Fourteenth Amendment Commons^™

A Crust Of Bread: Religious Resistance And The Fourteenth Amendment, Kurt T. Lash, Stephanie Hall Barclay -- Professor Of Law

Vanderbilt Law Review

In Employment Division v. Smith, the U.S. Supreme Court denied heightened constitutional protection to religiously motivated exercise burdened by neutral and generally applicable laws. The history presented in this Article suggests that the Smith approach conflicts with the original understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment. Out of the crucible of religious abolitionist resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act emerged a substantive theory of constitutional religious freedom: American citizens should have the right to obey the Biblical command to care for the needy and provide the hungry a “crust of bread,” even if doing so was contrary to neutral and generally applicable …

Due Process, Democracy, And The Regulatory State: A Response To Martin Redish And Victor Hiltner's Adversary Democratic Due Process, Edward Rubin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Due process protection is typically regarded as a human right, akin to free exercise of religion or the privilege against self-incrimination. In Adversary Democratic Due Process, Authors Martin H. Redish & Victor Hiltner argue that it has a deeper and more comprehensive significance.' They view due process as a basic component of democracy, an essential element in our entire system of government. In this comment, I will endorse Authors Redish and Hiltner's thesis and offer an additional perspective to support it. In addition, I agree with nearly all the implications they draw about specific applications of their thesis, but take …

And A Public Defender For All, Sara Mayeux

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The Senate confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court last week means that she is soon to be the first Supreme Court justice with prior experience as a federal public defender. This is historic in its own right, though it is not quite as surprising on closer inspection, since the institution of the federal public defender — in its currently prevailing organizational particulars, anyway — dates back only to the 1970s. Still, given that several of the justices previously worked as federal prosecutors, Jackson’s confirmation injects a welcome measure of professional balance to the lineup. Moreover, Jackson can …

Identifying The Plessy Remainder: State Exploitation Of Private Discriminatory-Impact Actions, Matthew P. Shaw

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Public education in the U.S. is arguably more racially segregated now than it was in 1954, when the U.S. Supreme Court declared in Brown v. Board of Education "that in the field of public education the doctrine of separate but equal' has no place." Although scholars may differ in the extent they believe that racial integration might be necessary for educational equality, most agree that educational segregation, whether imposed by law, socioeconomics, or happenstance, is not likely to reverse in any meaningful way in the near future.

In the absence of a recognized federal right to education, federal-court- supervised school …

The Perfect Match: Solving The Due Process Problem Of Signature Matching With Federal Agency Regulation, Rachel Blumenstein

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Local election commissions in the United States disenfranchise Americans when they erroneously reject voters’ mail-in ballots for failed signature matches. Disenfranchisement is not only problematic because it is dangerous to the health of American democracy, but also because signature matching violates the procedural due process protections voters are entitled to when they exercise their right to vote. Furthermore, the practice of signature matching is one of many ballot access restrictions that disproportionately impact minority voters under the guise of voter fraud prevention. Expanding the Election Assistance Commission’s mandate to allow it to develop more accurate methods of ballot verification can …

Litigating Citizenship, Cassandra B. Robertson, Irina D. Manta

Vanderbilt Law Review

By what standard of proof-—and by what procedures—-can the U.S. government challenge citizenship status? That question has taken on greater urgency in recent years. News reports discuss cases of individuals whose passports were suddenly denied, even after the government had previously recognized their citizenship for years or even decades. The government has also stepped up efforts to reevaluate the naturalization files of other citizens and has asked for funding to litigate more than a thousand denaturalization cases. Likewise, citizens have gotten swept up in immigration enforcement actions, and thousands of citizens have been erroneously detained or removed from the United …

Wealth-Based Penal Disenfranchisement, Beth A. Colgan

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article offers the first comprehensive examination of the way in which the inability to pay economic sanctions-fines, fees, surcharges, and restitution-may prevent people of limited means from voting. The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of penal disenfranchisement upon conviction, and all but two states revoke the right to vote for at least some offenses. The remaining jurisdictions allow for reenfranchisement for most or all offenses under certain conditions. One often overlooked condition is payment of economic sanctions regardless of whether the would-be voter has the ability to pay before an election registration deadline. The scope of wealth-based penal …

The (Limited) Constitutional Right To Compete In An Occupation, Rebecca Haw Allensworth

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Is there a constitutional right to compete in an occupation? The “right to earn a living” movement, gaining steam in policy circles and winning some battles in the lower courts, says so. Advocates for this right say that the right to compete in an occupation stands on equal footing with our most sacred constitutional rights such as the right to be free from racial discrimination. This Article takes a different view, arguing that while there is a limited constitutional right to compete in an occupation, it is—and should be—weaker than these advocates claim. Some state licensing laws run afoul of …

Reflection: How Multiracial Lives Matter, Lauren Sudeall

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Race plays an important organizing function in society, and one over which we have little control as individuals; this can be difficult to reconcile with the self-determination many multiracial individuals possess to control their own racial identity and how it is perceived by others. While some are dismissive of that premise, instead favoring a racial solidarity approach that minimizes the relevance of subcategories, I have contended that it is important to allow multiracial individuals to define their own identity. This is a sentiment that has been echoed by Justice Kennedy's language in several recent opinions discussing racial identity (if not …

Identity As Proxy, Lauren D. Sudeall

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

As presently constructed, equal protection doctrine is an identity- based jurisprudence, meaning that the level of scrutiny applied to an alleged act of discrimination turns on the identity category at issue. In that sense, equal protection relies on identity as a proxy, standing in to signify the types of discrimination we find most troubling.

Equal protection's current use of identity as proxy leads to a number of problems, including difficulties in defining identity categories; the tendency to privilege a dominant-identity narrative; failure to distinguish among the experiences of subgroups within larger identity categories; and psychological and emotional harm that can …

Prisoners And Habeas Privileges Under The Fourteenth Amendment, Lee Kovarsky

Vanderbilt Law Review

The U.S. Reports contain no answer to a million-dollar question: are state prisoners constitutionally entitled to a federal habeas forum? The Supreme Court has consistently ducked the basic constitutional issue, and academic work on the question idles on familiar themes. The strongest existing argument that state prisoners are constitutionally entitled to a federal habeas forum involves a theory of incorporation under the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause. I provide a new and different account: specifically, that the Fourteenth Amendment's Privileges and Immunities Clause ("PI Clause") guarantees a habeas privilege as a feature of national citizenship, and that the corresponding habeas …

Immigration Enforcement And The Fugitive Slave Acts: Exploring Their Similarities, Karla M. Mckanders

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Two seemingly different federal enforcement systems that affect the movement of unskilled workers — the 1793 and 1850 Fugitive Slave Acts and current state immigration enforcement policies — have remarkable similarities. Both systems are political stories that are demonstrative of the failure of federalism. The federal government’s current failure to enforce immigration laws has encouraged state and local governments to pass their own laws. Alabama and Arizona have enacted far-reaching laws, which are similar to the federal Immigration and Nationality Act § 287(g) programs. Both have been challenged on constitutional preemption and equal protection grounds. Recent scholarship has focused mainly …

Pierce Butler: A Supreme Technician, David R. Stras

Vanderbilt Law Review

Despite serving for more than sixteen years on the Supreme Court of the United States and authoring more than 300 opinions, Pierce Butler is one of the lesser-known Justices in American history. When his name is mentioned by constitutional scholars, it is usually to deride him for being one of the so-called "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," a group of Justices that invalidated efforts by politicians, especially President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, to enact New Deal reforms. Scholars have characterized his role in the development of constitutional law as "minimal," and he is the subject of only one full-length book, A …

The Search For Due Process In Civil Commitment Hearings: How Procedural Realities Have Altered Substantive Standards, Christyne E. Ferris

Vanderbilt Law Review

The civil commitment of mentally ill individuals presents the legal system with an intractable question: When should the law deprive someone of the fundamental right to liberty based on a prediction of future dangerousness? Advocates of both increased and decreased levels of civil commitment offer compelling case studies to help resolve the question. The former point to high profile events like the Virginia Tech shooting, in which mandatory incapacitation of the perpetrator at the first sign of mental illness could have prevented a senseless tragedy. The latter highlight the lives of individuals like Kenneth Donaldson, whose father had him committed …

Certifying Mandatory Punitive Damages Classes In A Post-Ortiz And State Farm World, Aileen L. Nagy

Vanderbilt Law Review

Punitive damages are a civil penalty "aimed at deterrence and retribution" that further the state's interest in punishing unlawful conduct.' They are meant to "sting" and should be imposed proportionally according to the "egregiousness of the harm and the wealth of the transgressor." While compensatory damages are intended to compensate plaintiffs for their concrete losses, punitive damages use the plaintiff as an instrument for "visiting [] punishment upon [the] extreme tortious misdeeds" of defendants. As such, it is well settled that no individual plaintiff is entitled to punitive damages; however, "it is equally true that no transgressor is entitled to …

The Origins And Constitutionality Of State Unit Voting In The Electoral College, Matthew J. Festa

Vanderbilt Law Review

On November 1, 2000, a Joint Resolution was introduced in Congress proposing a constitutional amendment to change the Article II system of electing the President and Vice President' by abolishing the Electoral College. Acknowledging the fact that "there have been more congressionally proposed constitutional amendments on this subject than any other," the sponsoring Senator noted that the issue "could become supremely important in a few days," because "we have the possibility that the winning candidate for President might not win the popular vote in our country.' One prominent legal scholar has described the mere possibility of such an event as …

The Price Of Fame: The Celebrity Image As A Commodity And The Right Of Publicity, Ty Ford

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

This Note will examine several recent cases that illustrate how major stars are using the ever-widening scope of such doctrines to control their images in the media. These examples show how the right of publicity has evolved from a right designed to protect a performer's uniquely personal attributes and stylings from unauthorized (and unpaid for) exploitation into a legal fortress constructed around movie-star images that allows the star to separate unwanted attention from necessary popularity. Furthermore, it will explore the inherent contradictions in such a development, showing how it can be used to manipulate and control the very peripheral industries, …

Mistaken Identity: Unveiling The Property Characteristics Of Political Money, Spencer A. Overton

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article argues that money contributed to and spent on political campaigns ('political money") possesses many of the traits that explain judicial respect for regulation of property, and that courts reviewing restrictions on political money should consider doctrines associated with the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment Property Clauses. As evidenced by the different degrees of respect afforded to regulations of property and speech, judicial treatment of a particular liberty interest can be explained by the presence and particular posturing of distinct functional issues such as distrust, scarcity, distribution, and interference with others' interests. Campaign finance jurisprudence, however, has categorized political money …

Birthright Citizenship In The United Kingdom And The United States, Michael Robert W. Houston

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The common law concept of territorial birthright citizenship is the foundation for the Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause, which confers citizenship on those born within the United States and "subject" to its "jurisdiction." Likewise territorial underpinnings were the basis for over 375 years of birthright citizenship within the United Kingdom. Contemporary discourse with respect to territorial birthright citizenship, however, has shifted from its common law basis and now focuses on whether citizenship ought to inhere in children born to illegal immigrants. In the United Kingdom, the British Nationality Act of 1981 abandoned territorial birthright citizenship in favor of parentage based citizenship. …

Beyond "Harm": Abandoning The Actual Injury Standard For Certain Prohibited Takings Under The Endangered Species Act By Giving Independent Meaning To "Harassment", Alicia M. Griffin

Vanderbilt Law Review

As new technology and a desire for progress propel us into the next millennium, a corresponding daily depletion of national and worldwide wildlife resources perpetuates the frightening biological problem of species extinction, resulting in "irreplaceable losses" to medicine, science, ecology, and aesthetics. Every species is a part of the intricate and complicated ecosystem; its stability depends on the continued existence of each of its components. Each black-footed ferret, blue whale, and red wolf contributes to the delicate "balance of nature," a state of ecology that must be maintained for humans to survive. Indeed, scientists have derived much-needed knowledge from other …

A Precarious Path: The Bill Of Rights After 200 Years, Tony A. Freyer

Vanderbilt Law Review

The Bill of Rights occupies an ambiguous place in American society. Americans favor the Bill of Rights in principle, but when asked whether they support particular rights guarantees for real-life practices such as gun ownership, capital punishment, abortion, and flag burning, Americans fervently and profoundly disagree. The essays David J. Bodenhamer and James W. Ely, Jr. have compiled in The Bill of Rights in Modern America After 200 Years, richly suggest why Americans have reconciled principle and practice with such difficulty. Written for a popular audience by specialists who possess a profound knowledge of and differing views concerning the technical …

State Restrictions On Violent Expression: The Impropriety Of Extending An Obscenity Analysis, Jessalyn Hershinger

Vanderbilt Law Review

A group of minors allegedly attacked a nine-year-old girl at a San Francisco beach and "artificially raped" her with a bottle. The minors attacked the girl after watching and discussing a television network movie that portrayed a similar rape. The victim sued the network, claiming that it was negligent in airing the program.' In Miami Beach, a teenage boy shot and killed his eighty-three- year-old neighbor. Following his conviction, the minor sued three television networks for damages, alleging that a decade of viewing extensive television violence had incited him to imitate the acts that he had seen. Nineteen-year-old John McCollum …

The Ripple Effects Of Slaughter-House: A Critique Of A Negative Rights View Of The Constitution, Michael J. Gerhardt

Vanderbilt Law Review

Upon seeing Niagara Falls for the first time, Oscar Wilde reportedly remarked that it "would be more impressive if it flowed the other way." I have a similar reaction to a series of narrow Supreme Court interpretations of the fourteenth amendment, beginning with the Slaughter-House Cases, decided in 1872, and extending to the 1989 decisions in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services and DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services. In Slaughter-House the Court interpreted the privileges or immunities clause of the fourteenth amendment as merely protecting interests other federal laws already protected, while recently the Court interpreted the due …

Another View: Our Magnificent Constitution, William B. Reynolds

Vanderbilt Law Review

Let me start with the observation that I regard myself to be most privileged to be a public servant at a time when we celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Constitution a magnificent document that has, in my view, no equal in history and every reason to be feted. It is by now no revelation that the Framers would be aghast at the size and reach of government today; but they would also be enormously proud of how much of their legacy has endured. The vitality of the original Constitution, and its various amendments, is reflected by its ability to …

Intrusive Border Searches -- What Protection Remains For The International Traveler Entering The United States After United States V. Montoya De Hernandez And Its Progeny?, Steve Anderson

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Note will examine the standards for initiation of strip, body cavity, and X-ray searches developed by the different circuits as well as the latitude allowed customs agents in carrying out such searches. It will also delve into the effect which Montoya de Hernandez and its progeny have had on this area of the law. Finally, this Note will propose possible solutions to the present confusion in the law.

Section 2 Of The Voting Rights Act: An Approach To The Results Test, David L. Eades

Vanderbilt Law Review

The fifteenth amendment' guarantees that a citizen's right to vote shall not depend on his or her race. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (the Act)2 ended nearly a century of congressional acquiescence to obstruction and subversion of that guarantee by certain state and local governments. The Act was remarkably successful in curbing many race-oriented abuses of the electoral process. Despite this success, however, Congress chose to bolster the 1965 Act with the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1982., The new legislation's most significant feature was the revision of section 2, which contains the Act's blanket prohibition against "discriminatory"voting procedures.

The Hunter Doctrine: An Equal Protection Theory That Threatens Democracy, Robert H. Beinfield

Vanderbilt Law Review

Referenda effect basic constitutional objectives by allowing individuals to participate equally in the governing process. The Supreme Court recently relied on the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment' to invalidate a referendum procedure in Washington v. Seattle School District No. 1. A state initiative,which received support from a majority of the voting electorate,effectively forbade local school boards from implementing mandatory student reassignment programs aimed at eliminating de facto racial imbalance in state schools unless the electorate approved the proposed program. In finding an equal protection violation, the Court for the first time relied on a doctrine that it developed …

Tension Between The First And Twenty-First Amendments In State Regulation Of Alcohol Advertising, Brian S. Steffey

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Recent Development examines the tension between the first and twenty-first amendments when a state uses its twenty-first amendment power to regulate advertisements of alcoholic beverages that qualify for first amendment protection. Part II of this Recent Development explores the Court's standard of review in cases in which the twenty-first amendment impinges upon a fourteenth amendment right. Part II also reviews the scope of constitutional protection that the first amendment accords commercial speech. Part III examines three recent cases in which states have regulated alcohol advertising. Part IV criticizes these decisions for misapplying the appropriate standard and for relying extensively …

Prosecutorial Vindictiveness: An Examination Of Divergent Lower Court Standards And A Proposed Framework For Analysis, John J. Cross, Iii

Vanderbilt Law Review

The judicial response to the problems posed by the conduct of a prosecutor who brings increased charges against a criminal defendant for exercising his legal rights has not been adequate.Lower federal courts have adopted divergent standards, focusing on whether there exists an appearance of prosecutorial vindictiveness, a realistic likelihood of prosecutorial vindictiveness, or actual prosecutorial vindictiveness. By couching their analyses in terms of the prosecutor's motivations, these courts have ignored the overriding principle of substantive due process, which holds that fundamental constitutional rights should be afforded greater due process protection than nonfundamental rights. This Recent Development submits that courts must …

State Motor Vehicle Franchise Legislation: A Survey And Due Process Challenge To Board Composition, Gary M. Brown

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Note briefly traces the rise of the franchise as the primary automobile distribution device, the problems that confronted early dealers, and their subsequent inability to secure judicial relief. After examining dealers' efforts in the legislatures and the resulting statutes this Note points out several infirmities that exist regarding state automobile franchise regulation. The Note then focuses upon a particular constitutional challenge to state automobile franchise legislation. Finally, the Note concludes that such legislation is either genuinely ineffective or leads to the anomalous result that dealers assume more powerful positions with respect to their manufacturers through unconstitutional means. Based upon …