Constitutional Law Commons^™

The Contradictions Of Mainstream Constitutional Theory, Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, Gary Peller

Faculty Scholarship

For the last four decades, some form of "process" theory has dominated conventional constitutional theory, on the bench and in the academy. The organizing, usually implicit, background assumption is that the exercise of governmental power – whether by legislatures or courts – is to be tested for normative legitimacy against a set of procedures. Writing as critics of the basic framework of process theory, Professors Kimberli Crenshaw and Gary Peller discuss the contributions and constraints of a proceduralist constitutional law discourse. In light of direct democracy initiatives claiming the power of legislation, and a substantively conservative judiciary defining the "law," …

Quo Vadis, Posadas?, William W. Van Alstyne

Faculty Scholarship

This examination looks at Virginia's ban on speech advertising motorcycles and revisits the question raised in the Posadas decision - may a state ban speech about a legal product the state could ban if it so desired. This article uses comparisons to the government employee speech cases to further illuminate the issue.

Skeptical Scrutiny Of Plenary Power: Judicial And Executive Branch Decision Making In Miller V Albright, Cornelia T. Pillard, T. Alexander Aleinikoff

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In 1996, just a few months after the United States successfully urged the Supreme Court in United States v. Virginia to invalidate as sex-discriminatory the male-only admissions policy at the Virginia Military Institute, the District of Columbia Circuit in Miller v. Albright upheld a federal law that used an express, sex-based distinction. Section 309(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) makes it harder for male U.S. citizens than for female citizens to convey their citizenship to their children if those children were born abroad out of wedlock and the other parent was not a U.S. citizen. Notwithstanding the United …

Toleration, Autonomy, And Governmental Promotion Of Good Lives: Beyond "Empty" Toleration To Toleration As Respect, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

This Article considers discontent with liberal toleration as being both too empty, because it fails to secure respect and appreciation among citizens who tolerate each other, and too robust, because it precludes government from engaging in a formative project of helping citizens to live good, self-governing lives. To meet these criticisms, the Article advances a model of toleration as respect, as distinguished from a model of empty toleration, drawing on three rationales for toleration: the anti-compulsion rationale, the jurisdictional rationale, and the diversity rationale. It defends toleration as respect against some common criticisms-emanating from feminist, civic republican, and liberal perfectionist …

Casebooks And Constitutional Competency, David E. Engdahl

Seattle University Law Review

Today's casebooks are far better adapted for fostering constitutional competency among lawyers than were their earlier counterparts. Part 1 of this Article traces the evolution of the constitutional law casebook from James Bradley Thayer's massive compilation of raw data in the Dean Langdell tradition, to the modern style of extensively edited cases with comments and questions to help students identify, anticipate, and assess potential avenues of analysis and development. Part 2 examines some basic concepts of federalism law still afforded too little attention by casebook editors. The classic analysis of enumerated powers (including Congress's power under the necessary and proper …

Politics, Doctrinal Coherence, And The Art Of Treatise Writing, Edward Rubin

Seattle University Law Review

Writing a treatise on constitutional law is both necessary and impossible. It is necessary because constitutional law, at least in the United States, is a common law subject. To be sure, it possesses a positive law basis, but that basis is very thin and the decisional law that has flowed from it is luxuriant and complex. Treatises organize and summarize bodies of decisional law, creating a coherent structure from the welter of incremental decisions, overlapping doctrines, and particularized holdings and dicta. Yet it is impossible to write a treatise about constitutional law. All treatises depend, for their effectiveness, upon a …

Cases Versus Theory, Richard B. Collins

Seattle University Law Review

Past reviewers have noted that the large modern market for American constitutional law casebooks was not served by much diversity in approaches to the subject. More recently there has been some divergence, and teachers have more choices. Cohen & Varat’s <em>Constitutional Law: Cases and Materials</em> has changed least in the intervening years and continues to serve its part of the market very well. Case editing is excellent, and selection is good. So if you liked the former standard, it remains a sound choice, and if you did not, you will have moved on. Notable differences among constitutional law casebooks fall …

Problem Solving And Storytelling In Constitutional Law Courses, William A. Kaplin

Seattle University Law Review

The author’s primary methods to teach Constitutional Law are problem solving and storytelling. He selected Farber, Eskridge, and Frickey’s Constitutional Law: Themes for the Constitution's Third Century and continues to use it in part because it includes both stories and problems. The author also selected this particular casebook because it places the individual rights materials before the materials on federal powers. He wanted to experiment with this reversed order and thus far has been satisfied – largely because the rights materials engage student interest better than the powers materials. They also set a more contemporary and practical tone for the …

Mastering Modern Constitutional Law, Thomas E. Baker

Seattle University Law Review

Constitutional Law is “tough law.” It is tough to master – tough to teach and tough to learn. There are several reasons for this thorough difficulty. First, it is not an exaggeration to say that the fate of the nation is often at stake in constitutional cases and controversies, and constitutional decisions have shaped our history as a people. Second, we Americans can lay claim to inventing the field, and we have been continuously preoccupied with reinventing it for more than two centuries of applied political philosophy. Third, the Supreme Court is one of the most fascinating institutions inside or …

The Quest To Find The Meaning Of The First Amendment, Mark C. Alexander

Seattle University Law Review

Professor William Van Alstyne has been a prolific and influential scholar, discussing First Amendment questions throughout his career. He has authored dozens of law review articles that are frequently cited in varying contexts, including at least twenty cites in U.S. Supreme Court opinions. He also has done what few others have done with his scholarly agenda by writing consistently and powerfully on the major aspects of the First Amendment – Free Speech, Press, and Religion – and their interrelation. He has added to his numerous contributions by providing a thorough and insightful casebook, First Amendment Cases and Materials, which …

Theme And Variations, Hugh D. Spitzer, Charles W. Johnson

Seattle University Law Review

State constitutions are worth the attention. They are, and have always been, different from the United States Constitution. Because state constitutions are typically easier to replace or amend than the United States Constitution, they reflect the political movements that have swept the country from time to time. As Professor Tarr has observed, provisions based in Jacksonian Democracy, Populism, and the Progressive movement have caused a "layering" in many state documents, which has affected both substance and interpretation." This makes the study of state constitutions interesting, and important too, because the themes might be similar from state to state, but the …

Constitutional Conflicts: The Perils And Rewards Of Pioneering In The Law School Classroom, Derrick Bell

Seattle University Law Review

The challenge in teaching Constitutional Law is to teach the doctrine while puncturing the myths. It is not an easy task. Americans treat the Constitution as a hallowed document created by men so divinely inspired that the document they produced in 1787 has been amended less than three dozen times. They might add that because of a number of factors, including those amendments, there are now only about 300 operative words in the Constitution, and that most litigation has centered about the meaning of a dozen or so terms: "due process," "cruel and unusual punishment," "commerce," "free exercise," "commander- in-chief," …

The Violence Against Women Act Of 1994: Connecting Gender-Motivated Violence To Interstate Commerce, Judi L. Lemos

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment explores whether the Supreme Court will grant certiorari in the Brzonkala v. Virginia Polytech and State University, and whether the Court will uphold the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) as a constitutional use of the commerce power. Part I explains the provisions of VAWA. Part II scrutinizes the development of Commerce Clause jurisprudence, which culminated in the Lopez decision. Part III analyzes the panel's Fourth Circuit ruling in Brzonkala. Part IV reviews the Supreme Court's handling of post-Lopez Commerce Clause cases and discusses whether the Court will grant certiorari to a challenge of VAWA's constitutionality. …

Survey Of Washington Search And Seizure Law: 1998 Update, Justice Charles W. Johnson

Seattle University Law Review

This Survey, as did the previous Surveys, summarizes the predominant treatment of search and seizure issues under the Fourth Amendment and under article I, section 7 of the Washington State Constitution to the extent that this state's provision is interpreted differently from the federal provision. The Survey focuses primarily on substantive search and seizure law in the criminal context; it omits discussion of many procedural issues.

The Future Of Physician-Assisted Suicide, Yale Kamisar

Articles

I believe that when the Supreme Court handed down its decisions in 1997 in Washington v. Glucksberg and Vacca v. Quill, proponents of physician-assisted suicide (PAS) suffered a much greater setback than many of them are able or willing to admit.

Fables Of The Deconstruction: The Practical Failures Of Gay And Lesbian Theory In The Realm Of Employment Discrimination, Theodore A. Schroeder

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

The Presumption Of Guilt And Compulsory Hiv Testing Of Accused Sex Offenders: A Case Study Of State Ex Rel. J.G., N.S., And J.T., Justin Amaechi Okezie

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Physician-Assisted Suicide: The Problems Presented By The Compelling, Heartwrenching Case, Yale Kamisar

Articles

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld New York and Washington state laws prohibiting the aiding of another to commit suicide,2 the spotlight will shift to the state courts, the state legislatures and state referenda. And once again proponents of physician-assisted suicide (PAS) will point to a heartwrenching case, perhaps the relatively rare case where a dying person is experiencing unavoidable pain (i.e., pain that not even the most skilled palliative care experts are able to mitigate), and ask: What would you want done to you if you were in this person's shoes?

Truth And Its Rivals In The Law Of Hearsay And Confrontation (Symposium: Truth And Its Rivals: Evidence Reform And The Goals Of Evidence Law)." , Richard D. Friedman

Articles

In this paper, I will look at the problem of hearsay and confrontation through the lens offered by this symposium's theme of "truth and its rivals." I will ask: To what extent does the law of hearsay and confrontation aspire to achieve the goal of truth in litigation? To what extent does it, or should it, seek to achieve other goals, or to satisfy other constraints on the litigation system? And, given the ends that it seeks to achieve, what should the shape of the law in this area be? My principal conclusions are as follows: In most settings, the …

Should The Religion Clauses Of The Constitution Be Amended?, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

Our subject, whether the religion clauses of the federal constitution should be amended, goes to the heart of relations between government and the practice of religion in our society. These relations deeply affect the health of both religion and government. When public officials persecute some religions and embrace others, the risks are political tyranny and rigid, unthinking, unfeeling, vapid religion. No one wishes that fate for us.

When most people ask whether the religion clauses should be amended, they are really asking whether judicial interpretations have become so misguided that Congress and state legislatures should intervene and invoke the cumbersome …

Free Speech And Good Character, Vincent A. Blasi

Faculty Scholarship

Early proponents of the freedom of speech such as John Milton, John Stuart Mill, and Louis Brandeis emphasized the role expressive liberty plays in strengthening the character of persons entrusted with such freedom. These theorists argued that character traits such as civic courage, independence of mind, and the capacity to learn from experience and adapt are nurtured by trusting citizens with dangerous ideas. Today there is much talk about good character in relation to free speech disputes-but all on the side of those who would regulate speakers. It is time to remember that a concern about character cuts both ways …

Use Of Force And Constitutionalism, Lori Fisler Damrosch

Faculty Scholarship

Are constitutional democracies more inclined than other kinds of regimes to observe the international law of the United Nations Charter on use of force? Are they relatively more vulnerable to unlawful behavior by others? How can constitutional democracies ensure fidelity to their underlying constitutional principles when they engage in multinational military operations for preservation or restoration of international peace? These and related questions at the intersection of the international and national legal orders merit careful attention as political structures around the world undergo post-Cold War transformation.

A New Age Of Federalism, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

Federalism has been in the news a lot over the past few years. The Republican-controlled Congress has enacted restrictions on the imposition of unfunded federal mandates on state governments and has passed significant welfare reform, one of the keys to which is greater state freedom in the implementation of welfare programs. The President, although often seen as resisting the more extreme Republican proposals for devolution, is himself something of an advocate for states’ rights. Clinton was a governor before he was President, and in that capacity he experienced a number of frustrations with federal red tape. Perhaps as a result, …

A Constitution Of Democratic Experimentalism, Michael C. Dorf, Charles F. Sabel

Faculty Scholarship

In this Article, Professors Dorf and Sabel identify a new form of government, democratic experimentalism, in which power is decentralized to enable citizens and other actors to utilize their local knowledge to fit solutions to their individual circumstances, but in which regional and national coordinating bodies require actors to share their knowledge with others facing similar problems. This information pooling, informed by the example of novel kinds of coordination within and among private firms, both increases the efficiency of public administration by encouraging mutual learning among its parts and heightens its accountability through participation of citizens in the decisions …

Toward A Principled Interpretation Of The Commerce Clause, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

Formalism is the jurisprudence of rules. Functionalism is the jurisprudence of balancing tests. If forced to choose between formalism and functionalism, I would probably come down on the side of formalism. I would not do so, however, because there is some meta-rule that prescribes formalism. Rather, it would be because formalism, on balance, has better consequences than functionalism – in other words, because there are good functionalist reasons to be a formalist.

Where I part company with many constitutional formalists is not so much over the desirability of rules as opposed to ad hoc balancingbut rather over the generality and …

Fencing Cyberspace: Drawing Borders In A Virtual World, Maureen A. O'Rourke

Faculty Scholarship

In the last few years, the Internet has increasingly become a source of information even for the historically computer illiterate. The growing popularity of the Internet has been driven in large part by the World Wide Web (web). The web is a system that facilitates use of the Internet by helping users sort through the great mass of information available on it. The web uses software that allows one document to link to and access another, and so on, despite the fact that the documents may reside on different machines in physically remote locations. The dispersion of data that is …