Fourteenth Amendment Commons^™

Personhood: Law, Common Sense, And Humane Opportunities, Helen M. Alvaré

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

It is pointless to approach Professor Chatman’s argument on its own terms (to wit, “tak[ing] our laws seriously,” or equal application across myriad legal categories of “full personhood” rights) because these terms are neither seriously intended nor legally comprehensible. Instead, her essay is intended to create the impression that legally protecting unborn human lives against abortion opens up a Pandora’s box of legal complications so “ridiculous” and “far-fetched” that we should rather just leave things where they are under the federal Constitution post-Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. This impression, in turn, is a tool to …

Under Ten Eyes, Anthony Michael Kreis

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Carliss Chatman’s If a Fetus Is a Person, It Should Get Child Support, Due Process and Citizenship brilliantly captures the moment America is in, where abortion rights hang in the balance as state legislators, like those in Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, and elsewhere clamor to embrace fetal personhood. But, as Professor Chatman illustrates, legislators have expressed no interest in the full logical extent of this policy or the rights that should attach to a fetus if their measures ultimately become effective. The article incisively demonstrates how fetal personhood is singularly focused on ending abortion in the United States and is gaining …

Isolation For Profit: How Privately Provided Video Visitation Services Incentivize Bans On In-Person Visitation Within American Correctional Facilities, J. Tanner Lusk

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

American correctional facilities are banning in-person visitation in lieu of privately provided and expensive video visitation services. This Note discusses the types of private services provided; how video visitation negatively affects inmates’ mental health and finances; and the ongoing legal battle occurring in Knox County, Tennessee, regarding whether the Knox County Jail’s ban on in-person visitation violates the Constitution. Because of the significant degree of deference courts grant correctional facilities when considering whether challenged regulations violate the Constitution, it will be difficult for the Knox County Jail inmates to successfully argue that the jail has violated their constitutional rights. There …

Originalism And Congressional Power To Enforce The Fourteenth Amendment, Christopher W. Schmidt

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

In this Essay, I argue that originalism conflicts with the Supreme Court’s current jurisprudence defining the scope of Congress’ power to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment. Under the standard established in Boerne v. Flores, the Court limits congressional power under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to statutory remedies premised on judicially defined interpretations of Fourteenth Amendment rights. A commitment to originalism as a method of judicial constitutional interpretation challenges the premise of judicial interpretive supremacy in Section 5 jurisprudence in two ways. First, as a matter of history, an originalist reading of Section 5 provides support for broad judicial …

Dignity And Second Amendment Enforcement—Response To William D. Araiza’S, Arming The Second Amendment And Enforcing The Fourteenth, Darrell A. H. Miller

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

William Araiza’s insightful article, Arming the Second Amendment, has one essential, hidden component: dignity. Dignity helps explain the peculiar hydraulics of Congress’s power to enforce section five of the Fourteenth Amendment—a jurisprudence in which the less scrutiny the Court itself applies to a given class or right, the more scrutiny it applies to congressional efforts to protect that same class or right. Dignity helps explain the Court’s halting approach to Reconstruction Amendment enforcement power more generally – an approach in which constitutional versus unconstitutional legislation turns on seemingly insignificant regulatory distinctions. And dignity’s role in § 5 enforcement helps explain …

State Action That Penalizes Children As Evidence Of A Desire To Harm Politically Unpopular Parents, Catherine E. Smith

Scholarly Articles

This Article is the first to advance the position that when the government takes the extreme step of denying children basic rights and benefits because of their parents, such state action should be recognized not just as evidence of animus against the children, but also as evidence of "a bare desire to harm" their "politically unpopular" parents. Identifying this type of government motivation and calling it what it is--animus toward parents--is just as important as condemning animus against the children themselves. Anti-parent animus that motivates harmful government behavior towards children should be prohibited as an impermissible means to accomplish an …

The Inequality Of America‘S Death Penalty: A Crossroads For Capital Punishment At The Intersection Of The Eighth And Fourteenth Amendments, John D. Bessler

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

Keeping Cases From Black Juries: An Empirical Analysis Of How Race, Income Inequality, And Regional History Affect Tort Law, Donald G. Gifford, Brian Jones

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Brief Of Scholars Of The Constitutional Rights Of Children Susannah W. Pollvogt, Catherine E. Smith, And Tanya Washington As Amici Curiae In Support Of Plaintiffs-Appellants And Reversal: Robicheaux V. Caldwell, Catherine E. Smith, Tanya Washington, Susannah W. Pollvogt

Scholarly Articles

Amici are scholars and professors of family law and the law of equal protection. Amici submit this brief to respond directly to arguments advanced by the State of Louisiana that its laws prohibiting same-sex marriage2 are justified because they advance child welfare. Specifically, the State asserts that its laws advance child welfare by promoting Louisiana’s interest in: (1) linking children with their biological parents to prevent the social stigma associated with being “illegitimate” and (2) establishing the child as a member of an intact family resulting from the marriage of the mother and alleged father. These purported justifications express and …

Children As Proto-Citizens: Equal Protection, Citizenship, And Lessons From The Child-Centered Cases, Catherine E. Smith, Susannah W. Pollvogt

Scholarly Articles

The rights of children have recently taken a prominent role in the popular and judicial consciousness. This is largely due to litigation over marriage equality. In authoring the majority opinion in United States v. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. 2675 (2013), Justice Kennedy cited tangible and psychic harm to the children of same-sex couples as a basis for invalidating the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Post-Windsor, myriad state and federal courts similarly have recognized the manner in which state-level marriage bans inflict harm on the children of same-sex couples. Yet, while courts have recognized the significance of harm to children …

Equal Protection For Children Of Same-Sex Parents, Catherine E. Smith

Scholarly Articles

Gay rights litigation and advocacy traditionally have focused on the unequal treatment of gay and lesbian individuals and couples; less attention has been dedicated explicitly to the legal rights of the children of gay and lesbian parents. This Article asserts that a child of same-sex parents denied a government benefit has a cognizable equal protection challenge—a legal claim that is separate and distinct from that of the child’s gay or lesbian parents. It is well-settled equal protection law that the government may not treat nonmarital children differently than marital children because of moral disdain for their parents’ relationship, and laws …

The Virginia Gardasil Law: A Constitutional Analysis Of Mandated Protection For Schoolchildren Against The Human Papillomavirus, Christina O. Hud

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Discriminatory Local Ordinances Aimed At Regulating Illegal Immigration, John Ryan Syllaios

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

The Unconstitutionality Of Mississippi's Employment Protection Act And A Framework For Assessing Similar State Immigration Employment Laws, Nicholas Neidzwski

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

The Liberty Of Innocent Delights: Obscene Devices And The Limits Of State Power After Lawrence V. Texas, E. Benton Keatley

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Terms Of Imprisonment: Treating The Noncitizen Offender Equally, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

Not available.

A Cautionary Tale: The Obama Coalition, Anti-Subordination Principles And Proposition 8, Jennifer Holladay, Catherine Smith

Scholarly Articles

In his journey to the White House, Barack Obama demonstrated that he could be, in the words of Dr. King, not merely "a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus," creating a coalition that called us to "look after not only ourselves but each other."

To be sure, Obama's coalition is an imperfect one. Proposition 8's passage reminds us that we still fall too readily into the categories of "us and them"--categories in which subjugated groups fight against each other, rather than alongside each other.

Still, Obama has set us on a new path in America's long journey toward …

Unconscious Bias And Outsider Interest Convergence, Catherine Smith

Scholarly Articles

In 1987, Charles Lawrence articulated an inherent flaw of the discriminatory intent requirement in equal protection jurisprudence by leveraging social science research to demonstrate that "the behavior that produces racial discrimination is influenced by unconscious racial motivation." Twenty years later, the debate continues with increasing social science literature to support his position. Furthermore, other scholars and social scientists have demonstrated how unconscious bias may fuel discriminatory acts against others on the basis of gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation.

Appropriately, most of the unconscious bias research focuses on how such biases operate within the majority to oppress a minority group. They …

Katrina Voting Wrongs: Aftermath Of Hurricane And Weak Enforcement Dilute African American Voting Rights In New Orleans, William P. Quigley

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Young, Illegal, And Unaccompanied: One Step Short Of Legal Protection, Raya Jarawan

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Wake Of The Flood: Examining The Dissipation Of Property Rights Through A Model Of Post-Katrina New Orleans, Nicholas P. Devereux

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Substantive Due Process And Discourse Ethics: Rethinking Fundamental Rights Analysis, Timothy P. Loper

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Humphries V. Ozmint No. 03-14, 2005 Wl 267962, At *1 (4th Cir. Feb. 4, 2005)

Capital Defense Journal

No abstract provided.

"Can I See Your Papers?" Local Police Enforcement Of Federal Immigration Law Post 9/11 And Asian American Permanent Foreignness, Mohar Ray

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Richmond V. Polk 375 F.3d 309 (4th Cir. 2004)

Capital Defense Journal

No abstract provided.

Wilson V. Ozmint 352 F.3d 847 (4th Cir. 2003)

Capital Defense Journal

No abstract provided.

Palmer V. Clarke 293 F. Supp. 2d 1011 (D. Neb. 2003)

Capital Defense Journal

No abstract provided.

Prejudiced By The Presence Of God: Keeping Religious Material Out Of Death Penalty Deliberations, Terrence T. Egland

Capital Defense Journal

No abstract provided.

Lovitt V. Warden 585 S.E.2d 801 (Va. 2003)

Capital Defense Journal

No abstract provided.

Brown V. Luebbers 344 F.3d 770 (8th Cir. 2003)

Capital Defense Journal

No abstract provided.