Constitutional Law Commons^™

Signed, Sealed, Delivered, And ?: The Correlation Between Policy Areas, Signing, And Legal Ratification Of Organization Of American States’ Treaties By Member States., Alexandra R. Harrington

ExpressO

Abstract: Signed, Sealed, Delivered, and ?: The Correlation Between Policy areas, Signing, and Legal Ratification of Organization of American States’ Treaties by Member States.

Like any organization, the Organization of American States’ ability to affect lasting policy changes through treaties is only as strong as the will of the federal legislative bodies of its member states. No matter how lofty or well-meaning the OAS’s goals in any area or matter addressed by a treaty, or the number of OAS member states which sign onto a treaty reflecting these goals, under the OAS Charter, and the federal constitutions of most member …

Book Review, Brian Leiter

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Restoring The Right Constitution?, Eduardo M. Peñalver

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

After years of relative neglect, the past few decades have witnessed a dramatic renewal of interest in the natural law tradition within philosophical circles. This natural law renaissance, however, has yet to bear much fruit within American constitutional discourse, especially among commentators on the left. In light of its low profile within contemporary constitutional debates, an effort to formulate a natural law constitutionalism is almost by definition an event worthy of sustained attention. In "Restoring the Lost Constitution," Randy Barnett draws heavily upon a natural law theory of constitutional legitimacy to argue in favor of a radically libertarian reading of …

Adalah Legal Center For Arab Minority Rights In Israel V. Minister Of Defense, Aharon Barak, Dorit Beinisch, Ayala Procaccia, Edmond E. Levy, Miriam Naor, Salim Joubran, Esther Hayut, David Cheshin, Asher Grunis

Translated Opinions

Facts: In 2005, an amendment was made to the law of torts with regard to the liability of the State of Israel arising from the activities of its security forces in the territories of Judaea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip. Section 5C of the Torts (State Liability) Law, 5712-1952, which was introduced by the amendment, increased the scope of the state’s exemption from liability, which was previously limited to combatant activities, to any activity (subject to some exceptions) taking place in a ‘conflict zone,’ and the Minister of Defence was authorized to determine which areas would constitute ‘conflict zones.’ He …

Majority Camp V. Israel Police, Aharon Barak, Miriam Naor, Elyakim Rubinstein

Translated Opinions

Facts: The petitioners applied to the first respondent to hold a demonstration in Tel-Aviv supporting the government’s disengagement plan. The first respondent imposed various conditions upon the holding of the demonstration, including demands that the petitioners should arrange to have security, first aid and fire extinguishing services present at the demonstration. The second and third respondents demanded payment from the petitioners for providing the first aid and fire extinguishing services. The petitioners challenged the legality of the demands made by the first, second and third respondents, arguing, inter, alia, that the fourth respondent should be liable to pay the …

Rosenbaum V. Israel Prison Service Commissioner, Aharon Barak, Dorit Beinisch, Eliezer Rivlin, Ayala Procaccia, Edmond E. Levy, Asher Grunis, Esther Hayut

Translated Opinions

Facts: The respondents introduced a compulsory retirement age of 55 for all of their employees. The petitioners challenged this policy on the grounds that it discriminated between them and civil servants in other parts of the civil service, where the customary retirement age was 65.

Held: Although the law gave the respondents the possibility of retiring its employees at the age of 55, the introduction of a compulsory retirement policy at the lowest age allowed by the law resulted in discrimination in relation to the other parts of the civil service. This consideration had not been taken into account by …

“Pick”Ering The Speech Rights Of Public School Teachers: Arguing For A Movement By Courts Toward The Hazelwood-Tinker Standard Under The First Amendment, Heather P. Bennett

ExpressO

This Note addresses freedom of speech issues facing the nation's public schools, concentrating on the recent decision by the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Lee v. York County School Division, for the final paper in my First Amendment course. Ultimately, this Note analyzes the court’s decision in this case and both standards set forth by the Supreme Court in dealing with free speech rights in the field of public education, which are currently creating a circuit split between the Courts of Appeals. The Note argues that the Hazelwood-Tinker standard applied to student speech should be the general …

Child Statements In A Post-Crawford World: What The United States Supreme Court Failed To Consider With Regard To Child Victims And Witnesses, Allie Phillips

ExpressO

With the issuance of Crawford v. Washington, 514 U.S. 36 (2004), by the United States Supreme Court on March 8, 2004, wide spread confusion and concern swept through the nation’s prosecutorial community. The new rule announced in Crawford created too many questions and provided few answers by the Court. In particular, anxiety arose from the child protection community in regard to one primary issue: Are forensic interviews of child victims and witnesses, and other statements made by children, considered “testimonial statements” according to Crawford, thus requiring the child to take the witness stand? The Court further confused the new rule …

The Constitutionality Of The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Of 2003, Katherine R. Atkinson

ExpressO

Evaluates the constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, beginning with a general discussion of relevant abortion procedures and jurisprudence. The Article then analyzes the Act using the void for vagueness doctrine, the undue burden test, and the Court's analysis in Stenberg, ultimately concluding the Act is unconstitutionl.

The Constitution's Political Deficit, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Professor Levinson has wisely called for an extended conversation regarding the possibility and desirability of a new Constitutional Convention, which might be called so as to correct some of the more glaring failings of our current governing document. Chief among those, in his view, are a handful of doctrines that belie our commitment to democratic self-government, such as the two-senators-per-state makeup of the United States Senate and the Electoral College. Perhaps these provisions once had some rhyme or reason to them, but, as Levinson suggests, it is not at all clear that they do now. They assure that our legislative …

Crumbs From The Master's Table: The Supreme Court, Pro Se Defendants And The Federal Guilty Plea Process, Julian A. Cook

Scholarly Works

This Article will commence with a review of the rather significant evolution of Rule 11, including a review of several pertinent Supreme Court decisions that have helped shape its current structure. Thereafter, the predominant judicial methodology for conducting Rule 11 hearings will be discussed. Specifically, this Article will take a brief but critical look at, inter alia, the examination techniques employed by the judiciary when conducting Rule 11 hearings, and conclude that the process typically employed inadequately assesses whether a defendant's guilty plea was entered into knowingly and voluntarily. Next, this Article will discuss two very recent Supreme Court decisions--United …

Privilege Through Prayer: Examining Bible-Based Prison Rehabilitation Programs Under The Establishment Clause, Nathaniel J. Odle

ExpressO

In early June of 2006, an Iowa federal judge found a publicly-funded prison ministry to be in violation of the Establishment Clause and ordered it stopped. The program in question, the InnerChange Freedom Initiative, conceived and maintained by Prison Fellowship Ministries, utilized an overtly Christian model to rehabilitate inmates through spiritual and moral regeneration. In the eyes of the court, the failure of the state of Iowa to provide a reasonable secular alternative had the primary effect of advancing religion and fostered excessive governmental entanglement under a traditional Lemon analysis. Equally important in the court’s decision was the lack of …

The United States Supreme Court And The Second Amendment, Stefan B. Tahmassebi

ExpressO

In the media and in the legislative arena there has been much debate about the holdings of the United States Supreme Court in regard to the Second Amendment. Some gun control proponents assert that the Supreme Court has held that the Second Amendment is a "collective right;" a right of the "collective" and not of any individual. Are they correct? Other gun control proponents assert that the Second Amendment has not been incorporated and is not effective against state government action. Firearms rights proponents assert that the Supreme Court has held that the Second Amendment protects the right of the …

Sex Offenders In The Community: Their Public Persona And The Media's Corresponding Privilege To Report, Douglas Griswold

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

The Contradiction Between Equal Protection's Meaning And Its Legal Substance: How Deliberate Indifference Can Cure It, Derek W. Black

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Article highlights the inherent ambiguities of racial antidiscrimination's core legal language: "equal protection under the law" and "discrimination based on race." It then analyzes how and why the Court has never answered fundamental questions regarding the meaning of these terms. Thus, this Article answers these fundamental questions itself by exploring the original intent behind the Equal Protection Clause. Against this backdrop, this Article reveals how the Court's standard for assessing discrimination claims, the intent doctrine, assumes a meaning for equal protection that is inconsistent with its original meaning. Rather than reflecting equal protection's meaning, the standard lacks any basis …

Conflicting Commerce Clauses: How Raich And American Trucking Dishonor Their Doctrines, John W. Moorman

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

You Said What? The Perils Of Content-Based Regulation Of Public Broadcast Underwriting Acknowledgments, Andrew D. Cotlar

Federal Communications Law Journal

Public broadcast stations in the United States are forbidden to air promotional announcements in exchange for payment from commercial entities. However, these stations must acknowledge any financial contribution from donors that support particular programs without promoting the goods and services offered by those donors. While the FCC has attempted to maintain the conceptual distinction between promotional and nonpromotional information, it has struggled to apply this distinction within the context of an evolution in advertising practice.

As a result, many noncommercial educational licensees find it difficult to apply the FCC's rules. A careful analysis of how the FCC underwriting determinations yields …

Broadcast Technology As Diversity Opportunity: Exchanging Market Power For Multiplexed Signal Set- Asides, Michael M. Epstein

Federal Communications Law Journal

This Article proposes an access system based on a theory of quid pro quo: a bargained.for-exchange in which broadcasters would trade media access for market power. Under this quid pro quo approach, the FCC would administer a scaled metric whereby the greater a media company's audience reach, the more access that company must provide to citizens with diverse and local content. Since digital technology permits broadcasters to "multiplex" their television signal bandwidth into multiple signal programming streams, an opportunity exists for the government to require public access to one or more of these programming streams in return for relaxing caps …

Down To The Wire: Assessing The Constitutionality Of The National Security Agency's Warrantless Wiretapping Program: Exit The Rule Of Law, Fletcher N. Baldwin Jr., Robert B. Shaw

UF Law Faculty Publications

The article discusses the constitutionality of warrantless wiretapping surveillance by the National Security Agency (NSA) on U.S. citizens. The wiretapping program existed weeks after the September 11, 2001 attacks, on the justification that Congress authorized the president to wiretap U.S. citizens without a warrant, and that the president had inherent authority as commander-in-chief. But it is argued that Congress did not expressly authorize the president to conduct warrantless wiretapping and that he does not have such inherent authority.

We intend this Article to be a commentary on the constitutionality of the NSA wiretapping program solely as it relates to the …

Reaffirming The Right To Pretrial Assistance: The Surprising Little Case Of Fellers V. United States, James K. Tomkovicz

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Kelo's Moral Failure, Laura S. Underkuffler

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Towards A Common Law Originalism, Bernadette Meyler

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Originalists' emphasis upon William Blackstone's "Commentaries on the Laws of England" tends to suggest that the common law of the Founding era consisted in a set of determinate rules that can be mined for the purposes of constitutional interpretation. This Article argues instead that disparate strands of the common law, some emanating from the colonies and others from England, some more archaic and others more innovative, co-existed at the time of the Founding. Furthermore, jurists and politicians of the Founding generation were not unaware that the common law constituted a disunified field; indeed, the jurisprudence of the common law suggested …

Dumbo's Feather: An Examination And Critque Of The Supreme Court's Use, Misuse, And Abuse Of Tradition In Protecting Fundamental Rights, Ronald J. Krotoszynski Jr.

William & Mary Law Review

The Justices of the Supreme Court have a great deal in common with the gifted pachyderm from the Walt Disney animated classic feature Dumbo. Like Dumbo's "magic" feather that purportedly enabled him to exercise his natural ability to fly, the tradition limitation on the Court's jurisprudence on unenumerated fundamental constitutional rights provides a more-apparent-than real constraint on the Court's almost unlimited ability to nullify legislative and executive action. In all too many substantive due process cases, reason seems to follow a predetermined result, rather than the result in the case following from the applicable governing principles. In this Article, Professor …

Party On: The Right To Voluntary Blanket Primaries, Margaret P. Aisenbrey

Michigan Law Review

Political parties have unique associational rights. In party primaries, party members associate to further their common political beliefs, and more importantly, to nominate candidates. These candidate are the "standard bearer[s]" for the political party-the people who "best represent[ ] the party's ideologies and preferences." The primary represents a "crucial juncture at which the appeal to common principles may be translated into concerted action, and hence to political power in the community." Because the primary is such a critical moment for the political party, the party's asso-ciational rights are most important at this time.

How To Survive A Terrorist Attack: The Constitution's Majority Quorum Requirement And The Continuity Of Congress, John Bryan Williams

William & Mary Law Review

Since their realization that United Airlines Flight 93 was headed toward the U.S. Capitol on the morning of September 11, 2001, legislators and policymakers have been debating how the legislative branch would continue functioning in the aftermath of a terrorist attack that killed or incapacitated large numbers of sehators or representatives. This Article reviews the current House and Senate "Continuity of Congress"plans, and argues they are both practically and constitutionally inadequate. Focusing particularly on the Constitution's majority quorum requirement in Article I, Section Five, Clause One, this Article argues that a House or Senate operating in accordance with the current …

Bormann Revisited: Using The Penn Central Test To Determine The Constitutionality Of Right-To-Farm Statutes, Jeffiy R. Gittins

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Which Constitution? Who Decides?: The Problem Of Judicial Supremacy And The Interbranch Solution, Robert Justin Lipkin

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

States As Innovation System Laboratories: California, Patents, And Stem Cell Technology, Michael S. Mireles Jr.

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Exactions: Exploring Exactly When Nollan And Dolan Should Be Triggered, Jane C. Needleman

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Strengthening The Criminal Defendant's Right To Counsel, Anne Bowen Poulin

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.