Constitutional Law Commons^™

Is The Establishment Clause Asymmetrical?, Sam Foer

Senior Honors Projects

Through numerous Establishment Clause cases, the Supreme Court has concluded that when public educators promote or denigrate religious views in the K-12 classroom, they violate the First Amendment. The Court has found that the protection of ‘freedom of conscience’ is embedded in the purpose of the Establishment Clause, which applies most strictly to the public school setting. This is because the sphere of conscience is most vulnerable to invasion in developing minds, and children are in a captive environment at school - they cannot escape from State instruction. Thus, states, school systems, and teachers who impose their religious beliefs onto …

Diploma Privilege And The Constitution, Claudia Angelos, Sara Berman, Mary Lu Bilek, Carol Chomsky, Andrea A. Curcio, Marsha Griggs, Joan W. Howarth, Eileen Kaufman, Deborah Jones Merritt, Patricia E. Salkin, Judith Wegner

SMU Law Review Forum

The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting shutdowns are affecting every aspect of society. The legal profession and the justice system have been profoundly disrupted at precisely the time when there is an unprecedented need for legal services to deal with a host of legal issues generated by the pandemic, including disaster relief, health law, insurance, labor law, criminal justice, domestic violence, and civil rights. The need for lawyers to address these issues is great but the prospect of licensing new lawyers is challenging due to the serious health consequences of administering the bar examination during the pandemic.

State Supreme Courts are …

Resolving Alj Removal Protections Problem Following Lucia, Spencer Davenport

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

When the Supreme Court decided Lucia v. SEC and held that administrative law judges (ALJs) are Officers under the Constitution, the Court opened a flood of constitutional issues around the status of ALJs and related government positions. One central issue relates to ALJs’ removal protections. ALJs currently have two layers of protection between them and the President. In an earlier Supreme Court decision, the Court held that two layers of tenure protection between an “Officer of the United States” and the President was unconstitutional as it deprived the President the power to hold his officers accountable. As impartial adjudicators, ALJs …

Coin, Currency, And Constitution: Reconsidering The National Bank Precedent, David S. Schwartz

Michigan Law Review

Review of Eric Lomazoff's Reconstructing the National Bank Controversy: Politics and Law in the Early American Republic.

The Right To A Well-Rested Jury, Caroline Howe

Michigan Law Review

The vast amount of control that state trial judges exercise over the dynamics of their courtrooms is well established. The length of trial days and jury deliberations, however, has received little scholarly attention. Longstanding research has conclusively established the disruptive effects of sleep deprivation on many of the mental facilities necessary for juries to competently fulfill their duties. By depriving juries of sleep, trial judges may be compromising the fair rights of criminal defendants for the sake of efficiency. This Note argues that trial judges must use their discretion to ensure juries are well-rested, keeping jurors’ needs in mind. Further, …

What Does It Take? The Informal Factors That Are Conducive To The Passage Of A Participatory Amendment, Connor Huydic

Honors Scholar Theses

Hundreds of Constitutional revisions are proposed in our national legislature every year, yet only twenty-seven have been ratified as amendments in the 243-year history of the United States. The Constitution outlines the formal factors required to ratify an amendment, but this paper will focus on the informal factors that are integral to the eventual passage of a participatory amendment. Through case studies of the Nineteenth and Twenty-Sixth Amendments, this thesis examines the factors that contributed to the ratification of these amendments to find similarities in the circumstances that helped propel these bills to eventual adoption as amendments. Non-radical social movements, …

Private Schools' Role And Rights In Setting Vaccination Policy: A Constitutional And Statutory Puzzle, Hillel Y. Levin

William & Mary Law Review

Measles and other vaccine-preventable childhood diseases are making a comeback, as a growing number of parents are electing not to vaccinate their children. May private schools refuse admission to these students? This deceptively simple question raises complex issues of First Amendment law and statutory interpretation, and it also has implications for other current hot-button issues in constitutional law, including whether private schools may discriminate against LGBTQ students. This Article is the first to address the issue of private schools’ rights to exclude unvaccinated children. It finds that the answer is “it depends.” It also offers a model law that states …

Private Schools' Role And Rights In Setting Vaccination Policy: A Constitutional And Statutory Puzzle, Hillel Y. Levin

Scholarly Works

Measles and other vaccine-preventable childhood diseases are making a comeback, as a growing number of parents are electing not to vaccinate their children. May private schools refuse admission to these students? This deceptively simple question raises complex issues of First Amendment law and statutory interpretation, and it also has implications for other current hot-button issues in constitutional law, including whether private schools may discriminate against LGBTQ students. This Article is the first to address the issue of private schools’ rights to exclude unvaccinated children. It finds that the answer is “it depends.” It also offers a model law that states …

Fixing America's Founding, Maeve Glass

Michigan Law Review

Review of Jonathan Gienapp's The Second Creation: Fixing the American Constitution in the Founding Era.

Translating The Constitution, Jack M. Balkin

Michigan Law Review

Review of Lawrence Lessig's Fidelity and Constraint: How the Supreme Court Has Read the American Constitution.

Issuance Of The Keystone Xl Permit: Presidential Prerogative Or Presidential “Chutzpah”, Hope M. Babcock

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article uses President Trump's issuance of the Keystone XL Pipeline permit to illustrate the dangers of an imperial presidency, one in which the exercise of discretionary authority, based on neither the text of Article II of the Constitution nor a statute, will in all likelihood be unchecked by Congress, the courts, or popular opinion. To understand the dimensions of this concern, Part I of this article briefly describes the process and requirements for a presidential permit. Part II identifies key facts surrounding issuance of the Keystone XL Pipeline permit, the chronology of its issuance, and commonly given reasons supporting …

Personhood: Law, Common Sense, And Humane Opportunities, Helen M. Alvaré

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

It is pointless to approach Professor Chatman’s argument on its own terms (to wit, “tak[ing] our laws seriously,” or equal application across myriad legal categories of “full personhood” rights) because these terms are neither seriously intended nor legally comprehensible. Instead, her essay is intended to create the impression that legally protecting unborn human lives against abortion opens up a Pandora’s box of legal complications so “ridiculous” and “far-fetched” that we should rather just leave things where they are under the federal Constitution post-Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. This impression, in turn, is a tool to …

Under Ten Eyes, Anthony Michael Kreis

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Carliss Chatman’s If a Fetus Is a Person, It Should Get Child Support, Due Process and Citizenship brilliantly captures the moment America is in, where abortion rights hang in the balance as state legislators, like those in Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, and elsewhere clamor to embrace fetal personhood. But, as Professor Chatman illustrates, legislators have expressed no interest in the full logical extent of this policy or the rights that should attach to a fetus if their measures ultimately become effective. The article incisively demonstrates how fetal personhood is singularly focused on ending abortion in the United States and is gaining …

Indonesian Democracy And Political Parties After Twenty Years Of Reformation: A Contextual Analysis, Muhammad Bahrul Ulum

Indonesia Law Review

This paper traces the trajectory of Indonesian democracy that has developed in the last twenty years, specifically regarding the extent to which its continuities and changes have been consistent with the rationale for reformation. It enquires whether the current democracy has been transformed based on liberal constitutionalism or the new democracy has restored the integralist ideal. In recent years, the mass protests that increasingly color Indonesian politics have become a critical response to a failing system. This analysis asserts that the lack of functioning political parties in Indonesia and the breakdown of Indonesian democracy as a result of integralism ignores …

Partisipasi Perempuan Dalam Proses Pengambilan Keputusan Di Dewan Adat Terkait Dengan Penyelesaian Kasus-Kasus Kekerasan Terhadap Perempuan: Kisah Dari Atambua, Sumba Timur, Rote Dan Labuan Bajo, Lidwina Inge Nurtjahyo

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

Based on Convention on Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, especially in Articles 2c, 5a, 7b and c, 15 (1) and (2) women and men are equal. If there are any discriminations, the states which have ratified the Convention shall eliminate the discriminations from rules or tradition or practices. Women in some indigenous communities have some limitation in decision making process, even in the process to get solution in violence aghaainst women cases. For examples in Rote, Labuan Bajo, East Sumba and Atambua (East Nusa Tenggara) women have limited access to the decision-making process in indigenous forums even in cases of …

On Proposal To Regulate Abuse Of Superior Bargaining Position: Lessons From Other Jurisdictions, Meirani Suyawan, Kurnia Togar Pandapotan Tanjung

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

The latest version of the draft bill regarding Law on the Prohibition of Monopolistic Practices and Unfair Business Competition has added new arrangements about the abuse of a superior bargaining position. The new law proposal which is intended to amend existing Indonesian competition law (Law Number 5 Year 1999) stipulates that any business actor is prohibited from abuse its superior bargaining position within a partnership agreement with other less dominant entities. Under Law Number 20 Year 2008 on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, a partnership agreement means any agreement made between micro, small and medium enterprises and large enterprises like …

Rule Of Law, Neoliberalisme Dan Proyek Reformasi Hukum World Bank: Perspektif Critical Legal Studies, Syahriza Alkohir Anggoro

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

The emergence of World Bank legal reform projects in promoting the rule of law has been successful to encourage third world countries to reform their legal aspects to help formulate market friendly policy. This article tries to question the concept of rule of law that is materialized in many World Bank legal reform projects by using critical legal perspective to analysis legal scholarship on the role of law in the context of development. It trying to present an alternative explanation of World Bank’s rule of law which we are hypothetizing as a neoliberal concept. World Bank’s rule of law are …

Politik Hukum Pidana Terhadap Perbuatan Narapidana Melarikan Diri Dari Lembaga Pemasyarakatan Di Indonesia, Muhammad Fatahillah Akbar

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

Prison escape has been committed by many prisoners in several correctional institutions in Indonesia. Since it is not a crime under Indonesian Law, the punishment of the action is merely an discipline sanction. Then, the existing punishment is not sufficient to prevent and eradicate prison escape. Hence, the rehabilitation by the correctional system will never work. This paper aims to analyse how the existing legislation regulates on the prison escape and how the viable regulation in prison escape. It is proven than in the Act on Correctional Institution and in the other relevan regulations, prison escape can never be investigated …

Analisis Hukum Skema Kontrak Gross Split Terhadap Peningkatan Investasi Hulu Minyak Dan Gas Bumi, Muhammad Fajri

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

As a solution to the problems of the Cost Recovery production sharing contract system, the Government of Indonesia through the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources issued Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources of the Republic of Indonesia Regulation Number 08 of 2017 concerning Gross Split Production Sharing Contracts. This new regulation is motivated by the low number and length of time of the discovery of oil and gas reserves, along with the Non-Tax State Revenue (PNBP) which continues to decline in the upstream oil and gas sector. The Gross Split profit sharing scheme also offers bureaucratic cuts in investment …

Analyses Of Prosecutorial Power And Discretion In Mississippi: Evaluating Proposals To Address Misconduct And Abuse, Lucy Pruitt

Honors Theses

This thesis seeks to create a policy proposal in order to address incidences of prosecutorial misconduct and abuse of discretion in the Mississippi criminal justice system. To do so, the author has summarized and analyzed seven criminal cases in which defendants have become victims of prosecutorial misconduct in order to shed light on the lack of prosecutorial accountability in the state’s criminal justice system. In an attempt to solve the problem, the author has developed a novel grading rubric in order to objectively and systematically analyze and evaluate previously proposed policy recommendations by legal experts and justice organizations. The successes …