Constitutional Law Commons^™

Secularization, Religiosity, And The United States Constitution, Christopher L. Eisgruber

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This article draws upon leading works in the sociology of religion to assess what I shall call "the secularization claim" regarding the United States. It endeavors, in particular to clarify the possible meanings of "secularization,"and then to use these conceptual refinements to examine what sort of evidence exists that the United States has been secularized. Though it is not possible to falsify every version of the secularization claim, there is little evidence to support it, especially in its most prominent and politically relevant variations. The article then goes on to offer a preliminary analysis of to what extent, if any, …

Church And State In The United States: Competing Conceptions And Historic Changes, Douglas Laycock

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This article, originally written for a French audience, attempts to explain the American law of church and state from the ground up, assuming no background information. Basic legal provisions are explained. The relevant American history is periodized in three alignments of religious conflict: Protestant-Protestant, Protestant-Catholic, and religious-secular. Some frequently heard concepts are explained, distinguished, and related to each other-separation, voluntarism, equality, formal and substantive neutrality, liberty, toleration, and state action. Finally, the principal disputes over religious liberty are assessed in three broad areas-funding of religiously affiliated activities, religious speech (with and without government sponsorship), and regulation of religious practice. These …

Why Religion In Politics Does Not Violate La Conception Américaine De La Laïcité, Michael J. Perry

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

La conception Am6ricaine de la Laĭcité consists principally of a constitutional norm-the nonestablishment norm-and of the laW that the U.S. Supreme Court has developed in the course of enforcing the norm. The nonestablishment norm forbids government-both the national government and state government-to "establish" religion. American laYcit6 also consists of what we may call "the morality of liberal democracy. " My aim in this essay is to explain why religion in politics does not violate American laYcit6; more specifically, my aim is to explain why political reliance on religiously grounded morality violates neither the nonestablishment norm nor the morality of liberal …

Laïcité In The United States Or The Separation Of Church And State In Pluralist Society, Elisabeth Zoller

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

No abstract provided.

Reconsidering Reparations, Alfred L. Brophy

Indiana Law Journal

Eric Posner's and Adrian Vermeule's essay, Reparations for Slavery and Other Historic Injustices, seeks a framework for defining reparations and evaluating reparations claims. It explores a limited set of past reparations, as well as the connections between those asked to pay reparations and past wrongdoers, and the connections between those receiving reparations and those injured in the past. Posner and Vermeule use that framework to evaluate the morality of reparations and the legal problems that arise in implementing reparations proposals.

This Essay takes up the Posner-Vermeule analysis at several points. It challenges their limited definition of reparations and their limited …

Separation Of Church And State In The United States: Lost In Translation, Carol J. Greenhouse

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

In this article, the absence of an American equivalent to the French word laĭcité becomes an ethnographic opening to an exploration of the church-state divide in the U.S. context. Drawing on classic social theory, sociological accounts, and current events, I suggest that the constitutional separation of church and state-in addition to whatever it may mean in legal terms-also expresses a cultural proposition. Specifically, the separation of church and state posits a dual role for local communities as both the source of federal power (through representative government) and the foundation of its moral authority. The latter role can be sustained only …

Florida’S Past And Future Roles In Education Finance Reform Litigation, Scott R. Bauries

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In federalist parlance, the states often are called laboratories of democracy. Nowhere is this truer than in the field of education, and almost no subset of the education field lends itself to this label more than education finance. Since 1973, with very few notable exceptions, the entire development of the practice of education finance has proceeded through state-specific reforms. These reforms have occurred mostly through legislative policymaking, but the courts have played an important role in directing that policy development.

If one were to seek to observe one of these laboratories in action—to witness the interaction of the courts, the …

The Military Commissions Act, Coerced Confessions, And The Role Of The Courts, Peter Margulies

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Law—Commerce Clause—California Takes A Hit: The Supreme Court Upholds Congressional Authority Over The State-Approved Use Of Medicinal Marijuana. Gonzales V. Raich, 545 U.S. 1 (2005)., Rick Behring Jr.

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

If The Constable Blunders, Does The County Pay?: Liability Under Title 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Andrew Fulkerson

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Constitutional Rights Of Non-Custodial Parents, David D. Meyer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Roberts Court: Year 1, Lori A. Ringhand

Scholarly Works

This paper is an empirical analysis of the Supreme Court's recently-ended 2005 term, including an examination of the issues raised by, and the ideological direction of, the decisions issued by the Court. In addition to reviewing the work of the Court as a whole, the paper also separately examines the jurisprudence of new Justices Roberts and Alito. In doing so, it raises the possibility that these justices may have more in common with each other than with the Court's more established conservative members. The paper also demonstrates that the Court, pursuant to one of Justice Roberts' frequently stated goals, was …

Tom Delay: Popular Constitutionalist?, Neal Devins

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Due Process And Punitive Damages: The Error Of Federal Excessiveness Jurisprudence, A. Benjamin Spencer

Faculty Publications

The Supreme Court, in a line of several cases over the past decade, has established a rigorous federal constitutional excessiveness review for punitive damages awards based on the Due Process Clause. As a matter of substantive due process, says the Court, punitive awards must be evaluated by three "guideposts" set forth in BMW of North America v. Gore: the degree of reprehensibility of the defendant's conduct, the ratio between punitive and compensatory damages, and a comparison of the amount of punitive damages to any "civil or criminal penalties that could be imposed for comparable misconduct." Following up on this pronouncement …

No Direction Home: Will The Law Keep Pace With Human Tracking Technology To Protect Individual Privacy And Stop Geoslavery, William A. Herbert

Publications and Research

Increasingly, public and private employers are utilizing human tracking devices to monitor employee movement and conduct. Due to the propensity of American labor law to give greater weight toemployer property interests over most employee privacy expectations, there are currently few limitations on the use of human tracking in employment. The scope and nature of current legal principles regarding individual privacy are not sufficient to respond to the rapid development and use of human tracking technology. The academic use of the phrase “geoslavery” to describe the abusive use of such technology underscores its power. This article examines the use of such …

Presidential Signing Statements: Hearing Before The S. Comm. On The Judiciary, 109th Cong., June 27, 2006 (Statement Of Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz, Prof. Of Law, Geo. U. L. Center), Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz

Testimony Before Congress

No abstract provided.

Morar V. Idf Commander In Judaea And Samaria, Dorit Beinisch, Eliezer Rivlin, Salim Joubran

Translated Opinions

Facts: The petitioners, who represent five Arab villages in the territory of Judaea and Samaria, claimed that the respondents unlawfully deny Palestinian farmers in those villages access to their agricultural land. The petitioners also claimed that the respondents do not act to prevent attacks and harassment perpetrated by Israeli inhabitants of the territory of Judaea and Samaria against Palestinian farmers and do not enforce the law against the Israeli inhabitants. In reply, the respondents explained that the agricultural land was closed only when it was necessary to protect the Palestinian farmers from harassment by Israeli inhabitants. The respondents also notified …

Dead Man Waiting: Death Row Delays, The Eighth Amendment, And What Courts And Legislatures Can Do, Kate F. Mcmahon

ExpressO

Is there a point at which a person’s tenure on death row has lasted so long or has become so stressful that his sentence begins to violate the Constitution? This argument, dubbed the Lackey claim, has surfaced before in both the international and domestic arenas. Whereas over the last five years the Eighth Amendment has substantially chipped away at the constitutionally permissible parameters of capital punishment in the United States, the current legal landscape surrounding the death penalty may be poised for more upheaval.

My article, entitled “Dead Man Waiting: Death Row Delays, the Eighth Amendment, and What Courts and …

Bond Repudiation, Tax Codes, The Appropriations Process And Restitution Post-Eminent Domain Reform, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

This brief comment suggests where the anti-eminent domain movement might be heading next.

Law, Literature, And Empathy: Between Withholding And Reserving Judgment, Amnon Reichman

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Some Modest Uses Of Transnational Legal Perspectives In First-Year Constitutional Law, Neil S. Siegel

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Access To Audiences As A First Amendment Right: Its Relevance And Implications For Electronic Media Policy, Philip M. Napoli, Sheea T. Sybblis

ExpressO

When the issue of speakers’ rights of access arises in media regulation and policy contexts, the focus typically is on the concept of speakers’ rights of access “to the media,” or “to the press.” This right usually is premised on the audience’s need for access to diverse sources and content. In contrast, in many non-mediated contexts, the concept of speakers’ rights of access frequently is defined in terms of the speaker’s own First Amendment right of access to audiences. This paper explores the important distinctions between these differing interpretations of a speaker’s access rights and argues that the concept of …

Statutes Of Repose And The Equal Protection Clause Of The 14th Amendment Of The U.S. Constitution, Garris G. Ference

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Dobrin V. Israel Prison Service, Ayala Procaccia, Esther Hayut, Salim Joubran

Translated Opinions

Facts: The second respondent (Amir) was convicted of the murder of the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and was sentenced to life imprisonment. While in prison, he married the third respondent. When the first respondent refused, on security grounds, to allow Amir conjugal visits with his wife, Amir applied to the first respondent to be allowed to provide his wife with a sperm sample for the purposes of artificial insemination. The first respondent granted his request.

The petitioners, two members of the Knesset, consequently filed the petition, arguing that the first respondent did not have any authority in statute to …

Mixed Messages: The Supreme Court’S Conflicting Decisions On Juries In Death Penalty Cases, Ken Miller, David Niven

ExpressO

The right to a jury determination of a capital defendant's fate has expanded recently. The era of judges making factual determinations then determining whether to apply a death sentence or judges having the power to overrule a jury's life sentence to impose death is over. The expanded right to access a jury and have it hold determinative power over a defendant's life has not, however, been accompanied by commensurate attention to the instructions that guide those jurors through the applicable law toward their verdict. Nor have adequate procedures been designed to produce a truly representative jury panel. In brief, the …

Squaring The Circle: Democratizing Judicial Review And The Counter-Constitutional Difficulty, Miguel Schor

ExpressO

The Article argues that the polarization in the appointments process for the United States Supreme Court creates a problem that I call the counter-constitutional difficulty. A constitution is designed to put certain decisions off limits to the workings of ordinary politics. Laws can be made and changed by majoritarian mechanisms whereas a constitution can be made and changed only by supermajoritarian mechanisms. The United States Constitution, however, has an Achilles heel. The easiest way to amend the Constitution is by changing the membership of the Supreme Court given the rigors of Article V. A number of decisions by the Court …

Line-Item Veto: Constitutional Issues: Hearing Before The H. Comm. On The Budget, 109th Cong., June 8, 2006 (Statement Of Viet D. Dinh, Prof. Of Law, Geo. U. L. Center), Viet D. Dinh

Testimony Before Congress

No abstract provided.

A Modern Disaster: Agricultural Land, Urban Growth, And The Need For A Federally Organized Comprehensive Land Use Planning Model, Jess M. Krannich

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Creation Of The Media: A Review And Introspective, Shannon M. Heim

Federal Communications Law Journal

A review of Paul Starr's Creation of the Media, Basic Books 2004. This review discusses the historical treatment that Starr presents in his narrative of modern communications, particularly focusing on the "constitutive moments" in the growth of the media.

Model Continuity Of Congress Statute, Seth Barrett Tillman

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] "Although, the reasoning of Chadha arguably extends to actions taken pursuant to this Model Statute, the facts of any litigation arising from this Model Statute are substantially different from the facts of Chadha. Unlike Chadha, all orders, resolutions, and votes made pursuant to this Model Statute are presented. Any litigation arising under this Model Statute will permit lower courts to take a fresh look at Chadha’s bicameralism rationale apart from the presentment issues, which are not at play under the terms of this statute. "