Constitutional Law Commons^™

They Try: How The Supreme Court Has Addressed Issues Of Racial And Gender Discrimination In The Jury Selection Process, Jana C. Kelnhofer

Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark (SURJ)

The rise of publicized police brutality cases (but not the rise in number of cases themselves) has resulted in an increase of public scrutiny of the court process. More often than not, police officers are found not guilty by a jury of their peers, only for the public to later find out that the jury was composed almost entirely of whites. How did this process start? How does it persist? Has the legal system attempted to address this problem, and discrimination in the jury selection process in general? By examining past Supreme Court decisions, this review explores the ways that …

September 26, 2018: Constitution Day Talk At Robert Morris University, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Constitution Day Talk at Robert Morris University“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

The Problem Of Purely Procedural Preemption Presented By The Federal Hear Act, William L. Charron

Pepperdine Law Review

The underlying purpose of the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2016 (the HEAR Act), which is to return Nazi-looted artwork to victims or their families, is undeniably laudable. Restituting Nazi-looted artwork is and has been a moral objective of this country since the conclusion of World War II. It is equally clear that victims and their families can often face obstacles to gathering evidence from the war that would demonstrate Nazi theft in court. The HEAR Act strives to address these concerns by imposing a federal statute of limitations over all state law causes of action that would enable …

Ericsson, Inc. V. Regents Of The University Of Minnesota And A New Frontier For The Waiver By Litigation Conduct Doctrine, Jason Kornmehl

Pepperdine Law Review

Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity is one of the most confusing areas of constitutional law. The waiver by litigation conduct doctrine represents a particularly complex aspect of Eleventh Amendment immunity. Courts, for example, have not precisely defined the extent to which waiver in a prior proceeding might extend to a future one. The Patent Trial and Appeals Board recently considered this issue in a novel context. In Ericsson, Inc. v. Regents of the University of Minnesota, the Patent Trial and Appeals Board applied the waiver by litigation conduct doctrine in an inter partes review proceeding. Combining the Eleventh Amendment, non-Article III …

The Security Court, Matt Steilen

Maryland Law Review Online

The Supreme Court is concerned not only with the limits of our government’s power to protect us, but also with how it protects us. Government can protect us by passing laws that grant powers to its agencies or by conferring discretion on the officers in those agencies. Security by law is preferable to the extent that it promotes rule of law values—certainty, predictability, uniformity, and so on—but, security by discretion is preferable to the extent that it gives government the room it needs to meet threats in whatever form they present themselves. Drawing a line between security by law and …

The Security Court, Matthew J. Steilen

Journal Articles

The Supreme Court is concerned not only with the limits of our government’s power to protect us, but also with how it protects us. Government can protect us by passing laws that grant powers to its agencies or by conferring discretion on the officers in those agencies. Security by law is preferable to the extent that it promotes rule of law values—certainty, predictability, uniformity, and so on—but, security by discretion is preferable to the extent that it gives government the room it needs to meet threats in whatever form they present themselves. Drawing a line between security by law and …

Reasonable Action: Reproductive Rights, The Free Exercise Clause, And Religious Freedom In The United States And The Republic Of Ireland, Liam Ray

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Note will argue that by denying certiorari in Stormans v. Wiesman, the Supreme Court missed an important opportunity to provide guidance to the states as to how the Free Exercise Clause applies to the kind of stocking and dispensing regulations adopted by the State of Washington. This Note will further argue from a policy perspective that the approach to these kinds of regulations adopted by the Republic of Ireland (“ROI”) presents the best approach for states to adopt because it provides a balance in terms of respecting the free exercise rights of pharmacists and pharmacy owners with …

September 23, 2018: Politics After The Death Of God, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Politics After the Death of God“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

September 21, 2018: The End Of Constitutional Government, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

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

Section 1: Moot Court: Nieves, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

How Strong Does The Evidence Against Kavanaugh Need To Be?, Katherine A. Shaw

Online Publications

The allegation made by Christine Blasey Ford — that at age 15 she was the victim of a sexual assault by a 17-year-old Brett Kavanaugh — has not only upended Judge Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings, but has also left Americans wondering what standards should apply to an accusation like this.

The Meaning Of Wrongdoing - A Crime Of Disrespecting The Flag: Grounds For Preserving National Unity, Mohammed Saif-Alden Wattad

San Diego International Law Journal

To conclude on this issue, the rights of others, as individuals and as a whole, are formulated as the social protected interest that criminal law seeks to protect through criminal means, and it is with these rights that criminal law theory should be concerned in the first level of scrutiny. However, in the second level of scrutiny, an additional set of rights are brought into play; these are the rights of the individual, namely the actor, to exercise their constitutional rights e.g., free speech, liberty, free exercise of religion. The second level of scrutiny requires balancing those rights with the …

September 18, 2018: The Kavanaugh Story, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

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

Against Lgbt Exceptionalism In Religious Exemptions From Antidiscrimination Obligations, Carlos A. Ball

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

In my estimation, Tebbe is correct that contested legal and policy questions arising from the intersection of religious freedom and equality principles demand difficult normative work. But, after reading the book, I am not sure he realizes the extent to which his social coherence approach is historically driven. Whether through analogies from concrete, past cases or by abstracting normative principles from past cases, Tebbe is essentially looking at how the country has, in the past, accommodated religious freedom in the pursuit of other objectives to guide us through current religious liberty controversies involving LGBT rights and reproductive freedom.

Religious Freedom In An Egalitarian Age: Rejecting Doctrinal Nihilism In The Adjudication Of Religious Claims, Laura S. Underkuffler

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Tebbe’s argument proceeds along two separate tracks. First, he rejects the arguments of academic skeptics and others that these conflicts are by nature something that is not amenable to the judicial task. Rather, he argues, conflicts between religious freedom and civil rights can be worked through by courts, using what he calls a “social coherence” approach. This does not, of itself, “pretend to determine unique answers to pressing substantive questions”; but it establishes a way to generate reasoned conclusions that are intrinsically superior to the ad hockery or nihilistic approach that skeptics assume.

Next, Tebbe combines this approach with …

In (Partial) Praise Of (Some) Compromise: Comments On Tebbe, Chad Flanders

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

There are four very brief sections to my comment on Tebbe’s book. The first suggests some skepticism about social coherentism, and its hope to provide a neutral method for adjudicating disputes. I apply this skepticism in the second part to Tebbe’s discussion of what counts as “harm” and how to measure it. The third and fourth parts deal with my favored way of dealing with our deep disagreements and compromises when it comes to associations and employment. I should add here that nothing I say is meant to take away from Tebbe’s achievement in his book. The writing is …

Tebbe And Reflective Equilibrium, Andrew Koppelman

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

The basic method of Nelson Tebbe’s fine book, “Religious Freedom in an Egalitarian Age,” is what John Rawls called “reflective equilibrium”. Rawls famously proposed a theory of justice that aimed to be “strictly deductive.” His deductions, however, take place within a larger account of justification that he calls “reflective equilibrium,” in which we try to bring our considered moral judgments into line with our more general principles. “A conception of justice cannot be deduced from selfevident premises or conditions on principles; instead, its justification is the matter of the mutual support of many considerations, of everything fitting together into …

Attempting To Engage In Socially Coherent Dialogue About Religious Liberty And Equality, Alan Brownstein

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Most book reviews reflect the reviewer’s final conclusions about the author’s finished work. This review is more of a snapshot of the lengthy dialogue I have been engaged in for several months with Nelson Tebbe, the author of the book being reviewed. The symposium conference organized by the St. John’s Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development in September 2016, invited several church-state scholars to comment on a draft manuscript of Nelson Tebbe’s forthcoming book, Religious Freedom in an Egalitarian Age. However, the book was not fully completed when this multi-participant dialogue began.

Reply: Conscience And Equality, Nelson Tebbe

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

In this Reply, I explore some larger questions that have been prompted by the book but that fell outside its focus on the interaction between religious freedom and civil rights law. Spurred by the responses, but also independent of them, I examine the implications of my arguments for an egalitarian theory of the First Amendment. Though it is of course impossible to fully develop such a vision in this Reply, there is room to begin that work. Along the way, I answer some of the more pointed questions posed in these six responses.

“Taking The Threat To American Democracy Seriously: The Truth/Justice/Democracy Initiative,”, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

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

September 15, 2018: Who’S Afraid Of The Russians?, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Who’s Afraid of the Russians?“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Self-Defense, Necessity, And The Duty To Compensate, In Law And Morality, Kenneth W. Simons

San Diego Law Review

What is the proper scope of the right to self-defense in law and morality? How does this right compare to the privilege of necessity? Professor Uwe Steinhoff’s manuscript offers a distinctive and wide-ranging perspective on the controversial questions these privileges raise. This essay engages with a number of his arguments, particularly focusing on legal and moral duties of compensation.

First, this essay examines how Anglo-American tort law would likely address the defender’s liability in a variety of scenarios, including disproportionate, excessive, and unnecessary force; unreasonable and reasonable mistakes; and use of force against innocent aggressors. It next considers whether private …

The Need To Attend To Probabilities—For Purposes Of Self-Defense And Other Preemptive Actions, Larry Alexander

San Diego Law Review

I was not certain I was going to write something for this symposium. After all, I had written a lot on the topic of self-defense, so what was there left to say that I had not said before? I have concluded, however, after reading a new generation of literature on self-defense, that most who write on the topic neglect its perhaps most important aspect, namely, that it is a preemptive action. As a preemptive action, self-defense perforce takes place before the attack to which it is a response occurs. This preemptive aspect of self-defense brings with it a nest of …

Self-Defense And Culpability: Fault Forfeits First, Richard J. Arneson

San Diego Law Review

Under what conditions is it morally permissible to kill someone in order to save your own life—or the life of another who is threatened? There seem to be clear cases. Threatened by an assailant who is trying to kill you for no good reason, you may use lethal force if necessary to save yourself from death or serious injury from the assailant’s attack. Threatened with death in the form of an onrushing runaway truck, you may not save yourself by using a bystander or imposing on a bystander in a way that inflicts severe harm on her. In a justly …

Defense And Desert: When Reasons Don’T Share, Kimberly Kessler Ferzan

San Diego Law Review

Assume Culpable Aggressor threatens Innocent Victim with a knife. Victim is stronger than Culpable Aggressor and is able to defend herself by punching Culpable Aggressor in the face, causing him to stumble back and drop the knife. Not only was this action necessary, but also Victim believed it to be so to save her life.

I take it that this is an uncontroversial case of self-defense. My question is whether this is also a case of punishment. Uwe Steinhoff suggests that it might be. Indeed, he states that “nothing hinders an act from being both punitive and defensive. In fact, …

The Vindication Of Good Over Evil: “Futile” Self-Defense, Douglas Husak

San Diego Law Review

The burgeoning self-defense literature, like that in most areas of moral and legal philosophy, typically begins with and seeks to rationalize our intuitions. I submit that the intuitive judgment of virtually all respondents, at least initially, is that IV is permitted to exercise her right of self-defense, however futile, and scratch WA. This intuition, I believe, is incredibly powerful and robust; I certainly have it myself. Yet quite a few philosophers and legal theorists contend IV is not permitted to employ futile self-defense against WA. Presumably, they believe IV must passively accept her fate without injuring WA. Why hold this …

Steinhoff And Self-Defense, Michael S. Moore

San Diego Law Review

I shall first describe what moral combat would be if it existed, separate it into distinct species, and say why it is so undesirable that one should be brought to acknowledge its existence only reluctantly and as a last resort. I will then detail two ways in which rights to do things—often called “action rights” or “active rights”—such as the right to defend oneself, are integrated into standard deontic logic: (1) Hohfeld’s way and (2) the older but still popular Kantian alternative that Hurd and I recently defended. The first of these is compatible with—indeed, inviting of—moral combat, whereas the …

The Nature Of Self-Defense, Samuel C. Rickless

San Diego Law Review

What is self-defense? Most theorists of self-defense are mainly interested in explaining why and when we are morally justified in defending ourselves from a threat posed by another. The moral questions here are important, not just because self-defense represents an interesting moral conundrum, but because morality, at least in this case, is, or should be, a reliable guide to the law. So theorists of self-defense often start with paradigm cases—the culpable aggressor, the justified aggressor, the innocent aggressor, the innocent threat, and so on—and try to explain moral intuitions about them with the help of moral theory, whether Hohfeldian, utilitarian, …

The Right To Cause Harm As An Alternative To Being Sacrificed For Others: An Exploration Of Agent-Rights With A Special Focus On Intervening Agency, Alec Walen

San Diego Law Review

My strategy for defending the right of non-sacrifice and the connected agent–patient inference is to move through a series of cases, starting with easy cases—clearly permissible acts of non-sacrifice—and moving to more controversial ones. The controversial cases are those in which intervening agency is central to explaining why an agent should have the right of non-sacrifice. My argument will not simply be an attempt to explain intuitions. I take the intuitions on the easy cases to be reliable, but once we move to controversial cases, I think moral intuitions become unreliable. My argument fundamentally trades on two thoughts: (1) there …

September 11, 2018: 9/11 R.I.P., Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “9/11 R.I.P.“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.