Supreme Court of the United States Commons^™

The Rhetoric Of Constitutional Law, Erwin Chemerinsky

Michigan Law Review

I spend much of my time dealing with Supreme Court opinions. Usually, I download and read them the day that they are announced by the Court. I edit them for my casebook and teach them to my students. I write about them, lecture about them, and litigate about them. My focus, like I am sure most everyone's, is functional: I try to discern the holding, appraise the reasoning, ascertain the implications, and evaluate the decision's desirability. Increasingly, though, I have begun to think that this functional approach is overlooking a crucial aspect of Supreme Court decisions: their rhetoric. I use …

Some Effects Of Identity-Based Social Movements On Constitutional Law In The Twentieth Century, William N. Eskridge Jr.

Michigan Law Review

What motivated big changes in constitutional law doctrine during the twentieth century? Rarely did important constitutional doctrine or theory change because of formal amendments to the document's text, and rarer still because scholars or judges "discovered" new information about the Constitution's original meaning. Precedent and common law reasoning were the mechanisms by which changes occurred rather than their driving force. My thesis is that most twentieth century changes in the constitutional protection of individual rights were driven by or in response to the great identity-based social movements ("IBSMs") of the twentieth century. Race, sex, and sexual orientation were markers of …

Product Liability In The United States Supreme Court: A Venture In Memory Of Gary Schwartz., Anita Bernstein

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Marbury Ascendant: The Rehnquist Court And The Power To "Say What The Law Is", Timothy Zick

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Parent’S Right To Choose: The Constitutionality Of Grandparent Visitation According To Troxel V. Granville, Robert A. Sedler

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

The Report Of The Attorney General's National Committee To Study The Antitrust Laws: A Retrospective, Thomas E. Kauper

Michigan Law Review

In 1955, the third year of the Eisenhower administration, the Michigan Law Review published what I believe to be the only symposium on antitrust law ever to appear in its pages. The occasion was the release in March of that year of a Report of the Attorney General's National Committee to Study the Antitrust Laws,2 a nearly fourhundred- page examination of virtually all facets of federal antitrust doctrine and enforcement. The pages of the symposium led me of course to revisit the Report itself, a visit a little like seeing an old high school friend long forgotten some forty years …

How Is Constitutional Law Made?, Tracey E. George, Robert J. Pushaw Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Bismarck famously remarked: "Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made." This witticism applies with peculiar force to constitutional law. Judges and commentators examine the sausage (the Supreme Court's doctrine), but ignore the messy details of its production. Maxwell Stearns has demonstrated, with brilliant originality, that the Court fashions constitutional law through process-based rules of decision such as outcome voting, stare decisis, and justiciability. Employing "social choice" economic theory, Professor Stearns argues that the Court, like all multimember decisionmaking bodies, strives to formulate rules that promote both rationality and fairness (p. 4). Viewed through the lens …

Casting New Light On An Old Subject: Death Penalty Abolitionism For A New Millennium, Wayne A. Logan

Michigan Law Review

For opponents of capital punishment, these would appear promising times. Not since 1972, when the Supreme Court invalidated the death penalty as then administered, has there been such palpable concern over its use, reflected in the lowest levels of public opinion support evidenced in some time. This concern is mirrored in the American Bar Association's recently recommended moratorium on use of the death penalty, the consideration of or actual imposition of moratoria in several states, and even increasing doubts voiced by high-profile political conservatives. An array of troubling empirical realities has accompanied this shift: persistent evidence of racial bias in …

Rehnquist's Renunciation - The Chief Justice's Constitutional Duty To Preside Over Impeachment Trials, Michael F. Williams

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Unhappy History Of Civil Rights Legislation, Fifty Years Later, Jack M. Beermann

Faculty Scholarship

Seldom, if ever, have the power and the purposes of legislation been rendered so impotent.... All that is left today are afew scattered remnants of a once grandiose scheme to nationalize the fundamental rights of the individual.

These words were written fifty years ago by Eugene Gressman, now William Rand Kenan, Jr. Professor Emeritus, University of North Carolina School of Law, as a description of what the courts, primarily the Supreme Court of the United States, had done with the civil rights legislation passed by Congress in the wake of the Civil War. Professor Gressman's article, The Unhappy History of …

The Supreme Court's Misplaced Concern With Selective Fairness: Bush V. Gore And Three Analogies To Grading Dilemmas, William K.S. Wang

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Easing The Spring: Strict Scrutiny And Affirmative Action After The Redistricting Cases, Pamela S. Karlan

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

(E)Racing The Fourth Amendment, Devon W. Carbado

Michigan Law Review

It's been almost two years since I pledged allegiance to the United States of America - that is to say, became an American citizen. Before that, I was a permanent resident of America and a citizen of the United Kingdom. Yet, I became a black American long before I acquired American citizenship. Unlike citizenship, black racial naturalization was always available to me, even as I tried to make myself unavailable for that particular Americanization process. Given the negative images of black Americans on 1970s British television and the intra-racial tensions between blacks in the U.K. and blacks in America, I …

John Marshall: Remarks Of October 6, 2000, William H. Rehnquist

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Use That The Future Makes Of The Past: John Marshall's Greatness And Its Lessons For Today's Supreme Court Justices, Jack M. Balkin

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

John Marshall Through The Eyes Of An Admirer: John Quincy Adams, Michael Daly Hawkins

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Some Alarming Aspects Of The Legacies Of Judicial Review And Of John Marshall, Stephen B. Presser

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

John Marshall, Mcculloch V. Maryland, And "We The People": Revisions In Need Of Revising, Martin S. Flaherty

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Judge For All Seasons, R. Kent Newmyer

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Lives Of John Marshall, Michael J. Gerhardt

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Causation Fallacy: Bakke And The Basic Arithmetic Of Selective Admissions, Goodwin Liu

Michigan Law Review

Last Term, the Supreme Court turned down two invitations to resolve the constitutionality of affirmative action in college and university admissions. In May 2001, the Court for the second time declined to review a Fifth Circuit decision holding that the use of racial preferences to achieve diversity in the student body serves no compelling interest. A few weeks later, the Court let stand a conflicting Ninth Circuit decision that upheld a .law school affirmative action policy on the ground that "educational diversity is a compelling governmental interest that meets the demands of strict scrutiny." The legal controversy over admissions preferences …

Revenue Bonds And Religious Education: The Constitutionality Of Conduit Financing Involving Pervasively Sectarian Institutions, Trent Collier

Michigan Law Review

The Establishment Clause - and particularly the issue of government funding of religious education - is one of the murkiest areas of Supreme Court jurisprudence. The Supreme Court has acknowledged as much, and the sharp divide in the Court's most recent forays into Establishment Clause territory illustrates the point that the current jurisprudential standards allow for a broad range of interpretation. There is some hope that the Supreme court will provide further clarification of its Establishment Clause standard in the near future. For now, however, it appears that the dominant mode of the Establishment Clause analysis is the examination of …

The Business Of Expression: Economic Liberty, Political Factions And The Forgotten First Amendment Legacy Of Justice George Sutherland, Samuel R. Olken

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

In The Business of Expression: Economic Liberty, Political Factions And The Forgotten First Amendment Legacy of Justice George Sutherland, Samuel Olken traces the dichotomy that emerged in constitutional law in the aftermath of the Lochner era between economic liberty and freedom of expression. During the 1930s, while a deeply divided United States Supreme Court adopted a laissez faire approach to economic regulation, it viewed with great suspicion laws that restricted the manner and content of expression. During this period, Justice George Sutherland often clashed with the majority consistently insisting that state regulation of private economic rights bear a close and …

We Can Do This The Easy Way Or The Hard Way: The Use Of Deceit To Induce Consent Searches, Rebecca Strauss

Michigan Law Review

In October of 1995, Aaron Salvo was studying and living at Ashland College. College officials informed local FBI agents that they suspected Salvo of possible child molestation and related conduct based on incriminating electronic mail. FBI agents approached Salvo at his dormitory, asked to speak with him in private about the suspicious mail, and suggested they speak in Salvo's dorm room. Salvo agreed to speak with the officers, but declined to do so in his room because his roommate was there, and he did not want to get anyone else involved in the embarrassing nature of the upcoming conversation. Salvo …

Fordham Law & The United States Supreme Court: A Selected Portrait, John D. Feerick, Constantine N. Katsoris, Robert J. Reilly

Miscellaneous Publications

"This booklet chronicles one aspect of our history: tbe relationship between Fordham Law School and the Supreme Court. It expresses the role which the Court and its justices have played in key moments in our progression to an international institution, and it also highlights some of the many members of the Fordham Law School community who have been a part of this evolution. We express to the Court and its justices our deep gratitude."--John D. Feerick, Dean

Lurking In The Shadows Of Judicial Process: Special Masters In The Supreme Court's Original Jurisdiction Cases, Anne-Marie Carstens

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Positive Political Model Of Supreme Court Economic Decisions, Tony Caporale, Harold Winter

Economics and Finance Faculty Publications

We develop a positive political model of the U.S. Supreme Court. Looking at the Court's economic cases for the period 1953-1993, we find a significant larger fraction of conservative decisions under Republican presidents and more conservative leadership of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. Conservative decisions are also found to be positively correlated with the fraction of the Court appointed by Republican presidents and the rate of price inflation. We argue that our findings cast serious doubt on the common view of the Supreme Court as a completely independent, apolitical institution.

Supreme Court Employment Law Cases 2001-02 Term, Rafael Gely

Faculty Publications

I set two simple objectives for the article. First, the article will summarize each of the cases. My intent is to provide those unfamiliar with the cases a brief review of the facts and a summary of the Court's reasoning. Parts II through VI provide this discussion, grouping the cases by subject area. Second, in Part VII, the article provides a "big picture" analysis of the various cases. My intent is to identify trends, issues, interesting aspects and features of the Court's term. My objective is to aid in our understanding of the patterns that might affect the Court's treatment …

Picking Up The Pieces After Alexander V. Sandoval? Resurrecting A Private Cause Of Action For Disparate Impact, Derek W. Black

Faculty Publications

The Supreme Court in Alexander v. Sandoval limited plaintiffs' ability to challenge racially inequality and discrimination through lawsuits. The Court held that plaintiffs could no longer bring private causes of action for racially disparate impact under federal regulations. This article analyzes that holding and its detrimental impact on minority communities. The article proposes alternative theories under which plaintiffs' can continue to bring their claims and minimize the impact of the Court's holding.

...A Rendezvous With Kreplach: Putting The New Deal Court In Context, Richard D. Friedman

Reviews

The Supreme Court of the New Deal era continues to captivate lawyers and historians. Constitutional jurisprudence changed rapidly during the period. Moreover, some of the most significant changes seemed--whatever the reality--to result from pressure imposed in 1937 by President Franklin Roosevelt's plan to pack the Court. The structure of constitutional law that emerged within a few years of Roosevelt's death remains intact in significant respects today.