Constitutional Law Commons^™

Ashton, Bekins, And Necessity: Why Chapter 9 Is Constitutional, But Not The Only Way For Municipalities To Adjust Their Debts, Aaron Michael Dmiszewicki

University of Miami Business Law Review

The 1930s saw the nation in crisis, steeped in the worst of the Great Depression. In 1936, over 2,000 municipalities, counties, and other governmental units, in 41 of the 48 states, were known to be in default. In response to this crisis, Congress amended the Bankruptcy Act in 1934 and passed the first municipal bankruptcy statute. Shortly thereafter, the Supreme Court struck it down. Undeterred, Congress passed another municipal bankruptcy statute in 1937, which was almost identical to the previously invalidated law. In 1938, the Supreme Court, now stocked with Roosevelt-appointed New Deal sympathizers, upheld the law.

However, the latter …

Fixing Fuller: Securing Just Compensation For Private Beneficiaries Of Federal Grazing Lands, Matthew C. Piccolo

Buffalo Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Soundings And Silences, Laurence H. Tribe

Michigan Law Review Online

My work over the years has included both studying existing constitutions, particularly that of the United States, and assisting others with the drafting of new constitutions—from the Marshall Islands to the Czech Republic to South Africa. Among the things I noticed was that those undertakings, although distinct, were related—and related most significantly in the way that formative decisions about what to say and what not to say in a new constitution have bearing on later decisions about how to interpret what a constitution says or fails to say. My decision to pay special attention to the various roles of silence …

Another Look At Skelly Oil And Franchise Tax Board, Paul E. Salamanca

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In recent years, members of the Supreme Court of the United States have twice cited Skelly Oil Co. v. Phillips Petroleum Co. for the proposition that the federal Declaratory Judgment Act, which Congress enacted in 1934, is “procedural only” and does not enlarge the scope of federal jurisdiction. By this, they probably mean that Skelly allows no case into federal court in the presence of the act that could not find its way there in its absence. But whether this assertion is accurate today, or was accurate in 1950 when Justice Frankfurter wrote Skelly, is not entirely clear. Depending …

As Good As It Gets? Security, Asylum, And The Rule Of Law After The Certificate Trilogy, Graham Hudson

Osgoode Legal Studies Research Paper Series

This article uses constitutional discourses on the legality of security certificates to shed light on darker, neglected corners of the security and migration nexus in Canada. I explore how procedures and practices used in the certificate regime have evolved and migrated to analogous adjudicative and discretionary decision-making contexts. I argue, on the one hand, that the executive’s ability to label persons security risks has been subjected to meaningful constraints in the certificate regime and other functionally equivalent adjudicative proceedings. On the other hand, the ability of discretionary decision-makers to deport individuals who pose de jure security risks to face torture …

Evaluating International State Constitutionalism, Johanna Kalb

Washington Law Review Online

This Essay is part of the Symposium on State Constitutional Law in Honor of the late Washington State Supreme Court Justice Robert F. Utter that was held on October 23, 2015.

Is The Uniform Faithful Presidential Electors Act Constitutional?, Robert J. Delahunty

Cardozo Law Review de•novo

My topic is both timely and perennial: The Electoral College. More specifically, I will first discuss the constitutional problem known as the “Faithless Elector” and, then, I will attempt to solve such problem. My proposed solution is the Uniform Faithful Presidential Electors Act (UFPEA), a statute that several states have adopted.

Recent Development: Peterson V. State: Limitations On Defense Cross-Examination Are Permitted When The Testimony Lacks A Factual Foundation, Is Overly Prejudicial, Or Has Not Been Adequately Preserved, Meghan E. Ellis

University of Baltimore Law Forum

The Court of Appeals of Maryland held that the defendant’s right to confrontation was not violated when the defense was precluded from cross-examining a witness about hallucinations and his potential sentence prior to entering into a plea agreement. Peterson v. State, 444 Md. 105, 153-54, 118 A.3d 925, 952-53 (2015). The court found that the defendant failed to preserve the issue of a witness’s expectation of benefit with respect to pending charges, and failed to show sufficient factual foundation for a cross-examination regarding the expectation. Id. at 138-39, 118 A.3d at 944. In addition, the court found that, although not …

Implicit In The Concept Of Ordered Liberty: How Obergefell V. Hodges Illuminates The Modern Substantive Due Process Debate, 49 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1021 (2016), Matthew Grothouse

UIC Law Review

This Article uses the historical sweep of the Due Process Clause to evaluate the merits of Obergefell’s majority and dissenting opinions. Specifically, the Article explains why the Due Process Clause’s prohibition on arbitrary punishments in general—and legislative judgments in particular—invariably mandates the judicial nullification of arbitrary and irrational legislative acts. What exactly constitutes a “legislative judgment” and how much deference courts should exercise in examining legislative acts are the crucial and largely unanswered questions lying at the heart of the Obergefell case (and in substantive due process cases in general). Although the Obergefell Court’s discussion focuses on a single case, …

"Does Oregon's Constitution Need A Due Process Clause?" Thoughts On Due Process And Other Limigations On State Action, Thomas A. Balmer

Washington Law Review Online

During a legislative hearing last year, an Oregon state senator asked, “Does Oregon’s Constitution need a due process clause?” That question raises fundamental issues of constitutional law and of the relationship between the federal and state constitutions. Can and should state courts rely primarily on federal constitutional principles, made applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, in deciding critical questions about the rights of criminal defendants, freedom of speech and religion, and equal protection? Or should state courts focus on their own constitutions—state due process, equal privileges and immunities, and similar “great ordinances” or more specific …

Popular Constitutionalism And Its Enemies, G. Alan Tarr

Washington Law Review Online

This Essay is part of the Symposium on State Constitutional Law in Honor of the late Washington State Supreme Court Justice Robert F. Utter that was held on October 23, 2015.

Free Exercise By Moonlight, Marc O. Degirolami

Scholarly Articles

How is the current condition of religious free exercise, and religious accommodation in specific, best understood? What is the relationship of the two most important free exercise cases of the past half-century, Employment Division v. Smith and Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC? This essay explores four possible answers to these questions.

1. Smith and Hosanna-Tabor are the twin suns of religious accommodation under the Constitution. They are distinctively powerful approaches.

2. Hosanna-Tabor's approach to constitutional free exercise is now more powerful than Smith's. Smith has been eclipsed.

3. Hosanna-Tabor has shown itself to be feeble. It has …

Virtue, Freedom, And The First Amendment, Marc O. Degirolami

Scholarly Articles

The modern First Amendment embodies the idea of freedom as a fundamental good of con- temporary American society. The First Amendment protects and promotes everybody's freedom of thought, belief speech, and religious exercise as basic goods-as given ends of American political and moral life. It does not protect these freedoms for the sake of promoting any particular vision of the virtuous society. It is neutral on that score, setting limits only in those rare cases when the exercise of a First Amendment freedom exacts an intolerable social cost.

Something like this collection of views constitutes the conventional account of the …

Substantial Burdens Imply Central Beliefs, Marc O. Degirolami

Scholarly Articles

Religious accommodations are exemptions from compliance with the law. Before granting a religious accommodation, it would seem necessary to inquire about precisely how the law interferes with a claimant's system of religious belief and practice. And yet one of the most vexing issues in the law of religious accommodation concerns not merely the nature of a "substantial burden" on religious exercise, but even the propriety of any legal inquiry about religious burdens at all. Any assessment of the importance or centrality of a religious belief or practice within the claimant's belief system is strictly forbidden: "Repeatedly and in many different …

New Era Or Just One Step In The History Of The Supreme Court Of The United States?, Rett R. Ludwikowski

Scholarly Articles

The vacancy arising as a result of the death of Antonin Scalia, one of the nine justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, paralyzed the Court’s work for a few months. Even Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election did not immediately resolve the problem of political balance in the Court.

This article, commenting on the stalemate over the Supreme Court, tries to answer some questions. Is the process of politicization of formally politically independent justices a natural result of mutual attrition of the authorities? Does the situation after Scalia’s death undermine the separation of powers, a fundamental …

The Firing Squad As "A Known And Available Alternative Method Of Execution" Post-Glossip, Deborah W. Denno

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article does not address the medical debate surrounding the role of midazolam in executions; the problems associated with using the drug have been persuasively argued elsewhere. Nor does it question the soundness of the Glossip Court’s “alternative method of execution” requirement. Rather, this Article’s proposed reform is a constitutionally acceptable alternative that meets the Glossip Court’s standard, rendering moot—at least for the purposes of the following discussion—very real concerns regarding the validity of that dictate. Part I of this Article pinpoints several areas where the Glossip Court goes wrong in glaringly inaccurate or misleading ways, given the vast history …

Lgbt Rights And The Mini-Rfra: A Return To Separate But Equal, Terri R. Day, Danielle Weatherby

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Non-Contentious Jurisdiction And Consent Decrees, Michael T. Morley

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Case For Lgbt Equality: Reviving The Political Process Doctrine And Repurposing The Dormant Commerce Clause, Terri R. Day, Danielle Weatherby

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

De Facto Class Actions: Plaintiff-And Defendant-Oriented Injunctions In Voting Rights, Election Law, And Other Constitutional Cases, Michael T. Morley

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.