Constitutional Law Commons^™

Stepping Through Grutter's Open Doors: What The University Of Michigan Affirmative Action Cases Mean For Race-Conscious Government Decisionmaking, Helen Norton

Publications

In Grutter, a majority of the Court for the first time identified an instrumental justification for race-based government decisionmaking as compelling - specifically, a public law school's interest in attaining a diverse student body. Grutter not only recognized the value of diversity in higher education, but left open the possibility that the Court might find similar justifications compelling as well.

The switch to instrumental justifications for affirmative action appears a strategic response to the Court's narrowing of the availability of remedial rationales. A number of thoughtful commentators, however, have reacted to this trend with concern and even dismay, questioning …

Unconstitutional Courses, Frederic M. Bloom

Publications

By now, we almost expect Congress to fail. Nearly every time the federal courts announce a controversial decision, Congress issues a call to rein in "runaway" federal judges. And nearly every time Congress makes a "jurisdiction-stripping" threat, it comes to nothing.

But if Congress's threats possess little fire, we have still been distracted by their smoke. This Article argues that Congress's noisy calls have obscured another potent threat to the "judicial Power": the Supreme Court itself. On occasion, this Article asserts, the Court reshapes and abuses the "judicial Power"--not through bold pronouncements or obvious doctrinal revisions, but through something more …

Is Morrison Dead? Assessing A Supreme Drug (Law) Overdose, Jonathan H. Adler

Faculty Publications

There was little doubt that the federal government would prevail in Gonzales v. Raich. What was, perhaps, unexpected was so expansive a repudiation of enforceable judicial limitations on federal power. In upholding the constitutionality of the Controlled Substances Act as applied to the non-commercial intrastate possession and consumption of marijuana for medical purposes as authorized under California law, the Supreme Court hollowed out the core of contemporary commerce clause jurisprudence. Insofar as United States v. Morrison had stood for the propositions that only intrastate economic activities could be aggregated for purposes of the "substantial effects" test, that attenuated connections between …

Jurisdictional Mismatch In Environmental Federalism, Jonathan H. Adler

Faculty Publications

Jurisdictional mismatch plagues contemporary environmental law and policy. The division of authority and responsibility for environmental protection between the federal and state governments lacks any cohesive rationale or justification. The federal government regulates in many areas where there is no clear analytical basis for federal involvement. At the same time, the federal government is relatively absent where a stronger federal presence could be justified. Conversely, states are precluded, discouraged or otherwise inhibited from adopting environmental protections where state efforts would be worthwhile. At the same time, state intervention seeps into areas where a dominant federal role would be more defensible. …

A Jurisprudence Of Doubt: Missouri V. Seibert, United States V. Patane, And The Supreme Court's Continued Confusion About The Constitutional Status Of Miranda, Johnathan L. Rogers

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Habeas Corpus: Expired Conviction, Expired Relief: Can The Writ Of Habeas Corpus Be Used To Test The Constitutionality Of A Deportation Based On An Expired Conviction?, Joshua D. Smith

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Groh V. Ramirez: Strengthening The Fourth Amendment Particularity Requirement, Weakening Qualified Immunity, C. Brandon Rash

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Two "Wrongs" Do/Can Make A Right: Remembering Mathematics, Physics, & Various Legal Analogies (Two Negatives Make A Positive; Are Remedies Wrong?) The Law Has Made Him Equal, But Man Has Not, John C. Duncan Jr

Journal Publications

This article demonstrates the incomplete logic and inconsistent legal reasoning used in the argument against affirmative action. The phrase "two wrongs don't make a right" is often heard in addressing various attempts to equalize, to balance, and to correct the acknowledged wrongs of slavery and segregation and their derivative effects. Yet, "two wrongs do/can make a right" has a positive connotation. This article reviews the history of societal and judicial wrongs against Blacks, as well as the evolution of the narrowing in legal reasoning concerning discrimination against minorities, including Blacks. Next, the legal reasoning behind legacy programs will be reviewed …

The Supreme Court, Democracy And Institutional Reform Litigation, Ross Sandler, David Schoenbrod

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Does A Computer's Choice Of Where To Reside Implicate The Dormant Commerce Clause?, Robert J. Firestone

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Public Availability Or Practical Obscurity: The Debate Over Public Access To Court Records On The Internet, Arminda Bradford Bepko

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Hiibel V. Sixth Judicial District Court:Can Police Arrest Suspects For Withholding Their Names?, John Famum

Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest

Suppose that someone calls the police and alerts them to a crime that has been committed. Using the information provided, the police stop you because you fit the description of the person reported. If the police ask your name, must you give it? The United States Supreme Court believes you must if the state you are in has passed a law requiring you to give your name. In a factual situation very similar to this, the United States Supreme Court held in Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court that the Nevada law requiring a person to provide his name in …

Judicial Selection: Ideology Versus Character, Lawrence B. Solum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Part I of Judicial Selection: Ideology versus Character sets the stage for an argument that character and not political ideology should be the primary factor in the selection of judges. Political ideology has played an important role in judicial selection, from John Adams's entrenchment of federalists as judges after the election of 1800 to the Roosevelt's selection of progressives, liberals, and New Dealers, the contemporary era, from the failed nominations of Fortas, Haynsworth, Carswell to the defeat of Robert Bork, the narrow confirmation of Clarence Thomas. But until recently, political ideology has played its role behind the scenes--mostly off the …

The Very Idea Of A First Amendment Right Against Compelled Subsidization, Gregory Klass

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

At present, it is difficult to discern what rules govern compelled subsidization and where the constitutional limits lie. The root cause of the current confusion is the Supreme Court's failure to provide a coherent account of the First Amendment harm of compelled subsidization. Part I of this Article describes the present state of the doctrine. It identifies a number of practical problems, especially the imprecisions in and conflicts between the Court's holdings that leave it unclear how lower courts should decide novel cases. Part II is a critical discussion of the two most common arguments for a First Amendment right …

Human Nature, The Laws Of Nature, And The Nature Of Environmental Law, Richard J. Lazarus

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The essay is divided into three parts. Part I considers the ways in which the need for environmental law derives from the tendency of human nature to cause adverse environmental consequences and the ways in which the laws of nature make it more difficult to prevent those consequences absent the imposition of external legal rules. Part II describes how our nation's lawmaking institutions are similarly challenged by the laws of nature. This includes a discussion of how the kinds of laws necessary to bridge the gap between human nature and the laws of nature are systematically difficult for our lawmaking …

Terrorist Speech And The Future Of Free Expression, Laura K. Donohue

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The crucial point is this: Both liberal, democratic states, and non-state terrorist organizations need free speech. Prominent scholars have written elegantly and at length on the role of this liberty for the former. While their arguments surface at times in the text, the author does not dwell on them. Instead, she wrestles with the question: Under what circumstances are the interests of the state secured and the opportunism of terrorist organizations avoided? Here, the experiences of the United States and United Kingdom prove instructive. On both sides of the Atlantic, where the state acts as sovereign, efforts to restrict persuasive …

Trumping Precedent With Original Meaning: Not As Radical As It Sounds, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Originalism was thought to be buried in the 1980s with critiques such as those by Paul Brest and Jeff Powell. Brest charged that originalism was unworkable, while Powell maintained that originalism was inconsistent with the original intentions of the Founders. Others raised the moral challenge of why we should be ruled by the "dead hand" of the past. Yet an originalist approach to interpretation has-like a phoenix from the ashes or Dracula from his grave, depending on your point of view-survived into the Twenty-first Century as an intellectual contender. Indeed, it has thrived like no other approach to interpretation.

Grading Justice Kennedy: A Reply To Professor Carpenter, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

I want to thank the editors of the Minnesota Law Review for soliciting this Reply to Professor Dale Carpenter's provocative analysis of my assessment of Justice Kennedy's opinion in Lawrence v. Texas. As it turns out, though we do disagree about Lawrence, Professor Carpenter and I have fewer disagreements than he thinks. To begin to see why, let us imagine that, like many other professors, he had used the facts and lower opinion in Lawrence as the basis for his final examination in his course on Constitutional Law. On the exam, he asked his students to write an opinion for …

Limiting Raich, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

On Monday, November 29th, 2004, at 10:30 a.m., I rose to argue the case of Gonzales v. Raich in the Supreme Court on behalf of Angel Raich and Diane Monson. On Monday, June 6th, 2005, at 10:00 a.m., the Court announced its decision. Even today it is painful to read the opinions in the case. I am saddened for my clients, and the thousands like them, whose suffering is alleviated by the use of cannabis for medical purposes, as recommended by their physicians and permitted by the laws of their states, but who are nevertheless considered criminals by the federal …

Why You Should Read My Book Anyhow: A Reply To Trevor Morrison, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Authors rarely have the opportunity to respond to their reviewers in the same issue in which the review is published, so I am grateful to the Cornell Law Review for inviting me to do so and to Trevor Morrison for graciously agreeing. I am also appreciative of the respectful tone that Professor Morrison employs in his comments on a book with which he so obviously disagrees. Coming from a critic, the positive qualities he attributes to Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty are especially significant. Yet he does disagree with me, which means that I disagree with him, …

Data Matching, Data Mining, And Due Process, Daniel J. Steinbock

Georgia Law Review

The Article concerns the governmental use of computerized data matching (comparison of records) and data mining (profiling),which increasingly are aimed at locating potential terrorists. The most striking aspect of virtually all anti-terrorist data matching and data mining decisions is the total absence of even the most rudimentary procedures for notice, hearing, or other opportunities for meaningful participation before, or even after, the deprivation is imposed. The Article evaluates under Fourth Amendment and due process standards a variety of law enforcement activities data matching or data mining might instigate. After reviewing these activities' potential effects on private, governmental, and accuracy interests, …

Video Games As A Protected Form Of Expression, Paul E. Salamanca

Georgia Law Review

Video games, like motion pictures, failed to qualify for First Amendment protection until well after they emerged as a medium. Today, a number of courts have held that such games constitute a form of expression and do not fall into any recognized category of unprotected speech. Nevertheless, a number of commentators have called for limited constitutional protection for video games, predicating their arguments on a variety of grounds, including the alleged deleterious effects of such games on children. This Article responds to these commentators and defends recent decisions extending protection to video games.

Federal Land Retention And The Constitution's Property Clause: The Original Understanding, Robert G. Natelson

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reviving The Coercion Test: A Proposal To Prevent Federal Conditional Spending That Leaves Children Behind, Coulter M. Bump

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

Judicial Modesty And The Jury, Suja A. Thomas

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

Preferring White Lives: The Racial Administration Of The Death Penalty In Maryland, Michael Millemann, Gary W. Christopher

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

Gates V. Cook: Are Courts Equipped To Manage Prisons?, Katherine T. Wainwright

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

Crawford V. Washington: The Admissibility Of Statements To Physicians And The Use Of Closed-Circuit Television In Cases Of Child Sexual Abuse, Jon Simon Stefanuca

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

Revisiting Robinson: The Eighth Amendment As Constitutional Support For Theories Of Criminal Responsibility, Jeffrey A. Rowe

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

Institutional Structure: A Delicate Balance, Paul Craig

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.