Constitutional Law Commons^™

Getting To Trustworthiness (But Not Necessarily To Trust), Helen L. Norton

Publications

As ethicist and political scientist Russell Hardin observed, our willingness to trust an actor generally turns on our own experience with, and thus our own perceptions of, that actor’s motives and that actor’s competence. Changes over time and technology can alter our experience with a particular actor and thus our willingness to trust or distrust that actor.

This symposium essay focuses not on how to encourage the public to trust the media, but instead on how the media’ can behave in trustworthy ways--in other words, how its choices can demonstrate its trustworthy motives and competence. Examples include refusing to amplify …

What Twenty-First-Century Free Speech Law Means For Securities Regulation, Helen Norton

Publications

Securities law has long regulated securities-related speech--and until recently, it did so with little, if any, First Amendment controversy. Yet the antiregulatory turn in the Supreme Court's twenty-first-century Free Speech Clause doctrine has inspired corporate speakers' increasingly successful efforts to resist regulation in a variety of settings, settings that now include securities law. This doctrinal turn empowers courts, if they so choose, to dismantle the securities regulation framework in place since the Great Depression. At stake are not only recent governmental proposals to require companies to disclose accurate information about their vulnerabilities to climate change and other emerging risks, but …

Necessary Necessity: Courts’ Historical Assessment Of The Condition Precedent For Martial Law, Eric Merriam

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sincerity, Subjectivity & Religion: The Evolution Of Rfra From A Constitutional Shield To A Political Sword, Emily Kathryn Tubb

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Legitimate State Interest Or Educational Censorship: The Chilling Effect Of Oklahoma House Bill 1775, Jennie A. Hill

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Britney’S Prerogative: A Critical, Constitutional View Of Conservatorships, Devraat Awasthi

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Critical Erase Theory: The Assault On Public School Curriculum, Brooks R. Cain

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Week To Prep, Two Minutes To Talk, And Two Days To Move: Why Oklahoma’S Eviction Courts Are Out Of Step With The Constitution, Adam H. Hines

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Intentional Discrimination And Haredi Jews, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

A discussion of case law involving discrimination suits by Haredi Jews, especially in the land use context.

Law And Redemption: Expounding And Expanding Robert Cover’S Nomos And Narrative, Samuel J. Levine

Scholarly Works

This Article explores two interrelated themes that distinguish much of Robert Cover's scholarship: reliance on Jewish sources and the redemption of American constitutionalism. Two pieces of Cover's, Nomos and Narrative and Bringing the Messiah Through the Law: A Case Study, explore these themes, providing complementary views on the potential and limitations of the redemptive power of law. In Nomos and Narrative, Cover develops a metaphor of the law as a bridge, linking the actual to the potential. Bringing the Messiah Through the Law: A Case Study extends the metaphor through the lens of Jewish legal history. Building on Cover's foundation, …

Codifying Antisemitism, Mark Goldfeder

Scholarly Works

Antisemitic harassment and discrimination are unlawful in many contexts, but without a standard definition of what 'antisemitism' includes, that idea is almost meaningless. This has led to an equal protection problem for members of the Jewish community, which is why states across the country have started to pass laws adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance ("IHRA") Definition of antisemitism for use in clarifying the application of existing legal protections for Jewish people from crime and discrimination. Thus far, the bills that have passed have for the most part been overwhelmingly bipartisan, but there have been minor pockets of pushback in …

The Expected Risks And Exacerbations Of Poverty, Mental Health Disorders, And Maternal Mortality From Abortion Bans: A Comparative Literature Analysis, Daniel J. Francisco

All Master's Theses

Background. Early termination of a pregnancy (hereinafter referred to as an “abortion”) has been debated in the United States (U.S.) for decades, without much regard to the negative outcomes that forced pregnancies have for those assigned female at birth regarding poverty, mental health and maternal mortality. In 1973, access to safe abortions was protected so long that the procedure was done within the legal gestational period and/or was necessary for the health and safety of the patient (Blackmun, 1972). Unfortunately, in 2022, the Supreme Court took that protection away and made it legal for states to determine the reproductive rights …

On The Why Of Same-Sex Marriage In Cuba, Libby Adler

FIU Law Review

Cuba is expected to revise its family code soon and the legal availability of marriage to a person of the same sex will be among the anticipated revisions. This essay pushes past the assumption that same-sex marriage operates as an obvious item along any nation’s progressive path, or a universally desirable and sensible legal advance, and inquires as to the why. In a country that is markedly less religious than its neighbors, has a low marriage rate accompanied by a comparatively high divorce rate, and socializes resources such as health care such that they do not depend on marital ties, …

The Ultimate Injustice: States' Failure To Take Steps To Prevent Wrongful Convictions And, When Wrongful Convictions Are Exposed, To Provide Adequate Assistance To Exonerees, Natalie Lahera

FIU Law Review

Among the many rights guaranteed by the Constitution are the rights to a presumption of innocence, equal protection, due process, a speedy trial, a trial by jury, and legal counsel, if indigent and charged with a serious crime. But those rights do not ensure that the justice system succeeds every time. The United States has exonerated over 3,000 individuals since 1989. The exonerees have collectedly lost over 26,700 years of their lives. Each exoneration has provided insight into the causes of wrongful convictions, the issues with current compensation laws, and even the changes that need to be implemented to avoid …

America’S Fraught Relationship With Privacy, Russell L. Weaver

FIU Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Survey Of The Literature On Federal Appellate Practice And Procedure, Thomas E. Baker

FIU Law Review

This is a survey of the literature related to appellate practice and procedure before the United States Courts of Appeals for the benefit of lawyers and judges and scholars. It is reproduced with permission from THOMAS E. BAKER, A PRIMER ON THE JURISDICTION OF THE U.S. COURTS OF APPEALS (Fed. Jud. Ctr. 3d ed. 2023) available at: https://www.fjc.gov/content/379899/primer-jurisdiction-us-courts-appeals-third-edition). This origin explains the scattered references in the entries to “this Primer.”

Third Annual Report To The Editor-In-Chief, Thomas E. Baker

FIU Law Review

This the third annual report of the results of the constitutional law haiku contest conducted in my section of Constitutional Law at the FIU College of Law.

Yesterday's Protester May Be Tomorrow's Saint: Reimagining The Tax System Through The Work Of Dorothy Day, Bridget J. Crawford, W. Edward Afield

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article offers a critical exploration of Day's views on the relationship between the tax system and Catholic social theory. Part I of this Article provides a biographical sketch of Dorothy Day and an overview of the Catholic Worker movement. Part II explores Day's views on taxation, pacifism, and social justice. It attempts to reconcile her belief in wealth redistribution with her nonpayment of federal income taxes and her failure to seek tax-exempt status for the Catholic Worker. Part III examines Day's tax resistance in the context of Catholic social teaching, particularly as that thought was developing during Day's lifetime …

Constitutional Limits On The Imposition And Revocation Of Probation, Parole, And Supervised Release After Haymond, Nancy J. King

Vanderbilt Law Review

In its Apprendi line of cases, the Supreme Court has held that any fact found at sentencing (other than prior conviction) that aggravates the punishment range otherwise authorized by the conviction is an “element” that must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury. Whether Apprendi controls factfinding for the imposition and revocation of probation, parole, and supervised release is critically important. Seven of ten adults under correctional control in the United States are serving terms of state probation and post-confinement supervision, and roughly half of all prison admissions result from revocations of such terms. But scholars have yet …

Pathways To Justice: Positive Rights, State Constitutions, And Untapped Potential, Dustin Coffman

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

Positive rights, as a concept, are nothing new. Though they may not have always had such a deceptively unequivocal name, positive rights have existed in various forms and mediums throughout history. They've been utilized, underutilized, and, in some cases, outright ignored. At their core, positive rights are the imposition of an obligation upon the state to fulfill some declared right or benefit. One basis for this imposition is that because citizens give up certain rights by being parties to the "social contract," they should be entitled to certain positive protections guaranteed by the state created by way of said "contract." …

Gender Confirmation Surgery And The Federal Prison System: Eighth Amendment Framework And Proposed Alternatives, Julie Barnett

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

As reform for individuals with gender dysphoria has developed, the prison system's accommodation of those individuals' needs has underperformed. There have been a number of cases in the past few years where inmates who are experiencing gender dysphoria have not received adequate care in the form of gender confirmation surgery. Four of the Federal Appellate Circuit Courts have decided that a physician's refusal to provide an inmate with gender confirmation surgery is not a violation of the 8th Amendment. One circuit ruled differently and held that denial of the surgery to an inmate experiencing gender dysphoria does violate the 8th …

Search And Seizure Budgets, Kiel Brennan-Marquez, Stephen E. Henderson

Faculty Articles

This article proposes a new means of restraining police power: quantitative limits on the number of law enforcement intrusions—searches and seizures—that may occur over a given period of time. Like monetary constraints, search and seizure budgets would aim to curb abusive policing and improve democratic oversight. But unlike their monetary counterparts, budgets would be indexed directly to the specific police activities that most enable escalation and abuse. What is more, budgets are a tool that finds support, conceptually, in the American framing experience. The Fourth Amendment has long been understood to require procedural limits, such as probable cause, on specific …

Living Traditionalism, Sherif Girgis

Journal Articles

From the Article

This Article offers the first comprehensive analysis of the Court’s living traditionalism, which turns out to include scores of cases spanning every subject and Justices of every stripe. Next, the Article identifies a fundamental but previously unrecognized tension in the method itself: If the Court gives living-traditionalist cases full weight as precedent, it defeats the reasons for using the method at all. Put another way, it is incoherent to treat political practices as a ratchet: capable of moving law in one direction (e.g., against a right in 2022) but not the other (in favor of the right …

The President Of The Senate, The Original Public Meaning Of The Twelfth Amendment, And The Electoral Count Reform Act, Derek T. Muller

Journal Articles

When Congress convenes under the Twelfth Amendment and the votes of presidential electors are counted, there are three different responsibilities to consider. First, who presides over the joint session where counting takes place, and what is the role of that presiding officer? Second, who counts the electoral votes? Third, who resolves disputes about those electoral votes?

This Essay answers those questions. First, the presiding officer in the joint session is the President of the Senate, and she acts as any other presiding officer of a legislature. She initiates actions pursuant to precedent, parliamentary procedures, and the wishes of the chamber. …

It Doesn't Matter What "Interpretation" Is, Francisco J. Urbina

Journal Articles

Reviewing: HOW TO INTERPRET THE CONSTITUTION? By Cass Sunstein. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 2023. Pp. IX + 195. $22.95 (hardcover).

California Constitutional Law: The Emergency Police Power, Daniel H. Bromberg

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

Methodological Gerrymandering, David Simson

Articles & Chapters

The U.S. Supreme Court has come to decide many of the most consequential and contentious aspects of social policy via its interpretations of the U.S. Constitution. Institutional features of the Court create significant pressure on the Justices to justify their decisions as applications of “law” rather than the practice of “politics.” Their perceived failure to do so calls forth criticism sounding in a variety of registers—ranging from allegations of a lack of neutrality, lack of impartiality, or lack of “principle,” to allegations of opportunism, disingenuousness, and hypocrisy. Analyzing the Justices’ choices in relation to interpretational “methodology”—choosing one lens through which …

Transcript - Civil Liberties: The Next 100 Years, Susan Herman, Erwin Chemerinsky, Ellis Cose, Anthony Romero, Nadine Strossen

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

The Rise And Fall Of The Horseracing Integrity And Safety Act: How Congress Could Save The “Sport Of Kings”, Lucy Mcafee

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) has undergone several unsuccessful changes over the past decade in an effort to change how horseracing is regulated. After Congress successfully passed HISA in 2020, several lawsuits were filed to stop HISA from going into effect. Congress quickly passed an amendment to HISA—which the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld—seemingly stopping such litigation, but it is clear from opponents’ statements that this is just the beginning. This Note will examine the constitutional arguments’ strengths and weaknesses through precedent to determine whether the long-awaited act, as amended, can stand the test …

Voting Justice: Why The Attack On Voting Rights Is Best Understood As A "Justice" Issue, Yalda Nia

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.