Constitutional Law Commons^™

Soft Supremacy, Corinna Barrett Lain

William & Mary Law Review

The debate over judicial supremacy has raged for more than a decade now, yet the conception of what it is we are arguing about remains grossly oversimplified and formalistic. My aim in this symposium contribution is to push the conversation in a more realistic direction; I want those who claim that judicial supremacy is antidemocratic to take on the concept as it actually exists. The stark truth is that judicial supremacy has remarkably little of the strength and hard edges that dominate the discourse in judicial supremacy debates. It is porous, contingent—soft. And the upshot of soft supremacy is this: …

Judicial Supremacy And Taking Conflicting Rights Seriously, Rebecca L. Brown

William & Mary Law Review

The best arguments in favor of judicial supremacy rely on its essential role of protecting rights in a democracy. The doctrinal technique of strict scrutiny, developed to do the work of judicial supremacy, has been an important tool in our constitutional jurisprudence in the service of rights protection. When the Supreme Court reviews laws that themselves seek to enhance or preserve constitutional rights, however, strict scrutiny does not provide the right approach. Rather, the Court should consider very carefully the rights claims in favor of the statute as well as those launched by a challenger. In such cases of conflicting …

In Defense Of Judicial Supremacy, Erwin Chemerinsky

William & Mary Law Review

“Judicial supremacy” is the idea that the Supreme Court should be viewed as the authoritative interpreter of the Constitution and that we should deem its decisions as binding on the other branches and levels of government, until and unless constitutional amendment or subsequent decision overrules them. This is desirable because we want to have an authoritative interpreter of the Constitution and the Court is best suited to play this role. Under this view, doctrines which keep federal courts from enforcing constitutional provisions—such as denying standing for generalized grievances, the political question doctrine, and the state secrets doctrine—are misguided and should …

Much Ado About Nothing: Signing Statements, Vetoes, And Presidential Constitutional Interpretation, Keith E. Whittington

William & Mary Law Review

During the Bush presidency, presidential signing statements became briefly controversial. The controversy has faded, but the White House continues to issue statements when signing legislation. Those statements frequently point out constitutional difficulties in new statutes and sometimes warn that the executive branch will administer the statutes so as to avoid those constitutional difficulties. This Article argues that the criticisms of signing statements were mostly misguided. Signing statements as such present few problems and offer some benefits to the workings of the American political system. While there might be reason to object to the substantive constitutional positions adopted in any given …

Keeping Gideon’S Promise: Using Equal Protection To Address The Denial Of Counsel In Misdemeanor Cases, Brandon Buskey, Lauren S. Lucas

Fordham Law Review

The Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees criminal defendants the right to counsel, and the U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that right is applicable to all defendants in felony cases, even those unable to afford a lawyer. Yet, for defendants facing misdemeanor charges, only those defendants whose convictions result in incarceration are entitled to the assistance of counsel. The number of misdemeanor prosecutions has increased dramatically in recent years, as have the volume and severity of collateral consequences attached to such convictions; yet, the Court’s right to counsel jurisprudence in this area has remained stagnant. Critics of the …

It’S Time For An Intervention!: Resolving The Conflict Between Rule 24(A)(2) And Article Iii Standing, Gregory R. Manring

Fordham Law Review

This Note argues that federal courts should employ an approach that is more related to maintaining the benefits of Rule 24 without running afoul of Article III—a task the yes-or-no approach is ill equipped to handle. Ultimately, an approach that is based on employing a standing analysis only where the Case or Controversy Clause is implicated anew allows the greatest access to the intervention device without running the risk of entertaining nonjusticiable disputes.

Why Congress Does Not Challenge Judicial Supremacy, Neal Devins

William & Mary Law Review

Members of Congress largely acquiesce to judicial supremacy both on constitutional and statutory interpretation questions. Lawmakers, however, do not formally embrace judicial supremacy; they rarely think about the courts when enacting legislation. This Article explains why this is so, focusing on why lawmakers have both strong incentive to acquiesce to judicial power and little incentive to advance a coherent view of congressional power. In particular, lawmakers are interested in advancing favored policies, winning reelection, and gaining personal power within Congress. Abstract questions of institutional power do not interest lawmakers and judicial defeats are seen as opportunities to find some other …

Judicial Departmentalism: An Introduction, Kevin C. Walsh

William & Mary Law Review

This Article introduces the idea of judicial departmentalism and argues for its superiority to judicial supremacy. Judicial supremacy is the idea that the Constitution means for everybody what the Supreme Court says it means in deciding a case. Judicial departmentalism, by contrast, is the idea that the Constitution means in the judicial department what the Supreme Court says it means in deciding a case. Within the judicial department, the law of judgments, the law of remedies, and the law of precedent combine to enable resolutions by the judicial department to achieve certain kinds of settlements. Judicial departmentalism holds that these …

Can The Japanese Supreme Court Overcome The Political Question Hurdle?, Po Liang Chen, Jordan T. Wada

Washington International Law Journal

In 1947, a new Japanese Constitution (“Kenpō”) was born and its pacifist ideal was embodied in Article 9. Meanwhile, judicial review was transplanted, mainly from the United States (“U.S.”), into Japan. While the U.S. Supreme Court has narrowed its political question doctrine since Baker v. Carr in 1962, Japan developed its constitutional avoidance and political question doctrine in part to avoid deciding the merits of Article 9 disputes, including the legitimacy of Japan’s Self-Defense Force, the Security Treaty between the US and Japan, and the stationing of U.S. Forces in Japan. The Japanese Supreme Court (“SCJ”) adopted a deferential …

Erisa Preemption After Gobeille V. Liberty Mutual: Completing The Retrenchment Of Shaw, Edward A. Zelinsky

Articles

Gobeille v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. is the U.S. Supreme Court’s most recent preemption decision under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). In Gobeille, the Court completed the process of reconciling the restrained approach to ERISA preemption announced in New York State Conference of Blue Cross & Blue Shield Plans v. Travelers Insurance Co. with the Court’s literal and expansive approach adopted earlier in Shaw v. Delta Air Lines, Inc. Gobeille consummated this reconciliation by confirming the sub silentio retrenchment of Shaw and its “plain language” approach in favor of Traveler’s broader construction of ERISA preemption. …

Of Malls And Campuses: The Regulation Of University Campuses And Section 2(B) Of The Charter, Sarah E. Hamill

Dalhousie Law Journal

There have been a number of recent cases from across Canada about whether the Charter applies to public universities. Courts in Alberta have suggested that the Charter will apply to public universities while courts in British Columbia and Ontario have refused to apply the Charter to such cases. In this article I focus on the cases that also involve a claim to use university space, that is, those cases where there is an argument that by failing to allow an event on campus the university has violated the free expression guarantee in the Charter. If the Charter does apply and …

R. V Comeau And Section 121 Of The Constitution Act, 1867: Freeing The Beer And Fortifying The Economic Union, Malcolm Lavoie

Dalhousie Law Journal

A recent decision from the New Brunswick Provincial Court may have significant implications for Canada's constitutional structure. R. v. Comeau held that s. 121 of the Constitution Act, 1867, the constitution's internal free trade provision, prohibits both interprovincial tariffs as well as non-tariff trade barriers. In doing so, the court departed from a line of precedents holding that s. 121 prohibits only the erection of outright tariffs or duties on interprovincial trade. Ultimately the court held that s. 134(b) of New Brunswick's Liquor Control Act, which effectively prohibits the possession of all but small quantities of liquor purchased out of …

The Political Process Argument For Overruling Quill, Edward A. Zelinsky

Articles

Should the U.S. Supreme Court overrule Quill Corporation v. North Dakota? In Quill, the Court held that, under the dormant Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, the states cannot impose the obligation to collect sales taxes on out-of-state vendors which lack physical presence in the taxing state. As internet commerce has grown, Quill’s physical presence test has severely hampered the states’ ability to enforce their sales taxes.

Much of the Supreme Court’s case law suggests that, under the banner of stare decisis, the Court should not overturn Quill. This case law indicates that it is Congress’s …

Potential Life In The Doctrine, Leah Litman

Articles

In their article, Abortion: A Woman’s Private Choice, Erwin Chemerinsky and Michele Goodwin seek to shore up the doctrinal basis for a woman’s constitutional right to end her pregnancy. While Chemerinsky and Goodwin are partly concerned about the status of abortion rights in the United States because of President Donald Trump’s promise prior to taking office to appoint Justices to the Supreme Court who will overturn Roe v. Wade, they also maintain that some of the threat to abortion rights arises from an uncomfortable tension in the doctrine that recognizes states’ interest in potential life. I agree with Chemerinsky and …

After Flint: Environmental Justice As Equal Protection, David A. Dana, Deborah Tuerkheimer

Northwestern University Law Review

This Essay conceptualizes the Flint water crisis as an archetypical case of underenforcement—that is, a denial of the equal protection of laws guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Viewed as such, the inadequacy of environmental regulation can be understood as a failure that extends beyond the confines of Flint; a failure that demands a far more expansive duty to protect vulnerable populations.

Immigration Exceptionalism, David S. Rubenstein, Pratheepan Gulasekaram

Northwestern University Law Review

The Supreme Court’s jurisprudence is littered with special immigration doctrines that depart from mainstream constitutional norms. This Article reconciles these doctrines of “immigration exceptionalism” across constitutional dimensions. Historically, courts and commentators have considered whether immigration warrants exceptional treatment as pertains to rights, federalism, or separation of powers—as if developments in each doctrinal setting can be siloed. This Article rejects that approach, beginning with its underlying premise. Using contemporary examples, we demonstrate how the Court’s immigration doctrines dynamically interact with each other, and with politics, in ways that affect the whole system. This intervention provides a far more accurate rendering of …

Are All Charter Rights And Freedoms Really Non-Absolute?, Brian Bird

Dalhousie Law Journal

This article challenges the conventional legal wisdom that no right or freedom in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is absolute. Section 1 of the Charter is the most commonly cited source of this wisdom, but this provision merely sets out the standard that the state must meet to justify a limit on a Charter right or freedom. Section 1 does not provide advance confirmation that limits satisfying this standard exist for all Charter rights and freedoms. This interpretation, if correct, does not automatically render any of the rights or freedoms in the Charter absolute. Indeed, the standard in …

Withholding Judgment: In Reading The Constitution, Judges Should Consider Their Own Morals,, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

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

How The Constitution Shall Not Be Construed, Lochlan F. Shelfer

BYU Law Review

The dominant historical narrative of the Ninth Amendment views the Clause as an exclusively “Federalist” provision with one purpose: to protect against the fear among Federalists that the very enumeration of any rights in a Constitution would imply that the universe of unenumerated natural rights was left unprotected, or that federal power would be expanded by implication.

This narrative of the Ninth Amendment, however, is incomplete in that it ignores the Clause’s Anti-Federalist side. This Article argues that the Ninth Amendment was proposed and ratified partly in response to the Anti-Federalist fear that particular rights-guaranteeing provisions of the Constitution could …

Penguatan Peran Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat Dalam Struktur Ketatanegaraan Indonesia, R. Nazriyah

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

Nevertheless, the amendment (fifth) should be done with wisdom, sincerity, deliberation, and After the constitutional amendment the Assembly's role was limited only on disseminate the results of the 1945 amendment and appoint President and Vice President. Strengthening the role of the Assembly now has begun to appear with the revival of the tradition of the annual session of the Assembly, with less in this way the performance of the President and other state institutions can be controlled and serve as checks and balances. Discourse to reuse the guidelines need to consider the following matters: first, it should be clearly who …

Peremptory Challenge - Divining Rod For A Sympathetic Jury?, Gilda Mariani

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Individual Liberty And The Common Good - The Balance: Prayer, Capital Punishment, Abortion, Brendan F. Brown

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Crime And The Law: Sociologico-Legal Observations, Wenceslas J. Wagner

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

History And Constitutional Interpretation: Some Lessons From The Vice Presidency, Joel K. Goldstein

Arkansas Law Review

In recent times, the principal demarcation in academic discussions of constitutional theory and judicial decision-making separates originalists and living constitutionalists. Both categories include a variety of approaches, but in essence originalists believe that a constitutional text means forever what it meant when it became part of the Constitution, whereas living constitutionalists believe that constitutional meaning is not fixed but evolves in response to societal changes. Living constitutionalists draw inspiration from Chief Justice John Marshall’s immortal words from McCulloch v. Maryland that the Constitution is “intended to endure for ages to come, and, consequently to be adapted to the various crises …

An Alcohol Mindset In A Drug-Crazed World: A Review Of Birchfield V. North Dakota, Devon Beeny

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

Birchfield v. North Dakota involved the ability of legislatures to criminalize a driver’s refusal to submit to a chemical test after a law enforcement officer arrested the individual for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. The driver’s argued this criminalized their constitutional right to refuse a warrantless search, while the governments’ argued they needed this power in order to effectively address drunk driving in their jurisdictions. The Court decided that refusing a breath test could be criminalized because requiring the test did not violate the driver’s constitutional rights, however the Court also ruled that because of the invasive …

Ditching Your Duty: When Must Private Entities Comply With Federal Antidiscrimination Law?, Tara Knapp

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

This Commentary considers how the Fifth Circuit characterizes “services, programs, and activities” of public agencies in Ivy v. Williams, in the context of determining whether a private entity is subject to federal antidiscrimination law. “Services, programs, and activities” of public agencies must comply with Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, whether directly distributed by a public or a private entity. This Commentary argues private driving schools in Texas that distribute a driving course necessary to obtaining a drivers’ license are subject to Title II because the providing the course functionally constitutes a program of the Texas Education …

Of Spies, Saboteurs, And Enemy Accomplices: History’S Lessons For The Constitutionality Of Wartime Military Tribunals, Martin S. Lederman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Congress has recently authorized military commissions to try enemies not only for violations of the international law of war, but also for domestic-law offenses, such as providing material support to terrorism and conspiring to commit law-of-war offenses. Moreover, President Trump has indicated support for further military trials, including trials against U.S. citizens. Such military tribunals lack the civilian jury and independent judge that Article III of the Constitution prescribes. The constitutionality of such an abrogation of Article III’s criminal trial guarantees has been debated during many of the nation’s wars without clear resolution, and the constitutional question is now at …

The Extraordinary Judicial Rebukes Of Trump's Travel Ban, John M. Greabe

Law Faculty Scholarship

[Excerpt] "President Trump's two executive orders suspending travel to the United States by refugees and foreign nationals from several Muslim-majority countries have been put on hold by a number of lower court federal judges.

Whatever might be said about the merits of these rulings, and regardless of whether they will be upheld in future appeals, they are extraordinary judicial rebukes of a sitting president."

March 26, 2017: Tom Berry Vs Tomorrowland, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Tom Berry vs Tomorrowland“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Motion For Leave To File Amicus Curiae Brief And Brief For The National Association For Public Defense And Kentucky Association Of Criminal Defense Lawyers As Amici Curiae In Support Of Petitioner, Sneed V. Burress (U.S. March 24, 2017) (No. 16-8047)., Janet Moore

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

No abstract provided.