Constitutional Law Commons^™

Immunity From Regulatory Price Squeeze Claims: From Keogh, Parker, And Noerr To Town Of Concord And Beyond, Keith A. Rowley

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On September 21, 1990, the First Circuit handed down its decision in Town of Concord, Massachusetts v. Boston Edison Co. This case, the most recent in a growing line of court of appeals decisions examining the antitrust implications of public utility rate structures, represents the first time a United States court of appeals has unequivocally stated that an antitrust action based upon a “price squeeze” could not be maintained against a utility whose wholesale and retail rates were both fully regulated. Town of Concord notwithstanding, the courts are far from agreeing whether investor-owned electric or natural gas utilities are immune …

Equal Protection And The Procedural Bar Doctrine In Federal Habeas Corpus, Laura Dooley

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Winford L. Stokes, Jr. and Theodore C. Harris had much in common. Both were death-row inmates in the late 1980s. Both were convicted of murder following bifurcated jury trials in which they later alleged that they had not received effective assistance of counsel as required by the federal Constitution. Both inmates sought collateral review of their convictions in federal courts. The similarities between them end there. Because Stokes had procedurally defaulted on his federal constitutional claim in state court under the law of Missouri, the federal appeals court refused to consider the merits of his federal constitutional claim.' Harris, on …

Congress's Paramount Role In Setting The Scope Of Federal Jurisdiction, Michael L. Wells

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Article III presents a conundrum for scholars seeking a coherent explanation of the federal courts' role in our system of government. On the one hand, the framers set up the judiciary as a separate branch with jurisdiction over federal law and other matters of federal interest. They granted federal judges life tenure and undiminishable salary in order to preserve judicial independence from executive and legislative pressure. It is evident from these provisions that the framers saw a need for a strong national judiciary. At the same time, article III explicitly leaves to Congress the decision whether to create any lower …

Governmental Inaction As A Constitutional Tort: Deshaney And Its Aftermath, Thomas A. Eaton, Michael Wells

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DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services is the Supreme Court's first major effort to define the scope of state and local governments' affirmative obligations under the fourteenth amendment. The Court rejected liability against a county welfare agency and a caseworker for failing to prevent a father from severely beating his four-year-old son. The Court intimated that constitutional affirmative duties exist only where the plaintiff is in the state's custody. Scholarly commentary reads the case as announcing a sweeping prohibition against the imposition of affirmative duties in other contexts. Professors Eaton and Wells demonstrate that the DeShaney opinion is …

Preliminary Reflections On Mckesson And American Trucking Associations, Walter Hellerstein

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On June 4, 1990, the Supreme Court issued its long awaited decisions in McKesson Corp v. Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco and American Trucking Associations, Inc. v. Smith. Both cases raised the question of whether a taxpayer has a right to a refund of unconstitutional state taxes. This article analyzes these decisions separately and considers the implications of these decisions on future state tax litigation. The article has two purposes: first, to analyze the McKesson and American Trucking Association cases; and second, to consider their implications for future constitutional challenges to state taxes. The article concludes by stating …

Abortion Rights (Symposium: The Supreme Court And Local Government Law; The 1989-90 Term), Eileen Kaufman

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No abstract provided.

Pitfalls Of Public Policy: The Case Of Arbitration Agreements, Jeffrey W. Stempel

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As the juxtaposition of these quotations suggests, judges have long held disparate views on the legitimacy and value of “public policy” considerations as a basis for legal decision making. The popular notion posits that Justice Holmes and legal realists carried the day, making public policy analysis an ordinary part of the adjudication process. The story, of course, is more complex than this legal version of Don Quixote. Many judges and lawyers, including Justice Holmes in other writings, continued to speak of adjudication in more formalist and positivist terms, with most laypersons in apparent agreement. Judge Burroughs' view of public policy …

Note, Maynard V. Cartwright: Channeling Arizona's Use Of The Heinous, Cruel Or Depraved Aggravating Circumstance To Impose The Death Penalty, Terrill Pollman

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“Death is qualitatively different from other punishments that can be imposed by the state.” Recognition of this disturbing conclusion led to the heightened scrutiny demonstrated in a series of United States Supreme Court rulings beginning with Furman v. Georgia, which set forth the constitutionally acceptable range of discretion that a judge or jury may use in imposing the death penalty. States have attempted to bring their statutes within the Furman v. Georgia range by articulating aggravating circumstances that warrant the imposition of the death penalty. One controversial circumstance that many states employ permits a capital sentence where the offense …

The Original Meaning Of The Ninth Amendment, Thomas B. Mcaffee

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This Article presents the case for the residual rights reading of the ninth amendment as against the affirmative rights interpretation. The author evaluates the merits of these opposing views to determine whether the proponents of the new orthodoxy have really made the case for discarding the received reading. This analysis of the recent literature also raises questions about the way in which constitutional scholarship is conducted. The author concludes that the original meaning of the ninth amendment lends critical support to the project of originalist jurisprudence in the individual rights area and undercuts modem claims linking the ninth amendment to …

Affirmative Action Doctrine And The Conflicting Messages Of Croson, Doug D. Scherer

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No abstract provided.

The Viability Of Citizens’ Suits Under The Clean Water Act After Gwaltney Of Smithfield V. Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Bevery Mcqueary Smith

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No abstract provided.

Section 301'S Preemption Of State Law Claims: A Model For Analysis, Rebecca White

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Congress, in section 301(a) of the Labor Management Relations Act, has provided a cause of action for breach of a collective bargaining agreement. This statute has long been interpreted as ousting state law claims for breach of contract when the contract involved is a collective bargaining agreement.

To what extent Congress, in enacting section 301, intended to foreclose other state law claims by the parties to or the individuals covered by a collective bargaining agreement is an issue that has recently gained prominence. The Supreme Court has decided four such cases unanimously in the last four years.

Such contemporary and …

Untangling The Market-Participant Exemption To The Dormant Commerce Clause, Dan T. Coenen

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This article focuses on an important vehicle through which the modern Court has moved to protect local prerogatives: the market-participant exemption to the dormant commerce clause. The core of the Court's dormant commerce clause jurisprudence is well-settled: "The commerce clause, by its own force, prohibits discrimination against interstate commerce, whatever its form or method...” Over the past two decades, however, the Court has lifted this prohibition when states act as "market participants" rather than as "market regulators." Invoking this distinction, the Court has shielded from commerce clause attack blatant favoritism of local interests when a state or municipality buys printing …

Untangling The Market-Participant Exemption To The Dormant Commerce Clause, Dan T. Coenen

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There is no theme more familiar to constitutional law than the clash between federal power and state autonomy. The history of that struggle reveals, by and large, a long losing battle by the states. Over the years, the Supreme Court has recognized far-reaching congressional powers, rebuffed efforts to rein them in through use of the tenth amendment, and saddled the states with every significant restraint imposed by the Bill of Rights. From time to time, however, the currents of constitutional doctrine run in favor of local control. In recent years, for example, the Court has stemmed the tide toward constitutionalizing …

Rhetoric And Reality In The Law Of Federal Courts: Professor Fallon's Faulty Premise, Michael L. Wells

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Richard Fallon's recent article, "The Ideologies of Federal Courts Law," [74 Va. L. Rev. 1141 (1988)] offers valuable insights into a bewildering body of Supreme Court doctrine. He effectively demonstrates the "substantial doctrinal instability" of this body of law, and also discerns a pattern amid the chaos. Fallon's treatment of the case law and the scholarship is fair-minded, meticulous, and incisive.

I disagree, however, with one aspect of Fallon's thesis. In my view, he falters when identifying sources of the discontinuity in the doctrine. In Part I of his article he argues that the decisions reflect "two sets of incompatible …

The Impact Of Substantive Interests On The Law Of Federal Courts, Michael L. Wells

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The thesis of this Article is that substantive factors exert a powerful and often unrecognized influence over the resolution of jurisdictional issues, and have done so throughout our history. The chief substantive factors at issue are the government's interest iin regulating behavior on the one hand, and the individual's interest in enforcing constitutional restraints upon government on the other. Part I of this Article examines the relationship between jurisdictional rules and substantive consequences, Part II describes the Court's conventional account of federal courts doctrine in terms of jurisdictional policy and institutional roles, and Part III shows that the reasons set …

Introduction (The Supreme Court & Local Government Law: The 1988-89 Term), Leon D. Lazer

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No abstract provided.

Section 1983, Martin A. Schwartz, Leon Lazer, George Pratt, Leon Friedman

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No abstract provided.

Terrorism, Law, And Our Constitutional Order, Christopher L. Blakesley

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We have all suffered moments of vicarious terror over the past few years as we watched news accounts of terrorist incidents, such as the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. There, some institution, government, or group used innocent children, women, and men as fodder for their “war.” Some have claimed that the pusillanimous carnage was in retaliation for the slaughter of equivalent innocents aboard the Iranian Air Bus, similarly destroyed by American forces during the summer of 1988. Others suggested that it was committed by those interested in thwarting prospects of peace in the Middle East.

Combatting …

State Taxation And The Supreme Court, Walter Hellerstein

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The Supreme Court's outpouring of significant state tax decisions in recent years has elicited little more than a yawn from most constitutional scholars. The nation's preeminent law reviews, which once were filled with articles examining the Court's state tax opinions, pay scant attention to them today. Leading constitutional law casebooks make only passing reference to state taxation. Indeed, the Court itself has expressed ennui over the prospect of adjudicating a seemingly endless stream of state tax controversies. The lack of academic interest in the Court's state tax jurisprudence may be attributable to several factors. Matters of greater cosmic significance -- …

Is "Internal Consistency" Foolish?: Reflections On An Emerging Commerce Clause Restraint On State Taxation, Walter Hellerstein

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Before 1983, the Supreme Court had never uttered the phrase "internal consistency" in a state tax opinion. Since 1983, however, the Court has invoked the principle of "internal consistency" on four separate occasions in adjudicating the validity of state taxes under the commerce clause. Indeed, by 1987, the Court could refer almost casually to the "internal consistency" criterion as "the test ... we have applied in other contexts." The Court's talk of "internal consistency" cannot be dismissed as mere rhetoric. Three of the four taxes that have been put to the "internal consistency" test have flunked it; cases approving taxes …

The Preiser Puzzle: Continued Frustrating Conflict Between The Civil Rights And Habeas Corpus Remedies For State Prisoners, Martin A. Schwartz

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No abstract provided.

Exclusive Federal Jurisdiction For Implied Rule 10b-5 Actions: The Emperor Has No Clothes, Margaret V. Sachs

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Courts have long assumed the existence of exclusive federal jurisdiction over private actions implied from section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and rule 10b-5. The result is not only to restrict forum choice for rule 10b-5 claimants but also to generate a host of questions concerning the extent of federal authority: whether rule 10b-5 actions are exempt from the claim and issue preclusive effects of state court decisions; whether state courts can hear defenses and state-created claims that involve rule 10b-5; and whether federal courts can stay rule 10b-5 actions in deference to state court litigation. In …

Means, Ends And Original Intent: A Response To Charles Cooper, Michael Wells

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Charles Cooper believes that the ninth amendment should be read at once more broadly and more narrowly than it is today. In his view, the intent of the Framers was to cabin the power of the federal government. By taking note in the ninth amendment of rights other than those enumerated in the first eight, they sought to ensure that the national government would not exercise powers beyond those listed in the Constitution. Since the aim of the ninth amendment was to keep the federal government one of limited power, it is inappropriate to apply the amendment to the states, …

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

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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 …

Terrorism And The Constitution, Christopher L. Blakesley

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How do terrorism and the Iran-Contra hearings relate to the Constitution? My thesis is that there is a tendency for the executive of this or any nation to eschew even constitutionally mandated avenues of problem solving considered to be cumbersome, inefficient, or inimical to the executive’s vision of the national interest in foreign affairs. There is also a tendency to consider one’s own conduct and the conduct of one’s allies and friends to be justified when it is directed at goals deemed by the executive branch to be good. Constitutional provisions based on the checks and balances and separation of …

Drugs And Small Arms: Can Law Stop The Traffic?, Christopher L. Blakesley

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Professor Blakesley presides over this panel discussion on laws combating the illegal importation of drugs and small arms, and their implications for international and domestic law.

The Illinois Bill Of Rights And Our Independent Legal Tradition: A Critique Of The Illinois Lockstep Doctrine, Thomas B. Mcaffee

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Illinois’ highest court continues to follow the rule that courts of this state are strictly bound by Supreme Court decisions construing provisions that are substantially identical to provisions found in the Illinois Constitution. Increasingly, however, this rule has been challenged by dissenting justices who contend that it is contrary to the state’s independent legal tradition and rests upon an accurate view of the relationship between federal and state courts and their respective constitutions. These justices contend that the court may give independent attention to the provisions of the Illinois Constitution and need not slavishly adhere to decisions of the Supreme …

Shelly V. Kraemer: Herald Of Social Progress And Of The Coming Debate Over The Limits Of Constitutional Change, Thomas B. Mcaffee

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The Supreme Court's decision in Shelley v. Kraemer, the Supreme Court held unconstitutional judicial enforcement of racially restrictive covenants. If Shelley marks an important point in the progress of American race relations, it may be even more significant as a symbol of the vexing search for the boundaries between purely private and state action and, more specifically, the reach of the protections of the Fourteenth Amendment in a changing world. In this article, the author argues that Shelley can be read as a watershed decision that in a single stroke (1) eliminated the independent significance of the Supreme Court's long-adopted …

The Past And Future Of Constitutional Torts: From Statutory Interpretation To Common Law Rules, Michael L. Wells

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The cause of action for damages to redress violations of constitutional rights is now firmly established in our law. As recently as 1960, such constitutional tort suits were rare and attracted little attention from scholars. Today, they are a major part of the work of the federal courts and the academic literature is constantly growing. This change can be partly attributed to the expansion of constitutional rights in the 1960s and 1970s, and partly to the 1961 case of Monroe v. Pape. In Monroe, the Supreme Court revived a long-neglected, ninety-year-old statute, 42 U.S.C. 1983, making it the …