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Articles 121 - 150 of 836
Full-Text Articles in Supreme Court of the United States
The Bureaucratic Court, Benjamin C. Mizer
The Bureaucratic Court, Benjamin C. Mizer
Michigan Law Review
In August 2006, the New York Times caused a stir by reporting that the number of female law clerks at the United States Supreme Court has fallen sharply in the first full Term in which Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is no longer on the bench. In an era in which nearly fifty percent of all law school graduates are women, the Times reported, less than twenty percent of the clerks in the Court's 2006 Term - seven of thirty-seven - are women. In interviews, Justices Souter and Breyer viewed the sharp drop in the number of female clerks as an …
On Dworkin And Borkin, Tom Lininger
On Dworkin And Borkin, Tom Lininger
Michigan Law Review
This Essay will use Dworkin's and Davis's scholarship as a jumping-off point for a discussion of the Supreme Court nomination process. I argue that while Dworkin's and Davis's books, when read together, expose a significant problem with the current nomination process, a possible solution to this predicament may lie in a change to the judicial code of ethics and the procedural rules for confirmation of judges. My analysis will proceed in four steps. Part I will address Dworkin's arguments. Part II will evaluate the analysis and evidence in Davis's book. Part III will consider an additional variable to which neither …
The D'Oh! Of Popular Constitutionalism, Neal Devins
The D'Oh! Of Popular Constitutionalism, Neal Devins
Michigan Law Review
This Review will be divided into three parts. Part I will both summarize The Most Democratic Branch and highlight some of the difficulties that the Supreme Court would face in implementing Rosen's decision-making model. In particular, by allowing the Court to invalidate laws for a host of "antidemocratic" reasons, Rosen's matrix does not constrain the Court in a predictable way. Part II will examine some of the empirical evidence about public attitudes toward the Supreme Court, including public awareness of Supreme Court decisions. I will contend that the Court cannot look to the people to sort out the Constitution's meaning …
Evolving Objective Standards: A Developmental Approach To Constitutional Review Of Morals Legislation, Christian J. Grostic
Evolving Objective Standards: A Developmental Approach To Constitutional Review Of Morals Legislation, Christian J. Grostic
Michigan Law Review
This Note argues that the Supreme Court's recent jurisprudence regarding morals legislation mirrors the findings of empirical research on moral and psychological development. Specifically, the Supreme Court upholds morals legislation only if it is justified by stage five reasoning. Part I examines significant Supreme Court cases related to morals legislation over the last 50 years and argues that the Supreme Court has consistently upheld morals legislation that is justified by stage five reasoning, while consistently striking down as unconstitutional morals legislation that is not. Part II argues that a developmental approach to constitutional review of morals legislation, while consistent with …
Putting Religious Symbolism In Context: A Linguistic Critique Of The Endorsement Test, B. Jessie Hill
Putting Religious Symbolism In Context: A Linguistic Critique Of The Endorsement Test, B. Jessie Hill
Michigan Law Review
The treatment of Establishment Clause challenges to displays of religious symbolism by the Supreme Court and the lower courts is notoriously unpredictable: a crèche is constitutionally acceptable if it is accompanied by a Santa Claus house and reindeer, a Christmas tree, and various circus figures, but unacceptable if it is accompanied by poinsettias, a "peace tree," or a wreath, a tree, and a plastic Santa Claus. A menorah may be displayed next to a Christmas tree, or next to Kwanzaa symbols, Santa Claus, and Frosty the Snowman, but not next to a crèche and a Christmas tree. A number of …
Brown And Lawrence (And Goodridge), Michael J. Klarman
Brown And Lawrence (And Goodridge), Michael J. Klarman
Michigan Law Review
One year shy of the fiftieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the Justices issued another equality ruling that is likely to become a historical landmark. In Lawrence v. Texas, the Court invalidated a state law that criminalized same-sex sodomy. This article contrasts these historic rulings along several dimensions, with the aim of shedding light on how Supreme Court Justices decide cases and how Court decisions influence social reform movements. Part I juxtaposes Brown and Lawrence to illustrate how judicial decisionmaking often involves an uneasy reconciliation of traditional legal sources with broader social and political mores and …
Signatures Of Ideology: The Case Of The Supreme Court's Criminal Docket, Ward Farnsworth
Signatures Of Ideology: The Case Of The Supreme Court's Criminal Docket, Ward Farnsworth
Michigan Law Review
Everyone suspects that Supreme Court justices' own views of policy play a part in their decisions, but the size and nature of the part is a matter of vague impression and frequent dispute. Do their preferences exert some pressure at the margin or are they better viewed as the mainsprings of decision? The latter claim, identified with legal realism, has been lent some support by political scientists who point out that some justices regularly vote for or against certain kinds of claims (for example, under the Fourth Amendment), or that votes in some areas are broadly predictable according to a …
A Theory In Search Of A Court, And Itself: Judicial Minimalism At The Supreme Court Bar, Neil S. Siegel
A Theory In Search Of A Court, And Itself: Judicial Minimalism At The Supreme Court Bar, Neil S. Siegel
Michigan Law Review
According to the prevailing wisdom in academic public law, constitutional theory is a field that seeks to articulate and evaluate abstract accounts of the nature of the United States Constitution. Theorists offer those accounts as guides to subsequent judicial construction of constitutional provisions. As typically conceived, therefore, constitutional theory tends to proceed analytically from the general to the particular; its animating idea is that correct decisions in constitutional cases presuppose theoretical commitments to the methodological principles that should guide constitutional interpretation and the substantive values such interpretation should advance. In its enthusiasm for abstraction, constitutional theory has, at times, generated …
The Free Exercise Of Religion And Public Schools: The Implications Of Hybrid Rights On The Religious Upbringing Of Children, Michael E. Lechliter
The Free Exercise Of Religion And Public Schools: The Implications Of Hybrid Rights On The Religious Upbringing Of Children, Michael E. Lechliter
Michigan Law Review
This Note argues that parents have a fundamental right under the U.S. Constitution to direct the religious upbringing of their children and that courts interpreting Smith have systematically misunderstood and misapplied the Supreme Court's confusing hybrid rights language. Part I explains how Yoder and Smith create and preserve parents' right to direct the religious upbringing of their children. The essential point is that the free exercise right and the parental right are not examined independently and simply added together, but instead are incorporated together to provide a specific bite to the free exercise claim. Part I also examines the lower …
The Originalist And Normative Case Against Judicial Activism: A Reply To Professor Randy Barnett, Steven G. Calabresi
The Originalist And Normative Case Against Judicial Activism: A Reply To Professor Randy Barnett, Steven G. Calabresi
Michigan Law Review
In Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty, Professor Randy E. Barnett lays out a bold defense of the theory of originalism in constitutional interpretation. Professor Barnett's book is perhaps the most important book about originalism since Robert H. Bork's The Tempting of America. Barnett presents a normative case as to why contemporary Americans should agree to be governed by the original meaning of the Constitution, and, like most sophisticated originalists, he nicely distinguishes between original meaning and original intent. Barnett correctly notes that what really matters in constitutional interpretation is not what the Framers intended that provision …
Judging The Law Of Politics, Guy-Uriel Charles
Judging The Law Of Politics, Guy-Uriel Charles
Michigan Law Review
Election law scholars are currently engaged in a vigorous debate regarding the wisdom of judicial supervision of democratic politics. Ever since the Court's 1962 decision in Baker v. Carr, the Court has increasingly supervised a dizzying array of election-related matters. These include the regulation of political parties, access to electoral ballots, partisanship in electoral institutions, the role of race in the design of electoral structures, campaign financing, and the justifications for limiting the franchise. In particular, and as a consequence of the Court's involvement in the 2000 presidential elections in Bush v. Gore, a central task of election …
Deferring, Frederick Schauer
Deferring, Frederick Schauer
Michigan Law Review
Many academics, upon encountering a book on deference by a leading legal theorist, would assume that the book was still another contribution to a long and prominent debate about the existence (or not) of an obligation to obey the law. But that would be a mistake. In fact, this is a book not about obligation or obedience but about deference, and it is precisely in that difference that the significance of Philip Soper's book lies. Especially in law, where the Supreme Court (sometimes) defers to the factual, legal, and even constitutional determinations of Congress and administrative agencies, where appellate courts …
Private Attorneys General And The First Amendment, Trevor W. Morrison
Private Attorneys General And The First Amendment, Trevor W. Morrison
Michigan Law Review
The "private attorney general" is under fire again. It has been in and out of favor in the six decades since it was named, in part because it has come to signify so many different things. At its core, however, the term denotes a plaintiff who sues to vindicate public interests not directly connected to any special stake of her own. The remedies sought in such actions tend to be correspondingly broad: rather than seeking redress for discrete injuries, private attorneys general typically request injunctive or other equitable relief aimed at altering the practices of large institutions. From school desegregation …
Does The Supreme Court Matter? Civil Rights And The Inherent Politicization Of Constitutional Law, Matthew D. Lassiter
Does The Supreme Court Matter? Civil Rights And The Inherent Politicization Of Constitutional Law, Matthew D. Lassiter
Michigan Law Review
More than a decade ago, in a colloquium sponsored by the Virginia Law Review, scholars of the civil rights movement launched a fierce assault on Michael J. Klarman's interpretation of the significance of the Supreme Court's famous school desegregation ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Klarman's "backlash thesis," initially set forth in a series of law review and history journal articles and now serving as the centerpiece of his new book, revolves around two central claims. First, he argues that the advancements toward racial equality generally attributed to Brown were instead the inevitable products of long-term political, …
Government Corruption And The Right Of Access To Courts, Una A. Kim
Government Corruption And The Right Of Access To Courts, Una A. Kim
Michigan Law Review
This Note addresses the question left unanswered in Harbury: whether these denial of access-to-courts cases, which Justice Souter termed "backward-looking" access claims, are valid exercises of a constitutional right. Backward-looking access claims such as Harbury's differ from traditional denial of access-to-courts claims in that their aim is not to remove impediments to bringing causes of action in the future. Rather, backward-looking access claims allege that a suit that could have been filed in the past was not brought or was not litigated effectively, because access to the courts was at that time denied or obstructed by government officials. …
Foreword: Loving Lawrence, Pamela S. Karlan
Foreword: Loving Lawrence, Pamela S. Karlan
Michigan Law Review
Two interracial couples. Two cases. Two clauses. In Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court struck down a Virginia statute outlawing interracial marriage. In Lawrence v. Texas, the Court struck down a Texas statute outlawing sexual activity between same-sex individuals. Each case raised challenges under both the Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Sexual Orientation And The Paradox Of Heightened Scrutiny, Nan D. Hunter
Sexual Orientation And The Paradox Of Heightened Scrutiny, Nan D. Hunter
Michigan Law Review
In Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court performed a double move, creating a dramatic discursive moment: it both decriminalized consensual homosexual relations between adults, and, simultaneously, authorized a new regime of heightened regulation of homosexuality. How that happened and what we can expect next are the subjects of this essay. The obvious point of departure for an analysis of Lawrence is its decriminalization of much sexual conduct. Justice Scalia began this project with his dire warning that "[s]tate laws against bigamy, samesex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are . . . sustainable only in …
Lawrence V. Texas And Judicial Hubris, Nelson Lund, John O. Mcginnis
Lawrence V. Texas And Judicial Hubris, Nelson Lund, John O. Mcginnis
Michigan Law Review
The republic will no doubt survive the Supreme Court's decision, in Lawrence v. Texas, to invalidate laws against private, consensual sodomy, including those limited to homosexual behavior. Such laws are almost never enforced, and the rare prosecutions for such acts are necessarily capricious. So the principal direct effect of the Court's decision is likely to be extremely limited, and largely salutary: a few individuals will be spared the bad luck of getting a criminal conviction for violating laws that are manifestly out of step with prevailing sexual mores. Nor are we likely to see anything like the intense political …
Surviving Lawrence V. Texas, Marc Spindelman
Surviving Lawrence V. Texas, Marc Spindelman
Michigan Law Review
The lesbian and gay communities have reacted to the Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence v. Texas - striking down state sodomy laws on Due Process grounds - with unbridled enthusiasm. Lawrence has variously been praised as an unmitigated victory for lesbian and gay rights, a turning point in our community's history, and the moment when we have gone from second-class political outcasts to constitutional persons with first-class rights. Obviously, something remarkable happened in Lawrence. In an opinion written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Court declared that John Geddes Lawrence and Tyrone Gamer, who had been convicted under Texas's sodomy …
The Unknown Past Of Lawrence V. Texas, Dale Carpenter
The Unknown Past Of Lawrence V. Texas, Dale Carpenter
Michigan Law Review
On the night of September 17, 1998, someone called the police to report that a man was going crazy with a gun inside a Houston apartment. When Harris County sheriff's deputies entered the apartment they found no person with a gun but did witness John Lawrence and Tyron Gamer having anal sex. This violated the Texas Homosexual Conduct law, and the deputies hauled them off to jail for the night. Lawyers took the men's case to the Supreme Court and won a huge victory for gay rights. So goes the legend of Lawrence v. Texas. Do not believe it. …
Euthanasia In America - Past, Present, And Future: A Review Of A Merciful End And Forced Exit, Edward J. Larson
Euthanasia In America - Past, Present, And Future: A Review Of A Merciful End And Forced Exit, Edward J. Larson
Michigan Law Review
Nearly 170 years ago, in the classic first volume of his Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville observed, "Scarcely any political question arises in the United States that is not resolved, sooner or later, into a judicial question." De Tocqueville viewed this as a peculiarly U.S. development. He attributed it to the authority of the judiciary in the United States to review governmental enactments and establish individual rights based on judicial interpretation of the federal and state constitution. "Whenever a law that the judge holds to be unconstitutional is invoked in a tribunal of the United States, he may …
The Media At The Tip Of The Spear, Kevin A. Smith
The Media At The Tip Of The Spear, Kevin A. Smith
Michigan Law Review
Due largely to the first widespread availability of the telegraph, through which breaking stories could be transmitted to the presses in moments, the debut of the American war correspondent occurred during the Civil War. From their beginning, American war correspondents have frequently "embedded" with the troops on whom they reported. General Grant, for example, allowed his favorite New York Herald reporter to travel with his entourage, and even used him as a personal messenger. Reporters proved an important component of the war effort for both the North and the South. Papers on both sides proved willing providers of propaganda to …
Are Single-Sex Schools Inherently Unequal?, Michael Heise
Are Single-Sex Schools Inherently Unequal?, Michael Heise
Michigan Law Review
In chess, a "fork" occurs when a player, in a single move, attacks two or more of an opponent's pieces simultaneously, forcing a necessary choice between unappealing outcomes. Similar to the potentially devastating chess move, single-sex public schooling forks many constitutionalists and feminists. Constitutionalists are forced to reexamine the "separate but equal" doctrine's efficacy, this time through the prism of gender. Although the doctrine - forged in the crucible of race and overcome in the monumental triumph we know as Brown v. Board of Education - rested dormant for generations, persistent (and increasing) single-sex education options are forcing scholars to …
Does History Defeat Standing Doctrine?, Ann Woolhandler, Caleb Nelson
Does History Defeat Standing Doctrine?, Ann Woolhandler, Caleb Nelson
Michigan Law Review
According to the Supreme Court, the Federal Constitution limits not only the types of matters that federal courts can adjudicate, but also the parties who can bring those matters before them. In particular, the Court has held that private citizens who have suffered no concrete private injury lack standing to ask federal courts to redress diffuse harms to the public at large. When such harms are justiciable at all, the proper party plaintiff is the public itself, represented by an authorized officer of the government. Although the Court claims historical support for these ideas, academic critics insist that the law …
The Journey From Brown V. Board Of Education To Grutter V. Bollinger: From Racial Assimilation To Diversity, Harry T. Edwards
The Journey From Brown V. Board Of Education To Grutter V. Bollinger: From Racial Assimilation To Diversity, Harry T. Edwards
Michigan Law Review
Fifty years ago, in Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court confronted a precise and straightforward question: "Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other 'tangible' factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities?" The Court's answer was precise and straightforward: "We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs ... are, by reason of the segregation complained of, …
Saying Goodbye To A Legend: A Tribute To Yale Kamisar - My Mentor, Teacher, And Friend, Eve Brensike Primus
Saying Goodbye To A Legend: A Tribute To Yale Kamisar - My Mentor, Teacher, And Friend, Eve Brensike Primus
Michigan Law Review
I remember it as though it was yesterday - dozens of students filing into Hutchins Hall for their first criminal procedure class. The legendary Yale Kamisar walked briskly to the front of the room, his upper body moving first slightly forward and then ever so slightly backward in almost a rocking manner. He carried nothing except for a two-inch black notebook, tattered at the edges and marked with brightly colored tabs protruding from each page. Paying no attention to the hundreds of eyes fixed on his every move, he dropped the notebook on the podium, stepped up to the blackboard, …
Yale, Marc Spindelman
Yale, Marc Spindelman
Michigan Law Review
Yale does have, as Nancy King has said, a story for every occasion. Many of my favorites - and I definitely have my share - reflect Yale's gaudium certaminis: his "joy of battle" in Gerald Gunther's helpful translation. Some of Yale's battles I have only heard or read about. A few of the more memorable ones from over the years include Yale's confrontations with Glanville Williams, Fred Inbau, Joe Grano, John Kaplan, James Vorenberg, Robert Bork, Malcolm Wilkey, Edward Barrett, and Yale's former teacher Herbert Wechsler. And let's not forget the numerous law-enforcement officials Yale caught in his sights at …
The "Routine Traffic Stop" From Start To Finish: Too Much "Routine," Not Enough Fourth Amendment, Wayne R. Lafave
The "Routine Traffic Stop" From Start To Finish: Too Much "Routine," Not Enough Fourth Amendment, Wayne R. Lafave
Michigan Law Review
Yale Kamisar, about which I have said too much elsewhere in this issue of the Review, could rightly be called "Mr. Confessions," for he has not only authored books and a host of articles on the subject of police interrogation, but for years has been printing Miranda cards in his basement and selling them to police departments all across the nation. Moreover, he may be the only law professor in the country who has both personally coerced a confession and had a confession coerced out of him. As Kamisar has himself noted, my own "intellectual sandbox" has been the …
How American Workers Lost The Right To Strike, And Other Tales, James Gray Pope
How American Workers Lost The Right To Strike, And Other Tales, James Gray Pope
Michigan Law Review
To paraphrase a veteran labor scholar, if you want to know where the corpses are buried in labor law, look for the "of course" statements in court opinions. By "of course" statements, he meant propositions that are announced as if they were self-evident, requiring no justification. Each year, thousands of law students read such statements in labor law casebooks. And each year, they duly ask themselves - prodded sometimes by the casebook's notes - how these conclusions could be justified in legal terms. But often there seems to be no answer, and the mystery continues. This Essay recounts the origins …
Yale Kamisar: Warrior Scholar, Francis A. Allen
Yale Kamisar: Warrior Scholar, Francis A. Allen
Michigan Law Review
My association with Yale Kamisar dates back to the 1950s. At that time I became aware of the interesting publications of a young faculty member at the University of Minnesota. The articles were well done, most of them dealing with the Supreme Court's notable expansion of constitutional doctrine relating to criminal procedure, then at full tide, a field in which I also was writing. In addition, Yale had published a remarkable article on the subject of euthanasia, impressive for the thoroughness of its research and the clarity and force of its argument. Fortunately, I decided to write to Yale and …