Supreme Court of the United States Commons^™

The Expansion Of Charitable Choice, The Faith Based Initiative, And The Supreme Court's Establishment Clause Jurisprudence, Steven Fitzgerald

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Calling Crawford: Minnesota Declares A 911 Call Non-Testimonial In State V. Wright, Alistair Y. Raymond

Maine Law Review

In State v. Wright, 1 the State of Minnesota charged David Wright with possession of a firearm by a felon and two counts of second-degree assault against his girlfriend and her sister. A jury found Wright guilty on all charges and sentenced him to sixty months in jail for each crime, with sentences served concurrently. Wright’s girlfriend, R.R., and her sister, S.R., did not testify against him at trial. The prosecution, however, used the transcript of a 911 call placed by R.R. against Wright in the trial. Although the 911 call was hearsay, the court admitted it under Minnesota’s excited …

Parsing Personal Predilections: A Fresh Look At The Supreme Court's Cruel And Unusual Death Penalty Jurisprudence, Susan M. Raeker-Jordan

Maine Law Review

The now well-known case of Atkins v. Virginia decided that the execution of those with mental retardation constituted cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. The more recent case of Roper v. Simmons decided that execution of those who were under the age of eighteen when they committed their crimes also constituted cruel and unusual punishment. Both decisions changed the law that had existed since 1989, when the Court held in Penry v. Lynaugh and Stanford v. Kentucky that executions of members of both classes were not unconstitutional. Writing for the Court in Atkins v. Virginia, Justice Stevens was …

Kelo V. City Of New London-Wrongly Decided And A Missed Opportunity For Principled Line Drawing With Respect To Eminent Domain Takings, Orlando E. Delogu

Maine Law Review

No eminent domain taking case in the last twenty-five years has excited the level of interest, attention, and debate as has Kelo v. City of New London. The Supreme Court’s decision has not quelled that debate. If anything the stridency, the emotional tenor, of the debate has increased. And in the few months since the decision came down, several dozen states (in the absence of any meaningful federal limitation on what constitutes “public use”) have proposed statutes or constitutional amendments that would limit their exercise of eminent domain (taking) powers. There is even talk of federal legislation to temper, to …

The Supreme Court And Religious Liberty, Douglas Laycock

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

United States V. Pho: Defining The Limits Of Discretionary Sentencing, John G. Wheatley

Maine Law Review

In the consolidated case of United States v. Pho, the government appealed two district court rulings that imposed criminal sentences outside of the range provided in the Federal Sentencing Guidelines Manual (Guidelines). At separate trials, both defendants pied guilty to the crime of possession with intent to distribute five grams or more of cocaine base (commonly known as crack). Rejecting the Guidelines' disparate treatment of crack and powder cocaine, the district court imposed sentences that were below the Guidelines' range, but above the statutory mandatory minimum. The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit vacated both sentences and remanded the …

Trinko: A Kinder, Gentler Approach To Dominant Firms Under The Antitrust Laws?, Edward D. Cavanagh

Maine Law Review

Section 2 of the Sherman Act prohibits monopolization, attempted monopolization and conspiracy to monopolize. The § 2 prohibitions are rooted in concerns "that possession of unchallenged economic power deadens initiative, discourages thrift and depresses energy; that immunity from competition is a narcotic, and rivalry is a stimulant, to industrial progress; that the spur of constant stress is necessary to counteract an inevitable disposition to let well enough alone." At the same time, courts have recognized that size alone cannot be the basis of condemnation under § 2, for as Learned Hand observed in Alcoa, "[t]he successful competitor, having been urged …

Education Funding In Maine In Light Of Zelman And Locke: Too Much Play In The Joints?, Sarah M. Lavigne

Maine Law Review

The United States Supreme Court has struggled with the countervailing directives of the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause for decades. One area in which this battle has been particularly contentious is the issue of public funding of religious schools. On one hand, opponents argue that such funding is an impermissible co-mingling of church and state, thereby violating the Establishment Clause. Meanwhile, proponents of public funding of religious schools argue that, to withhold funding from religious schools would place a burden on those wishing to send their children to religious schools, thereby impermissibly preventing individuals from practicing their faith …

How A Court Becomes Supreme: Defending The Constitution From Unconstitutional Amendments, Richard Albert

Maryland Law Review

High courts around the world have increasingly invalidated constitutional amendments in defense of their view of democracy, answering in the affirmative what was once a paradoxical question with no obvious answer: can a constitutional amendment be unconstitutional? In the United States, however, the Supreme Court has yet to articulate a theory or doctrine of unconstitutional constitutional amendment. Faced with a constitutional amendment that would challenge the liberal democratic values of American constitutionalism—for instance an amendment restricting political speech or establishing a national religion—the Court would be left without a strategy or vocabulary to protect the foundations of constitutional democracy. In …

An Unacknowledged Constitutional Crisis: United States V. Shipp Ii (1909), Leslie F. Goldstein

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

How Elonis Failed To Clarify The Analysis Of "True Threats" In Social Media Cases And The Subsequent Need For Congressional Response, Jessica L. Opila

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Social media and other internet communications have altered the way people communicate with one another, including the way people threaten one another. In 2015, the United States Supreme Court decided Elonis v. United States, which imposed a heightened mental state requirement for federal prosecutions of threats issued in interstate commerce. Although the statute, 18 U.S.C. § 875(c), has no mental state requirement, the Supreme Court held that, consistent with the principles of criminal law, only those with guilty minds should be convicted and thus some showing of subjective intent is required. The opinion did not name the requisite mental …

Justice Scalia’S Bankruptcy Jurisprudence: The Right Judicial Philosophy For The Modern Bankruptcy Code?, Megan Mcdermott

Utah Law Review

This Article surveys an area of Justice Scalia’s legacy that is often overlooked by scholars who write broadly about the Supreme Court: his many contributions to the field of bankruptcy law. The Bankruptcy Code is rife with statutory interpretation questions that demand clear and predictable answers, due to the efficiency interests at stake and the absence of any intermediate interpretive forces, such as administrative agencies. Justice Scalia arrived on the high court at the outset of the modern bankruptcy era and this Article argues that his brand of rulebased textualism is a particularly good fit for bankruptcy law.

Specifically, four …

Understanding Nautilus's Reasonable-Certainty Standard: Requirements For Linguistic And Physical Definiteness Of Patent Claims, Gary M. Fox

Michigan Law Review

Patent applicants must satisfy a variety of requirements to obtain a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The definiteness requirement forces applicants to describe their inventions in unambiguous terms so that other inventors will understand the scope of granted patent rights. Although the statutory provision for the definiteness requirement has been stable for many years, the Supreme Court’s decision in Nautilus v. Biosig Instruments altered the doctrine. The Court abrogated the Federal Circuit’s insoluble-ambiguity standard and replaced it with a new reasonable-certainty standard. Various district courts have applied the new standard in different ways, indicating the need …

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 Collateral Order Doctrine In Disorder: Redefining Finality, Matthew R. Pikor

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Cessation Of Innovation: An Inquiry Into Whether Congress Can And Should Strip The Supreme Court Of Its Appellate Jurisdiction To Entertain Patent Cases, Catherine Taylor

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

Analyzing The Roles Of Law And Politics In Judicial Decision Making: Predicting U.S. Supreme Court Justices’ Votes On A Case Of Affirmative Action, Ashley Renkor

The Eastern Illinois University Political Science Review

This study seeks to study relevant precedent cases concerning affirmative action, the 14th Amendment equal protection clause, the 5th Amendment equal protection clause, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, with the goal of predicting how certain justices will vote in the affirmative action case, Fisher vs. the University of Texas at Austin. I conclude that justices will debate numerous aspects at play, such as original intent, plain meaning, precedent, policy preferences, public opinion, personal experience, the federal government, and interest groups in order to take positions in the Fisher case for the second time around with an intent …

Do Women Justices Matter?, Ashley Shula

The Eastern Illinois University Political Science Review

In recent years, women have started to have a considerable impact on the political process. While literature exists on women in Congress and in district court settings, little research exists on the role played by female Supreme Court Justices. The author attempts to shed light on the impact of female justices by assessing statements made by the justices, in addition to their voting records. The author finds that the new women Supreme Court Justices have had little impact so far, but offers that perhaps as time goes on, this will change.

Supreme Court Review: Church/State Jurisprudence, William Bentley Ball

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

The Enforcement Of Irs Summonses And Section 7609, Madeline Tusa

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Note argues that because the Tenth Circuit decision ignores important policy concerns dealing with the efficiency of the IRS, failing to comply with notice requirements under Section 7609(a) should be analyzed under the totality of the circumstances standard. Part I discusses the history and development of Section 7609(a) and notice requirements for third-party summonses in IRS investigations. Part II outlines the general requirements for the enforcement of an IRS summons and how Section 7609(a) is analyzed in light of those requirements. Part III discusses the current circuit split and the significance of each respective court’s holdings and reasoning. …

The Intelligible Principle: How It Briefly Lived, Why It Died, And Why It Desperately Needs Revival In Today's Administrative State, Meaghan Dunigan

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Note addresses the flaws in the current intelligible principle standard and proposes a new three-part standard that would better revitalize the intelligible principle as it was first articulated almost a century ago. This Note concedes that while legislative delegation in any form is a violation of the original meaning of the nondelegation doctrine, our society and the growth of administrative agencies removed any chance of having our laws created solely by Congress. What can happen, and what this Note proposes, is for the Supreme Court to adopt a new intelligible principle standard that scales back the amount of …

Unequal Law, Unequal Burden: The All-Male Selective Service Act, Civilian Rights, And The Limits Of Military Deference In Modern Supreme Court Jurisprudence, Amy Mccarthy

Florida State University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Communitarianism And The Roberts Court, Robert M. Ackerman

Florida State University Law Review

In this Article, Professor Ackerman examines the work of the Roberts Court through a communitarian lens. Communitarians strive for a reasonable balance between individual rights and the collective good. They believe that even in a rights-conscious society, rights have limits, and involve responsibilities. And so, communitarians will often consider whether the Supreme Court has struck a proper balance between individual liberty and the public interest.

But communitarian theory has other, multidimensional aspects. Communitarians view people as social animals, who are not mere autonomous agents with nobody to care about but themselves. They therefore see the value not only of large-scale …

Chevron In The Circuit Courts, Kent Barnett, Christopher J. Walker

Michigan Law Review

This Article presents findings from the most comprehensive empirical study to date on how the federal courts of appeals have applied Chevrondeference— the doctrine under which courts defer to a federal agency’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute that it administers. Based on 1,558 agency interpretations the circuit courts reviewed from 2003 through 2013 (where they cited Chevron), we found that the circuit courts overall upheld 71% of interpretations and applied Chevrondeference 77% of the time. But there was nearly a twenty-five-percentage-point difference in agency-win rates when the circuit courts applied Chevrondeference than when they did …

The Total Takings Myth, Lynn E. Blais

Fordham Law Review

For almost thirty-five years, the U.S. Supreme Court has attempted to carve out a total takings doctrine within its regulatory takings jurisprudence. Most regulatory takings claims are evaluated under the “ad hoc” threefactor test first articulated in Penn Central Transportation Co. v. City of New York. Exceedingly few of these claims are successful. But the Court has identified certain categories of government actions that are compensable takings per se, otherwise known as total takings. This began in 1982 with Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., where the Court held that a land use ordinance requiring a landowner to …

Justice Blackmun And Preclusion In The State-Federal Context, Karen Nelson Moore

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No abstract provided.

Justice Blackmun And Individual Rights, Diane P. Wood

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Of the many contributions Justice Blackmun has made to American jurisprudence, surely his record in the area of individual rights stands out for its importance. Throughout his career on the Supreme Court, he has displayed concern for a wide variety of individual and civil rights. He has rendered decisions on matters ranging from the most personal interests in autonomy and freedom from interference from government in life’s private realms, to the increasingly complex problems posed by discrimination based upon race, sex, national origin, alienage, illegitimacy, sexual orientation, and other characteristics. As his views have become well known to the public, …

Bringing Compassion Into The Province Of Judging: Justice Blackmun And The Outsiders, Pamela S. Karlan

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No abstract provided.

A Less Corrupt Term: 2016–2017 Supreme Court Roundup, Marc O. Degirolami, Kevin C. Walsh

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In these unusually turbulent times for the presidency and Congress, the Supreme Court’s latest term stands out for its lack of drama. There were no 5–4 end-of-the-term cases that mesmerized the nation. There were no blockbuster decisions.

Even so, the Court was hardly immune to the steady transformation of our governing institutions into reality TV shows. Over the weekend leading into the final day of the term, speculation ignited from who-knows-where about the possible departure of its main character, Justice Anthony Kennedy. To us, the chatter seemed forced—as if the viewing public needed something to fill the vacuum left …

Disrespectful Dissent: Justice Scalia's Regrettable Legacy Of Incivility, J. Lyn Entrikin

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.