Constitutional Law Commons^™

Congress's Treaty-Implementing Power In Historical Practice, Jean Galbraith

William & Mary Law Review

Historical practice strongly influences constitutional interpretation in foreign relations law, including most questions relating to the treaty power. Yet it is strikingly absent from the present debate over whether Congress can pass legislation implementing U.S. treaties under the Necessary and Proper Clause. Drawing on previously unexplored sources, this Article considers the historical roots of Congress’s power to implement U.S. treaties between the Founding Era and the seminal case of Missouri v. Holland in 1920. It shows that time after time, members of Congress understood the Necessary and Proper Clause to provide a constitutional basis for a congressional power to implement …

Presidential Constitutionalism And Civil Rights, Joseph Landau

William & Mary Law Review

As the judicial and legislative branches have taken a more passive approach to civil rights enforcement, the President’s exercise of independent, extrajudicial constitutional judgment has become increasingly important. Modern U.S. presidents have advanced constitutional interpretations on matters of race, gender, HIV-status, self-incrimination, reproductive liberty, and gun rights, and President Obama has been especially active in promoting the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons—most famously by refusing to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Commentators have criticized the President’s refusal to defend DOMA from numerous perspectives but have not considered how the President’s DOMA policy fits within …

The Mechanics Of First Amendment Audience Analysis, David S. Han

William & Mary Law Review

When the government seeks to regulate speech based on its content, it generally assumes that listeners will process the speech in a manner that produces social harm. Because the chain of causation for such speech-based harm runs through the filter of an audience, courts must constantly make judgments regarding the audience’s reception of such speech. How will the speech be interpreted by the audience? To what extent will the speech cause the audience either to suffer direct emotional harm or to react physically to the speech in a harmful manner? Although this sort of inquiry—which I refer to as “audience …

Personal Curtilage: Fourth Amendment Security In Public, Andrew Guthrie Ferguson

William & Mary Law Review

Do citizens have any Fourth Amendment protection from senseenhancing surveillance technologies in public? This Article engages a timely question as new surveillance technologies have redefined expectations of privacy in public spaces. It proposes a new theory of Fourth Amendment security based on the ancient theory of curtilage protection for private property. Curtilage has long been understood as a legal fiction that expands the protection of the home beyond the formal structures of the house. Based on custom and law protecting against both nosy neighbors and the government, curtilage was defined by the actions the property owner took to signal a …

The Transformative Twelfth Amendment, Joshua D. Hawley

William & Mary Law Review

Scholars have long treated the Twelfth Amendment as a constitutional obscurity, a merely mechanical adjustment to the electoral college—and perhaps a less than successful one at that. This consensus is mistaken. In fact, the Twelfth Amendment accomplished one of the most consequential changes to the structure of our constitutional government yet. It fundamentally altered the nature of the Executive and the Executive’s relationship to the other branches of government. The Amendment changed the Executive into something it had not been before: a political office. The presidency designed at Philadelphia was intended to be neither a policymaking nor a representative institution, …

The Jury As A Political Institution: An Internal Perspective, Robert P. Burns

William & Mary Law Review

In this Essay, I will briefly describe some of the more obvious ways in which the jury has been considered a political institution. I will then discuss the senses in which we can understand the term “political” in the context of the American jury trial. I will describe the senses in which Hannah Arendt, perhaps the most important political philosopher of the twentieth century, tried to distinguish between “the political” and the “the legal” and the limitations of any such distinction. I will then turn to the heart of this Essay, a description of the ways in which the American …

Blackstone's Curse: The Fall Of The Criminal, Civil, And Grand Juries And The Rise Of The Executive, The Legislature, The Judiciary, And The States, Suja A. Thomas

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Juries As Regulators Of Last Resort, Stephan Landsman

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Embedded Experts On Real Juries: A Delicate Balance, Shari Seidman Diamond, Mary R. Rose, Beth Murphy

William & Mary Law Review

“Experts” appear in the modern American courtroom on the jury as well as in the witness box, posing a dilemma for the legal system by offering a potentially valuable resource and an uncontrolled source of influence. Courts give ambiguous guidance to jurors on how they should handle their expertise in the deliberation room. On the one hand, jurors are told that they should “decide what the facts are from the evidence presented here in court.” By direct implication, then, jurors should not use outside information to evaluate the evidence. Jurors are also told, however, that they should “consider all of …

Opening Remarks, Akhil Reed Amar

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Jury Ignorance And Political Ignorance, Ilya Somin

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Second-Order Diversity Revisited, Jeffrey Abramson

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Restoring The Civil Jury's Role In The Structure Of Our Government, Sheldon Whitehouse

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Political Decision Making By Informed Juries, William E. Nelson

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Introduction: The Civil Jury As A Political Institution, Jason M. Solomon, Paula Hannaford-Agor

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Diversity And The Civil Jury, Christina S. Carbone, Victoria C. Plaut

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fiduciary Principles And The Jury, Ethan J. Leib, Michael Serota, David L. Ponet

William & Mary Law Review

This Essay argues that because jurors exercise state authority with wide discretion over the legal and practical interests of other citizens, and because citizens repose trust and remain vulnerable to jury and juror decisions, juries and jurors share important similarities with traditional fiduciary actors such as doctors, lawyers, and corporate directors and boards. The paradigmatic fiduciary duties—those of loyalty and care—therefore provide useful benchmarks for evaluating and guiding jurors in their decisionmaking role. A sui generis public fiduciary duty of deliberative engagement also has applications in considering the obligations of jurors. This framework confirms much of what we know about …

The Non-Redelegation Doctrine, F. Andrew Hesisck, Carissa Byrne Hessick

William & Mary Law Review

In United States v. Booker, the Court remedied a constitutional defect in the federal sentencing scheme by rendering advisory the then-binding sentencing guidelines promulgated by the U.S. Sentencing Commission. One important but overlooked consequence of this decision is that it redelegated the power to set sentencing policy from the Sentencing Commission to federal judges. District courts now may sentence based on their own policy views instead of being bound by the policy determinations rendered by the Commission.

This Article argues that, when faced with a decision that implicates an unambiguous delegation, the courts should not redelegate unless authorized by Congress …

Statutory Interpretation As Constestatory Democracy, Glen Staszewski

William & Mary Law Review

This Article provides a novel solution to the countermajoritarian difficulty in statutory interpretation by applying recent insights from civic republican theory to the adjudication of statutory disputes in the modern regulatory state. From a republican perspective, freedom consists of the absence of the potential for arbitrary domination, and democracy should therefore include both electoral and contestatory dimensions. The Article argues that statutory interpretation in the modern regulatory state is best understood as a mechanism of contestatory democracy. It develops this conception of statutory interpretation by considering the distinct roles of legislatures, administrative agencies, and courts in making and implementing the …

The Federal Medical Loss Ratio: A Permissible Federal Regulation Or An Encroachment On State Power?, Meghan S. Stubblebine

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Federal Circuit As A Federal Court, Paul R. Gugliuzza

William & Mary Law Review

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has exclusive jurisdiction over patent appeals and, as a consequence, the last word on many legal issues important to innovation policy. This Article shows how the Federal Circuit augments its already significant power by impeding other government institutions from influencing the patent system. Specifically, the Federal Circuit has shaped patent-law doctrine, along with rules of jurisdiction, procedure, and administrative law, to preserve and expand the court's power in four interinstitutional relationships: the court's federalism relationship with state courts, its separation of powers relationship with the executive and legislative branches, its vertical …

Speech, Intent, And The Chilling Effect, Leslie Kendrick

William & Mary Law Review

Speaker’s intent requirements are a common but unremarked feature of First Amendment law. From the “actual malice” standard for defamation to the specific-intent requirement for incitement, many types of expression are protected or unprotected depending on the state of mind with which they are said. To the extent that courts and commentators have considered why speaker’s intent should determine First Amendment protection, they have relied upon the chilling effect. On this view, imposing strict liability for harmful speech, such as defamatory statements, would overdeter, or chill, valuable speech, such as true political information. Intent requirements are necessary prophylactically to provide …

Privacy And Consent Over Time: The Role Of Agreement In Fourth Amendment Analysis, Christine Jolls

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Knowledge Is Power: The Fundamental Right To Record Present Observations In Public, Travis Gunn

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

A General Theory Of Governance: Due Process And Lawmaking Power, Louise Weinberg

William & Mary Law Review

This Article proposes a general theory describing the nature and sources of law in American courts. Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins is rejected for this purpose. Better, more general theory is available, flowing from the Due Process Clauses. At its narrowest, the proposed theory is consonant with Erie but generalizes it, embracing federal as well as state law and statutory as well as decisional law in both state and federal courts. More broadly, beyond this unification of systemic thinking, the interest-analytic methodology characteristic of due process extends to a range of substantive constitutional problems. These include problems concerning both the …

Valid Rule Due Process Challenges: Bond V. United States And Erie's Constitutional Source, Kermit Roosevelt Iii

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Structural Constitutional Principle Of Republican Legitimacy, Mark D. Rosen

William & Mary Law Review

Democracy does not spontaneously occur by citizens gathering to choose laws. Instead, representative democracy takes place within an extensive legal framework that determines such matters as who gets to vote, how campaigns are conducted, and what conditions must be met for representatives to make valid law. Many of the “rules of the road” that operationalize republicanism have been subject to constitutional challenges in recent decades. For example, lawsuits have been brought against partisan gerrymandering—which is partly responsible for the fact that most congressional districts are no longer party competitive, but instead are either safely Republican or safely Democratic—and against onerous …

Spandrel Or Frankenstein's Monster? The Vices And Virtues Of Retrofitting In American Law, Michael C. Dorf

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Free Speech And Parity: A Theory Of Public Employee Rights, Randy J. Kozel

William & Mary Law Review

More than four decades have passed since the U.S. Supreme Court revolutionized the First Amendment rights of the public workforce. In the ensuing years the Court has embarked upon an ambitious quest to protect expressive liberties while facilitating orderly and efficient government. Yet it has never articulated an adequate theoretical framework to guide its jurisprudence.

This Article suggests a conceptual reorientation of the modern doctrine. The proposal flows naturally from the Court’s rejection of its former view that one who accepts a government job has no constitutional right to complain about its conditions. As a result of that rejection, the …

Unintentional Levels Of Force In §1983 Excessive Force Claims, Nathan R. Pittman

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.