Constitutional Law Commons^™

What Police Learn From Lawsuits, Joanna C. Schwartz

Cardozo Law Review

This Article asks what can be learned from the vast amount of information generated by modern civil litigation. One answer lies in the practices of a small but growing number of law enforcement agencies that pay careful attention to suits brought against them and their officers. These departments gather information from initial complaints, discovery, and case resolutions and use that information to identify personnel and policy weaknesses. Lawsuit data has proven valuable to these departments' performance-improvement efforts: suits have alerted departments to incidents of misconduct, and the information developed during the course of discovery and trial has been found to …

The Ninth Circuit's Perry Decision And The Constitutional Politics Of Marriage Equality, William N. Eskridge

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In Perry v. Brown, the Ninth Circuit ruled that California’s Proposition 8 violates the Equal Protection Clause. Reacting to the state supreme court’s recognition of marriage equality for lesbian and gay couples, Proposition 8 was a 2008 voter initiative that altered the state constitution to “restore” the “traditional” understanding of civil marriage to exclude same-sex couples. The major theme of the Yes-on-Eight campaign was that the state should not deem lesbian and gay unions to be “marriages” because schoolchildren would then think that lesbian and gay relationships are just as good as straight “marriages.”

Proposition 8 intended that gay …

January 28, 2012: A New Marxism, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “A New Marxism“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Summary Of Pohlabel V. State, 128 Nev. Adv. Op. 1, Jamie Combs

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court considers an appeal from a felony conviction for a felon in possession of a firearm under NRS 202.360.

Some Too (Or Blessedly) Short Responses To Five Thoughtful Readers, Sanford Levinson

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Levinson Is To Mr. Justice "Isaiah" As St. Paul Was To The Prophet Isaiah, Richard H. Weisberg

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Variable Morality Of Constitutional (And Other) Compromises: A Comment On Sanford Levinson's Compromise And Constitutionalism, Carrie Menkel-Meadow

Pepperdine Law Review

This comment to Sanford Levinson's Brandeis lecture at Pepperdine focuses on the role and types of compromises made during several stages of constitutional processes, formative and constitutive, interpretive and on-going, as negotiated by Constitutional meaning makers (drafters and Supreme Court 'deciders'), and post hoc justifications. This essay discusses recent work on compromise as institutional design, pragmatic or principled, and regime defining and sustaining. Both the pejorative (compromise is unprincipled) and more positive (compromise accounts for the 'reality' and moral existence of different sides of an issue or polity) understandings of compromise are reviewed, in light of Professor Levinson's scholarship on …

Lessons From Lincoln: A Comment On Levinson, Steven D. Smith

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Democracy, Human Dignity, And Entrenched Evil, Mark A. Graber

Pepperdine Law Review

The following essay pays tribute to Sandy Levinson's thoughts on constitutional compromises by paying tribute to the thoughts on constitutional compromises by our common mentor, Walter Murphy. Rather than directly engage in a dialogue with Compromise and Constitutionalism, the analysis below joins the preexisting dialogue between Professors Levinson and Murphy on how to construct a decent polity among people who have deep disputes over what constitutes political decency. Walter Murphy is unfortunately largely known to legal audiences only through the work of such outstanding mentees as Sandy Levinson, Jim Fleming, Christopher Eisgruber, Andrew Koppelman, Jennifer Nedelsky, and Robert George. Walter …

Compromise And Constitutionalism, Sanford Levinson

Pepperdine Law Review

Professor Levinson explores compromises (1) that went into the making of the United States Constitution, and (2) that have occurred in the Supreme Court's constitutional interpretation. He explores these compromises in light of Israeli philosopher Avishai Margalit's distinction between bad compromises and rotten compromises. "Rotten compromises" are indefensible except, perhaps, in the most exceptional of conditions. A "rotten political compromise" is one that agrees "to establish or maintain an inhuman regime, a regime of cruelty and humiliation, that is, a regime that does not treat humans as humans." Under this standard, Levinson identifies as rotten compromises the Constitution's protection of …

The Cost Of Compromise And The Covenant With Death, Paul Finkelman

Pepperdine Law Review

This article is a rebuttal to the writings of those advocating the view that America was formed through compromise and that compromise in modern constitutional law is, therefore, necessary and beneficial. A recount of the “compromises” at the Constitutional Conventional that eventually led to the approval and protection of slavery begins the analysis establishing the danger of Americans compromising over constitutional protections. The article continues on, discussing the Compromise of 1850 and its drafters whom others have considered “passionately devoted to the Union”, like John Calhoun, who would later assert that the Constitution was expendable. The Compromise of 1850 did …

Introduction: Blessed Are The Compromisers?, Robert F. Cochran Jr.

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

January 25, 2012: Who Is Ready To Be Secular?, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Who is Ready to be Secular?“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

January 22, 2012: Jesus Hopped The 'A' Train, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

January 21, 2012: One Market Under God, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “One Market Under God“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

January 18, 2012: But Why Can’T People Just Practice A Scientific Way Of Life?, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “But Why Can’t People Just Practice a Scientific Way of Life?“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Warrantless Gps In United States V. Jones: Is 2011 The New 1984?, Edward Boehme

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

No abstract provided.

January 15, 2012: Visiting The Center For Inquiry, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Visiting the Center for Inquiry“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Alumni Association Of The Arab Orthodox School In Haifa V. Minister Of Finance, Miriam Naor, Dorit Beinisch, Eliezer Rivlin

Translated Opinions

Facts: The Budget Elements Law was amended in 2011 to include a new section 3b, which provided that if an entity that receives support or budgeting from the government incurs an expense that falls within any of several listed categories, the Minister of Finance can reduce the entity’s budget or support by an amount no greater than three times the size of the said expense. Of the categories listed, the petitioners focused their challenge on two of them: the first, sub-section 3b(b)(1), referring to an expense which was “in essence” a negation of the values of the State of Israel …

The Role Of Charity In A Federal System, Brian Galle

William & Mary Law Review

This Article critiques the prevailing justification for subsidies for the charitable sector and suggests a new alternative. Existing rationales are based on an economic model that assumes a single government whose decisions are guided by a single median voter. I argue that this theory is unpersuasive when translated to federal systems, such as the United States, in which there may instead be thousands of competing local governments.

I then attempt to construct a theory of the charitable sector that takes account of interactions between charity, local government, and national government. In this revised account, charity is most important when federalism …