Constitutional Law Commons^™

A Historical Account Of The Orderly Payment Of Debts Act Reference: Limiting Provincial Efforts To Protect Insolvent Debtors, Thomas Gw Telfer, Virginia Torrie

Dalhousie Law Journal

This paper analyzes the history of the Alberta Orderly Payment of Debts Act and the constitutional controversy that followed. The legislation sought to protect debtors by imposing restrictions on creditors. In 1960, the Supreme Court of Canada in Reference re Validity of Orderly Payment of Debts Act, 1959 (Alberta) ruled that the legislation was ultra vires on the basis that it interfered with the federal bankruptcy and insolvency power. The Orderly Payment of Debts Act reference is the capstone in a trilogy of cases in which provincial legislation was invalidated for encroaching upon the federal bankruptcy and insolvency power. The …

The Unspoken Obvious: There Are Queer Children, Willie Edward Taylor Carver Jr.

Justice Festival at Morehead State University

A PowerPoint presentation, titled "The Unspoken Obvious: There are Queer Children," given by Willie Edward Taylor Carver Jr. at the Justice Festival held on the campus of Morehead State University on October 11, 2023.

Spanish In Action! Spanish Program Collaboration With The Non-Profit Organization Concerned Citizens For Migrants At Morehead, Ann Colbert, Itza Zavala-Garrett, Holly Hendrix, Shelby Barker

Justice Festival at Morehead State University

A PowerPoint presentation, titled "Spanish in Action! Spanish Program Collaboration with the Non-Profit Organization Concerned Citizens for Migrants at Morehead," given by Ann Colbert, Itza Zavala-Garrett, Holly Hendrix, and Shelby Barker at the Justice Festival held on the campus of Morehead State University on October 11, 2023.

Promoting Equity And Justice In Mathematics Classrooms, Will Tidwell

Justice Festival at Morehead State University

A PowerPoint presentation, titled "Promoting Equity and Justice in Mathematics Classrooms," given by Will Tidwell at the Justice Festival held on the campus of Morehead State University on October 11, 2023.

Responding To Sexual Assault Disclosures: How To Have A Hard Conversation, Megan Rookard

Justice Festival at Morehead State University

A PowerPoint presentation, titled "Responding to Sexual Assault Disclosure: How to have a Hard Conversation," given by Megan Rookard at the Justice Festival held on the campus of Morehead State University on October 11, 2023.

Community Organizing & Social Justice, Henry R. Cunningham

Justice Festival at Morehead State University

A PowerPoint presentation, titled "Community Organizing & Social Justice," given by Henry R. Cunningham at the Justice Festival held on the campus of Morehead State University on October 11, 2023.

Restructuring The Constitution For Human Resilience, Martha T. Mccluskey

Contributions to Books

Published as Chapter 1 in Law, Vulnerability, and the Responsive State: Beyond Equality and Liberty, Martha Albertson Fineman & Laura Spitz, eds.

When It Happens Here: Reproductive Autonomy, Fascism, And Dobbs V. Jackson Women’S Health Organization, Robin Maril

Pace Law Review

Within six months after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, nineteen states passed laws prohibiting abortion within the first trimester. The most restrictive laws banned abortion entirely, except to save the life of the person giving birth. The Court’s eager abdication of its role in protecting individual liberty under the 14th amendment marks a grim chapter in the life cycle of American democracy. The Dobbs decision, along with the political environment that demanded the repeal of Roe v. Wade, promises to severely limit the role of women in public life. The specter …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Originalism After Dobbs, Bruen, And Kennedy: The Role Of History And Tradition, Randy E. Barnett, Lawrence B. Solum

Northwestern University Law Review

In three recent cases, the constitutional concepts of history and tradition have played important roles in the reasoning of the Supreme Court. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization relied on history and tradition to overrule Roe v. Wade. New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen articulated a history and tradition test for the validity of laws regulating the right to bear arms recognized by the Second Amendment. Kennedy v. Bremerton School District looked to history and tradition in formulating the test for the consistency of state action with the Establishment Clause.

These cases raise important questions about …

Life Without Parole: An Eighth Amendment Analysis, Alexis Dicarlo

Buffalo Human Rights Law Review

This Article will analyze the constitutionality of life without parole under the U.S. Supreme Court’s test for categorical bans on sentencing practices. This article first addresses the cruelty of prison and how that affects individuals with life sentences specifically. Next, it will analyze life without parole under the Supreme Court’s Eighth Amendment analysis, starting with examining evolving standards of decency. In doing so, this article will address how the U.S. operates with respect to sentencing compared to the rest of the world. Importantly, it will engage in a culpability analysis, following the Supreme Court’s logic, that ultimately favors abolition of …

Reasonable In Time, Unreasonable In Scope: Maximizing Fourth Amendment Protections Under Rodriguez V. United States, Thomas Heiden

Washington Law Review

In Rodriguez v. United States, the Supreme Court held that a law enforcement officer may not conduct a drug dog sniff after the completion of a routine traffic stop because doing so extends the stop without reasonable suspicion in violation of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable seizures. Tracing the background of Rodriguez from the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Terry v. Ohio, this Comment argues that Rodriguez is best understood as a reaction to the continued erosion of Fourth Amendment protections in the investigative stop context. Based on that understanding, this Comment argues for a strict reading of Rodriguez, …

Taking The Long Road: The Excessive Fines Clause As A Tool For Protecting Washington's Unsheltered Population, Anna Ferron

Washington Law Review

Over the last decade, Washington State has seen a substantial increase in its unhoused population and an increase in laws that harm this group. Many of these laws subject unhoused and unsheltered people to fines, fees, and forfeitures that are exceedingly difficult for them to afford. The ExcessiveFinesClauses in the United States and Washington Constitutions protect citizens from fines deemed constitutionally excessive and could be used to shield unsheltered people from the burden of paying unjust fines they cannot afford. In City of Seattle v. Long, the Washington State Supreme Court analyzed the ability to pay of a person who …

Taking Aim At New York's Concealed Carry Improvement Act, Leo Bernabei

Fordham Law Review

In June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court held in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen that New York’s requirement, which mandated that applicants for concealed carry licenses show proper cause for carrying a handgun in public, violated the Second and Fourteenth Amendments. Responding to the likely increase in individuals licensed to carry handguns in the state, New York enacted the Concealed Carry Improvement Act (CCIA). This law bans all firearms from many places of public congregation, establishes a default rule that firearms are not allowed on private property without the owner or lessee’s permission, and sets additional …

“Better Luck Next Election”: Late-Jailed Voters’ Constitutional Right To Vote After Mays V. Larose., Grace Thomas

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract Forthcoming.

Children Are Different: Jones V. Mississippi, Juvenile Life Without Parole, And Why Youthfulness Matters In Sentencing, Giulia Hintz Mcquirter

MC Law Review

“We are a country of mercy, and we are a country of vengeance, and we live with both at the same time.” This is how Robert Dunham, death penalty expert and Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center, describes the United States sentencing system. Battling inside each of us is the desire for people to pay for their wrongdoings, warring against the empathy of our human nature that wants to see the good in people, even criminals.

This internal conflict is rarely on better display than in cases involving child criminals. It is impossible to forget that these children …

Takings In Disguise: The Inequity Of Public Nuisance Receiverships In America’S Rust Belt, Anna Kennedy

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Since they were created in the 1980s in Cleveland, Ohio, public nuisance receiverships have spread across the American Rust Belt. This Note critically analyzes the legal implications of public nuisance receiverships, which involve the intrusion onto private property for public purposes. Despite claims that these actions align with exceptions to due process or public nuisance principles, a deeper examination reveals their fundamental nature as government takings of private property. This Note dissects the legal framework within the context of the Fifth Amendment, debunking the applicability of the public nuisance exception, establishing that receiverships constitute takings, and highlighting conflicts with Anti-Kelo …

Why U.S. States Need Their Own Cannabis Industry Banks, Christoph Henkel, Randall K. Johnson

Faculty Works

The legal cannabis trade is the fastest growing industry in the United States. In 2019, about 48.2 million Americans used the drug at least once. As such, it is easy to see why the legal cannabis trade may generate annual revenues exceeding $30 billion in Fiscal Year 2022 alone.

One inconvenient truth, however, is that the parties to any cannabis trade may face a range of difficulties due to conflicts between federal and state laws. These difficulties include the fact that many financial institutions are reluctant to handle cannabis proceeds. One reason is that a lack of alignment in terms …

Private Police Regulation And The Exclusionary Remedy: How Washington Can Eliminate The Public/Private Distinction, Jared Rothenberg

Washington Law Review

Private security forces such as campus police, security guards, loss prevention officers, and the like are not state actors covered by the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures nor the Fifth Amendment’s Miranda protections. As members of the umbrella category of “private police,” these private law enforcement agents often obtain evidence, detain individuals, and elicit confessions in a manner that government actors cannot, which can then be lawfully turned over to the government. Though the same statutory law governing private citizens (assault, false imprisonment, trespass, etc.) also regulates private police conduct, private police conduct is not bound by …

Twenty Years After Krieger V Law Society Of Alberta: Law Society Discipline Of Crown Prosecutors And Government Lawyers, Andrew Flavelle Martin

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Krieger v. Law Society of Alberta held that provincial and territorial law societies have disciplinary jurisdiction over Crown prosecutors for conduct outside of prosecutorial discretion. The reasoning in Krieger would also apply to government lawyers. The apparent consensus is that law societies rarely exercise that jurisdiction. But in those rare instances, what conduct do Canadian law societies discipline Crown prosecutors and government lawyers for? In this article, I canvass reported disciplinary decisions to demonstrate that, while law societies sometimes discipline Crown prosecutors for violations unique to those lawyers, they often do so for violations applicable to all lawyers — particularly …