proceeding. Combining the Eleventh Amendment, non-Article III …
Hearing The States, Anthony Johnstone
Hearing The States, Anthony Johnstone
Pepperdine Law Review
The 2016 Presidential and Senate elections raise the possibility that a conservative, life-tenured Supreme Court will preside for years over a politically dynamic majority. This threatens to weaken the public’s already fragile confidence in the Court. By lowering the political stakes of both national elections and its own decisions, federalism may enable the Court to defuse some of the most explosive controversies it hears. Federalism offers a second-best solution, even if neither conservatives nor liberals can impose a national political agenda. However, principled federalism arguments are tricky. They are structural, more prudential than legal or empirical. Regardless of ideology, a …
Justice As Fair Division, Ian Bartrum, Kathryn Nyman, Peter Otto
Justice As Fair Division, Ian Bartrum, Kathryn Nyman, Peter Otto
Pepperdine Law Review
The current hyperpoliticization of the Court grows out of a feedback loop between politicized appointments and politicized decision-making. This Article suggests a change in the internal procedures by which the Court hears and decides particular cases. A three-Justice panel hears and decides each case. Appeal to an en banc sitting of the entire Court would require a unanimous vote of all non-recused Justices. This Article explores several possible approaches in selecting the three-Justice panel. This Article proposes that applying a fair division scheme to the Court’s decision-making process might act to reverse this loop and work to depoliticize the Court …
How The Prohibition On "Under-Ruling" Distorts The Judicial Function (And What To Do About It), A. Christopher Bryant, Kimberly Breedon
How The Prohibition On "Under-Ruling" Distorts The Judicial Function (And What To Do About It), A. Christopher Bryant, Kimberly Breedon
Pepperdine Law Review
Lower courts face a dilemma when forced to choose between older Supreme Court precedent that directly controls the present legal dispute and an intervening Supreme Court ruling that relies on rationale which erodes or undermines the rationale of the direct precedent. Nearly thirty years ago, the Supreme Court announced a rule requiring lower courts to follow the older precedent and disregard any inconsistency resulting from intervening rulings, effectively barring lower courts from “under-ruling” the older Supreme Court precedent. This prohibition on “under-ruling,” here referred to as the “Agostini Rule,” reflects a departure from the core rule-of-law values requiring similar cases …
The Pirate’S Code: Constitutional Conventions In U.S. Constitutional Law, Mark Tushnet
The Pirate’S Code: Constitutional Conventions In U.S. Constitutional Law, Mark Tushnet
Pepperdine Law Review
A convention is a practice not memorialized in a formal rule but regularly engaged in out of a sense of obligation, where the sense of obligation arises from the view that adhering to the practice serves valuable goals of institutional organization and the public good. Constitutional conventions are important in making it possible for the national government to achieve the goals set out in the Preamble. Over the past twenty years or so, however, such conventions have eroded. This article addresses the role and importance of constitutional conventions in the United States, arguing that conventions’ erosion has been accompanied by …
Taking The Fifth: How The Tenth Circuit Determined The Right Against Self-Incrimination Is "More Than A Trial Right" In Vogt V. City Of Hays, Daniel J. De Cecco
Taking The Fifth: How The Tenth Circuit Determined The Right Against Self-Incrimination Is "More Than A Trial Right" In Vogt V. City Of Hays, Daniel J. De Cecco
Pepperdine Law Review
In Vogt v. City of Hays, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled that the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination is more than a trial right and applies to the use of compelled statements in probable cause hearings as well as in criminal trials. While the Self-Incrimination Clause states that the right applies “in a criminal case,” there is a circuit split regarding the definition of a “criminal case.” The Tenth Circuit joined the Second, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits in finding that the right against self-incrimination applies to more than a trial, relying on the common …