Jurisprudence Commons^™

The Problem Of Democracy In Contexts Of Polarization, Imer Flores

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this paper I argue that contemporary democracies all over the world are more polarized than ever and intend to analyze not only the conditions of possibility of a democracy, in general, and in contexts of polarization, in particular, but also the relationship between democracy and polarization. My claim is that polarization, if certain conditions are met, more than a problem it is a great opportunity to democracy and a greater democratization. Hence, I bring to mind that it was Ronald Dworkin, who recently asked about the conditions of possibility of a democracy and its relationship with polarization by developing …

Montesquieu's Theory Of Government And The Framing Of The American Constitution , Matthew P. Bergman

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Deciphering A Duality: Understanding Conflicting Standards In Sex & Violence Censorship In U.S. Obscenity Law, Rushabh P. Bhakta

Political Science Honors Projects

This research examines the division in US obscenity law that enables strict sex censorship while overlooking violence. By investigating the social and legal development of obscenity in US culture, I argue that the contemporary duality in obscenity censorship standards arose from a family of forces consisting of faith, economy, and identity in early American history. While sexuality ingrained itself in American culture as a commodity in need of regulation, violence was decentralized from the state and proliferated. This phenomenon led to a prioritization of suppressing sexual speech over violent speech. This paper traces the emergence this duality and its source.

Random Chance Or Loaded Dice: The Politics Of Judicial Designation, Todd C. Peppers, Katherine Vigilante, Christopher Zorn

Scholarly Articles

Here, we take advantage of a unique characteristic of the procedures of the U.S. courts of appeals—the discretion held by chief judges to designate district court judges to three-judge appellate panels— to examine empirically the importance of oversight and judicial hierarchy on judges' behavior in those courts. Specifically, we examine the extent to which decisions about the policy preferences of designated judges vary systematically with the ideological tenor of the chief judge himself, the court as a whole, and the U.S. Supreme Court. More simply put, we ask: are district court judges selected to sit on appeals court panels simply …

Legal Affinities: Explorations In The Legal Form Of Thought, Patrick Mckinley Brennan

Working Paper Series

This is my Introduction to Legal Affinities: Explorations in the Legal Form of Thought (forthcoming 2012) (co-edited with H. Jefferson Powell and Jack Sammons), a volume of essays dedicated to exploring the work of Joseph Vining. The Introduction introduces Vining’s phenomenology of law and surveys the themes and topics developed by the volume’s eight authors: Joseph Vining, Judge John T. Noonan, Jr., Rev. John McCausland, H. Jefferson Powell, Jack Sammons, Steve Smith, James Boyd White, and Patrick Brennan.

The Politics Of Physical Education Reform, Ari Zyskind

CMC Senior Theses

The purpose of the paper is to determine why today's youth are so physically inactive by examining the role and efforts of physical education, and the state and federal governments responsibility in supporting these programs, in fighting today's obesity epidemic by creating generations of healthy and physically active children. Research led to the determination that states have failed to maintain and improve physical education resulting in a physically inactive youth. Therefore, the nation should look to federal legislation to support state-led physical education, which this paper found to be constitutional if the enactments followed the provisions established in South Dakota …

Renegotiating The Social Contract, Jennifer S. Hendricks

Publications

This review of The Supportive State: Families, Government and America’s Political Ideals highlights Maxine Eichner’s important theoretical contributions to both liberal political theory and feminist theory, applauding her success in reforming liberalism to account for dependency, vulnerability, and families. The review then considers some implications of Eichner’s proposals and their likely reception among feminists. It concludes that The Supportive State is a sound and inspiring response to recent calls that feminist theory move from being strictly a school of criticism to developing a theory of governance.

Samantar And Executive Power, Peter B. Rutledge

Scholarly Works

This essay examines Samantar v. Yousuf in the context of broader debate about the relationship between federal common law and executive power. Samantar represents simply the latest effort by the Executive Branch to literally shape the meaning of law through a process referred to in the literature as “executive lawmaking.” While traditional accounts of executive lawmaking typically have treated the idea as a singular concept, Samantar demonstrates the need to bifurcate the concept into at least two different categories: acts of executive lawmaking decoupled from pending litigation and acts of executive lawmaking taken expressly in response to litigation. As Samantar …

Staring Down The Sights At Mcdonald V. City Of Chicago: Why The Second Amendment Deserves The Kevlar Protection Of Strict Scrutiny, James J. Williamson Ii

Legislation and Policy Brief

In June of 2008, the Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, declaring that a District of Columbia law prohibiting the possession of handguns in a private home for personal protection violated the Second Amendment of the Constitution.  Justice Scalia, writing for a 5-4 majority, recognized that the protections provided by the Second Amendment apply to individuals—not just “militias”—and emphatically declared that “the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table.  These include the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home.”  After four years of …

The Relation Of Theories Of Jurisprudence To International Politics And Law, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

In this essay we shall be concerned with the real world relevance of theories of international law; that is, with the question of the theories themselves as a factor in international decision-making. To do this it is first necessary to review briefly the substance of the jurisprudential debate among legal scholars, then to view some basic jurisprudential ideas as factors in international views of "law," and finally to reach the question of the operative difference a study of these theories might make in world politics.

Foreword: The Impact Of Citizens United, 44 J. Marshall L. Rev. Xxiii (2011), Steven D. Schwinn

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Commentary: Campaign Finance In The Wake Of Citizens United, 44 J. Marshall L. Rev. 583 (2011), Thomas E. Mann

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Small-Donor Public Financing In The Post-Citizens United Era, 44 J. Marshall L. Rev. 619 (2011), Monica Youn

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Capitalist Joker: The Strange Origins, Disturbing Past, And Uncertain Future Of Corporate Personhood In American Law, 44 J. Marshall L. Rev. 643 (2011), David H. Gans, Douglas T. Kendall

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

So What If Corporations Aren't People?, 44 J. Marshall L. Rev. 701 (2011), Ilya Shapiro, Caitlyn W. Mccarthy

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Citizens United And Tiered Personhood, 44 J. Marshall L. Rev. 717 (2011), Atiba R. Ellis

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Back To The Future? The Effects Of Citizens United V. Fec In The 2010 Election, 44 J. Marshall L. Rev. 595 (2011), Peter L. Francia

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Levinson Is To Mr. Justice "Isaiah" As St. Paul Was To The Prophet Isaiah, Richard H. Weisberg

Articles

The article critiques Professor Sanford Levinson's defense of compromise in constitutionalism, arguing that while compromise is ubiquitous, it is not inherently just or morally sound. The author, Richard Weisberg, contends that Levinson's flexible hermeneutic approach risks degrading textual integrity and ethical standards, particularly when compromise is elevated to a norm. Weisberg advocates for maintaining the integrity of sacred and legal texts, emphasizing the dangers of interpretive flexibility, especially in emergencies, and draws parallels to historical examples like Vichy France's complicity in Nazi policies.

H. L. A. Hart’S Moderate Indeterminacy Thesis Reconsidered: In Between Scylla And Charybdis?, Imer Flores

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this article, in the context of the fiftieth anniversary of H. L. A. Hart’s The Concept of Law, The author reconsiders the moderate indeterminacy of law thesis, which derives from the open texture of language. For that purpose, the author intends: first, to analyze Hart’s moderate indeterminacy thesis, i.e. determinacy in “easy cases” and indeterminacy in “hard cases,” which resembles Aristotle’s “doctrine of the mean”; second, to criticize his thesis as failing to embody the virtues of a center in between the vices of the extremes, by insisting that the exercise of discretion required constitutes an “interstitial” legislation; …

The Supreme Constitutional Court Of Egypt: The Limits Of Liberal Political Science And Cls Analysis Of Law Elsewhere, Lama Abu-Odeh

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

On January 25th 2011, following a popular uprising, president Hosni Mubarak of Egypt was forced to relinquish power after thirty years of continuous rule. The popular uprising came to be known as the Egyptian revolution of January 25th marking the first time in the modern history of Egypt an authoritarian ruler is forced out of power through the mobilization of Egyptian masses. The popular mobilization came at the heels of several years of “wildcat” workers' strikes affecting various sectors of the economy, public and private, as well as recurring demonstrations spearheaded by the youth of the Egyptian middle class demanding …

Beyond Formalist Sovereignty: Who Can Represent "We The People Of The United States" Today?, David Chang

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Narrative, Normativity, And Causation, Lawrence B. Solum

Faculty Scholarship

This essay examines the relationship between constitutional narratives, causation, and normativity in the context of Barry Friedman’s book, The Will of the People: How Public Opinion Has Influenced the Supreme Court and Shaped the Meaning of the Constitution. In his book, Friedman provides a grand narrative of American constitutional history that emphasizes the role of public opinion in the development of American constitutional law. That narrative involves both implicit and explicit claims about the causal forces that shape constitutional doctrine and about normative constitutional theory. The aim of this essay is to identify those claims, excavate their theoretical assumptions, and …

“Bring[Ing] Our Enemies To Justice”: Terrorism And The Court, Anna Elazan

Legislation and Policy Brief

This article focuses on the venue of Mohammad’s trial and is broken into three sections. The first section reviews the historical use of military tribunals. This section begins by looking at the basis for Presidential authority to authorize the use of military commissions. This section then outlines the first use of military commissions since World War II. President George W. Bush’s authorization parallels the provisions in President Franklin Roosevelt’s authorization of the use of commissions in the 1940s. However, following authorization, the military commissions were subject to judicial challenges and significant revision by Congress. Finally, this section tracks recent developments …

Citizens United And The Threat To The Regulatory State, Tamara R. Piety

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

Although Citizens United has been roundly criticized for its potential effect on elections and its display of judicial immodesty (or "activism"), the effect of the case which may be both most profound and perhaps most pernicious is its effect on the commercial speech doctrine. This is an aspect of the case which has been largely overlooked. Most people seem to be unaware of any connection between election law and the commercial speech doctrine-except, that is, those who have been working long and hard to accomplish the change it foreshadows. They are keenly aware of its implications.

The Pitfalls Of Dealing With Witnesses In Public Corruption Prosecutions, Peter J. Henning

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

All Judges Are Political—Except When They Are Not: Acceptable Hypocrisies And The Rule Of Law, Keith J. Bybee

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

This paper contains the introduction to the new book, All Judges Are Political—Except When They Are Not: Acceptable Hypocrisies and the Rule of Law (Stanford University Press, 2010).

The book begins with the observation that Americans are divided in their beliefs about whether courts operate on the basis of unbiased legal principle or of political interest. This division in public opinion in turn breeds suspicion that judges do not actually mean what they say, that judicial professions of impartiality are just fig leaves used to hide the pursuit of partisan purposes.

Comparing law to the practice of common courtesy, the …

The Communications Decency Act And New York Times V. Sullivan: Providing Public Figure Defamation A Home On The Internet, 43 J. Marshall L. Rev. 491 (2010), Chris Williams

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Comment On Victor's Justice & The Viability Of Ex Ante Standards, 43 J. Marshall L. Rev. 569 (2010), Rod Rastan

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Moral Foundation Theory And The Law, Colin Prince

Seattle University Law Review

Moral foundation theory argues that there are five basic moral foundations: (1) harm/care, (2) fairness/reciprocity, (3) ingroup/loyalty, (4) authority/respect, and (5) purity/sanctity. These five foundations comprise the building blocks of morality, regardless of the culture. In other words, while every society constructs its own morality, it is the varying weights that each society allots to these five universal foundations that create the variety. Haidt likens moral foundation theory to an “audio equalizer,” with each culture adjusting the sliders differently. The researchers, however, were not content to simply categorize moral foundations—they have tied the foundations to political leanings. And it is …

Second-Class Citizenship: The Tension Between The Supremacy Of The People And Minority Rights, 43 J. Marshall L. Rev. 963 (2010), Adam H. Morse

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.