Supreme Court of the United States Commons^™

The Roberts Court And Administrative Law, Gillian E. Metzger

Faculty Scholarship

Administrative law today is marked by the legal equivalent of mortal combat, where foundational principles are fiercely disputed and basic doctrines are offered up for “execution.” Several factors have led to administrative law’s currently fraught status. Increasingly bold presidential assertions of executive power are one, with President Trump and President Obama before him using presidential control over administration to advance controversial policies that failed to get congressional sanction. In the process, they have deeply enmeshed administrative agencies in political battles – indeed, for President Trump, administrative agencies are the political battle, as his administration has waged an all-out war on …

Double Jeopardy’S Dual Sovereignty: A Tragic (And Implausible) Lack Of Humility, Stephen E. Henderson, Dean Strang

Faculty Articles

The core proposition of the Fifth Amendment’s Double Jeopardy Clause is as intuitive as it is straightforward. After all, if a state could prosecute someone despite her previous conviction or acquittal, then the scope of punishment would be unlimited and its threat unending—the sort of proposition only a tyrant could love. Yet, in Gamble v. United States, the Supreme Court once again blessed a dual sovereignty exception that permits just such duplicative prosecutions. We hardly are the first to question this rule, but we submit the Court’s most recent primary mistakes were two. First, the Court began from a …

Narrowly Tailoring The Covid-19 Response, Craig Konnoth

Publications

No abstract provided.

Popular Constitutional Argument, Thomas G. Donnelly

Law Faculty Publications

Critics have long attacked popular constitutionalists for offering few clues about how their theory might work in practice—especially inside the courts. These critics are right. Popular constitutionalism—as a matter of both theory and practice—remains a work in progress. In this Article, I take up the challenge of developing an account of (what I call) popular constitutional argument. Briefly stated, popular constitutional argument is a form of argument that draws on the American people’s considered judgments as a source of constitutional authority—akin to traditional sources like text, history, structure, and doctrine. Turning to constitutional theory, I situate popular constitutional argument within …

A Patent Reformist Supreme Court And Its Unearthed Precedent, Samuel F. Ernst

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

How is it that the Supreme Court, a generalist court, is leading a project of innovation reform in our times while the court of appeals established to encourage innovation is having its precedent stricken down time and again? This decade the Supreme Court has issued far more patent law decisions than in any decade since the passage of the Patent Act of 1952. In doing so, the Supreme Court has overruled the Federal Circuit in roughly threequarters of the patent cases in which the Supreme Court has issued opinions. In most of these cases, the Supreme Court has established rules …

The Lessons Of 1919, Lackland H. Bloom

SMU Law Review

One hundred years ago, the Supreme Court embarked on its first serious consideration of the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech. In 1919, the Court upheld four federal criminal convictions over First Amendment defenses. Three of the majority opinions were written by Justice Holmes. In the fourth, he offered a classic dissent. Two of the cases, Frohwerk v. United States and Debs v. United States, are of middling significance. The other two, Schenck v. United States and Abrams v. United States, are iconic. From these cases have sprung an expansive and complex jurisprudence of free speech. The …

Special Justifications, Randy J. Kozel

Journal Articles

The Supreme Court commonly asks whether there is a “special justification” for departing from precedent. In this Response, which is part of a Constitutional Commentary symposium on Settled Versus Right: A Theory of Precedent, I examine the existing law of special justifications and describe its areas of uncertainty. I also compare the Court’s current doctrine with a revised approach to special justifications designed to separate the question of overruling from deeper disagreements about legal interpretation. The aspiration is to establish precedent as a unifying force that enhances the impersonality of the Court and of the law, promoting values the Justices …

Abortion Rights And The Kavanaugh Nomination, John M. Greabe

Law Faculty Scholarship

[Excerpt] "Last week, President Trump nominated federal appeals court judge Brett Kavanaugh to fill the Supreme Court seat opened by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy. Immediately, coverage of the nomination focused on abortion and whether Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation would spell the end of the constitutional right recognized in Roe v. Wade. Let's explore why."

The Supreme Court's Constitutional "Bright Line": Preempting Authority Of 47 Of 50 States, Steven Ferrey

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

The Supreme Court unanimously stripped 47 of the 50 states of their authority to regulate key commerce. In Hughes v. Talen Energy Marketing, the Court withdrew from state authority the power over law applicable to, and now controlling, what is identified as the second most important invention in history.

The transcendent constitutional question is whether this unanimous Supreme Court decision expands constitutional “field preemption” to permanently withhold from 47 states this power, or only employs “conflict preemption” to preempt this one single challenged state regulation. This article examines and esolves that the Court chose “field preemption” to permanently crimp and …

Life In No Trump: Property And Speech Under The Constitution, Richard A. Esptein

Maine Law Review

The editors of the Maine Law Review have been kind enough to offer me the opportunity to respond to Laura Underkuffler's criticism of my work in her recent Godfrey Lecture, “When Should Rights ‘Trump’? An Examination of Speech and Property,” which appears in the preceding issue. In my earlier writings on constitutional law, more specifically, in my paper, Property, Speech and the Politics of Distrust, I took the position that modern Supreme Court jurisprudence had taken a turn for the worse insofar as it used different standards of review in passing on the constitutionality of legislation. The current position, roughly …

Rethinking The Dormant Commerce Clause?: Climate Change And Food Security, Michael Barsa

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

Neil Gorsuch And The Ginsburg Rules, Lori A. Ringhand, Paul M. Collings Jr.

Scholarly Works

Supreme Court nominees testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee frequently invoke the so-called “Ginsburg Rule” to justify not answering questions posed to them. According to this “rule,” nominees during their testimony must avoid signaling their preferences about previously decided Supreme Court cases or constitutional issues. Using empirical data on every question asked and answered at every hearing from 1939–2017, we explore this “rule,” and its attribution to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We demonstrate three things. First, the Ginsburg Rule is poorly named, given that the practice of claiming a privilege to not respond to certain types of questions predates the …

Artis V. District Of Columbia—What Did The Court Actually Say?, Doron M. Kalir

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

On January 22, 2018, the Supreme Court issued Artis v. District of Columbia. A true "clash of the titans," this 5-4 decision featured colorful comments on both sides, claims of "absurdities," uncited use of Alice in Wonderland vocabulary ("curiouser," anyone?), and an especially harsh accusation by the dissent that "we’ve wandered so far from the idea of a federal government of limited and enumerated powers that we’ve begun to lose sight of what it looked like in the first place."

One might assume that the issue in question was a complex constitutional provision, or a dense, technical federal code …

Beyond The Bosses' Constitution: The First Amendment And Class Entrenchment, Jedediah S. Purdy

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court’s “weaponized” First Amendment has been its strongest antiregulatory tool in recent decades, slashing campaign-finance regulation, public-sector union financing, and pharmaceutical regulation, and threatening a broader remit. Along with others, I have previously criticized these developments as a “new Lochnerism.” In this Essay, part of a Columbia Law Review Symposium, I press beyond these criticisms to diagnose the ideological outlook of these opinions and to propose an alternative. The leading decisions of the antiregulatory First Amendment often associate free speech with a vision of market efficiency; but, I argue, closer to their heart is antistatist fear of entrenchment …

Preclusion Law As A Model For National Injunctions, Suzette M. Malveaux

Publications

No abstract provided.

Excavating The Forgotten Suspension Clause, Helen Norton

Publications

No abstract provided.

Precedent And Constitutional Structure, Randy J. Kozel

Journal Articles

The Constitution does not talk about precedent, at least not explicitly, but several of its features suggest a place for deference to prior decisions. It isolates the judicial function and insulates federal courts from official and electoral control, promoting a vision of impersonality and continuity. It charges courts with applying a charter that is vague and ambiguous in important respects. And it was enacted at a time when prominent thinkers were already discussing the use of precedent to channel judicial discretion. Taken in combination, these features make deference to precedent a sound inference from the Constitution’s structure, text, and historical …

Equality, Sovereignty, And The Family In Morales-Santana, Kristin Collins

Faculty Scholarship

In Sessions v. Morales-Santana, ³ the Supreme Court encountered a body of citizenship law that has long relied on family membership in the construction of the nation’s borders and the composition of the polity.⁴ The particular statute at issue in the case regulates the transmission of citizenship from American parents to their foreign-born children at birth, a form of citizenship known today as derivative citizenship.⁵ When those children are born outside marriage, the derivative citizenship statute makes it more difficult for American fathers, as compared with American mothers, to transmit citizenship to their foreign-born children.⁶ Over …

The Prevailing Culture Over Immigration: Centralized Immigration And Policies Between Attrition And Accommodation, Antonios Kouroutakis

Seton Hall Circuit Review

No abstract provided.

Precedent And Speech, Randy J. Kozel

Journal Articles

The U.S. Supreme Court has shown a notable willingness to reconsider its First Amendment precedents. In recent years the Court has departed from its prior statements regarding the constitutional value of false speech. It has revamped its process for identifying categorical exceptions to First Amendment protection. It has changed its position on corporate electioneering and aggregate campaign contributions. In short, it has revised the ground rules of expressive freedom in ways both large and small.

The Court generally describes its past decisions as enjoying a presumption of validity through the doctrine of stare decisis. This Article contends that within the …

Louis Brandeis’S Vision Of Light And Justice As Articulated On The Side Of A Coffee Mug, Randy Lee

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Judicial Legacy Of Louis Brandeis And The Nature Of American Constitutionalism, Edward A. Purcell Jr.

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Progressive Mind: Louis D. Brandeis And The Origins Of Free Speech, Elizabeth Todd Byron

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Disparate Impact Canon, Michael T. Morley

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Lafler V. Cooper's Remedy: A Weak Response To A Constitutional Violation, Matthew T. Ciulla

Notre Dame Law Review Reflection

The Lafler v. Cooper Court should have chosen the remedy of specific performance of the original plea bargain. The specific performance remedy, long implemented by federal courts in Lafler-like scenarios, and ordered by the district court in Lafler, precisely cures the Lafler injury—the accused regains the ability to accept the original plea offer, except he now has the benefit of effective assistance of counsel. The specific performance remedy, when coupled with the safeguards of the Strickland prongs, poses little risk of abuse, and gives heft to the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of effective assistance of counsel in the plea …

Table Of Contents

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Moving From A Brandeis Brief To A Brandeis Law Firm: Challenges And Opportunities For Holistic Legal Services In The United States, Judith A. Mcmorrow

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Louis Brandeis And Contemporary Antitrust Enforcement, Kenneth G. Elzinga, Micah Webber

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Foreword To The Conference: Louis D. Brandeis: An Interdisciplinary Retrospective, Samuel J. Levine

Touro Law Review

On March 31-April 1, 2016, Touro Law Center and the Jewish Law Institute hosted a national conference: Louis D. Brandeis: An Interdisciplinary Retrospective. More than thirty judges, lawyers, and scholars, across a broad range of disciplines and hailing from across the United States, explored a variety of themes that included, among others: Brandeis’s groundbreaking work as a lawyer and a scholar; his commitment to his Jewish heritage; his historic appointment to the United States Supreme Court; and his jurisprudence on the Court. In addition to the timeless quality of these themes, the timing of the conference was significant, taking place …

Justice Brandeis And Railroad Accidents: Fairness, Uniformity And Consistency, Larry Zacharias

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.