Fourteenth Amendment Commons^™

Parental Exclusion From The Education Governance Kaleidoscope: Providing A Political Voice For Marginalized Students In Our Time Of Disruption, Tiffani N. Darden

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Article develops how the judiciary should play an instrumental part in amplifying the parent’s voice as a citizenship broker for their child. The Supreme Court scrutinizes school-board actions with little consideration of parents’ substantive due process right to control their child’s education through the political process. Through representative school boards, effective participation models, and an enforcement framework, parents could hold the power to affect education policies. Parents deserve full citizenship recognition in the tiered processes controlling public education policy. In addition to recognizing “quality” education as a government interest, the Supreme Court should also take into account the political …

Recent Developments In The Use Of Excessive Force By Law Enforcement, Karen M. Blum, Jack Ryan

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Fifth Circuit Buries Intrastate Economic Protectionism In St. Joseph Abbey V. Castille, Antonios Roustopoulos

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Truth Stories: Credibility Determinations At The Illinois Torture Inquiry And Relief Commission, 45 Loy. U. Chi. L.J. 1085 (2014), Kim D. Chanbonpin

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

This is the first scholarly Article to investigate the inner workings of the Illinois Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission (“TIRC”). The TIRC was established by statute in 2009 to provide legal redress for victims of police torture. Prisoners who claim that their convictions were based on confessions coerced by police torture can utilize the procedures available at the TIRC to obtain judicial review of their cases. For those who have exhausted all appeals and post-conviction remedies, the TIRC represents the tantalizing promise of justice long denied. To be eligible for relief, however, the claimant must first meet the TIRC’s strict …

Futility Of Exhaustion: Why Brady Claims Should Trump Federal Exhaustion Requirements, Tiffany R. Murphy

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

A defendant’s Fourteenth Amendment due process rights are violated when a state agency fails to disclose crucial exculpatory or impeachment evidence — so-called Brady violations. When this happens, the defendant should be provided the means not only to locate this evidence, but also to fully develop it in state post-conviction processes. When the state system prohibits both the means and legal mechanism to develop Brady claims, the defendant should be immune to any procedural penalties in either state or federal court. In other words, the defendant should not be required to return to state court to exhaust such a claim. …

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 …

Evaluating Candidacy Restrictions: The Implications Of New York's Modified Approach, Brian Hodgkinson

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

You Have The Right To Be Free From Unwanted Bodily Intrusion--Unless Of Course There Is A Court Order, Tara Laterza

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Don't Feed The Deer: Misapplications Of Statutory Vagueness And The First Amendment Overbreadth Doctrine, Brian Hodgkinson

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Richard Ortega, Plaintiff-Appellant, V. United States Immigration And Customs Enforcement, Et Al., Defendants-Appellants: Petition For A Writ Of Certiorari, Patricia E. Roberts, Tillman J. Breckenridge, Thomas W. Ports Jr.

Appellate and Supreme Court Clinic

No abstract provided.

Associations And The Constitution: Four Questions About Four Freedoms, Nelson Tebbe

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Weathering Wal-Mart, Joseph A. Seiner

Notre Dame Law Review

In Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 131 S. Ct. 2531 (2011), the Supreme Court held that a proposed class of over a million women that had alleged pay and promotion discrimination against the nation’s largest retailer could not be certified. According to the Court, the plaintiffs had failed to establish a common thread in the case sufficient to tie their claims together. The academic response to Wal-Mart was immediate and harsh: the decision will serve as the death knell for mass employment litigation, undermining the workplace protections provided by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII). …

Burwell V. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.: Brief Of Amici Curiae Historians And Legal Scholars Supporting Neither Party, William J. Novak

Appellate Briefs

Amici are scholars of history and law with an important interest in the question presented and particularly in the traditional treatment of corporations under American law.

Much of the research in this brief is drawn from papers by amici, developed through several meetings of the ongoing "Corporations and American Democracy" research initiative undertaken by the Tobin Project, a non-profit research organization.

Because amici have not examined the factual questions relating to the particular corporations at issue in these consolidated cases, they file this brief in support of neither party.

Prisoners And Habeas Privileges Under The Fourteenth Amendment, Lee B. Kovarsky

Faculty Scholarship

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 …

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 …

Dodd-Frank's Conflict Minerals Rule: The Tin Ear Of Government-Business Regulation, Henry Lowenstein

Marketing and Hospitality, Resort and Tourism Management

This paper examines an unusual provision included in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (2010), Section 1502 known as the Conflict Minerals Rule. This provision, having nothing to do with the subject matter of the act itself, attempts to place a chilling effect on the trade of four identified minerals from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The provision and its subsequent rule, surprisingly delegated to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (an agency lacking subject matter expertise in minerals) presents a case and object lesson of almost every cost, procedural and legal error that can take place …

Fisher V. Texas: The Limits Of Exhaustion And The Future Of Race-Conscious University Admissions, John A. Powell, Stephen Menendian

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article investigates the potential ramifications of Fisher v. Texas and the future of race-conscious university admissions. Although one cannot predict the ultimate significance of the Fisher decision, its brief and pregnant statements of law portends an increasingly perilous course for traditional affirmative action programs. Part I explores the opinions filed in Fisher, with a particular emphasis on Justice Kennedy’s opinion on behalf of the Court. We focus on the ways in which the Fisher decision departs from precedent, proscribes new limits on the use of race in university admissions, and tightens requirements for narrow tailoring. Part II investigates the …

A New Approach To Judicial Scrutiny Of Voter Registration Laws, David Feinstein

Cardozo Law Review de•novo

This Note argues that 3PVRO activities implicate First Amendment rights to a degree that merits substantial constitutional protection, and therefore more robust judicial scrutiny of laws regulating them. The applicable constitutional standard requires a court to ask whether the regulated acts constitute political activity within the meaning of the First Amendment. An approach that more accurately reflects the political nature of voter registration will likewise enhance the utility of that standard, and yield more consistent results. This Note further argues that in certain cases restrictions on voter registration activities severely burden core First Amendment rights, and should therefore be subject …

Dark Sarcasm In The Classroom: The Failure Of The Courts To Recognize Students' Severe Emotional Harm As Unconstitutional, Emily Suski

Faculty Publications

Sometimes the very people who are supposed to teach, nurture, and protect students in public schools — the students’ teachers, principals, coaches, and other school officials — are instead the people who harm them. Public school officials have beaten students, causing significant physical harm. They have also left students suffering from depression, suicidal ideation, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. When school officials cause such severe harm to students, all the federal courts of appeals to consider the issue have concluded that the Fourteenth Amendment at least in theory protects them, regardless of whether the form of the harm is emotional or …

Straddling The Columbia: A Constitutional Law Professor's Musings On Circumventing Washington State's Criminal Prohibition On Compensated Surrogacy, Peter Nicolas

Articles

In this Article, I recount—through both the prisms of an intended parent and a constitutional law scholar—my successful efforts to become a parent via compensated surrogacy and egg donation. Part I of this Article provides a narrative of my experience in becoming a parent via compensated surrogacy, and the various state and federal legal roadblocks and deterrents that I encountered along the way, including Washington State's criminal prohibition on compensated surrogacy as well as federal guidelines issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regarding the use of sperm by gay donors in the process of in vitro fertilization.

Part …

Abolish Anonymous Reporting To Child Abuse Hotlines, Dale Margolin Cecka

Law Faculty Publications

Part I of this Article traces the history of child abuse reporting hotlines. Part II describes the current law and practice behind child abuse reporting hotlines. Part III examines why anonymous reporting by the public is unnecessary and highly susceptible to abuse. Part IV analyzes the constitutional rights at stake in anonymous reporting, citing federal case law that contradicts current practice. Part V concludes with a proposal to abolish anonymous reporting and require all public reporting hotlines to adhere to published, written policies.

Will The South Rise Again And, If So, In What Form?: Lessons From Latcrit About Resisting The Fear Of Cultural Understanding, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

Through lessons learned from LatCrit 2013, this essay is hoping to evoke the missing sentiment of understanding and equality by signifying that the south that will rise again will be a south that is transformed, as Dr. Martin Luther King said “into an oasis of freedom and justice,” by moving out of its fears of understanding and moving to a far greater level of cross-cultural understanding.

"Not Without Political Power": Gays And Lesbians, Equal Protection, Darren Lenard Hutchinson

UF Law Faculty Publications

The Supreme Court purportedly utilizes the suspect class doctrine in order to balance institutional concerns with the protection of important constitutional rights. The Court, however, inconsistently applies this doctrine, and it has not precisely defined its contours. The political powerlessness factor is especially undertheorized and contradictorily applied. Nevertheless, this factor has become salient in recent equal protection cases brought by gay and lesbian plaintiffs. A growing body of and federal and state-court precedent addresses the flaws of the Court's suspect class doctrine. This Article discusses the inadequacies of the suspect class doctrine and highlights problems within the emerging scholarship and …

Evolving Values, Animus, And Same-Sex Marriage, Daniel O. Conkle

Indiana Law Journal

In this Essay, I contend that a Fourteenth Amendment right to same-sex marriage will emerge, and properly so, when the Supreme Court determines that justice so requires and when, in the words of Professor Alexander Bickel, the Court’s recognition of this right will “in a rather immediate foreseeable future . . . gain general assent.” I suggest that we are fast approaching that juncture, and I go on to analyze three possible justifications for such a ruling: first, substantive due process; second, heightened scrutiny equal protection; and third, rational basis equal protection coupled with a finding of illicit “animus.” I …

Evidence-Based Sentencing And The Scientific Rationalization Of Discrimination, Sonja B. Starr

Articles

This Article critiques, on legal and empirical grounds, the growing trend of basing criminal sentences on actuarial recidivism risk prediction instruments that include demographic and socioeconomic variables. I argue that this practice violates the Equal Protection Clause and is bad policy: an explicit embrace of otherwise- condemned discrimination, sanitized by scientific language. To demonstrate that this practice raises serious constitutional concerns, I comprehensively review the relevant case law, much of which has been ignored by existing literature. To demonstrate that the policy is not justified by countervailing state interests, I review the empirical evidence underlying the instruments. I show that …

Not Without Political Power: Gays And Lesbians, Equal Protection And The Suspect Class Doctrine, Darren L. Hutchinson

Faculty Articles

The Supreme Court purportedly utilizes the suspect class doctrine in order to balance institutional concerns with the protection of important constitutional rights. The Court, however, inconsistently applies this doctrine, and it has not precisely defined its contours. The political powerlessness factor is especially undertheorized and contradictorily applied. Nevertheless, this factor has become salient in recent equal protection cases brought by gay and lesbian plaintiffs.

A growing body of and federal and state-court precedent addresses the flaws of the Court's suspect class doctrine. This Article discusses the inadequacies of the suspect class doctrine and highlights problems within the emerging scholarship and …

Due Process Disaggregation, Jason Parkin

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

One-size-fits-all procedural safeguards are becoming increasingly suspect under the Due Process Clause. Although the precise requirements of due process vary from context to context, the Supreme Court has held that, within any particular context, the Due Process Clause merely requires one-size-fits-all procedures that are designed according to the needs of the average or typical person using the procedures. As the Court explained when announcing the modern approach to procedural due process in Mathews v. Eldridge, the due process calculus must be focused on “the generality of cases, not the rare exceptions.” A more granular approach to due process rules, the …

Jailing Black Babies, James G. Dwyer

Utah Law Review

Children-in-prison programs reflect a commendable sympathy for the lifelong disadvantage and deprivation that most prison inmates have suffered and a wish to transform their lives. But acting primarily on the basis of that sympathy and wish, rather than focusing realistically on what is truly best for children, is a moral and policy mistake. Available evidence suggests that the extreme form of connecting incarcerated birth parents with their offspring, prison nurseries, harms the great majority of those children, especially when the impact is compared to the life the children might have had if adopted immediately after birth. Advocacy for this practice …

Solitary Confinement, Public Safety, And Recdivism, Shira E. Gordon

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

As of 2005, about 80,000 prisoners were housed in solitary confinement in jails and in state and federal prisons in the United States. Prisoners in solitary confinement are generally housed in a cell for twenty-two to twenty-four hours a day with little human contact or interaction. The number of prisoners held in solitary confinement increased 40 percent between 1995 and 2000, in comparison to the growth in the total prison population of 28 percent. Concurrently, the duration of time that prisoners spend in solitary confinement also increased: nationally, most prisoners in solitary confinement spend more than five years there. The …

The Law Comes To Campus: The Evolution And Current Role Of The Office Of The General Counsel On College And University Campuses, Jason A. Block

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

Much has been written in the literature of higher education on the history and current role of presidents, provosts, and deans. However, higher education scholars have, for the most part ignored the role of institutional in-house attorneys on college and university campuses. Those who have written on the subject of institutional counsel have proffered the idea that in-house general counsel offices were established as a result of the increased regulation of higher education by state and federal governments, and litigation resulting from the faculty and student rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s. This project seeks to provide a detailed …