Jurisprudence Commons^™

America's Amoral Constitution, Richard Albert

American University Law Review

The celebrated United States Constitution does not derive its legitimacy from morality. Its legitimacy is rooted in an amoral code structured around the peculiar value of outcome-neutrality. By design, the Constitution does not evaluate whether a lawful choice is morally right or wrong; it evaluates only whether the choice satisfies the procedures the Constitution requires for it to have been made. What matters, then, is not the content of the choice. It is the very act of choosing. These fiercely democratic foundations serve as both the font of the Constitution’s popular legitimacy and more ominously the greatest threat to the …

Equality Is A Brokered Idea, Robert Tsai

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This essay examines the Supreme Court's stunning decision in the census case, Department of Commerce v. New York. I characterize Chief Justice John Roberts' decision to side with the liberals as an example of pursuing the ends of equality by other means – this time, through the rule of reason. Although the appeal was limited in scope, the stakes for political and racial equality were sky high. In blocking the administration from adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, 5 members of the Court found the justification the administration gave to be a pretext. In this instance, that lie …

Motives And Fiduciary Loyalty, Stephen R. Galoob, Ethan J. Leib

Faculty Scholarship

How, if at all, do motives matter to loyalty? We have argued that loyalty (and the duty of loyalty in fiduciary law) has a cognitive dimension. This kind of “cognitivist” account invites the counterargument that, because most commercial fiduciary relationships involve financial considerations, purity of motive cannot be central to loyalty in the fiduciary context. We contend that this counterargument depends on a flawed understanding of the significance of motive to loyalty. We defend a view of the importance of motivation to loyalty that we call the compatibility account. On this view, A acts loyally toward B only if …

Fiduciary Legal Ethics, Zeal, And Moral Activism, David Luban

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The recent turn to fiduciary theory among private lawyer scholars suggests that "lawyer as fiduciary" may provide a fresh justification for legal ethics distinct from moral and political accounts propounded by theorists in recent decades. This Article examines the justification and limits of fiduciary legal ethics. In the course of the investigation, it argues that the fiduciary relation of lawyer to client as defined in the ethics codes does not align perfectly with fiduciary principles in other legal domains, such as agency, trust, or corporate law. Lawyers are fiduciaries of their clients. Does that mean lawyers can never throttle back …

Legal Realism And Legal Doctrine, Dan Priel

All Papers

Legal realism is widely perceived to be hostile to legal doctrine. In the familiar narrative, the realists showed that legal doctrine does not, and cannot, constrain judges from using existing legal materials to reach virtually any outcome they want. As such, doctrine only serves to hides and obfuscate what is better discussed openly. The purpose of this essay is to complicate this familiar story. I focus on one contemporary take on legal realism that argues that an open discussion of values will give the law greater determinacy. I counter this view, first, by showing that it does not, in fact, …

Supreme Silence And Precedential Pragmatism: King V. Burwell And Statutory Interpretation In The Federal Courts Of Appeals, Michael J. Cedrone

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This Article studies statutory interpretation as it is practiced in the federal courts of appeal. Much of the academic commentary in this field focuses on the Supreme Court, which skews the debate and unduly polarizes the field. This Article investigates more broadly by looking at the seventy-two federal appellate cases that cite King v. Burwell in the two years after the Court issued its decision. In deciding that the words “established by the State” encompass a federal program, the Court in King reached a pragmatic and practical result based on statutory scheme and purpose at a fairly high level of …

Restoring Accountability In Freedom Of Expression Theory: Public Libel Law And Radical Whig Ideology, Randall Stephenson

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

As leading common law jurisdictions grapple with the Internet’s impact on defamation law, comparative legal scholarship has revealed long-standing problems with its underlying theoretical justifications. Specifically, public libel doctrine is commonly supported by appeals to democratic theory in the abstract. Accountability concerns most relevant to adjudicating public libel cases are thus routinely overlooked. This article aims to diagnose the causes of these theoretical inaccuracies, describe their impact on public libel law, and translate their significance for law reform. Through exploring eighteenth-century libertarian thought, we highlight the foundational importance of accountability and the checking function rationale to democratic theory and governance. …

Survey Of Washington Search And Seizure Law: 2019 Update, Justice Charles W. Johnson, Justice Debra L. Stephens

Seattle University Law Review

This survey is intended to serve as a resource to which Washington lawyers, judges, law enforcement officers, and others can turn as an authoritative starting point for researching Washington search and seizure law. In order to be useful as a research tool, this Survey requires periodic updates to address new cases interpreting the Washington constitution and the U.S. Constitution and to reflect the current state of the law. Many of these cases involve the Washington State Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Washington constitution. Also, as the U.S. Supreme Court has continued to examine Fourth Amendment search and seizure jurisprudence, its …

Can You Hear Me Now: The Impacts Of Prosecutorial Call Monitoring On Defendants' Access To Justice, Hope L. Demer

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

How Trust-Like Is Russia's Fiduciary Management? Answers From Louisiana, Markus G. Puder, Anton D. Rudokvas

Louisiana Law Review

The article discusses estate trust management and fiduciary management under the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, its comparison to the trust law in Louisiana and some examples of Russian jurisprudence on the topics.

Justice Begins Before Trial: How To Nudge Inaccurate Pretrial Rulings Using Behavioral Law And Economic Theory And Uniform Commercial Laws, Michael Gentithes

William & Mary Law Review

Injustice in criminal cases often takes root before trial begins. Overworked criminal judges must resolve difficult pretrial evidentiary issues that determine the charges the State will take to trial and the range of sentences the defendant will face. Wrong decisions on these issues often lead to wrongful convictions. As behavioral law and economic theory suggests, judges who are cognitively busy and receive little feedback on these topics from appellate courts rely upon intuition, rather than deliberative reasoning, to resolve these questions. This leads to inconsistent rulings, which prosecutors exploit to expand the scope of evidentiary exceptions that almost always disfavor …

Self-Deportation Nation, K-Sue Park

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

“Self-deportation” is a concept to explain the removal strategy of making life so unbearable for a group that its members will leave a place. The term is strongly associated with recent state and municipal attempts to “attack every aspect of an illegal alien’s life,” including the ability to find employment and housing, drive a vehicle, make contracts, and attend school. However, self-deportation has a longer history, one that predates and made possible the establishment of the United States. As this Article shows, American colonists pursued this indirect approach to remove native peoples as a prerequisite for establishing and growing their …

Panel 6: The Median Justice

Georgia State University Law Review

Moderator: Eric Segall

Panelists: Jonathan Adler, Lee Epstein, and Sasha Volokh

Reshaping American Jurisprudence In The Trump Era - The Rise Of Originalist Judges, Jeffrey F. Addicott

Faculty Articles

One of the factors that is often cited as a key reason why President Donald J. Trump was elected as the forty-fifth president, was his pledge to the American people to "make America great again" by appointing "conservative judges" to the bench, particularly when it came to filling any vacancies that might open on the United States Supreme Court. Since the never ending fight for securing an ideological majority on the Supreme Court is always viewed with great concern by both political parties, many wondered whether then candidate Trump was simply telling potential voters what they wanted to hear, or …

Conceptions Of Sovereignty, Paul Hansen

Master of Studies in Law Research Papers Repository

This paper explores conceptions of sovereignty held by Canada’s Indigenous and Western cultures. It seeks to determine what sovereignty entails and how the Crown- Indigenous relationship is affected by the judgments of Canada’s courts. The study makes no attempt to compare the relative merits of Indigenous and Western sovereignty conceptions. Similarly, it does not examine nor attempt to reconcile sovereignty-related tensions that may exist between the Crown and Indigenous peoples.

The research is framed by a two-part question: (1) What are the defining characteristics of Indigenous and Western conceptions of sovereignty; and (2) what impact do the sovereignty-related judgments of …

Second-Best Criminal Case, William Ortman

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Originalism And The Law Of The Past, William Baude, Stephen E. Sachs

Faculty Scholarship

Originalism has long been criticized for its “law office history” and other historical sins. But a recent “positive turn” in originalist thought may help make peace between history and law. On this theory, originalism is best understood as a claim about our modern law — which borrows many of its rules, constitutional or otherwise, from the law of the past. Our law happens to be the Founders’ law, unless lawfully changed.

This theory has three important implications for the role of history in law. First, whether and how past law matters today is a question of current law, not of …

The American Negligence Rule, Mark F. Grady

Valparaiso University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sticks, Stones, And So-Called Judges: Why The Era Of Trump Necessitates Revisiting Presidential Influence On The Courts, Quinn W. Crowley

Indiana Law Journal

This Note will be primarily divided into three main sections. Part I of this Note will begin by discussing the importance of judicial independence in modern society and the role of elected officials in shaping the public perception of the courts. Additionally, as problems of judicial legitimacy are age-old and date back to America’s founding, Part I will include a brief discussion of an early clash between President Thomas Jefferson and the courts.

Parts II and III of this Note will seek to place President Trump’s conduct towards the judicial branch within the proper historical context. Part II examines the …

Choice Theory: A Restatement, Michael A. Heller, Hanoch Dagan

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter restates choice theory, which advances a liberal approach to contract law. First, we refine the concept of autonomy for contract. Then we address range, limit, and floor, three principles that together justify contract law in a liberal society. The first concerns the state’s obligation to be proactive in facilitating the availability of a multiplicity of contract types. The second refers to the respect contract law owes to the autonomy of a party’s future self, that is, to the ability to re-write the story of one’s life. The final principle concerns relational justice, the baseline for any legitimate use …

Temple, Talmud, And Sacrament: Some Christian Thoughts On Halakhah, Nathan B. Oman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Artificial Intelligence And Role-Reversible Judgment, Kiel Brennan-Marquez, Stephen E. Henderson

Faculty Articles

As intelligent machines begin more generally outperforming human experts, why should humans remain ‘in the loop’ of decision-making? One common answer focuses on outcomes: relying on intuition and experience, humans are capable of identifying interpretive errors—sometimes disastrous errors—that elude machines. Though plausible today, this argument will wear thin as technology evolves. Here, we seek out sturdier ground: a defense of human judgment that focuses on the normative integrity of decision-making. Specifically, we propose an account of democratic equality as ‘role-reversibility.’ In a democracy, those tasked with making decisions should be susceptible, reciprocally, to the impact of decisions; there ought to …

Law As A Means To Human Flourishing: Law, Morality, And Natural Law In Policy-Oriented Perspective, Christian L. Gonzalez-Rivera

Faculty Articles

Friendships can be uneasy without ceasing to be friendships. Because the "pie" of law and morality's relationship can be sliced in many ways and to different yields, in what follows, I consider the simultaneously unexplored, uneasy, and yet promising relationship between the Natural Law tradition and Policy-Oriented Jurisprudence (or "New Haven"), hoping that doing so will partially illuminate aspects of the relationship between morality and the law more generally. My aim is to describe what and how New Haven School founders Myres McDougal and Harold Lasswell thought about Natural Law. As it will become clearer below, despite their critical appraisal …

Legislating Morality: Moral Theory And Turpitudinous Crimes In Immigration Jurisprudence, Abel Rodríguez, Jennifer A. Bulcock

Faculty Publications

Congress could have framed the country’s immigration policies in any number of ways. In significant part, it opted to frame them in moral terms. The crime involving moral turpitude is among the most pervasive and pernicious classifications in immigration law. In the Immigration and Nationality Act, it is virtually ubiquitous, appearing everywhere from the deportability and mandatory detention grounds to the inadmissibility and naturalization grounds. In effect, it acts as a gatekeeper for those who wish to enter and remain in the country, obtain lawful permanent residence, travel abroad after admission, or become United States citizens. With limited exceptions, noncitizens …

Considerations Of History And Purpose In Constitutional Borrowing, Robert L. Tsai

Faculty Scholarship

This essay is part of a symposium issue dedicated to "Constitutional Rights: Intersections, Synergies, and Conflicts" at William and Mary School of Law. I make four points. First, perfect harmony among rights might not always be normatively desirable. In fact, in some instances, such as when First Amendment and Second Amendment rights clash, we might wish to have expressive rights consistently trump gun rights. Second, we can't resolve clashes between rights in the abstract but instead must consult history in a broadly relevant rather than a narrowly "originalist" fashion. When we do so, we learn that armed expression and white …

Considerations Of History And Purpose In Constitutional Borrowing, Robert Tsai

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This essay is part of a symposium issue dedicated to "Constitutional Rights: Intersections, Synergies, and Conflicts" at William and Mary School of Law. I make four points. First, perfect harmony among rights might not always be normatively desirable. In fact, in some instances, such as when First Amendment and Second Amendment rights clash, we might wish to have expressive rights consistently trump gun rights. Second, we can't resolve clashes between rights in the abstract but instead must consult history in a broadly relevant rather than a narrowly "originalist" fashion. When we do so, we learn that armed expression and white …

Manufactured Emergencies, Robert Tsai

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Emergencies are presumed to be unusual affairs, but the United States has been in one state of emergency or another for the last forty years. That is a problem. The erosion of democratic norms has led to not simply the collapse of the traditional conceptual boundary between ordinary rule and emergency governance, but also the emergence of an even graver problem: the manufactured crisis. In an age characterized by extreme partisanship, institutional gridlock, and technological manipulation of information, it has become exceedingly easy and far more tempting for a President to invoke extraordinary power by ginning up exigencies. To reduce …

What Would Justice Brennan Say To Justice Thomas, Stephen Wermiel

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

The Post-Alice Jurisprudence Pendulum And Its Effects On Patent Eligible Subject Matter, John Robert Sepúlveda

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Grounding Originalism, William Baude, Stephen E. Sachs

Faculty Scholarship

How should we interpret the Constitution? The “positive turn” in legal scholarship treats constitutional interpretation, like the interpretation of statutes or contracts, as governed by legal rules grounded in actual practice. In our legal system, that practice requires a certain form of originalism: our system’s official story is that we follow the law of the Founding, plus all lawful changes made since.

Or so we’ve argued. Yet this answer produces its own set of questions. How can practice solve our problems, when there are so many theories of law, each giving practice a different role? Why look to an official …