Constitutional Law Commons^™

Getting Beyond Formalism In Constitutional Law: Constitutional Theory Matters, Erwin Chemerinsky

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Replies To Professor Chemerinsky, David W. Levy, Harry F. Tepker Jr., Arthur G. Lefrancois, Kevin W. Saunders, Michael A. Scaperlanda, Katheleen R. Guzman, Lindsay G. Robertson

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Further Thoughts, Erwin Chemerinsky

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Section 1983: Agent Of Peace Or Vehicle Of Violence Against Children?, Susan H. Bitensky

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Law: United States V. Viefhaus And The Demise Of The Libertarian Philosophy In Free Speech Jurisprudence, Stephanie D. Wade

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

What Is It Good For? War Power, Judicial Review, And Constitutional Deliberation, J. Richard Broughton

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Law: Establishment Clause V. Free Expression: Adler V. Duval County School Board, Ron Shinn

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Law: United States V. Morrison: The Gender Motivated Violence Act Takes A Beating By The Supreme Court's New Commerce Clause Jurisprudence, Jodi Fowler Jayne

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Presidential Election Case: Remembering Safe Harbor Day, Gary C. Leedes

University of Richmond Law Review

The 2000 presidential election transported the nation down a long and winding road without a map and headed in an uncertain direction. While it might be an exaggeration to say that the system of constitutional law was self-destructing, it is undoubtedly true that the events surrounding the election were spinning out of control, and that irreparable harm to the electoral process and thereby the nation was imminent.

Wielding The Ax Of Neutrality: The Constitutional Status Of Charitable Choice In The Wake Of Mitchell V. Helms, David J. Freedman

University of Richmond Law Review

During the past decade, the Supreme Court loosened restraints that it had previously imposed upon government aid to religious institutions. In 1996, Congress and the President seized upon this phenomenon and implemented a controversial provision in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996-also known as the Welfare Reform Act of 1996. Included among the various revolutionary provisions of this legislation is something known as Charitable Choice. This program authorizes states to contract with religious institutions to provide social welfare services on behalf ofthe states.

The Privatization Of The Civil Commitment Process And The State Action Doctrine: Have The Mentally Ill Been Systematically Stripped Of Their Fourteenth Amendment Rights?, William Brooks

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court Rules In Favor Of Religious Club’S Right To Meet On Public School Premises: Is This “Good News” For First Amendment Rights?, Thomas A. Schweitzer

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

United States Supreme Court: 2001 Term, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court, The Florida Vote, And Equal Protection, Larry Alexander

San Diego Law Review

The Supreme Court majority in Bush v. Gore1 has taken a lot of flak for its ruling that the Florida count of undervotes violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Commentators, and not only those on the left, have labeled the Court’s reasoning as without basis in precedent, weak in its logic, and breathtakingly sweeping in its implications.2 For those inclined to suspect the justices of naked partisanship, the equal protection argument did nothing to allay those suspicions.

It is argued in this Essay, however, that the case for an equal protection violation is supported both by precedent …

Making Sense Of The Eleventh Amendment: International Law And State Sovereignty, Thomas H. Lee

Faculty Scholarship

The Judicial Power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State. - Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America The thesis of this article is that the Eleventh Amendment, ratified in 1798, represented the incorporation into the American domestic constitutional law of federalism (specifically, the doctrine of state sovereign immunity) the late eighteenth-century international law rule that only states have rights against other states …

Free Exercise Rights Of Capital Jurors, Brian Galle

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Supreme Court has said that the Constitution permits trial judges to exclude from the pool of potential capital trial jurors any persons whose views on the death penalty would likely substantially impair their ability to reach an impartial verdict. This Note argues that the Court's analysis to date is incomplete, in that it omits close evaluation of potential conflicts between such exclusions and the Free Exercise Clause. The Note argues further that a court should apply strict scrutiny to any state action, such as exclusion for cause, that burdens the use of religious beliefs in the mental processes of …

Constitution-Talk And Justice-Talk, Mark V. Tushnet

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Inside the courts, one might distinguish between constitution-talk and justice-talk on the ground that the former, but not the latter, results in enforceable legal judgments. So, inside the courts, we might interpret the Constitution with justice in mind, but what we do is produce legally enforceable judgments. Outside the courts, however, it might seem that all we do is interpret and talk. It is not immediately obvious that cloaking justice-talk as constitution-talk outside the courts has much rhetorical force. As I will argue, the fact that invoking the Constitution outside the courts, in the course of discussing justice, does have …

Rights, Capabilities, And The Good Society, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In Part I this essay explores and then criticizes the two major arguments behind the conventional wisdom that rights undermine efforts to secure a state role in ensuring the material preconditions for a good society, and therefore, the material preconditions for the development of those human capabilities essential to a fully human life. I conclude in this part that this understanding of rights is mistaken. In Part II, I urge that the pragmatic argument put forward by rights critics and some welfare advocates for forgoing rights-talk and rights-rhetoric also fails: there are very real costs, both in theory and in …

Defending Congress, Seth P. Waxman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Every year the Solicitor General must decide, one case at a time, what the interests of the United States are with respect to several thousand different cases in the federal and state courts. Should the United States appeal, or seek rehearing, or petition for certiorari, or file a brief amicus curiae, or intervene? What issues should the United States raise, and what arguments should it make? How should the law be interpreted or the doctrine applied? The goal is for the United States to speak with one voice - a voice that reflects the interests of all three branches of …

Open Access And The First Amendment: A Critique Of Comcast Cablevision Of Broward County, Inc. V. Broward County, David Wolitz

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

To what extent does the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment bar the adoption of “open access” regulations? Open access (or “net neutrality”) refers to a policy that would require broadband Internet providers, such as cable and phone companies, to allow competitive Internet Service Providers (ISPs) onto their broadband lines at nondiscriminatory rates. A federal district court in Florida recently held Broward County’s open access ordinance unconstitutional on the grounds that it would force speech – in the form of Internet content – on to the local cable company. If the district court’s analysis is correct, then open access …

Reconstructing The Rule Of Law, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The action taken in Bush v. Gore by the five conservative Justices on the United States Supreme Court, Bugliosi argued, was not just wrong as a matter of law, but criminal: It was a malem in se, fully intended, premeditated theft of a national election for the Presidency of the United States. Now, as Balkan and Levinson would argue, this seventh, "prosecutorial" response -- that the Court's action was not just wrong but criminal -- is also not available to a devotee of either radical or moderate indeterminacy. Even assuming both criminal intent and severe harm-a wrongful, specific intent to …

The Free Exercise Clause: How Redundant, And Why?, Daniel O. Conkle

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article responds to Professor Mark Tushnet's article, "The Redundant Free Exercise Clause?" Although its analysis and specific conclusions are distinctive, the article reaches a general conclusion similar to Tushnet's - namely, that the contemporary Free Exercise Clause is largely redundant, in that it provides little protection that is not afforded independently by other First Amendment doctrines. The article first contends that the core principle of the contemporary Free Exercise Clause, the nondiscrimination requirement of Employment Division v. Smith, might be subsumed, perhaps entirely, within the free speech principle that disfavors content discrimination. To that extent, the Free Exercise Clause …

Lochner, Liquor, And Longshoremen: A Puzzle In Progressive Era Federalism, Barry Cushman

Journal Articles

In 1890, the Supreme Court shocked and thrilled the civilized world with the announcement that dry states could not prohibit the sale of liquor shipped in from outside the state. So long as the out-of-state goods remained in their "original packages," the Court held they retained their character as interstate commerce subject only to federal regulation. The consequences for the cause of local sobriety were, predictably, catastrophic. The proliferation in temperance territory of "original package saloons," at which one could purchase liquor free from the superintendence of local liquor authorities, was appalling to dry eyes. Members of Congress immediately proposed …

The Ideology Of Judging And The First Amendment In Judicial Election Campaigns, W. Bradley Wendel

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Stopping A Moving Target, Sherry F. Colb

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Public Funding For Religious Schools: Difficulties And Dangers In A Pluralistic Society, Laura S. Underkuffler

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

"Project Exile" And The Allocation Of Federal Law Enforcement Authority, Daniel Richman

Faculty Scholarship

With each report of violent crime statistics (whether rising or falling) or of the latest firearms outrage, we hear the antiphony of the gun control debate. Advocates of increased federal regulation decry the inadequacies of a regime that permits relatively free access to firearms and argue that the availability of guns is itself a spur to more deadly violence. Advocates of minimal regulation, for their part, condemn measures that, they say, will primarily penalize law-abiding citizens, and instead call for more vigorous enforcement of existing laws, targeting "criminals," not their weapons. When the antiphony intrudes on funerals, the effect can …

State And Federal Constitutional Law Developments, Rosalie Levinson

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Ten Years Of Basic Law Amendments: Developing A Constitutional Model Of German Unification, Mathew W. Pile

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

On October 3, 1990, West and East Germany officially united. Although several unification methods were possible, the unification occurred by East Germany acceding to the West German Constitution--the Basic Law--through a series of treaties. This "treaty route" to unification necessarily required amendments to the Basic Law.

The primary unification instrument, the Treaty on the Establishment of German Unity, detailed the Basic Law amendments that were immediately essential to effectuating unification. The treaty, however, also contemplated additional Basic Law amendments arising from the consequences of unification. In fact, in the ten years following German unification, the German legislature passed six Basic …

Wipe Out In Aclu V. Johnson: Can Any Regulation Of Surfing The Net Withstand Constitutional Scrutiny, Jennifer Lamaina

Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal (1994 - )

No abstract provided.