Constitutional Law Commons^™

Ghosting In Tax Law: Sunset Provisions And Their Unfaithfulness, Alli Sutherland

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

Tax is a subject that could easily put many to sleep. It is dense, convoluted, and intimidating. But it also touches practically every American. This note will discuss how the recent tax overhaul by the Trump Administration includes dangerous provisions, called sunset provisions. These sunset provisions, which get their name from how the law expire after a specified date, are dangerous because they constitute a legislative runaround. Rarely, if ever, do these provisions actually expire. Rather, law makers are able to avoid procedural requirements by placing an end date on the law, but then extending the law’s effective date. This …

The Unconstitutional Tampon Tax, Bridget J. Crawford, Emily Gold Waldman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Thirty-five states impose a sales tax on menstrual hygiene products, while products like spermicidal condoms and erectile dysfunction medications are tax-free. This sales tax--commonly called the “tampon tax”--represents an expense that girls and women must bear on top of the cost of biologically necessary items that they need in order to attend school, work, and otherwise participate in public life. This article explores the constitutionality of the tampon tax and argues that it is an impermissible form of gender discrimination under the Equal Protection Clause. First, menstrual hygiene products are a unique proxy for female sex, and therefore any disadvantageous …

Accommodating Competition: Harmonizing National Economic Commitments, Jonathan Baker

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This article shows how the norm supporting governmental action to protect and foster competitive markets was harmonized with economic rights to contract and property during the 19th century, and with the development of the social safety net during the 20th century. It explains why the Constitution, as understood today, does not check the erosion of the entrenched but threatened national commitment to assuring competitive markets.

Manufactured Emergencies, Robert Tsai

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Emergencies are presumed to be unusual affairs, but the United States has been in one state of emergency or another for the last forty years. That is a problem. The erosion of democratic norms has led to not simply the collapse of the traditional conceptual boundary between ordinary rule and emergency governance, but also the emergence of an even graver problem: the manufactured crisis. In an age characterized by extreme partisanship, institutional gridlock, and technological manipulation of information, it has become exceedingly easy and far more tempting for a President to invoke extraordinary power by ginning up exigencies. To reduce …

Considerations Of History And Purpose In Constitutional Borrowing, Robert Tsai

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This essay is part of a symposium issue dedicated to "Constitutional Rights: Intersections, Synergies, and Conflicts" at William and Mary School of Law. I make four points. First, perfect harmony among rights might not always be normatively desirable. In fact, in some instances, such as when First Amendment and Second Amendment rights clash, we might wish to have expressive rights consistently trump gun rights. Second, we can't resolve clashes between rights in the abstract but instead must consult history in a broadly relevant rather than a narrowly "originalist" fashion. When we do so, we learn that armed expression and white …

A Distinction With A Difference: Rights, Privileges, And The Fourteenth Amendment, William J. Aceves

Faculty Scholarship

In Timbs v. Indiana, the Supreme Court held the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on excessive fines was incorporated and applied to states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. While the decision was unanimous, the concurring opinions offered a revealing reflection of past constitutional battles and an intriguing vision of future conflicts. Both Justices Gorsuch and Thomas suggested resurrecting the Privileges or Immunities Clause as a more appropriate vehicle than the Due Process Clause for applying the prohibition on excessive fines to states.

Justice Thomas took this proposal one step further. He suggested the Privileges or Immunities Clause …

A Wall Of Hate: Eminent Domain And Interest-Convergence, Philip Lee

Brooklyn Law Review

Through the power of eminent domain, President Donald Trump is seeking to take properties owned by private landowners and Native American tribes, including people’s homes and businesses, to build a continuous physical wall along the two thousand-mile border between the United States and Mexico. He has even partially shut down the government for the longest period in history in order to pressure Congress to fund his wall. Substantial evidence suggests that this massive government condemnation scheme will not effectuate Trump’s primary purpose: to stop illegal immigration. If Trump succeeds, then potentially thousands of people from all racial backgrounds will lose …

A Safe Harbor In The Opioid Crisis: How The Federal Government Should Allow States To Legislate For Safe Injection Facilities In Light Of The Opioid Public Health Emergency, Amber A. Leary

Brooklyn Law Review

Opioid addiction is wreaking havoc across the United States, leading to a shocking number of overdoses and deaths. This epidemic has prompted the Trump Administration to declare opioid abuse a public health emergency and to call for increases in evidence-based treatment for those addicted to harmful opioids. To combat this epidemic, some cities have embraced one such evidence-based treatment plan—safe injection facilities—which are infirmaries where drug users can inject pre-obtained drugs under the supervision of nurses or overdose reversal specialists who can respond in real time to prevent overdose and death. Though safe injection facilities outside the United States have …

An Analysis And Critique Of Mental Health Treatment In American State Prisons And Proposal For Improved Care, Shelby Hayne

Scripps Senior Theses

Mental health treatment in state prisons is revealed to be highly variable, under-funded, and systematically inadequate. Existing literature exposes this injustice but fails to provide a comprehensive proposal for reform. This paper attempts to fill that gap, outlining a cost-effective, evidence-based treatment proposal, directly addressing the deficits in care revealed through analysis of our current system. In addition, this paper provides historical overviews of the prison system and mental health treatment, utilizing theoretical perspectives to contextualize this proposal in the present state of affairs. Lastly, the evidence is provided to emphasize the potential economic and social benefits of improving mental …

"No Person . . . Shall Ever Be Molested On Account Of His Mode Of Worship Or Religious Sentiments . . . .": The Northwest Ordinance Of 1787 And Strader V. Graham, Allan W. Vestal

Marquette Law Review

The Article looks at the first article of compact of the Northwest Ordinance,

the religious liberty guarantee: “No person . . . shall ever be molested on

account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments . . . .” Congress

provided that the Northwest Ordinance articles of compact would “forever

remain unalterable.” But in a fugitive slave case from 1851, Strader v. Graham,

Chief Justice Roger Taney declared the articles of compact to be no longer in

force.

In evaluating Chief Justice Taney’s reasoning, the question posed at the

dawn of the 20th Century by historian Professor Andrew McLaughlin …

Disgorging Emoluments, Caprice L. Roberts

Marquette Law Review

This Article is about unjust enrichment. It includes a theory of an unjust

enrichment cause of action against executive actors who receive unlawful

emoluments. Interpretations of the boundaries of unlawful emoluments range

from receipt of a gift or benefit because of the position of power held to quid

pro quo exchanges of a thing of value in exchange for government information

or advantage. Wherever the proper line, the purpose of the law of unjust

enrichment is to prevent and undo benefits one has no right to retain. It

achieves those goals with the use of restitution remedies including

disgorgement of …

A Century In The Making: The Glorious Revolution, The American Revolution, And The Origins Of The U.S. Constitution’S Eighth Amendment, John Bessler

All Faculty Scholarship

The sixteen words in the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment have their roots in England’s Glorious Revolution of 1688–89. This Article traces the historical events that initially gave rise to the prohibitions against excessive bail, excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishments. Those three proscriptions can be found in the English Declaration of Rights and in its statutory counterpart, the English Bill of Rights. In particular, the Article describes the legal cases and draconian punishments during the Stuart dynasty that led English and Scottish parliamentarians to insist on protections against cruelty and excessive governmental actions. In describing the grotesque punishments of …

Owning Heller, Darrell A. H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

Recent historical research using big-data techniques casts doubt on whether District of Columbia v. Heller was rightly decided according to originalist methods. These new discoveries put originalists in a bind. Do they embrace “faint hearted” originalism: the idea that as between the need for stability in prior decision making, settled expectations, and the coherence of the law, some adulterated decisions must remain enforced for the greater good? Or do they follow Justice Thomas’s reasoning in Gamble v. United States, remain stout-hearted, and reject any prior decision that cannot be supported by the common linguistic usage of the founding era – …

Waiving Goodbye To First Amendment Protections: First Amendment Waiver By Contract, Brittany Scott

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

The First Amendment is an embodiment of American freedom and therefore is often considered inviolable. This is a fallacy. First Amendment rights are not absolute and may be waived. The Supreme Court has declined to outline a rule for First Amendment waiver, but the Circuit Courts have filled this gap and adapted the waiver rules from criminal procedure to permit waiver of First Amendment rights by contract. In permitting waiver of First Amendment rights, the Courts give deference to contracts and strain the outer boundaries of First Amendment protections.

Subdued Process: Onyx Properties Llc V. Board Of County Commissioners Of Elbert County And The Removal Of “Property” From The Due Process Clause, Alan Fonseca

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reynolds V. United States, Rewritten, Laura T. Kessler

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

In Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145 (1878), Chief Justice Morrison Waite, writing for a unanimous Supreme Court, upheld the federal Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act outlawing polygamy in the federal territories and providing criminal penalties for it. This is a re-writing of that opinion, presented in the form of a dissent, available in Feminist Judgments: Family Law Opinions Rewritten (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2020). Unlike the Court’s opinion, this dissent concludes that religious practice, as well as belief, is protected by the First Amendment. It therefore holds that a religious duty to engage in an unlawful practice may be a …

Constitutionally Incapable: Parole Boards As Sentencing Courts, Mae C. Quinn

Journal Articles

Courtroom sentencing, as part of the judicial process, is a long-standing norm in the justice system of the United States. But this basic criminal law precept is currently under quiet attack. This is because some states are now allowing parole boards to step in to decide criminal penalties without first affording defendants lawful judicial branch sentencing proceedings and sentences. These outside-of-court punishment decisions are occurring in the cases of youthful offenders entitled to sentencing relief under Miller v. Alabama, which outlawed automatic life-without-parole sentences for children. Thus, some Miller-impacted defendants are being sentenced by paroleboards as executive branch agents, rather …

Article Iii Adultification Of Kids: History, Mystery, And Troubling Implications Of Federal Youth Transfers, Mae Quinn, Grace R. Mclaughlin

Journal Articles

There is no federal juvenile court system in the United States. Rather, teens can face charges in Article III courts and can be transferred to be tried and sentenced as adults in these venues. This Article is the first of two articles in the Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice seeking to shed light on the largely invisible processes and populations involved in federal youth prosecution. This Article focuses on the federal transfer and prosecution of American youth as adults. It considers constitutional and statutory law relating to these federal transfers and then considers why current …

Youth Suffrage: In Support Of The Second Wave, Mae Quinn, Caridad Dominguez, Chelsey Omega, Abrafi Osei-Kofi, Carlye Owens

Journal Articles

The 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution is an appropriate moment to reflect on the history—and consider the future—of the right to vote in the United States. High school and college classes teach the nation’s suffrage story as integral to our identity, focusing on the enfranchisement of women under the 19th Amendment and African Americans pursuant to the 15th Amendment.1 Constitutional law courses also present the 15th Amendment as foundational knowledge for the legal profession.2 Critical legal theory and women’s legal history texts frequently cover the 19th Amendment as central to understanding the first wave …

Trends In Opinion Writing & Consensus: The Roberts Court, Marti Auburn Liechty

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

No abstract provided.