Law and Society Commons^™

Protecting A Woman’S Right To Abortion During A Public Health Crisis, San Juanita Gonzalez

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

As COVID-19 infected our nation, states were quick to issue executive orders restricting various aspects of daily life under the pretense of public safety. It was clear at the outset that certain civil liberties were going to be tested. Among them, the constitutional right to an abortion.

This comment explores Texas’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the limitations it imposed on abortion access. It will attempt to address the legitimacy of the “public health concerns” listed in executive orders issued throughout numerous states and will discuss the pertinent legal framework and judicial scrutiny to apply.

According to the Fifth …

The Declaration Of Independence, Constitution, And Slavery, Johnny B. Davis

Helm's School of Government Conference - 2021-2024

The paper address the nature of the principles of the Declaration and the Declaration's relationship to the Constitution and how these related to slavery. The argument is that the Declaration did stand for universal equality of the individual before God and the law and therefore its principles condemned slavery. The Constitution did not embrace slavery even though it failed to ban slavery but did set the foundation for the end of slavery.

Hip Hop And The Law : Presented By Intellectual Property Law Association 03/31/2022, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Constitution Drafting After The Arab Spring: A Comparative Overview, Francesco Biagi

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Scholars have written extensively on the content of post-Arab Spring constitutions, highlighting these constitutions' strengths and weaknesses. Less attention has been devoted to the processes that led to the adoption of these new documents. By providing a comprehensive comparative analysis of these constitution-drafting processes, this Article aims at contributing to filling this gap in the literature. Special focus is placed on the constitution-making processes followed in Morocco (constitution of 2011), Syria (constitution of 2012), Tunisia (constitution of 2014), and Egypt (constitutions of 2012 and 2014 the latter being amended in 2019), as well as on the constitutional reform processes that …

First Amendment Challenges To State Vaccine Mandats: Why The U.S. Supreme Court Should Hold That The Free Exercise Clause Does Not Require Religious Exemptions, Donna M. Gitter

American University Law Review

The U.S. Supreme Court has never issued a judicial opinion on the merits declaring that the First Amendment Free Exercise Clause permits states to mandate vaccinations without offering religious exemptions. However, in two recent cases, the Court in brief orders declined applications for emergency relief to block state vaccine mandates, and the petitioners have vowed to continue to pursue these cases.

This Article explores how the seemingly sudden onset of the coronavirus pandemic, coupled with its protracted duration, has occasioned both emergency and enduring state regulation of religious behavior in a way that exposes deep divides in our society’s views …

Reparations And The International Law Origin Story, John Linarelli

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Survival Voting And Minority Political Rights, Douglas M. Spencer, Lisa Grow Sun, Brigham Daniels, Chantel Sloan, Natalie Blades

American University Law Review

The health of American democracy has literally been challenged. The global pandemic has powerfully exposed a long-standing truth: electoral policies that are frequently referred to as “convenience voting” are really a mode of “survival voting” for millions of Americans. As our data show, racial minorities are overrepresented among voters whose health is most vulnerable, and politicians have leveraged these health disparities to subordinate the political voice of racial minorities.

To date, data about racial disparities in health has played a very limited role in assessing voting rights. A new health lens on the racial impacts of voting rules would beneficially …

The Meaning, History, And Importance Of The Elections Clause, Eliza Sweren-Becker, Michael Waldman

Washington Law Review

Historically, the Supreme Court has offered scant attention to or analysis of the Elections Clause, resulting in similarly limited scholarship on the Clause’s original meaning and public understanding over time. The Clause directs states to make regulations for the time, place, and manner of congressional elections, and grants Congress superseding authority to make or alter those rules.

But the 2020 elections forced the Elections Clause into the spotlight, with Republican litigants relying on the Clause to ask the Supreme Court to limit which state actors can regulate federal elections. This new focus comes on the heels of the Clause serving …

First Amendment Knowledge And Competence In United States Residents, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Kimberly M. Bernstein

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Lacking adequate knowledge about one's rights could inhibit the likelihood of exercising one's rights or lead one to unwittingly violate laws that place legitimate limits on these rights. Thus, the present research examines First Amendment knowledge as well as competence to apply this knowledge in relevant circumstances. Results revealed that one-quarter of participants failed a test of objective knowledge on First Amendment rights. Furthermore, participants' belief in their ability varied depending on their level of knowledge, in line with the Dunning–Kruger effect. Participants also failed to transfer their limited objective knowledge to “real-world” situations, exhibiting impaired First Amendment competence. These …

Texas: A Weak Governor State, Or Is It?, Ron Beal

St. Mary's Law Journal

The current Texas Constitution was adopted in 1876 and was written after the Civil War and the Reconstruction Period when Federal troops occupied the State. The general perception is that the Federal troops used the Governor, in essence, to impose a form of dictatorship over the people. It was clearly the intent of the new constitution’s framers to create a very weak governor form of government in order to spread its powers to many independently elected officials. It provided that the state officers who were appointed by the Governor and approved by the Senate were semi-independent from the Governor by …

Self-Determination In American Discourse: The Supreme Court’S Historical Indoctrination Of Free Speech And Expression, Jarred Williams

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Within the American criminal legal system, it is a well-established practice to presume the innocence of those charged with criminal offenses unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Such a judicial framework-like approach, called a legal maxim, is utilized in order to ensure that the law is applied and interpreted in ways that legislative bodies originally intended.

The central aim of this piece in relation to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution is to investigate whether the Supreme Court of the United States has utilized a specific legal maxim within cases that dispute government speech or expression regulation. …

2nd Annual Women In Law Leadership Lecture: A Fireside Chat With Debra Katz, Esq. 03-03-2021, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Neither Safe, Nor Legal, Nor Rare: The D.C. Circuit’S Use Of The Doctrine Of Ratification To Shield Agency Action From Appointments Clause Challenges, Damien M. Schiff

Seattle University Law Review

Key to the constitutional design of the federal government is the separation of powers. An important support for that separation is the Appointments Clause, which governs how officers of the United States are installed in their positions. Although the separation of powers generally, and the Appointments Clause specifically, support democratically accountable government, they also protect individual citizens against abusive government power. But without a judicial remedy, such protection is ineffectual—a mere parchment barrier.

Such has become the fate of the Appointments Clause in the D.C. Circuit, thanks to that court’s adoption—and zealous employment—of the rule that agency action, otherwise unconstitutional …

The People's Court: On The Intellectual Origins Of American Judicial Power, Ian C. Bartrum

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

This article enters into the modern debate between “consti- tutional departmentalists”—who contend that the executive and legislative branches share constitutional interpretive authority with the courts—and what are sometimes called “judicial supremacists.” After exploring the relevant history of political ideas, I join the modern minority of voices in the latter camp.

This is an intellectual history of two evolving political ideas—popular sovereignty and the separation of powers—which merged in the making of American judicial power, and I argue we can only understand the structural function of judicial review by bringing these ideas together into an integrated whole. Or, put another way, …

Why Do The Poor Not Have A Constitutional Right To File Civil Claims In Court Under Their First Amendment Right To Petition The Government For A Redress Of Grievances?, Henry Rose

Seattle University Law Review

Since 1963, the United States Supreme Court has recognized a constitutional right for American groups, organizations, and persons to pursue civil litigation under the First Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances. However, in three cases involving poor plaintiffs decided by the Supreme Court in the early 1970s—Boddie v. Connecticut,2 United States v. Kras,3 and Ortwein v. Schwab4—the Supreme Court rejected arguments that all persons have a constitutional right to access courts to pursue their civil legal claims.5 In the latter two cases, Kras and Ortwein, the Supreme Court concluded that poor persons were properly barred from …

Law Library Blog (September 2020): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Is This A Christian Nation?: Virtual Symposium September 25, 2020, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Policing The Wombs Of The World's Women: The Mexico City Policy, Samantha Lalisan

Indiana Law Journal

This Comment argues that the Policy should be repealed because it undermines

firmly held First Amendment values and would be considered unconstitutional if

applied to domestic nongovernmental organizations (DNGOs). It proceeds in four

parts. Part I describes the inception of the Policy and contextualizes it among other

antiabortion policies that resulted as a backlash to the U.S. Supreme Court’s

landmark decision in Roe v. Wade. Part II explains the Policy’s actual effect on

FNGOs, particularly focusing on organizations based in Nepal and Peru, and argues

that the Policy undermines democratic processes abroad and fails to achieve its stated

objective: reducing …

America's Newest Boogeyman For Deviant Teen Behavior: Violent Video Games And The First Amendment, Joseph C. Alfe, Grant D. Talabay

Pace Intellectual Property, Sports & Entertainment Law Forum

Are violent video games harming America’s youth? Is it possible a series of interconnected circuit boards can influence children (or even adults) to become, themselves, violent? If so, how should our society-- and government-- respond?

To properly answer this last query, violent video games must be viewed through the lens of the First Amendment. Simply put: do games depicting grotesque acts of depravity so profound as to negatively influence the psyche warrant the full constitutional protections ordinarily guaranteed under the mantle of free speech and expression? Are these guarantees without limit? If not, how far may the government go in …

Taxonomy Of Powers And Roles Of Upper Chambers In Bicameral Legislatures, Carolyn Griffith

Indiana Journal of Constitutional Design

Bicameral legislatures exist around the world, with power divisions to create checks and balances on the constitutional order as a whole. In the context of constitutional design, this presents a variety of options of roles and rights given to each chamber at each step in both the legislative process and beyond. Taken as a whole, this taxonomy demonstrates there are nearly an infinite number of possibilities for separating powers between upper and lower chambers in bicameral legislatures. Often, these decisions are guided by the history of the country. For each federal legislature that places powers or votes in one chamber, …

Law School News: Rwu Law Professors Win Release For Two Immigrants At Risk For Covid-19 04-24-2020, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

The Opioid Litigation: The Fda Is Mia, Catherine M. Sharkey

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

It is readily agreed that federal preemption of state tort law alters the balance between federal and state power. Federal preemption is a high-profile defense in almost all modern products liability cases. It is thus surprising to see how little attention has been given to federal preemption by courts and commentators in the opioid litigation. Opioid litigation provides a lens through which I explore the role of state and federal courts and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in striking the right balance of power. My purpose here is not to resolve the divide among the few courts that have …

A Class Action Lawsuit For The Right To A Minimum Education In Detroit, Carter G. Phillips

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

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

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

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

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

As Pertains To The Criminal Justice System, Is Hindsight 20/20?, Syndie G. E. Molina, Cristina Negrillo

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

The Inconvenience Of Justice: How Unmitigated Official Misconduct Almost Destroyed The Lives Of Five Young Boys From Harlem, Stefania Bordone, David Wright

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Employing Smith To Prevent A Constitutional Right To Discriminate Based On Faith: Why The Supreme Court Should Affirm The Third Circuit In Fulton V. City Of Philadelphia, Margaret Smiley Chavez

American University Law Review

In the interest of the children in the Philadelphia foster care system, the City of Philadelphia prohibits its contracting foster care agencies from discriminating against prospective foster care parents on account of race, religion, and sexual orientation, among other things. Despite this requirement, in 2018, two foster care agencies—Catholic Social Services (CSS) and Bethany Christian Services— that have annual contracts with Philadelphia refused to certify same-sex couples as foster parents for religious reasons. While Bethany Christian Services reached an agreement with the city, CSS did not. As a result, the city froze foster care placement referrals to CSS and did …

American Legion V. American Humanist Association, Seth T. Bonilla

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The separation of church and state is a key element of American democracy, but its interpretation has been challenged as the country grows more diverse. In American Legion v. American Humanist Association, the Supreme Court adopted a new standard to analyze whether a religious symbol on public land maintained by public funding violated the Constitution’s Establishment Clause.

When Protest Is The Disaster: Constitutional Implications Of State And Local Emergency Power, Karen J. Pita Loor

Seattle University Law Review

The President’s use of emergency authority has recently ignited concern among civil rights groups over national executive emergency power. However, state and local emergency authority can also be dangerous and deserves similar attention. This article demonstrates that, just as we watch over the national executive, we must be wary of and check on state and local executives—and their emergency management law enforcement actors—when they react in crisis mode. This paper exposes and critiques state executives’ use of emergency power and emergency management mechanisms to suppress grassroots political activity and suggests avenues to counter that abuse. I choose to focus on …