Constitutional Law Commons^™

In Memory Of Professor James E. Bond, Janet Ainsworth

Seattle University Law Review

Janet Ainsworth, Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law: In Memory of Professor James E. Bond.

"Inciting A Riot": Silent Sentinels, Group Protests, And Prisoners' Petition And Associational Rights, Nicole B. Godfrey

Seattle University Law Review

This Article argues for increased legal protections for prisoners who choose to engage in group protest to shed light on the conditions of their incarceration. A companion piece to a similar article that focused on prisoner free speech rights, this Article uses the acts of protest utilized by the Silent Sentinels to examine why prisoners’ rights to petition and association should be strengthened. By strengthening these rights, the Article argues that we will advance the values enshrined by the First Amendment’s Petition Clause while simultaneously advancing the rights of the incarcerated millions with little to no political power.

The Article …

Black Women And Girls And The Twenty-Sixth Amendment: Constitutional Connections, Activist Intersections, And The First Wave Youth Suffrage Movement, Mae C. Quinn

Seattle University Law Review

On this 100th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment—and on the cusp of the fiftieth anniversary of the Twenty-sixth Amendment—this article seeks to expand the voting rights canon. It complicates our understanding of voting rights history in the United States, adding layers to the history of federal constitutional enfranchisement and encouraging a more intersectional telling of our suffrage story in the days ahead.

Thus, this work not only seeks to acknowledge the Twenty-sixth Amendment as important constitutional content, as was the goal of the article I wrote with my law student colleagues for a conference held at the University of Akron …

Does The Woman Suffrage Amendment Protect The Voting Rights Of Men?, Steve Kolbert

Seattle University Law Review

This Article—part of the Seattle University Law Review’s symposium on the centennial of the ratification of the Woman Suffrage Amendment—examines that open possibility. Concluding that the Nineteenth Amendment does protect men’s voting rights, this Article explores why and how that protection empowers Congress to address felon disenfranchisement and military voting. This Article also examines the advantages of using Nineteenth Amendment enforcement legislation compared to legislation enacted under other constitutional provisions.

Part I discusses the unique barriers to voting faced by voters with criminal convictions (Section I.A) and voters in the armed forces (Section I.B). This Part also explains how existing …

Historical Gloss, Madisonian Liquidation, And The Originalism Debate, Curtis A. Bradley, Neil S. Siegel

Faculty Scholarship

The U.S. Constitution is old, relatively brief, and very difficult to amend. In its original form, the Constitution was primarily a framework for a new national government, and for 230 years the national government has operated under that framework even as conditions have changed in ways beyond the Founders’ conceivable imaginations. The framework has survived in no small part because government institutions have themselves played an important role in helping to fill in and clarify the framework through their practices and interactions, informed by the realities of governance. Courts, the political branches, and academic commentators commonly give weight to such …

Disuniformity Of Federal Constitutional Rights, Joseph Blocher

Faculty Scholarship

Judge Jeffrey Sutton’s 51 Imperfect Solutions describes and celebrates the crucial role of state constitutional law in “making” American constitutional law. The fact that states do not speak with one voice in doing so is, in Sutton’s account, a feature rather than a bug. The diversity in their approaches permits experimentation and tailoring, and ultimately produces a stronger and more supple constitutional fabric.

Sutton’s enthusiasm for the diversity and dynamism of state constitutional law is entirely convincing. But is the federal alternative quite so flat? Although federal constitutional rights are undoubtedly more uniform than those of states, they are not …

Our Federalism On Drugs, Jonathan Adler

Faculty Publications

Over the past decade, voters and legislatures have moved to legalize the possession of marijuana under state law. Some have limited these reforms to the medicinal use of marijuana, while others have not. Despite these reforms marijuana remains illegal under federal law. Although the Justice Department has not sought to preempt or displace state-level reforms, the federal prohibition casts a long shadow across state-level legalization efforts. This federal-state conflict presents multiple important and challenging policy questions that often get overlooked in policy debates over whether to legalize marijuana for medical or recreational purposes. Yet in a “compound republic” like the …

Masthead

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Raising The Stakes: The Battle Between The First Amendment And Athlete's Publicity Rights In The Wake Of Murphy V. Ncaa, Alexis Nicole Lilly

American University Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

Professor Williams And The Education Debates In State Constitutional Law, Scott R. Bauries

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Professor Robert "Bob" Williams, whom The Honorable Jeffrey Sutton once aptly referred to as the "Dean of State Constitutional Law," has announced a well-earned retirement, leaving the world of state constitutional law teaching and scholarship without its most prominent and influential intellectual voice. Although it is clear based on mere citations to Professor William's work that he has influenced nearly every debate - and every scholar - in state constitutional law, this Essay contribution to the Festschrift in Professor William's honor outlines two strands of Professor William's work that have greatly influenced my own work.

Platforms And The Fall Of The Fourth Estate: Looking Beyond The First Amendment To Protect Watchdog Journalism, Erin C. Carroll

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Invisible Article Iii Delinquency: History, Mystery, And Concerns About "Federal Juvenile Courts", Mae C. Quinn, Levi T. Bradford

Journal Articles

This essay is the second in a two-part series focused on our nation’s invisible juvenile justice system—one that operates under the legal radar as part of the U.S. Constitution’s Article III federal district court system. The first publication, Article III Adultification of Kids: History, Mystery, and Troubling Implications of Federal Youth Transfers, examined the little-known practice of prosecuting children as adults in federal courts. This paper will look at the related phenomenon of juvenile delinquency matters that are filed and pursued in our nation’s federal court system. To date, most scholarship evaluating youth prosecution has focused on our country’s juvenile …

The Law And Policy Of Child Maltreatment, Frank Vandervort

Book Chapters

Each year in the United States some four million children are reported to child protective services and hundreds of thousands of children are confirmed victims of maltreatment. This chapter provides a brief overview of the civil and criminal law’s response to child abuse and neglect. It summarizes the major federal statutes that provide funding to the states to support both civil and criminal law responses to maltreatment. It discusses the division of responsible for responding to child maltreatment between the federal and state governments (federalism). It also provides a summary of the constitutional framework for handling both civil and criminal …

Rights Should Not Vary Based On Offense Severity, Russell L. Christopher

Articles, Chapters in Books and Other Contributions to Scholarly Works

Some constitutional rights of criminal procedure apply unequally, varying based on offense (or punishment) severity. Of these, some vary proportionally, attaching or strengthening as offense severity increases. For example, the Sixth Amendment guarantees the rights to appointed counsel for indigents and jury trial for defendants charged with any felony but only some misdemeanors. In contrast, other rights are inversely proportional. For example, the strength or applicability of some aspects of the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures and the Eighth Amendment right against excessive bail decrease as offense severity increases. This Article examines whether such rights should vary …

It’S A Blowhorn, Not A Dog-Whistle: How President Trump’S Travel Ban Orders, Not His Statements, Are Enough To Establish A Violation Under The Religion Clauses, Charles Adside Iii

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

Most bigots speak softly. They use dog-whistles, code words employed to prime bigoted sentiments within the listener. Not President Donald J. Trump; his voice on Islam is like a blow horn. His orders imposing travel bans on seven Muslimmajority countries were just as loud. Although the Trump v. Hawaii Court claimed that the executive order it reviewed was religiously neutral, adherence to precedent reveals that all three executive orders violated the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment. There is much discussion, however, regarding the President’s remarks about Islam. Many jurists conclude that they should be used for interpretative purposes in …

Commandeering, Preemption, And Vehicle Emissions Regulation Post-Murphy V. Ncaa, Amelia Raether

Northwestern University Law Review

The Clean Air Act is often heralded as a paragon of cooperative federalism. The Act’s approach to vehicle emissions regulation in particular prescribes a unique partnership between the federal government and the state of California: while all states are bound by federally mandated vehicle emissions requirements, California may set more stringent standards in recognition of its historic role on the leading edge of environmental protection. However, in August 2018, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed not only to roll back the national emissions regulations, but also to revoke California’s ability to set more stringent standards, which include limits on greenhouse gas …

Stepping Into The Shoes Of The Department Of Justice: The Unusual, Necessary, And Hopeful Path The Illinois Attorney General Took To Require Police Reform In Chicago, Lisa Madigan, Cara Hendrickson, Karyn L. Bass Ehler

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

A Class Action Lawsuit For The Right To A Minimum Education In Detroit, Carter G. Phillips

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

“A World Of Steel-Eyed Death”: An Empirical Evaluation Of The Failure Of The Strickland Standard To Ensure Adequate Counsel To Defendants With Mental Disabilities Facing The Death Penalty, Michael L. Perlin, Talia Roitberg Harmon, Sarah Chatt

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

First, we discuss the background of the development of counsel adequacy in death penalty cases. Next, we look carefully at Strickland, and the subsequent Supreme Court cases that appear—on the surface—to bolster it in this context. We then consider multiple jurisprudential filters that we believe must be taken seriously if this area of the law is to be given any authentic meaning. Next, we will examine and interpret the data that we have developed. Finally, we will look at this entire area of law through the filter of therapeutic jurisprudence, and then explain why and how the charade of “adequacy …

Eighteen Is Not A Magic Number: Why The Eighth Amendment Requires Protection For Youth Aged Eighteen To Twenty-Five, Tirza A. Mullin

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The Eighth Amendment protects a criminal defendant’s right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. This Note argues that any punishment of eighteen- to twenty-five-year-olds is cruel and unusual without considering their youthfulness at every stage of the criminal process, and that it is unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment for these youths to be automatically treated as fully-developed adults. This Note will explore in depth how juveniles differ from adults, both socially and scientifically, and how the criminal justice system fails every youth aged eighteen- to twenty-five by subjecting them to criminal, rather than juvenile, court without considering their …