Fourteenth Amendment Commons^™

Confession And Confrontation, William Ortman

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The constitutional law of confessions has a critical blind spot. In theory, the law serves two interests. First, it protects the autonomy of suspects by stipulating that they can be questioned while in custody only with their consent. Second, it restrains official misconduct by forbidding interrogation methods that overbear a suspect's will. Even if the law adequately safeguards those interests, something is missing: reliability. As false confessions emerge as a major source of wrongful convictions and as social scientists expose how standard interrogation tactics prompt innocent people to confess, the Supreme Court and conventional wisdom insist that the reliability of …

“The Cruelty Is The Point”: Using Buck V. Bell As A Tool For Diversifying Instruction In The Law School Classroom, Tiffany C. Graham

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Instructors who are looking for opportunities to expose their students to the ways in which intersectional forms of bias impact policy and legal rules can use Buck v. Bell to explore, for instance, the impact of disability and class on the formation of doctrine. A different intersectional approach might use the discussion of the case as a gateway to a broader conversation about the ways in which race and gender bias structured the implementation of sterilization policies around the nation. Finally, those who wish to examine the global impact of American forms of bias can use this case and the …

Intentional Discrimination And Haredi Jews, Michael Lewyn

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

Intentional Discrimination And Haredi Jews, Michael Lewyn

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No abstract provided.

The Constitutional Costs Of School Policing, Maryam Ahranjani, Natalie Saing

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Responding to fears of violence and liability on K-12 campuses, local school boards and superintendents have made on-site or embedded school police omnipresent in American public schools. Yet, very little attention is paid to the many costs associated with their presence. When situating law enforcement's presence squarely in the racist history of policing and school policing the juxtaposition with the civic purpose of public education reveals significant constitutional costs. This Article builds on existing scholarship by bringing attention to the conflict between the First, Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments and the dimensions of embedded school police. Ultimately, schools must …

Seeking Economic Justice In The Face Of Enduring Racism, Deseriee A. Kennedy

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No abstract provided.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Wise Legal Giant, Thomas A. Schweitzer

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No abstract provided.

Reconceptualizing Hybrid Rights, Dan T. Coenen

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In landmark decisions on religious liberty and same-sex marriage, and many other cases as well, the Supreme Court has placed its imprimatur on so called “hybrid rights.” These rights spring from the interaction of two or more constitutional clauses, none of which alone suffices to give rise to the operative protection. Controversy surrounds hybrid rights in part because there exists no judicial account of their justifiability. To be sure, some scholarly treatments suggest that these rights emanate from the “structures” or “penumbras” of the Constitution. But critics respond that hybrid rights lack legitimacy for that very reason because structural and …

Conversion Therapy: A Brief Reflection On The History Of The Practice And Contemporary Regulatory Efforts, Tiffany C. Graham

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This brief symposium essay offers a broad-stroke sketch of the history of conversion therapy, its current status as a locus of regulation, and some preliminary questions about the direction the law might take to protect individuals who elect or are forcibly subjected to the practice.

Some Kind Of Hearing Officer, Kent H. Barnett

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In his prominent 1975 law-review article, “Some Kind of Hearing,” Second Circuit Judge Henry Friendly explored how courts (and agencies) should respond when the Due Process Clause required, in the Supreme Court’s exceedingly vague words, “some kind of hearing.” That phrase led to the familiar (if unhelpful) Mathews v. Eldridge balancing test, in which courts weigh three factors to determine how much process or formality is due. But the Supreme Court has never applied Mathews to another, often ignored facet of due process—the requirement for impartial adjudicators. As it turns out, Congress and agencies have broad discretion to fashion not …

Federal Guilty Pleas: Inequities, Indigence And The Rule 11 Process, Julian A. Cook

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In 2017 and 2018, the Supreme Court issued two little-noticed decisions—Lee v. United States and Class v. United States. While neither case captured the attention of the national media nor generated meaningful academic commentary, both cases are well deserving of critical examination for reasons independent of the issues presented to the Court. They deserve review because of a consequential shared fact; a fact representative of a commonplace, yet largely overlooked, federal court practice that routinely disadvantages the indigent (and disproportionately minority populations), and compromises the integrity of arguably the most consequential component of the federal criminal justice process. In each …

Constructing The Original Scope Of Constitutional Rights, Nathan Chapman

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In this solicited response to Ingrid Wuerth's "The Due Process and Other Constitutional Rights of Foreign Nations," I explain and justify Wuerth's methodology for constructing the original scope of constitutional rights. The original understanding of the Constitution, based on text and historical context, is a universally acknowledged part of constitutional law today. The original scope of constitutional rights — who was entitled to them, where they extended, and so on — is a particularly difficult question that requires a measure of construction based on the entire historical context. Wuerth rightly proceeds one right at a time with a careful consideration …

Due Process Of War, Nathan Chapman

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The application of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the government’s deprivation of rights during war is one of the most challenging and contested questions of constitutional law. The Supreme Court has not provided a consistent or historically informed framework for analyzing due process during war. Based on the English background, the text and history of the U.S. Constitution, and early American practice, this Article argues that due process was originally understood to apply to many but not to all deprivations of rights during war. It proposes a framework for analyzing due process during war that accords …

Non-Alj Adjudicators In Federal Agencies: Status, Selection, Oversight, And Removal, Kent H. Barnett, Russell Wheeler

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This article republishes—in substantively similar form—our 2018 report to the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) concerning federal agencies’ adjudicators who are not administrative law judges (ALJs). (We refer to these adjudicators as “non-ALJ Adjudicators” or “non-ALJs.”) As our data indicate, non-ALJs significantly outnumber ALJs. Yet non-ALJs are often overlooked and difficult to discuss as a class because of their disparate titles and characteristics. To obtain more information on non-ALJs, we surveyed agencies on non-ALJs’ hearings and, among other things, the characteristics concerning non-ALJs’ salaries, selection, oversight, and removal. We first present our reported data on these matters, which …

Judicial Review Of Disproportionate (Or Retaliatory) Deportation, Jason A. Cade

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This Article focuses attention on two recent and notable federal court opinions considering challenges to Trump administration deportation decisions. While finding no statutory bar to the noncitizens’ detention and deportation in these cases, the court in each instance paused to highlight the injustice of the removal decisions. This Article places the opinions in the context of emerging immigration enforcement trends, which reflect a growing indifference to disproportionate treatment as well as enforcement actions founded on retaliation for the exercise of constitutional rights. Judicial decisions like the ones considered here serve vital functions in the cause of immigration law reform even …

Due Process Abroad, Nathan Chapman

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Defining the scope of the Constitution’s application outside U.S. territory is more important than ever. This month the Supreme Court will hear oral argument about whether the Constitution applies when a U.S. officer shoots a Mexican child across the border. Meanwhile the federal courts are scrambling to evaluate the constitutionality of an Executive Order that, among other things, deprives immigrants of their right to reenter the United States. Yet the extraterritorial reach of the Due Process Clause — the broadest constitutional limit on the government’s authority to deprive persons of “life, liberty, and property” — remains obscure. Up to now, …

Why Some Religious Accommodations For Mandatory Vaccinations Violate The Establishment Clause, Hillel Y. Levin

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All states require parents to inoculate their children against deadly diseases prior to enrolling them in public schools, but the vast majority of states also allow parents to opt out on religious grounds. This religious accommodation imposes potentially grave costs on the children of non-vaccinating parents and on those who cannot be immunized. The Establishment Clause prohibits religious accommodations that impose such costs on third parties in some cases, but not in all. This presents a difficult line-drawing problem. The Supreme Court has offered little guidance, and scholars are divided.

This Article addresses the problem of religious accommodations that impose …

The Due Process Bona Fides Of Executive Self-Pardons And Blanket Pardons, Peter Brandon Bayer

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Contrary to much commentary and possibly some seemingly settled law, this essay argues that an American President (or a similarly situated state officer or office) may issue individual and "blanket"-or mass-clemency benefiting classes of named or unnamed individuals, and in addition may pardon himself, but only if doing so comports with the principles of fundamental fairness that define due process of law under the Constitution's Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Accordingly, the Constitution permits acts of clemency to foster mercy, compassion, and forgiveness, or to promote the purported best interests of the nation, or even to further an executive's political advantages, …

¿Con La Misma Vara? Los Altibajos De La Igual Protección De Las Leyes En Las Opiniones Del Juez Federico Hernández Denton, Jorge R. Roig

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La carrera del juez presidente Federico Hernández Denton como juez del Tribunal Supremo de Puerto Rico abarca cuatro distintas décadas durante las cuales la sociedad puertorriqueña ha experimentado dramáticos cambios. Desde los intentos por eliminar el hostigamiento sexual y la violencia doméstica hasta el desarrollo de los derechos civiles de los individuos y las parejas homosexuales; desde el cierre de las urbanizaciones adineradas y el enclaustre de la clase media hasta los despidos masivos en el gobierno y la constitucionalización de las escoltas de los ex gobernadores; los cambios experimentados por los puertorriqueños no nos han tocado a todos por …

Rethinking Section Five: Deference, Direct Regulation, And Restoring Congressional Authority To Enforce The Fourteenth Amendment, Tiffany C. Graham

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After the Supreme Court's decision in City of Boerne v. Flores, the Court worked systematically to undermine the scope of Congress's regulatory authority under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court did this as part of the neo-federalist revival, in an effort to restrain congressional power in favor of elevating state power against federal intrusion. The Court took this route in restraining various powers, among them the powers granted to Congress under Article I of the U.S. Constitution. Arguably, though, the effort to restrain Congress was most pronounced in the arena of Section 5. In this Article, I argue …

How Congress Could Defend Doma In Court (And Why The Blag Cannot), Matthew I. Hall

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In one of the most closely watched litigation matters in recent years, the Supreme Court will soon consider Edith Windsor's challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The Court surprised many observers by granting certiorari, not only on the merits of Windsor's equal protection and due process claims, but also on the question whether the defendants — the United States and the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the House of Representatives (the BLAG) — have Article III standing to defend DOMA. The United States has agreed with plaintiffs that DOMA is unconstitutional, prompting the BLAG to intervene for the …

Due Process As Separation Of Powers, Nathan S. Chapman, Michael W. Mcconnell

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From its conceptual origin in Magna Charta, due process of law has required that government can deprive persons of rights only pursuant to a coordinated effort of separate institutions that make, execute, and adjudicate claims under the law. Originalist debates about whether the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendments were understood to entail modern “substantive due process” have obscured the way that many American lawyers and courts understood due process to limit the legislature from the Revolutionary era through the Civil War. They understood due process to prohibit legislatures from directly depriving persons of rights, especially vested property rights, because it was …

Timeline Of African-American Legal History In Nevada (1861-2011), Rachel J. Anderson

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For the first time in Nevada history, this timeline depicts selected events in the history of African-American lawyers, civil rights, and diversity in Nevada's bar and bench. It includes many historically significant pictures and is part of a special Black History Month issue of the Nevada Lawyer, the official publication of the State Bar of Nevada. That issue highlights the achievements and contributions of African-American lawyers in Nevada in honor of the 51st anniversary of the first African American (Charles L. Kellar) passing the Nevada state bar examination, the 48th anniversary of the first two African Americans admitted to the …

Preserving The Past In The Present For The Future: Las Vegas Chapter Of The National Bar Association Archive At The Wiener-Rogers Law Library, Jeanne Price, Rachel J. Anderson

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This co-authored article documents the establishment of the Las Vegas Chapter of the National Bar Association (LVNBA) Archive in 2011 at the Wiener-Rogers Law Library at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, William S. Boyd School of Law, which may be the first of its kind in the nation. The LVNBA archive was established in cooperation with the LVNBA, the local affiliate of the National Bar Association, which is the nation’s oldest minority bar and largest national association of over 44,000 predominately African-American lawyers, judges, professors, and law students. Materials donated by the LVNBA and its members document the role …

Superheroes, Bandits, And Cyber-Nerds: Exploring The History And Contemporary Development Of The Vigilante, Stephanie Juliano

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This article will first discuss what defines a vigilante, the history of vigilantes, and the contemporary vigilante's effect on the legal system as a whole. Also, this article will focus on those scenarios that bring an ordinary person to react in an illegal way to a perceived injustice. In focusing on these scenarios, this article will examine a little more closely the answers of deeper questions about the nature of law and justice, and their roles in the accelerating world of new media.

The Last Common Law Justice: The Personal Jurisdiction Jurisprudence Of Justice John Paul Stevens, Rodger D. Citron

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No abstract provided.

State-Created Property And Due Process Of Law: Filling The Void Left By Engquist V. Oregon Department Of Agriculture, Michael Wells, Alice Snedeker

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Several years ago, in Village of Willowbrook v. Olech, the Supreme Court recognized a 'class-of-one' Equal Protection theory, under which individuals charging that they were singled out for arbitrary treatment by officials may sue for vindication. Last term, in Engquist v. Oregon Department of Agriculture, the Court barred recourse to this type of claim on the part of government employees. The reasoning of Engquist, which emphasizes the discretionary nature of employment decisions, threatens to eliminate a wide range of class-of-one claims outside the employment area as well. There is a pressing need for an alternative. This article proposes another basis …

The Tri-Ethnic Dilemma: Race, Equality, And The Fourteenth Amendment In The American West, Tom I. Romero Ii

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No abstract provided.

Mary Daly V. Boston College: The Impermissibility Of Single-Sex Classrooms Within A Private University, Maryam Ahranjani

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No abstract provided.

Equal Protection Of The Laws: Recent Judicial Decisions And Their Implications For Public Educational Institutions, Anne Dupre, John Dayton

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This article reviews recent judicial decisions concerning the Equal Protection Clause and provides an analysis of their implications for public educational institutions. The article begins by giving a brief historical overview of the Equal Protection Clause, its application to the states, and describes the three-tiered approach to challenges alleging government denial of equal protection of the laws. Recent applications of each tier are addressed by discussing Adarand v. Pena, Hopwood v. Texas, U.S. v. Virginia, and Romer v. Evans. The article concludes by noting that these recent cases have added to uncertainty concerning the Court’s interpretation of the Equal …