Supreme Court of the United States Commons^™

Overhauling Rules Of Evidence In Pro Se Courts, Andrew C. Budzinski

University of Richmond Law Review

State civil courtrooms are packed to the brim with litigants, but not with lawyers. Since the early 1990s, more and more litigants in state courts have appeared without legal counsel. Pro se litigation has grown consistently and enormously over the past few decades. State court dockets are dominated by cases brought by unrepresented litigants, most often in domestic violence, family law, landlord-tenant, and small claims courts.

Yet, the American courtroom is not designed for use by those unrepresented litigants—it is designed for use by attorneys. The American civil court is built upon a foundation of dense procedural rules, thick tomes …

Utilizing Tax Incentives To Increase Gender Parity On Corporate Boards, Mary E. Tursi

University of Richmond Law Review

Women are drastically underrepresented in positions of power and prominence in the United States. As of 2021, women hold only thirty percent of board seats on the S&P 500. The number is much smaller for private corporations. One study found that in 2020, women occupied only eleven percent of board seats for private corporations. Given these statistics, it is unsurprising that a 2021
study predicts that corporate boards will not reach gender parity until 2032.

This underrepresentation matters for several reasons. First, the lack of gender equity on corporate boards is blatantly sexist. This disparity should matter for anyone who …

Make Some Sense Of Scent Trademarks: The United States Needs A Graphical Representation Requirement, Gabrielle E. Brill

University of Richmond Law Review

When it comes to consumer loyalty, some businesses have decided to go beyond attracting the eyes. Why not keep customers via their nostrils? Accordingly, the scent marketing industry is booming. Jennifer Dublino, Vice President of Development at ScentWorld Events, remarks that “smell is one of the most unique of human senses. Scent enters the limbic system [of the brain] and bypasses all of the cognitive and logical thought processes and goes directly to the emotional and memory areas of the brain.” Companies like ScentAir have been created specifically to help stores design fragrances that best fit their image and objectives …

Pretextual Stops: The Rest Of The Story, J.E.B. Stuart Vi

University of Richmond Law Review

Pretextual stops made by law enforcement officers—stops aimed at serving some purpose other than the official reason for the stop—have received renewed attention in the public discourse following several high-profile law enforcement confrontations with people of color. Naturally, the conversations about pretextual stops have centered around their most horrid iteration: discriminatory stops made by bad cops. These stops are damaging to both motorists and officers, and conversations about them are undeniably important. But there is more to pretextual stops than the nefarious purposes attributed to them.

As a former police officer who regularly made pretextual stops for reasons entirely unrelated …

Brief Of Amici Curiae Arbitration Scholars And Practitioners In Support Of Petitioners, Sarah A. Dowd, Eric B. Fisher, Travis A. Gonyou, Diane Desierto

Court Briefs

No. 21-1244
Beijing Shougang Mining Investment Company, Ltd. v. Mongolia

On Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

From the Summary of Argument

Parties to international arbitration and arbitral tribunals themselves value predictability and dependability. This is especially so for threshold questions concerning the authority of an arbitral tribunal to decide disputes over its own jurisdiction. Among international arbitration scholars and practitioners this threshold question is often known by the German term kompetenz-kompetenz, referring to the issue of competence to determine the competence of an arbitral panel to decide a dispute. …

Heirs Of An Administration: Unlawful Executive Actions, Jerome Perez

Catholic University Law Review

The Supreme Court of the United States in DHS v. Regents on June 18, 2020, decided to stall the Trump administration from rescinding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy that the Obama administration created contrary to the Administrative Procedures Act (APA)––even though in 2016 the Supreme Court affirmed a preliminary injunction on the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) policy, which mirrors DACA. This blunder offhandedly sacrifices the Supreme Court’s reputation as nonpartisan by enlisting itself as the future arbiter of administrative issues with self-evident resolutions and deciding contrary to those resolutions to endorse a political agenda. …

Elucidation Strategies: A Case Study Of The U.S Supreme Court, Gordon Carroll

[Archive] Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

The research encompassed a study on the consistency in judicial interpretations and factors that influenced U.S. Supreme Court decisions. To do this, the study explored literature and theoretical perspectives relating to judicial interpretations and decisions. The target population entailed officers in the Office of the Solicitor General for their experience in Court rulings. Interviews were conducted among ten respondents, with data collected, coded, and analyzed. The study results were then presented, discussed, and conclusions derived from them. Generally, the study found serious inconsistencies in interpretations not only between justices but also in almost similar cases. Decisions by justices were conflicting …

Court Legitimacy & The Shadow Docket, Colton Tilley

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

The (Unnoticed) Revitalization Of The Doctrine Of Equivalents, Daryl Lim

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Over the past century, few patent issues have been considered so often by the Supreme Court of the United States as the doctrine of equivalents (“DOE”). This judge-made rule deals with a question that lies at the heart of patent policy—what is the best way to define property rights in an invention? The doctrine gives patentees an opportunity to ensnare an accused device that does not literally infringe a patent claim if the accused device is substantially similar to each claim limitation. Patentees enjoy this advantage, but it comes at a cost to the public, who must face the …

Rewriting Whren V. United States, Devon W. Carbado, Jonathan Feingold

Faculty Scholarship

In 1996, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Whren v. United States—a unanimous opinion in which the Court effectively constitutionalized racial profiling. Despite its enduring consequences, Whren remains good law today. This Article rewrites the opinion. We do so, in part, to demonstrate how one might incorporate racial justice concerns into Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, a body of law that has long elided and marginalized the racialized dimensions of policing. A separate aim is to reveal the “false necessity” of the Whren outcome. The fact that Whren was unanimous, and that even progressive Justices signed on, might lead one to conclude that …

“She’S Earned This”: Angela Onwuachi-Willig Rejoices In Historic Confirmation, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Shorter Faculty Works

Angela Onwuachi-Willig, the dean of Boston University’s School of Law—the first Black woman to be dean of a top-20 law school—is rejoicing. The first Black woman has been confirmed to the US Supreme Court.

Onwuachi-Willig has had Ketanji Brown Jackson’s back from the moment President Biden announced he would nominate the federal judge to the nation’s highest court.

Bu Celebrates Ketanji Brown Jackson’S Rise To Us Supreme Court, Nicole Huberfeld

Shorter Faculty Works

The operative word about Ketanji Brown Jackson is “first.” Once she is sworn in to the US Supreme Court, after being confirmed by the Senate Thursday 53-47 (three Republicans joined Democrats in supporting her), she will be the first Black woman on the high court in its 233 years. And she will be the first former public defender to join the court. Brown Jackson—the daughter of a lawyer and a school principal and currently a federal appellate judge in Washington, D.C.—won Senate confirmation after a bruising hearing last week where Republican senators tried to label her as an extreme liberal …

Nature Deserves Rights, Too: The Case For A ‘Rights Of Nature’ Constitutional Amendment, Michelle Mandler

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Picture this: Every day, millions of Americans enjoy the great outdoors. People of all ages dive into cool, blue oceans and babbling rivers across the United States. Others visit local and National parks, hiking steep mountains and running through green fields sprinkled with tall trees and sweet-smelling flowers in every color. They pick and snack on apples and berries along their paths, breathing in the crisp outdoor air. Birds soar overhead. Insects buzz and flutter through the breeze. Sunshine gleams down upon the earth.

Now, picture this: The surrounding environment is actually deteriorating— silently suffering—and harming these people all …

Locked Out: Sora, Sara And The Need For Defense Counsel Advisals And Judicial Plea Colloquies On Sex Offense-Related Housing Consequences, Matthew Cleaver

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

On May 20, 2014, Miguel Gonzalez became eligible for conditional release from prison, having served over two years of his two-and-a-half-year sentence for statutory rape. Instead of releasing Gonzalez, the New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) confined Gonzalez for an additional seven and a half months after his initial release date and over four months after his maximum sentence. On February 4, 2015, DOCCS finally released Gonzalez from New York’s Woodbourne Correctional Facility. The sole reason for Gonzalez’s additional confinement was his failure to secure housing that complied with the residency restrictions placed on individuals convicted …

State Rejection Of Federal Law, Thomas B. Bennett

Notre Dame Law Review

Sometimes the United States Supreme Court speaks, and states do not follow. For example, in 2003, the Arizona Supreme Court agreed to “reject” a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, because no “sound reasons justif[ied] following” it. Similarly, in 2006, Michigan voters approved a ballot initiative that, according to the legislature that drafted it, sought “at the very least[] to ‘freeze’ the state’s . . . law to prevent” state courts from following a ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court. Surprising though this language may be, there is nothing nefarious about these cases. Cooper v. Aaron this is not. Unlike …

Outside Tinker’S Reach: An Examination Of Mahanoy Area School District V. B. L. And Its Implications, Michelle Hunt

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

In the 1969 landmark case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, the Supreme Court reassured students that they do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” Ever since then, the exact scope of students’ free speech rights has been unclear, but the high court has used Tinker’s substantial disruption test to clarify its scope in successive legal challenges. In 2017, B. L., a Mahanoy Area School District student, was suspended from her cheerleading team after using vulgar language off-campus that made its way back to her coaches. She …

Judicial Consensus: Why The Supreme Court Should Decide Its Cases Unanimously, David Orentlicher

Connecticut Law Review

Like Congress and other deliberative bodies, the Supreme Court decides its cases by majority vote. If at least five of the nine Justices come to an agreement, their view prevails. But why is that the case? Majority voting for the Court is not spelled out in the Constitution, a federal statute, or Supreme Court rules.

Nor it is obvious that the Court should decide by a majority vote. When the public votes on a ballot measure, it typically makes sense to follow the majority. The general will of the electorate ought to govern. But judicial decisions are not supposed to …

“Hey Stephen”, Leah M. Litman

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Authority of the Court and the Peril of Politics. By Stephen Breyer.

Administrative Investigations, Aram A. Gavoor, Steven A. Platt

Indiana Law Journal

This Article establishes the subject of federal administrative investigations as a new area of study in administrative law. While the literature has addressed investigations by specific agencies and congressional investigations, there is no general account for the trans-substantive constitutional value of administrative investigations. This Article provides such an account by exploring the positive law, agency behaviors, and constraints pertaining to this unresearched field. It concludes with some urgency that the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946—the statute that stands as a bill of rights for the Administrative State—does not serve to regulate administrative investigations and that Article III courts have held …

Aggregate Stare Decisis, Kiel Brennan-Marquez

Indiana Law Journal

The fate of stare decisis hangs in the wind. Different factions of the Supreme Court are now engaged in open debate—echoing decades of scholarship—about the doctrine’s role in our constitutional system. Broadly speaking, two camps have emerged. The first embraces the orthodox view that stare decisis should reflect “neutral principles” that run orthogonal to a case’s merits; otherwise, it will be incapable of keeping the law stable over time. The second argues that insulating stare decisis from the underlying merits has always been a conceptual mistake. Instead, the doctrine should focus more explicitly on the merits—by diagnosing the magnitude of …

Obergefell V. Hodges—And The Use Of Oral Argument And Storytelling To Reinforce Competencies In The Legal Writing Classroom, Karin Mika

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Legal writing professors struggle with trying to balance learning skills with the bigger picture of learning that law is ultimately about having the power to change lives. Often, learning the skills becomes completely separated from the human aspect of the law. Although we all work toward unifying the two concepts, it is not always done by having discussions about the bigger issues, or even having the students look at more traditional sources such as briefs or even law review articles. Oyez and the oral tradition of storytelling presented by radio (or other similar resources) have the potential of more fully …

Hidden In Plain Sight: The Dangers Of Environmental Protections Waivers, Olivia Stevens

Indiana Law Journal

When enacting both statutory and regulatory environmental protections, Congress and various agencies have recognized that emergency situations could arise that would require flexibility in the application and enforcement of those protections. Incorporating waivers into such protections provides that flexibility. However, the current state of waivers leaves them vulnerable to abuse. In this Note, I explore how a lack of procedural and substantive safeguards allows the inappropriate use of waivers to further administrative agendas in a way that poses serious risks to both environmental and human health. I then suggest remedial measures available to Congress that would strengthen environmental protections while …

Truth And Reconciliation: The Ku Klux Klan Hearings Of 1871 And The Genesis Of Section 1983, Tiffany R. Wright, Ciarra N. Carr, Jade W.P. Gasek

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Over the course of seven months in 1871, Congress did something extraordinary for the time: It listened to Black people. At hearings in Washington, D.C. and throughout the former Confederate states, Black women and men—who just six years earlier were enslaved and barred from testifying in Southern courts—appeared before Congress to tell their stories. The stories were heartbreaking. After experiencing the joy of Emancipation and the initial hope of Reconstruction, they had been subjected to unspeakable horror at the hands of white terrorists. They had been raped and sexually humiliated. Their children and spouses murdered. They had been savagely beaten …

How In The World Could They Reach That Conclusion?, Hon. Carlton Reeves

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No abstract provided.

Unqualified Immunity And The Betrayal Of Butz V. Economou: How The Supreme Court Quietly Granted Federal Officials Absolute Immunity For Constitutional Violations, Patrick Jaicomo, Anya Bidwell

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Qualified immunity has been the subject of well-deserved scorn in recent years as a legal mechanism that shields government officials from constitutional accountability. But its shadow has hidden another mechanism that provides an unqualified immunity from constitutional accountability. That de facto absolute immunity extends to federal officials in all but a vanishingly few contexts where claims are still permitted under the 1971 Supreme Court decision Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics. But it was not always that way. In its 1978 decision Butz v. Economou, the Supreme Court permitted Bivens claims to proceed against …

Bringing History Home: Strategies For The International Repatriation Of Native American Cultural Property, Alec Johnson

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The theft of Native American cultural items has been ongoing since Europeans began to colonize the Americas. As a result, millions of Native American artifacts are now located outside the borders of the United States. Native American tribes have long sought international repatriation—the return of these cultural objects to their tribal owners. Unfortunately, many countries have been unsupportive of repatriation attempts and Native Americans seeking the return of their cultural items face nearly insurmountable barriers in foreign courts. The U.S. government has a moral imperative to assist Native American tribes in these repatriation efforts. The debate over repatriation is defined …

Rwu Law News: The Newsletter Of Roger Williams University School Of Law, Michael M. Bowden, Gregory W. Bowman, Brooklyn Crockton

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

The Never-Ending Struggle For Reproductive Rights, Stephanie Toti

Michigan Law Review

For me, the annual Book Review issue is a time for reflection. It provides an opportunity to take stock of scholarly trends, reassess conventional wisdom, and gather new insights to apply to the practice of law. The reviews contained in this year’s issue address a wide range of subjects, including the history of public defenders, the use of bigotry rhetoric in conflicts over marriage and civil rights law, the role of cost-benefit analysis in federal policymaking, and racial inequities in tax policy. This impressive commentary on an astute and varied collection of books about the law will inspire many of …

Deep-State Constitutionalism, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this review, I explain how "Common Good Constitutionalism" taps into a deficiency of the conservative legal movement: namely, its exclusive focus on the law "as it is" at the expense of the underlying abstract normative principles that justify the positive law of our written Constitution. Due to this deficiency, the conservative legal movement gives short shrift to the Declaration of Independence and the Ninth Amendment and the natural rights to which both refer. This deficiency is in need of correction. But any such correction does not justify the jettisoning of originalism as Vermeule proposes. Nor does Vermeule defend his …

Fair Construction To Living Constitution: Analyzing Constitutional Interpretation Throughout United States History, Joshua Lloyd

Senior Honors Theses

The proper method of constitutional interpretation has been debated throughout the history of the Supreme Court. This debate has been defined by the tension between the originalist and living constitution jurisprudences. Each has been dominant at one point in United States history. A fair construction jurisprudence was almost universally utilized by the Supreme Court to interpret the Constitution according to its original meaning until Plessy v. Ferguson. Then, due to an alliance between evangelicals and progressive scholars, a broader, more lenient living constitution jurisprudence developed which allowed justices to interpret the Constitution in light of changing social norms. Finally, …