Constitutional Law Commons^™

December 31, 2011: The Conflict Between The Catholic Church And Government Regulations, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “The Conflict Between the Catholic Church and Government Regulations“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Step Down, Justice Melvin, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals

Justice’S Suspension Is Dubious, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals

December 28, 2011: Enlisting The Help Of Sam Harris, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Enlisting the Help of Sam Harris“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

December 24, 2011: The Waning Of Christian Culture, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “The Waning of Christian Culture“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Pleading For A Bargain: The Upcoming Debate Over Competing Standards Of Prejudice In Missouri V. Frye, Ian Hampton

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

No abstract provided.

December 20, 2011: Religious Revival In China, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Religious Revival in China“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Forbidden Territory Or Well-Defined Boundaries? M.B.Z. V. Clinton And The Overzealous Application Of The Political Question Doctrine, Andrew Hand

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

No abstract provided.

December 16, 2011: Christopher Hitchens R.I.P., Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Christopher Hitchens R.I.P.“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

December 13, 2011: The Mcconnell-Feldman Debate Over Religious Liberty, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “The McConnell-Feldman Debate Over Religious Liberty“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

The Anti-Injunction Act And The Individual Mandate, Steve R. Johnson

Scholarly Publications

The Supreme Court will soon consider challenges to constitutionality of the so-called individual mandate portion of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA). It is important for the nation that the Court render a decision on the merits. This could be derailed, however, were the Court to dispose of the case by holding that the Anti-Injunction Act (AIA) and the Declaratory Judgment Act (DJA) preclude pre-enforcement review. Disposition on those grounds would subject the federal government, states, businesses, and individuals to years of additional uncertainty, inconvenience, and expense.

Fortunately, that threat to resolution on the merits can …

December 10, 2011: “But What If History Has No Logos?”, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “ “But what if history has no logos?”“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Adalah Legal Center For Arab Minority Rights In Israel V. Attorney General, Dorit Beinisch, Elyakim Rubinstein, Hanan Melcer

Translated Opinions

Facts: In 2004, following a series of murderous terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians in 2004, as well as continual rocket launches against Israeli civilian targets, the Israel Defense Forces conducted two military campaigns in the Gaza Strip – Operation Rainbow (May, 2004) and Operation Days of Repentance (September-October, 2004). More than a year after the end of the second campaign, Adalah – Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights (petitioner 1) requested of the Attorney General and the Military Advocate General (respondents 1 and 2) that criminal investigations be opened in the matter of Operation Rainbow, due to the civilian casualties …

December 5, 2011: Why Do We Mourn?, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Why Do We Mourn?“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Keep The Poking To Yourself, Mrs. Robinson: The Missouri Facebook Statute And Its Implications For Teacher Free Speech Under The First Amendment, Alex Lehrer

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Tnuva Central Cooperative V. Raabi Estate, Esther Hayut, Isaac Amit, Uzi Vogelman

Translated Opinions

[This abstract is not part of the Court's opinion and is provided for the reader's convenience. It has been translated from a Hebrew version prepared by Nevo Press Ltd. and is used with its kind permission.]

An appeal and cross appeal challenging the decision of the Tel Aviv District Court (Partial Judgment and Supplementary Judgment,) where the court partially granted a consumer class action suit, which was granted leave to be submitted in CC 10085/080 (hereinafter: Tnuva). The class action suit revolved around the misleading of the consumer public and the production of a milk product in violation of binding …

December 2, 2011: The Rituals Of Mourning, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “The Rituals of Mourning“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Hollow Hopes And Exaggerated Fears: The Canon/Anticanon In Context, Mark A. Graber

Faculty Scholarship

Students of American constitutionalism should add constitutional decisions made by elected officials to the constitutional canon and the constitutional anticanon. Neither the canonical nor the anticanonical constitutional decisions by the Supreme Court have produced the wonderful results or horrible evils sometimes attributed to them. In many cases, elected officials made contemporaneous constitutional decisions that had as much influence as the celebrated or condemned judicial rulings. More often than not, judicial rulings matter more as a result of changing the political dynamics than by directly changing public policy. Law students and others interested in constitutional change, for these reasons, need to …

The Judicial Power And The Inferior Federal Courts: Exploring The Constitutional Vesting Thesis, A. Benjamin Spencer

Scholarly Articles

The third branch of our federal government has traditionally been viewed as the least of the three in terms of the scope of its power and authority. This view finds validation when one considers the extensive authority that Congress has been permitted to exercise over the Federal Judiciary. From the beginning, Congress has understood itself to possess the authority to limit the jurisdiction of inferior federal courts. The Supreme Court has acquiesced to this understanding of congressional authority without much thought or explanation.

It may be possible, however, to imagine a more robust vision of the Judicial Power through closer …

Public Corruption Concerns And Counter-Majoritarian Democracy Definition In Citizens United V. Federal Election Commission, Daaron Kimmel

Chicago-Kent Law Review

In determining the shape of the free speech rights and anti-corruption concerns that courts must balance in campaign finance cases, judges are influenced by their own underlying understandings of what an ideal democracy should look like. For judges to decide whether the government is appropriately regulating the political process, the rules that allow all citizens to interact with and shape their democracy, judges must first decide what that democracy ought to look like. This affords judges a great deal of discretion in campaign finance cases. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is a particularly bold judicial attempt to reshape the …

Rebel Without A Clause: The Irrelevance Of Article Vi To Constitutional Supremacy, Gary Lawson

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

With Stare Decisis and Constitutional Text, Jonathan Mitchell has produced what I think is the most interesting and creative textual defense (or at least partial defense) to date of the use of horizontal precedent in federal constitutional cases. Mitchell's careful analysis of the Supremacy Clause is fascinating and instructive, and he does an impeccable job of drawing out the implications of his premise that the Supremacy Clause prescribes only a very limited choice-of-law rule-a rule that does not, by its own terms, specifically elevate the Constitution above federal statutes and treaties. His innovative and intriguing framework yields four distinct conclusions …

The "Padilla Advisory" And Its Implications Beyond The Immigration Context, Hanh H. Le

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

All A Twitter: Social Networking, College Athletes, And The First Amendment, Davis Walsh

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Government By Contract And The Structural Constitution, Kimberly L. Wehle

All Faculty Scholarship

Although private parties have performed government functions throughout most of Western history, mainstream administrative law scholarship is dotted with concerns over the extent to which modern federal government activities are outsourced to private contractors. Federal contractors routinely exercise authority that is classically “executive” in nature. They write regulations, interpret laws, administer foreign aid, manage nuclear weapons sites and intelligence operations, interrogate detainees, control borders, design surveillance systems, and provide military support in combat zones. Administrative law places few constraints on private contractors, and prevailing constitutional principles — the state action and private delegation doctrines, in particular — are either inept …

When Does F*** Not Mean F***?: Fcc V. Fox Television Stations And A Call For Protecting Emotive Speech, W. Wat Hopkins

Federal Communications Law Journal

The Supreme Court of the United States does not always deal cogently with nontraditional language. The most recent example is FCC v. Fox Television Stations, in which the Justices became sidetracked into attempting to define the f-word and then to determine whether, when used as a fleeting expletive rather than repeatedly, the word is indecent for broadcast purposes. The Court would do well to avoid definitions and heed Justice John Marshall Harlan's advice in Cohen v. California to provide protection for the emotive, as well as the cognitive, element of speech

The "Strong Medicine" Of The Overbreadth Doctrine: When Statutory Exceptions Are No More Than A Placebo, Christopher A. Pierce

Federal Communications Law Journal

In United States v. Stevens, the United States Supreme Court invalidated a federal statute criminalizing the interstate sale and distribution of depictions of animal cruelty on First Amendment grounds. While Stevens demonstrates the Court's reluctance to create a new category of speech outside of First Amendment protection, Stevens also stands for the proposition that borrowing the exceptions clause from the Court's obscenity standard will not adequately protect a statute from invalidation as overbroad. This Note discusses the use of the obscenity standard's exceptions clause in nonobscenity statutes and the Court's treatment of the exceptions clause in Stevens. This Note concludes …

Sacrifice And Sacred Honor: Why The Constitution Is A "Suicide Pact", Peter Brandon Bayer

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Most legal scholars and elected officials embrace the popular cliché that “the Constitution is not a suicide pact.” Typically, those commentators extol the “Constitution of necessity,” the supposition that Government, essentially the Executive, may take any action—may abridge or deny any fundamental right—to alleviate a sufficiently serious national security threat. The “Constitution of necessity” is wrong. This Article explains that strict devotion to the “fundamental fairness” principles of the Constitution’s Due Process Clauses is America’s utmost legal and moral duty, surpassing all other considerations, even safety, security and survival.

The analysis begins with the most basic premises: the definition of …

Campus Citizenship And Associational Freedom: An Aristolelian Take On The Nondiscrimination Puzzle, Chapin Cimino

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Student expressive association on campus is a thorny thicket. Student affinity groups often choose to organize around a shared principle or characteristic of the groups’ members, which, by definition, makes those students different in some way from their peers. In order to preserve the group’s sense of uniqueness, these groups often then wish to control their own membership and voting policies. They feel, in essence, entitled to discriminate—a right arguably embodied by the First Amendment freedom of expressive association. When campus groups actually exercise this right, however, they run into university antidiscrimination policies, which can cost them official campus recognition. …

Crying Wolfish: The Upcoming Challenge To Blanket Strip-Search Policies In Florence V. Board Of Chosen Freeholders, Aaron Johnson

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

No abstract provided.

Social Networks & Political Uprisings, Nima Astyani

Student Works

No abstract provided.