Constitutional Law Commons^™

October 9, 2011: Why Does There Need To Be A Ministerial Exception?, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Why Does There Need to be a Ministerial Exception?“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

October 6, 2011: How Does Forgiveness Of Sins Work?, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “How Does Forgiveness of Sins Work?“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Presidential Authority And The 2001 Constitution Of Senegal, Judy Scales-Trent

North Carolina Central Law Review

No abstract provided.

October 1, 2011: The Problem Of Nonpreferentialism, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “The Problem of Nonpreferentialism“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

The Bonds That Tie: The Politics Of Motherhood And The Future Of Abortion Rights, Mary Ziegler

Scholarly Publications

What is the relationship between women’s still predominant share of caretaking work and the constitutional recognition of a right to choose abortion? Caretaking-based rationales for abortion rights have become increasingly prominent in the Supreme Court's abortion jurisprudence, as well as in abortion-rights litigation. These justifications propose that women tend overwhelmingly to raise their own children. Consequently, as the argument goes, the decision to give birth creates a lifetime commitment for most women, and in some cases, may cost women valuable career or educational opportunities.

When care taking-based rationales first appeared in the early 1970s in debate about rights to both …

Religious Documents And The Establishment Clause, Brian Sites

Faculty Scholarship

A priest, a rabbi, and an imam walk into a contract lawyer's office. Fortunately, this is not the opening of a lawyer joke, but it might well be the prelude to a complicated constitutional question about the interaction of the First Amendment and contract law. Pastors, priests, rabbis, imams, religious schools, churches, religious businesses, and a wealth of faith-based groups all enter into contractual agreements. Not surprisingly, these agreements often contain religious language, and sometimes they even hinge on provisions invoking expressly religious concepts. Religious documents come in a variety of forms, including marriage contracts, disposition of property documents, agreements …

Lochner V. New York (1905) And Kennedy V. Louisiana (2008): Judicial Reliance On Adversary Argument, Douglas E. Abrams

Faculty Publications

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist called Lochner v. New York (1905) “one of the most ill-starred decisions that [the Supreme Court ever rendered.” The Justices’ deliberations preceding the 5-4 decision demonstrate the courts’ reliance on advocacy in the adversary system of civil and criminal justice. The stark imbalance between the state’s “incredibly sketchy” brief and Joseph Lochner’s sterling submission may have determined Lochner’s outcome, and thus may have changed the course of constitutional history, by leading two Justices to join the majority on the central question of whether New York’s maximum-hours law for bakery workers was a reasonable public health …

Uses And Abuses Of Textualism And Originalism In Establishment Clause Interpretation, Carl H. Esbeck

Faculty Publications

This article takes up the curious tale as to why the text and drafting record in the House and Senate were ignored by the Court in Everson, as well as what the text and debate can tell us about contemporary theories making the rounds. One theory of conservatives is that the Establishment Clause was not intended to prohibit support for religion so long as no religion is preferred.

Constitutional Law—It Wasn’T Me! Zinger V. State And Arkansas’S Unconstitutional Approach To Third-Party Exculpatory Evidence. Zinger V. State, 313 Ark. 70, 852 S.W.2d 320 (1993)., Bourgon B. Reynolds

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Equal Citizenship And The Individual Right To Vote, Jospeh Fishkin

Indiana Law Journal

An emerging consensus among election law scholars urges courts to break out of “the stagnant discourse of individual rights and competing state interests” and instead adopt a jurisprudence of “structural” democratic values that sidelines individual rights. This structuralist approach won out in the great “rightsstructure” debate in election law, and came to dominate the field, during a period in which the main controversies—vote dilution, gerrymandering, ballot access, campaign finance—were all ones in which the structuralist move was illuminating. However, structuralism is now causing both scholars and courts to evaluate the new wave of vote denial controversies, over such issues as …

When Delegation Begets Domination: Due Process Of Administrative Lawmaking, Evan J. Criddle

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Unwell: Indiana V. Edwards And The Fate Of Mentally Ill Pro Se Defendants, John H. Blume, Morgan J. Clark

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Same-Sex Marriage, Second-Class Citizenship, And Law's Social Meanings, Michael C. Dorf

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Government acts, statements, and symbols that carry the social meaning of second-class citizenship may, as a consequence of that fact, violate the Establishment Clause or the constitutional requirement of equal protection. Yet social meaning is often contested. Do laws permitting same-sex couples to form civil unions but not to enter into marriage convey the social meaning that gays and lesbians are second-class citizens? Do official displays of the Confederate battle flag unconstitutionally convey support for slavery and white supremacy? When public schools teach evolution but not creationism, do they show disrespect for creationists? Different audiences reach different conclusions about the …

Coming Off The Bench: Legal And Policy Implications Of Proposals To Allow Retired Justices To Sit By Designation On The Supreme Court, Lisa T. Mcelroy, Michael C. Dorf

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In the fall of 2010, Senator Patrick Leahy introduced a bill that would have overridden a New Deal-era federal statute forbidding retired Justices from serving by designation on the Supreme Court of the United States. The Leahy bill would have authorized the Court to recall willing retired Justices to substitute for recused Justices. This Article uses the Leahy bill as a springboard for considering a number of important constitutional and policy questions, including whether the possibility of 4-4 splits justifies the substitution of a retired Justice for an active one; whether permitting retired Justices to substitute for recused Justices would …

Educating Prosecutors And Supreme Court Justices About Brady V. Maryland, Bennett L. Gershman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The author reviews the Supreme Court decision in Connick v. Thompson and provides a course outline, including problems, for training prosecutors on their duty to disclose materially favorable evidence to the defendant under Brady v. Maryland.

Following You Here, There, And Everytwhere: An Investigation Of Gps Technology, Privacy, And The Fourth Amendment, Stephanie Gaylord Forbes

W&M Law Student Publications

No abstract provided.

The Limits Of Global Judicial Dialogue, David S. Law, Wen-Chen Chang

Washington Law Review

The notion that “global judicial dialogue” is contributing to the globalization of constitutional law has attracted considerable attention. Various scholars have characterized the citation of foreign law by constitutional courts as a form of “dialogue” that both reflects and fosters the emergence of a common global enterprise of constitutional adjudication. It has also been claimed that increasing direct interaction between judges, face-to-face or otherwise, fuels the growth of a global constitutional jurisprudence. This Article challenges these claims on empirical grounds and offers an alternative account of the actual reasons for which constitutional courts engage in comparative analysis. First, it is …

Covenants For The Sword, Alice Ristroph

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Stare Decisis And Constitutional Text, Jonathan F. Mitchell

Michigan Law Review

Almost everyone acknowledges that stare decisis should play a significant role when the Supreme Court of the United States resolves constitutional cases. Yet the academic and judicial rationales for this practice tend to rely on naked consequentialist considerations, and make only passing efforts to square the Court's stare decisis doctrines with the language of the Constitution. This Article offers a qualified defense of constitutional stare decisis that rests exclusively on constitutional text. It aims to broaden the overlapping consensus of interpretive theories that can support a role for constitutional stare decisis, but to do this it must narrow the circumstances …

Up Against The Wall: A Guide To The Effective Screening Of Former Government Attorneys In New York, Shira Mizrahi

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

The note examines New York Rule of Professional Conduct 1.11, which governs conflicts of interest for former government attorneys transitioning to private practice. It highlights the rule's strict requirements for screening to prevent conflicts and the "appearance of impropriety" standard, which allows courts to disqualify firms even without evidence of wrongdoing. The analysis critiques the rule's effectiveness, particularly in small firms, and proposes reforms to balance public trust, client interests, and attorneys' career mobility.