Constitutional Law Commons^™

The Strict Scrutiny Of Black And Blaqueer Life, T. Anansi Wilson

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Exclusionary Zoning, School Segregation, And Housing Segregation: An Investigation Into A Modern Desegregation Case And Solutions To Housing Segregation, Sara Zeimer

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Furtive Blackness: On Blackness And Being, T. Anansi Wilson

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

Furtive Blackness: On Blackness and Being (“Furtive Blackness”) and The Strict Scrutiny of Black and BlaQueer Life (“Strict Scrutiny”) take a fresh approach to both criminal law and constitutional law; particularly as they apply to African descended peoples in the United States. This is an intervention as to the description of the terms of Blackness in light of the social order but, also, an exposure of the failures and gaps of law. This is why the categories as we have them are inefficient to account for Black life. The way legal scholars have encountered and understood the language of law …

Death Of Dillon’S Rule: Local Autonomy To Control Land Use, John R. Nolon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In order for municipal governments to promote sustainable and green development, create safe densities and open spaces in response to the pandemic, protect lives and property in areas vulnerable to natural disasters, and to manage climate change, they must be able to influence the development and preservation of privately owned land. For them to control the negative impacts of oil and gas facilities, they must find power to regulate matters that are typically the prerogative of state agencies. To legalize emerging renewable energy technologies, they must have authority to make them permitted uses in their zoning ordinances, and to innovate …

The Fourth Amendment At Home, Thomas P. Crocker

Indiana Law Journal

A refuge, a domain of personal privacy, and the seat of familial life, the home holds a special place in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Supreme Court opinions are replete with statements affirming the special status of the home. Fourth Amendment text places special emphasis on securing protections for the home in addition to persons, papers, and effects against unwarranted government intrusion. Beyond the Fourth Amendment, the home has a unique place within constitutional structure. The home receives privacy protections in addition to sheltering other constitutional values protected by the Due Process Clause and the First Amendment. For example, under the Due …

Gerrymandering & Justiciability: The Political Question Doctrine After Rucho V. Common Cause, G. Michael Parsons

Indiana Law Journal

This Article deconstructs Rucho’s articulation and application of the political question doctrine and makes two contributions. First, the Article disentangles the political question doctrine from neighboring justiciability doctrines. The result is a set of substantive principles that should guide federal courts as they exercise a range of routine judicial functions—remedial, adjudicative, and interpretive. Rather than unrealistically attempting to draw crisp jurisdictional boundaries between exercises of “political” and “judicial” power, the political question doctrine should seek to moderate their inevitable (and frequent) clash. Standing doctrine should continue to guide courts in determining whether they have authority over a case involving a …

Masthead

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Black Lives Matter: Banning Police Lynchings, Mitchell F. Crusto

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

In the United States, police officers are granted a license to use lethal force and are subsequently exonerated from personal criminal liability for fatal killings, particularly when the victim is an African American. This Article advances the normative claim that the Court’s death penalty jurisprudence, including the “Cruel and Unusual Punishment” Clause of the Eighth Amendment, protects the victims of police homicides. Further, it contends that the police use of lethal force against African Americans constitutes “lynching”—a State-sponsored act of terror that supports systemic racism. Finally, it posits that the Constitution mandates that the police use of lethal force be …

Protections Against Tyranny: How Article V Should Guide Constitutional Interpretation, Mary Strong

Indiana Law Journal

This Note seeks to explain what Article V means for the methods of constitutional change outside of the traditional Article V amendment process. Specifically, I argue that Article V was meant to limit the federal government from usurping power without first attaining the consent of the people. Because the Supreme Court is part of the federal government and is often considered a counter-majoritarian institution, the Court cannot extend the powers of the federal government through constitutional interpretation beyond the bounds allowed in the Constitution. Therefore, the only means to change the power structure of the federal government (the balance of …

Say The Magic Words: Establishing A Historically Informed Standard To Prevent Partisanship From Shielding Racial Gerrymanders From Federal Judicial Review, Emily K. Dalessio

Washington and Lee Law Review

In its 2019 decision in Rucho v. Common Cause, the Supreme Court closed the doors of the federal courts to litigants claiming a violation of their constitutional rights based on partisan gerrymandering. In Rucho, the Court held that partisan gerrymandering presents a political question that falls outside the jurisdiction of the federal courts. However, the Supreme Court did not address an insidious consequence of this ruling: namely, that map-drawers may use partisan rationales to obscure what is otherwise an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. This Note uses North Carolina as an example of a state with a long history of …

Federal Magistrate Court Of Appeals: Whether Magistrate Judge Disposition Of Section 2255 Motions Under Consent Jurisdiction Is Statutorily And Constitutionally Permissible, Corey J. Hauser

Washington and Lee Law Review

For decades the Supreme Court has balanced the tension between judicial efficiency and adherence to our constitutional system of separation of powers. As more cases were filed in federal courts, Congress increased the responsibilities and power given to magistrate judges. The result is magistrate judges wielding as much power as district judges. With post-conviction relief under § 2255, magistrate judges take on a whole new role— appellate judge—reviewing and potentially overturning sentences imposed by district judges.

This practice raises two concerns. First, did Congress intend to statutorily give magistrate judges this power? The prevailing interpretation is that § 2255 motions …

Clark Memorandum: Fall 2020, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Byu Law School Alumni Association, J. Reuben Clark Law Society

The Clark Memorandum

• A Feast of Fat Things
• And When He Came to Himself
• No Other Gods Before Me
• The Economics of Goodness

Read on Issuu

Law Library Blog (October 2020): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

David Versus Godzilla: Bigger Stones, Jerry Ellig, Richard Williams

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

For four decades, U.S. Presidents have issued executive orders requiring agencies to conduct comprehensive regulatory impact analysis (RIA) for significant regulations to ensure that regulatory decisions solve social problems in a cost-beneficial manner. Yet experience demonstrates that agency RIAs often fail to live up to the standards enunciated in executive orders and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidance. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) oversees agency compliance with the executive orders, but OIRA is about half the size it was when it was established in 1980. Regulatory agency staff outnumber OIRA staff by a ratio of 3600 …

The Legal Landscape For Frontline Student Journalists, Jonathan Peters

Scholarly Works

They have exposed campus outbreaks and questioned reopening plans. They have documented social-distancing violations at fraternity and sorority houses. They have tracked and explained fast-breaking changes to instructional modes and commencement events. They have demanded transparency from school administrators. And through it all they have boldly told the story of the human experience.

Famously, at the University of North Carolina, the Daily Tar Heel published a biting editorial under the headline “UNC has a clusterfuck on its hands,” after virus clusters were identified in campus housing. And the day that Notre Dame announced it would move only temporarily …

Antitrust Regulation And The Federal-State Balance: Restoring The Original Design, Alan J. Meese

Faculty Publications

The U.S. Constitution divides authority over commerce between states and the national government. Passed in 1890, the Sherman Act (“the Act”) reflects this allocation of power, reaching only those harmful agreements that are “in restraint of... commerce among the several States.” This Article contends that the Supreme Court erred when it radically altered the balance between state and national power over trade restraints in 1948, abruptly abandoning decades of precedent recognizing exclusive state authority over most intrastate restraints. This revised construction of the Act contravened the statute’s apparent meaning, unduly expanded the reach of federal antitrust regulation, and undermined the …

Putting The Constitution In Its Place, Edward L. Rubin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The fact that Donald Trump became President in 2016, despite losing the popular vote by a substantial margin, has brought renewed attention to the Electoral College system. In "Forging the American Nation," Shlomo Slonim provides an illuminating account of the process that led to this bizarre method of determining the outcome of presidential elections. But Professor Slonim's book also provides insights into the origins of many other structural features of our constitutional system that are of questionable value in a modern democracy, such as elections by state for the Senate, the Senate's exclusive exercise of legislative authority for treaties and …

Courts, Culture, And The Lethal Injection Stalemate, Eric Berger

William & Mary Law Review

The Supreme Court’s 2019 decision in Bucklew v. Precythe reiterated the Court’s great deference to states in Eighth Amendment lethal injection cases. The takeaway is that when it comes to execution protocols, states can do what they want. Events on the ground tell a very different story. Notwithstanding courts’ deference, executions have ground to a halt in numerous states, often due to lethal injection problems. State officials and the Court’s conservative Justices have blamed this development on “anti-death penalty activists” waging “guerilla war” on capital punishment. In reality, though, a variety of mostly uncoordinated actors motivated by a range of …

The 14th Amendment And Me: How I Learned Not To Give Up On The 14th Amendment, Robert Chang

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Excessive Force: Justice Requires Refining State Qualified Immunity Standards For Negligent Police Officers, Angie Weiss

Seattle University Law Review Online

At the time this Note was written, there was no Washington state equivalent of the § 1983 Civil Rights Act. As plaintiffs look to the Washington state courts as an alternative to federal courts, they will find that Washington state has a different structure of qualified immunity protecting law enforcement officers from liability.

In this Note, Angie Weiss recommends changing Washington state's standard of qualified immunity. This change would ensure plaintiffs have a state court path towards justice when they seek to hold law enforcement officers accountable for harm. Weiss explains the structure and context of federal qualified immunity; compares …