Fourteenth Amendment Commons^™

Ethical Considerations For Attorneys Researching Jurors On The Internet, Anthony M. Lapinta

Journal of Race, Gender, and Equality

No abstract provided.

The Central Park Five As “Discrete And Insular” Minorities Under The Equal Protection Clause: The Evolution Of The Right To Counsel For Wrongfully Convicted Minors, Todd K. Beharry

Journal of Race, Gender, and Equality

No abstract provided.

Confession Obsession: How To Protect Minors In Interrogations, Cindy Chau

Journal of Race, Gender, and Equality

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Pretrial Detention In A Criminal System Looking For Justice, Gabrielle Costa

Journal of Race, Gender, and Equality

No abstract provided.

The Economic Impact Of Access To Reproductive Healthcare: A New Constitutional Argument, Niyati Narang

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis attempts to offer an alternative constitutional argument to Roe v Wade by focusing on the economic liberties granted by the 14th Amendment. By highlighting the connection between reproductive healthcare (abortion access, the pill) and women's economic development, this thesis presents an alternative argument to Roe.

Tax Policy And Our Democracy, Clinton G. Wallace

Michigan Law Review

Review of Anthony C. Infanti's Our Selfish Tax Laws: Toward Tax Reform That Mirrors Our Better Selves.

Crossing The Border Or Crossing The Line? Why Alternate Dispute Resolution Is The Best Route To Reunite Families Of Immigrant Children Separated At The U.S.-Mexico Border, Colby Berman

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

This Note will explore the problem of family separation at the U.S.-Mexico border and propose a solution through the use of mediation as a means to peacefully reunite families without lengthy, emotionally-draining, and expensive litigation. It will discuss case law addressing the problem, as well as the recent history of family separation under President Obama and President Trump. This Note will briefly examine methods used to maintain a tough stance on immigration while also alleviating family separation of immigrant populations, looking to other developed countries' tactics, as well as the United States' Family Case Management Program (which enjoyed success in …

Washington’S Young Offenders: O’Dell Demands A Change To Sentencing Guidelines, Erika Vranizan

Seattle University Law Review

This Note argues that the O’Dell decision was a watershed moment for criminal justice reform. It argues that the reasoning in O’Dell should be seized upon by the legislature to take action to remediate instances in which defendants are legal adults but do not possess the cognitive characteristics of an adult sufficient to justify adult punishment. Given both the scientific impossibility of identifying a precise age at which characteristics of youthfulness end and adulthood begins and the Court’s repeated recognition that these very factors impact culpability, the current approach to sentencing young offenders aged eighteen to twenty-five as adults simply …

Dual Allegiance: Federal And State Treason Prosecutions, The Treason Clause, And The Fourteenth Amendment, Alexander Gouzoules

Faculty Publications

The Treason Clause creates an individual right at a criminal trial that could have logically been placed within the Fifth Amendment rather than Article III: “No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.” It has effectively prevented expansive uses of the charge at the federal level. But states may also charge citizens with treason against state governments, and many such prosecutions have played important roles in American history.

This article reviews the parallel histories of state and federal treason prosecutions. It then analyzes …

Reconceptualizing Hybrid Rights, Dan T. Coenen

Scholarly Works

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 …

Gatekeeping The Profession, Christopher Williams

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The article argues that the U.S. model of legal education functions as a racial gatekeeper, perpetuating inequality by adopting and exacerbating societal prejudices. It highlights how structural mechanisms within legal education, such as standardized testing, admission processes, and socialization, disproportionately exclude and marginalize students of color, particularly black students, mirroring the experiences of Dalits in India's legal education system. The author introduces the concept of "adoptive prejudice," where legal education systems adapt and embed societal hierarchies, leading to systemic exclusion and disparity.

A Presumption In Favor Of Openness: Unsealing Adoption Records, Emily Ingall

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The note argues that the current system of sealed adoption records in the United States, which prioritizes confidentiality over adoptees' rights, is outdated and harmful. It advocates for a presumption of openness, asserting that adoptees have a fundamental right to access their birth records, which is essential for their identity, medical needs, and psychological well-being. The analysis calls for legal reforms that balance the privacy rights of birth parents with the rights of adoptees to their personal information, proposing a model that includes contact preference registries and access to non-identifying information.

Political Wine In A Judicial Bottle: Justice Sotomayor's Surprising Concurrence In Aurelius, Christina D. Ponsa-Kraus

Faculty Scholarship

For seventy years, Puerto Ricans have been bitterly divided over how to decolonize the island, a U.S. territory. Many favor Puerto Rico’s admission into statehood. But many others support a different kind of relationship with the United States: they believe that in 1952, Puerto Rico entered into a “compact” with the United States that transformed it from a territory into a “commonwealth,” and they insist that “commonwealth” status made Puerto Rico a separate sovereign in permanent union with the United States. Statehood supporters argue that there is no compact, nor should there be: it is neither constitutionally possible, nor desirable …

The Lesser Of Two Evils: Lowering The Constitutional Amendment Bar To Avoid An Unadaptable Constitution, Encouraged Judicial Activism, And Disrupted Federalism, Hayley Stillwell

Faculty Articles

The Constitution has not been amended for nearly three decades. During this time, the line in the sand between political parties has morphed into an impenetrable wall that neither side can or is willing to breach. This begs the question whether the constitutional amendment process in Article V is presently functional. If Article V is no longer functional, then the constitutional amendment process itself needs to be amended. Drastic as this sounds, it is the lesser of two evils. The alternative—accepting that Article V is dead and the Constitution cannot be amended—will lead to a distorted world in which the …

In Memory Of Professor James E. Bond, Janet Ainsworth

Seattle University Law Review

Janet Ainsworth, Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law: In Memory of Professor James E. Bond.

Three Keys To The Original Meaning Of The Privileges Or Immunities Clause, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Establishing the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause requires a wealth of evidence. But three key data points are crucial to identifying the core of its meaning. First, Supreme Court Justice Washington’s explanation of the meaning of “privileges and immunities” in Corfield v. Coryell; second, the rights protected by the Civil Rights Act of 1866; and third, Michigan Senator Jacob Howard’s speech explaining the content of the Privileges or Immunities Clause when introducing the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Senate in 1866. Any theory of the Privileges or Immunities Clause and its original meaning …

The Rise And Fall Of Transcendent Constitutionalism In The Civil War Era, Cynthia Nicoletti

Faculty Scholarship

In the aftermath of the Civil War, American intellectuals saw the war itself as a force of transcendent lawmaking. They viewed it as a historical catalyst that had forged the United States into a nation. In writing the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress sought to translate the war's nationalistic spirit into text. But in the eyes of many contemporary thinkers, the war's centripetal energy was a doubleedged sword. It could create a nation out of disparate parts, but it was also potentially uncontainable, divorced from the regular lawmaking process and beyond the control of human actors. As a result, many American jurists …

Civil Rights In Living Color, Vinay Harpalani

Faculty Scholarship

This Article will examine how American civil rights law has treated “color” discrimination and differentiated it from “race” discrimination. It is a comprehensive analysis of the changing legal meaning of “color” discrimination throughout American history. The Article will cover views of “color” in the antebellum era, Reconstruction laws, early equal protection cases, the U.S. Census, modern civil rights statutes, and in People v. Bridgeforth—a landmark 2016 ruling by the New York Court of Appeals. First, the Article will lay out the complex relationship between race and color and discuss the phenomenon of colorism—oppression based on skin color—as differentiated from …

Do Abolitionism And Constitutionalism Mix?, Aya Gruber

Publications

No abstract provided.

Making Litigating Citizenship More Fair, Ming H. Chen

Publications

No abstract provided.

Reproductive Health Care Exceptionalism And The Pandemic, Helen Norton

Publications

No abstract provided.

First Amendment Lochnerism & The Origins Of The Incorporation Doctrine, James Y. Stern

Faculty Publications

The 20th century emergence of the incorporation doctrine is regarded as a critical development in constitutional law, but while issues related to the doctrine's justification have been studied and debated for more than fifty years, the causes and mechanics of its advent have received relatively little academic attention. This Essay, part of a symposium on Judge Jeffrey Sutton's recent book about state constitutional law, examines the doctrinal origins of incorporation, in an effort to help uncover why the incorporation doctrine emerged when it did and the way it did. It concludes that, for these purposes, incorporation is best understood as …

A Legal Analysis: The Transgender Bathroom Debate, Josselyn Sheer

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This article examines the current legal battles over transgender bathroom, locker room, and employment rights. In the recent years, there has been a major uproar surrounding the rights of transgender individuals; concurrently, our country is witnessing a shift in the ways in which individuals understand their gender outside of the binary male and female classification. While the word transgender can serve as an “umbrella term encompassing a wide array of identifies,” transgender rights have steadily grown across numerous areas (Buck, 2016, p. 465). However, there have been contentious legal issues that have put transgender individuals rights in the spotlight.

The …

The Separation Of Migrant Families At The Border Under The Trump Administration’S Zero-Tolerance Policy: A Critical Analysis Of The Mistreatment Of Immigrant Children Held In U.S. Custody, Dhillon Ramkhelawan

Child and Family Law Journal

This article provides a critical analysis of the Trump Administration’s zero-tolerance policy that separated migrant families at the Southwest United States border from April to June 2018. It will provide a statistical analysis regarding the number of migrant children that were separated from their parents during this time period, and it will describe the poor living conditions that many of these children were subjected to as they waited for their parent’s immigration cases to be decided. Additionally, this article will also critically analyze the United States’ history of mistreating migrant children who started to flee their war-torn countries in Central …

The Privileges Or Immunities Clause, Abridged: A Critique Of Kurt Lash On The Fourteenth Amendment, Randy E. Barnett, Evan D. Bernick

Notre Dame Law Review

In earlier writings, both of us have expressed sympathy for the view that the Privileges or Immunities Clause affords absolute protection to unenumerated rights, such as those contained in the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and authorizes Congress to enact protective legislation. Neither of us, however, has engaged with Kurt Lash’s most recent and unique two-class interpretation of the original meaning of the Privileges or Immunities Clause in the depth that it deserves. Nor have we evaluated his recent efforts to demonstrate that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process of Law Clause empowers the federal courts and Congress to protect unenumerated …

Rediscovering Corfield V. Coryell, Gerard N. Magliocca

Notre Dame Law Review

This Article reveals new details about Corfield v. Coryell based on archival research. In 2017, the author found Justice Washington’s original notes on Corfield in the Chicago History Museum. The most important revelation about Corfield is that the Justice was initially inclined to hold that the state law his decision upheld was, in fact, unconstitutional under the Privileges and Immunities Clause. The notes also say that he saw Livingston v. Van Ingen as the leading precedent on the Privileges and Immunities Clause and backed Chancellor Kent’s view in that case that the Clause articulated a nondiscrimination rule for out-of-state citizens …

De Facto State: Social Media Networks And The First Amendment, Paul Domer

Notre Dame Law Review

In Marsh v. Alabama, a Jehovah’s Witness was arrested and convicted of trespassing for proselytizing on a public sidewalk that nonetheless was, like everything else in the “company town,” privately owned. The Court reversed, holding that the First and Fourteenth Amendments applied against a private actor if it exercised all the powers and responsibilities traditionally associated with a government—policing, utilities, and traffic control, for example. Writing for the majority, Justice Black declared, “The more an owner, for his advantage, opens up his property for use by the public in general, the more do his rights become circumscribed by the …

The Enumerated-Rights Reading Of The Privileges Or Immunities Clause: A Response To Barnett And Bernick, Kurt T. Lash

Notre Dame Law Review

In their new article, The Privileges or Immunities Clause, Abridged: A Critique of Kurt Lash on the Fourteenth Amendment, Randy Barnett and Evan Bernick insist that this historical evidence does not support the enumerated-rights reading. Instead, Barnett and Bernick embrace what I call the “fundamental-rights” reading of the Privileges or Immunities Clause. This view maintains that the Clause should be understood as protecting a set of absolute rights nowhere expressly enumerated in the text of the Constitution, for example the unenumerated economic right to contract or to pursue a trade.

Rather than agreeing with John Bingham, Barnett and Bernick …

The Difference Narrows: A Reply To Kurt Lash, Randy E. Barnett, Evan D. Bernick

Notre Dame Law Review

We thank the Notre Dame Law Review for allowing us to respond to Kurt Lash’s reply to our critique of his interpretation of the Privileges or Immunities Clause. We could forgive readers for having difficulty adjudicating this dispute. When Lash argues, evidence always comes pouring forth, and the sheer volume can overwhelm the senses. We sometimes have a hard time following his arguments, and we are experts in the field. We can only imagine how it seems to those who are otherwise unfamiliar with this terrain.

So, in this reply—with a few exceptions—we will avoid piling up any new evidence …

Wealth, Equal Protection, And Due Process, Brandon L. Garrett

William & Mary Law Review

Increasingly, constitutional litigation challenging wealth inequality focuses on the intersection of the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses. That intersection—between equality and due process—deserves far more careful exploration. What I call “equal process” claims arise from a line of Supreme Court and lower court cases in which wealth inequality is the central concern. For example, the Supreme Court in Bearden v. Georgia conducted analysis of a claim that criminal defendants were treated differently based on wealth in which due process and equal protection principles converged. That equal process connection is at the forefront of a wave of national litigation concerning …