Supreme Court of the United States Commons^™

Limits Of Interpretivism, Richard A. Primus

Articles

Justice Stephen Markman sits on the Supreme Court of my home state of Michigan. In that capacity, he says, he is involved in a struggle between two kinds of judging. On one side are judges like him. They follow the rules. On the other side are unconstrained judges who decide cases on the basis of what they think the law ought to be. This picture is relatively simple, and Justice Markman apparently approves of its simplicity. But matters may in fact be a good deal more complex.

Preemption By Stealth, Sandra B. Zellmer

Faculty Law Review Articles

By making federal law supreme to state law, the U.S. Constitution gives Congress "an extraordinary power." Perhaps the extraordinarily powerful nature of the Supremacy Clause is the reason for its checkered treatment by the Supreme Court. Recent preemption decisions give lip service to federalism concerns, but in many cases state statutes, regulations, and remedies have been struck down with little regard for either federal-state comity or institutional competence. If federal regulatory regimes always accomplished optimal regulation perfect equipoise between protecting human health and promoting economic development while fostering innovation by governments and regulated entities-preemption of state law would be far …

If It Is Broken, Then Fix It: Needed Reforms To Employment Discrimination Law: 2009 Annual Meeting Of The Association Of American Law Schools Section On Employment Discrimination Law, Melissa Hart, Minna Kotkin, Roberto Corrada, Deborah Widiss

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Courts Under President Obama, Scott A. Moss

Publications

No abstract provided.

Colorado V. Connelly: What Really Happened, William T. Pizzi

Publications

In 1986, the Supreme Court decided Colorado v. Connelly, a landmark case in due process and fifth amendment law. The case began when Francis Barry Connelly approached a police officer on the street in downtown Denver to confess to having killed a young woman several months earlier in southwest Denver. Because Connelly was suffering from acute schizophrenia and was hearing auditory hallucinations commanding him to confess, state courts suppressed his statements to the police on the grounds (1) that his statements before arrest were involuntary and inadmissible under the due process clause and (2) those statements post-arrest could not …

Constraining Public Employee Speech: Government's Control Of Its Workers' Speech To Protect Its Own Expression, Helen Norton

Publications

This Article identifies a key doctrinal shift in courts' treatment of public employees' First Amendment claims--a shift that imperils the public's interest in transparent government as well as the free speech rights of more than twenty million government workers. In the past, courts interpreted the First Amendment to permit governmental discipline of public employee speech on matters of public interest only when such speech undermined the government employer's interest in efficiently providing public services. In contrast, courts now increasingly focus on--and defer to--government's claim to control its workers' expression to protect its own speech.

More specifically, courts increasingly permit government …

Procedural Extremism: The Supreme Court's 2008-2009 Labor And Employment Cases, Melissa Hart

Publications

It has become nearly a commonplace to say that the Supreme Court under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts is a court of “incrementalism.” The 2008 Term, however, featured several opinions that showcase the procedural extremism of the current conservative majority. In a series of sharply divided decisions, the Court re-shaped the law that governs the workplace - or more specifically the law that governs whether and how employees will be permitted access to the courts to litigate workplace disputes. At least as important as the Court’s changes to the substantive legal standards are the procedural hurdles the five …

Why The United States Supreme Court Got Some [But Not A Lot] Of The Sixth Amendment Right To Counsel Analysis Right, Paul Marcus

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

How Planned Parenthood V. Casey (Pretty Much) Settled The Abortion Wars, Neal Devins

Faculty Publications

More than twenty-one years after Robert Bork's failed Supreme Court nomination and seventeen years after Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, the rhetoric of abortion politics remains unchanged. Pro-choice interests, for example, argue that states are poised to outlaw abortion and that Roe v. Wade is vulnerable to overruling. In this Essay, I will debunk those claims. First, I will explain how Casey's approval of limited abortion rights reflected an emerging national consensus in 1992. Second, I will explain why the Supreme Court is unlikely to risk political backlash by formally modifying Casey- either by restoring the trimester test …

Business, The Environment, And The Roberts Court: A Preliminary Assessment, Jonathan H. Adler

Faculty Publications

The Roberts Court has developed a reputation for being a "pro-business" court. This article, prepared for the 2009 Santa Clara Law Review symposium on "Big Business and the Roberts Court," seeks to offer a preliminary assessment of this claim with reference to the Roberts Court's decisions in environmental cases. Reviewing the environmental law decisions of the Roberts Court to date reveals no evidence of a "pro-business" bias. This does not disprove the claim that the Roberts Court is pro-business, but it may suggest the need to refine conventional descriptions of the Roberts Court. The lack of a pro-business orientation in …

Yellow Snow On Sacred Sites: A Failed Application Of The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Joshua A. Edwards

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Kabuki: Fidelity And Opportunism In The Foreign Law Debate, Eric Blumenson

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

This essay, part of a symposium on the use of foreign cases in domestic adjudication, explores the reasons the Supreme Court’s occasional citation of foreign cases has spawned vociferous opposition from some judges, politicians, and commentators. The essay offers a brief taxonomy of the jurisprudential criticisms lodged against the practice, observes that they have been deployed selectively, and concludes that the opportunistic use of these criticisms may demonstrate that they are often deployed as stand-ins for a different and more political concern - namely, how the United States should respond to a new global culture that deems national law subordinate …

Florida V. Bostick, Yale Kamisar

Other Publications

501 U.S. 429 (1991), argued 26 Feb. 1991, decided 20 June 1991 by vote of 6 to 3; O’Connor for the Court, Marshall in dissent. What constitutes a “seizure” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment? Police practices need not be “reasonable”—indeed, are not regulated by the Fourth Amendment at all—unless they are considered “searches” or “seizures.” In this case, which involved a growing antidrug police tactic known as “working the buses” (randomly approaching a bus passenger and asking him for identification and to grant permission to search his luggage), the Court took a narrow view of what constitutes a …

Mallory V. United States, Yale Kamisar

Other Publications

354 U.S. 449 (1957), argued 1 Apr. 1957, decided 24 June 1957 by vote of 9 to 0; Frankfurter for the Court. Although the power of the Supreme Court to overturn state convictions is limited to the enforcement of Fourteenth Amendment due process rights, the Court may formulate rules of evidence in the exercise of its “supervisory power” over the administration of federal criminal justice that go well beyond due process requirements. The best-known example is the McNabb-Mallory rule.

Miranda V. Arizona, Yale Kamisar

Other Publications

384 U.S. 436 (1966), argued 28 Feb. 1966, decided 13 June 1966 by vote of 5 to 4; Warren for the Court, Clark, Harlan, White, and Stewart in dissent. The Warren Court's revolution in American criminal procedure reached its high point (or, depending upon one's perspective, its low point) on 13 June 1966. That day the Court handed down its opinion in Miranda, the most famous, and most bitterly criticized, confession case in the nation's history. To some, Miranda symbolized the legal system's determination to treat even the lowliest and most despicable criminal suspect with dignity and respect. But …

California V. Acevedo, Yale Kamisar

Other Publications

500 U.S. 565 (1991), argued 8 Jan. 1991, decided 30 May 1991 by vote of 6 to 3; Blackmun for the Court, Scalia concurring, Stevens in dissent. Until the 1991 Acevedo case was decided, two different rules governed the search of closed containers found in a motor vehicle. In United States v. Ross (1982), the Court held that if the police had probable cause to search an entire vehicle for contraband and came upon a closed container in the course of the automobile search, they could open the container without first obtaining a warrant. On the other hand, in Arkansas …

Escobedo V. Illinois, Yale Kamisar

Other Publications

378 U.S. 438 (1964), argued 29 Apr. 1964, decided 22 June 1964 by vote of 5 to 4; Goldberg for the Court, Harlan, Stewart, White, and Clark in dissent. When Danny Escobedo, a murder suspect, was taken to the police station and put in an interrogation room, he repeatedly asked to speak to the lawyer he had retained. Escobedo's lawyer soon arrived at the station house and repeatedly asked to see his client. Despite the persistent efforts of both Escobedo and his lawyer, the police prevented them from meeting. The police also failed to advise Escobedo of his right to …

Massiah V. United States, Yale Kamisar

Other Publications

377 U.S. 201 (1964), argued 3 Mar. 1964, decided 18 May 1964 by vote of 6 to 3; Stewart for the Court, White in dissent. Massiah was decided at a time when the Warren Court's “revolution in American criminal procedure” was accelerating. According to Massiah, after the initiation of adversary judicial proceedings (by indictment, as in Massiah's case, or by information, preliminary hearing or arraignment), the Sixth Amendment guarantees a defendant the right to rely on counsel as the “medium” between himself and the government. Thus, once adversary proceedings have begun, the government cannot bypass the defendant's lawyer and …

Ascertaining The Parties' Intentions In Arbitral Design, George A. Bermann

Faculty Scholarship

Supreme Court case law teaches us that the federal interest in arbitration does not consist of enforcing agreements to arbitrate according to some sort of abstract or ideal arbitral model, but rather according to the particular arbitral model upon which the parties had agreed. This body of law is driven by the same notions of party autonomy that underlie the law of arbitration generally. That parties may agree to forego access to national courts in favor of arbitration is an initial manifestation of that attitude. By logical extension, the parties also enjoy extraordinary latitude in determining the features that "their" …

A House Divided: Earl Caldwell, The New York Times, And The Quest For A Testimonial Privilege, Eric Easton

All Faculty Scholarship

In the 1972 case of Branzburg v. Hayes, the Supreme Court held that the First Amendment does not protect journalists who refuse to reveal their confidential sources or news gathering product in response to a federal grand jury subpoena. That decision has remained vital for 35 years and has reverberated through a number of recent high-profile cases. Despite some form of protection in nearly every state court, reporters haled before a federal judge may have no recourse save prison. Devastating as Branzburg has been for the so-called journalist's privilege, its negative impact has been far broader. Branzburg is one of …

An Open Letter From Heaven To Barack Obama, F. Michael Higginbotham

All Faculty Scholarship

Since the passing of A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. in 1998, many have wondered what the award winning author, longest-serving black federal judge, first black to head a federal regulatory agency, recipient of the Spingarn Medal and the Congressional Medal of Freedom, and author of the famous “Open Letter to Clarence Thomas” would think of the state of race relations today. Appointed to the Federal Trade Commission in 1962, Higginbotham served in several powerful federal positions including Vice-Chairman of the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, member of the first wiretap surveillance court, and chief judge of a …

Setting The Size Of The Supreme Court, F. Andrew Hessick, Samuel P. Jordan

All Faculty Scholarship

As with any institutional feature, the size of the Supreme Court should be informed by a definition of functional goals. This article describes how the current size of the Supreme Court is largely untethered from any such definition, and it begins the process of understanding how size and Court performance might interact. To do so, it identifies a list of institutional goals for the Supreme Court and explores how changing the size of the Court promotes or obstructs the attainment of those goals. Given that the Court's institutional goals are numerous and occasionally in tension, there is no definitive answer …

Toward A Theory Of Persuasive Authority, Chad Flanders

All Faculty Scholarship

The debate about the citation of foreign authorities has become stale. One side says that citing foreign authorities means being beholden to foreign sovereigns. The other side responds that this is nonsense, as the authorities are being used only for their "persuasive value." But do we even have a good idea of what it means to be a persuasive authority? My essay is the first to focus entirely on the notion of persuasive authority and to make the first steps towards providing a general theory of it. I make two major contributions. First, I try to show that there is …

The Violent Bear It Away: Emmett Till & The Modernization Of Law Enforcement In Mississippi, Anders Walker

All Faculty Scholarship

Few racially motivated crimes have left a more lasting imprint on American memory than the death of Emmett Till. Yet, even as Till's murder in Mississippi in 1955 has come to be remembered as a catalyst for the civil rights movement, it contributed to something else as well. Precisely because it came on the heels of the Supreme Court's 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, Till's death convinced Mississippi Governor James P. Coleman that certain aspects of the state's handling of racial matters had to change. Afraid that popular outrage over racial violence might encourage federal intervention in …

Ricci Glitch? The Unexpected Appearance Of Transferred Intent In Title Vii, Kerri Lynn Stone

Faculty Publications

In the case of Ricci v. DeStefano, the Supreme Court officially opened the door to what this Article identifies as a theory of “transferred intent” jurisprudence under Title VII. The principle of transferred intent, borrowed from tort and criminal law, has never before been seen as factoring into Title VII antidiscrimination jurisprudence. In Ricci, the Supreme Court assumed that a city’s refusal to promote firefighters qualifying for promotion based on exams that appeared to disproportionately screen out members of minority groups amounted to deliberate discrimination, irrespective of their individual races or whether their individual races were actually taken into account. …

"Rabbit" Hunting In The Supreme Court: The Constitutionality Of State Prohibitions Of Sex Toy Sales Following Lawrence V. Texas, William C. Hayes

Georgia Law Review

Sexual norms in the United States are in flux. The rapid growth of the adult industry and the popularity of television shows that deal with sexuality evidence an ever-growing trend towards more liberal sexual norms. While many Americans accept-or even welcome-this shift in our sexual culture, others feel significant anxieties about the moral well-being of the community as a result of this shift away from traditional,conservative sexual values. As the culture war wages on, some states have chosen to respond to these anxieties through legislation. The U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas, however, appears to have called …

Alive But Not Well: Manifest Disregard After Hall Street, Kevin P. Murphy

Georgia Law Review

Arbitration is supposed to make dispute resolution faster and more cost-effective for litigants. To this end, Congress severely limited the ways in which a court can review an arbitrator's decision. But for the last fifty years courts have allowed parties an additional non statutory avenue for challenging arbitration awards. Where an arbitrator makes a decision in manifest disregard of the law, a court may vacate the award. To prove manifest disregard,parties must prove the arbitrator was aware of the law that should govern the dispute, but deliberately chose to ignore it. This often-argued, but seldom successful, claim increases the costs …

On Capturing The Possible Significance Of Institutional Design And Ethos, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

At a recent conference, a new judge from one of the federal courts of appeal – for the United States, the front line in judicial control of administrative action-made a plea to the lawyers in attendance. Please, he urged, in briefing and arguing cases reviewing agency actions, help us judges to understand their broader contexts. So often, he complained, the briefs and arguments are limited to the particular small issues of the case. We get little sense of the broad context in which it arises – the agency responsibilities in their largest sense, the institutional issues that may be at …

The Supreme Courts: Did September 11th Accelerate Their Sanctioning The Constitutionality Of Criminalizing Suspicion?, Dannye Holley

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

“This article evaluates whether the nation‘s highest appellate courts have, on balance, been more willing to acquiesce to criminalization based on suspicion since the attacks on the World Trade Center seven years ago. The article seeks to accomplish this evaluation by comparing decisions of the United States and state supreme courts in the six years prior to September 2001 with decisions in the six years following the terrorist attack— have the courts with the greatest authority to sanction the criminalization of suspicion been more willing to do just that? Such a post-September 11th trend would be significant because, despite the …

The Judicial Behavior Of Justice Souter In Criminal Cases And The Denial Of A Conservative Counterrevolution, Scott P. Johnson

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “The following article documents the judicial career of Justice David Souter from his time served as an attorney general and state judge in New Hampshire until his recent tenure on the U.S. Supreme Court. Based upon his written opinions and individual votes, Justice Souter clearly has evolved into a more liberal jurist than ideological conservatives would have preferred in the area of criminal justice. Over the course of his judicial career, Justice Souter has gained respect as an intellectual scholar by attempting to completely understand both sides of a dispute and applying precedent and legal rules in a flexible—albeit …