Jurisprudence Commons^™

Standing To Challenge Governmental Action, Maine Law Review

Maine Law Review

Perhaps no inquiry reveals so much of a court's sense of identity as does that into justiciability, a concept employed by courts to limit the availability of judicial redress when a litigant's remedy more properly resides with another governmental body. When the subject-matter the litigant seeks to put in issue itself concerns governmental action or policy, the court must address a sensitive problem: to what extent might its resolution of the controversy intrude upon the policymaking function with which the legislative branch has been charged? Slow either to open themselves to claims they function "anti-democratically” or to override the informed …

Administrative Law: Approaches To Delegation, Maine Law Review

Maine Law Review

As do most state courts, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court purports to require that legislative delegations of power to administrative agencies be accompanied by legislatively articulated "primary standards" sufficient to prohibit arbitrary exercise of administrative discretion. The requirement is rooted in the non-delegation doctrine, once the principal stumbling-block to the creation of an effective administrative arm of government. Originally a liberalization of the non-delegation rule, the primary standards test can become an unwarranted restraint on legislative discretion, particularly when invoked to nullify delegations necessarily broad in scope. Often, the very reason behind a legislature's choice of administrative means to effectuate …

The Durfresne Years: A Preliminary Overview, Charles A. Abbott

Maine Law Review

Maine Law Review's timely decision to survey the work of the Supreme Judicial Court will enable our Bench and Bar to review past developments, analyze present positions, and, perhaps, chart with greater facility the future course of Maine's legal development. The retirement of Chief Justice Armand A. Dufresne, Jr., provides an excellent occasion for a look back at the Court's accomplishments.

Predicting What The Law Court Will Do In Fact, Harry P. Glassman

Maine Law Review

Over eighty years ago Oliver Wendell Holmes announced what became the manifesto of the legal realists when he stated: "The prophecies of what the courts will do in fact, and nothing more pretentious, are what I mean by the law." Legal philosophers and professors of jurisprudence may justifiably quarrel with Holmes' definition of law, but that definition continues to be useful to the practicing attorney engaged in the everyday business of counseling clients and advising them concerning the legality of anticipated activities. It is useful also to the trial court judge, bound by the decisions of an appellate court, who, …

Historical Firearm Licensing And Permitting Laws, Robert J. Spitzer

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No abstract provided.

Rituals Of Reluctance: How Loper Bright Further Obscures Civil Rights’ Place In The Modern Administrative State, Cameron K. Obioha

Mercer Law Review

Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (Loper Bright)marks the end of the Chevron doctrine and the abandonment of nearly forty years of precedent. Despite providing extensive reasoning regarding why eliminating an anchor of administrative law is the culmination of long‑awaited progress, no member of the Supreme Court of the United States elected to opine on a crucial implication of this historic decision. The court did not address how, with reinstated dominion over “every open issue” in regulatory law, it will reconcile the ever‑widening chasm between civil rights policy and the modern administrative state when such challenges inevitably arise.

The Waiting Is The Hardest Part: The Constitutionality Of Firearm Waiting Periods, F. Lee Francis

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

This Article examines the constitutionality of firearm waiting period laws through the lens of the Supreme Court’s evolving Second Amendment jurisprudence. Although such laws are frequently defended as prudent public safety measures, their validity turns not on legislative purpose but on constitutional principle, particularly as framed in District of Columbia v. Heller and New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen.

Under those decisions, the scope of the Second Amendment is determined not by judicial balancing of contemporary interests, but by reference to the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. The Article surveys that tradition and finds no …

The Wrongly Read Right: Insurrection And The Second Amendment Right To Bear Arms, Aman Mcleod, Jacob M. Jones

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Several judges and scholars have interpreted the Second Amendment as creating a right to bear arms to facilitate armed resistance against the government whenever it threatens to impose tyranny. These arguments have been made in books, scholarly articles, and court decisions. Many of the proponents of the pro-armed insurrection interpretation of the Second Amendment root this point of view in the history of the right to bear arms in the Anglo-American legal tradition. This Article argues that the Second Amendment does not create a right to bear arms to resist government authority because such a right is inconsistent with several …

Familial Fairness: Guaranteeing The Right To Counsel For Indigent Parents In Juvenile Dependency Proceedings, Jake Toth

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Fairness principles enumerated in the seminal case Gideon v. Wainwright stand for the proposition that fundamental fairness and due process require appointment of counsel for indigent litigants. However, this principle has been constrained to criminal contexts. Many other types of litigation are just as impactful as a criminal proceeding, including juvenile dependency proceedings. Nevertheless, indigent parents do not enjoy an unqualified representation right.

This Comment traces the history of the representation right and how it has been treated in a juvenile dependency context, beginning with Gideon itself and examining other cases such as Eldridge and Lassiter. It then examines …

Big Business As Gun Control, David B. Kopel, George A. Mocsary, Bhav Ninder Singh

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Gun control increasingly bypasses direct legislative enactments by co-opting the commercial marketplace. Financial institutions and insurers often face regulatory pressures, frequently articulated through vague notions of “reputational risk,” to terminate or restrict services for lawful firearms businesses and advocacy groups. The debanking tactic, seen in initiatives such as Operation Choke Point, can deny essential financial products to firearm owners, merchants, and organizations, curtailing the practical exercise of constitutionally protected rights. Simultaneously, government agencies sometimes pursue warrantless data collection from bank records and merchant category codes, building profiles of lawful purchasers and eroding privacy and due-process norms.

Social media platforms compound …

Dangerous And Unusual: How Heller’S Ahistorical Assumption Violates The Founders’ Original Intent, Oliver Krawczyk, Gilbert Ambler

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

When the U.S. Supreme Court ended its generational silence on the Second Amendment in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Court held that “a prohibition of an entire class of ‘arms’ that is overwhelmingly chosen by American society” is “invalid.” In so holding, the Court suggested that the Constitution protects only those weapons “in common use at the time,” a limitation thought to be “fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’” The Court defined none of these terms then, and it has not since.

Over a decade of constitutional infidelity ensued. …

Considering The Child’S Wishes—But How? Allowing Children To Speak In Their Custody Matters, Joshua Hanson

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In the United States, states universally may consider the child’s wishes when determining their custody placement. While their decision or preference is not binding for the judge, it allows the child meaningful participation in decisions that directly affect them. There are many ways courts can ensure a child’s voice is heard: through an interview with the judge, professional evaluations, child advocates, and even child-inclusive mediation. Yet state laws give judges broad discretion when determining how to weigh the child’s wishes.

This discretion will inevitably leave some children behind without having their voices heard. Allowing children meaningful participation in their custody …

Just To Be Safe, Let’S Keep Ignoring What “Arms” Meant In 1791, Jack Thorlin

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The Supreme Court held in District of Columbia v. Heller and reaffirmed in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen that “arms,” referred to in the Second Amendment, are common weapons useful for lawful purposes. The majority argued that militiamen fought with whatever common weapons they had on hand for civilian purposes, such as self-defense and hunting. Therefore, under Heller, only those weapons are covered by the Second Amendment. However, Heller did little to ground the “self-defense” theory of “arms” in original public meaning or even actual history. Commonality and lawful purpose have proved difficult for lower …

A State Supreme Court Justice’S Take On Delegation And Deference, Justice R. Patrick Dewine

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

There’s not a lot of talk about state administrative law. Never mind that much of the administrative law that happens in this country happens at the state level. Or that state regulation affects citizens and businesses in much the same way as federal regulation. As Chief Judge Sutton observes, “[o]ur obsession with federal law inclines us to notice changes in administrative law most of all through decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, the Hubble Telescope for assessing American law.”

Conservative Caution V. Progressive Originalism: How Justices Barrett And Jackson Are Paving Their Own Paths On The Court, David Rudenstine, Michael Waldman, Eric Freedman, Haiyun Damon-Feng, William D. Araiza, Mark Anthony Frassetto, Jake Meiseles, Michael Pollack, Linda Greenhouse, Earl M. Maltz

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The Conservative Caution v. Progressive Originalism symposium, hosted by the Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights and Social Justice on March 7, 2025, brings together leading constitutional scholars to examine the emerging judicial philosophies of Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Through three expert panels—presidential immunity, gun rights, and judicial ideology—the symposium analyzes how both Justices are shaping contemporary originalist discourse from opposing ends of the ideological spectrum. Panelists explore the Supreme Court’s watershed decision in Trump v. United States (2024), emphasizing its unprecedented expansion of presidential immunity and its implications for separation of powers and democratic accountability. Discussions …

Taking Revolution Seriously, Zohra Ahmed

Faculty Scholarship

Every so often, a prison strike will make national news, as it did in 2014, 2016, and 2018. ¹ The media will focus on the atrocious conditions of confinement; the unchecked violence; the wages numerated in pennies; and the state’s indifference to the strikers’ modest demands for food, medical care, and human contact.

Orisanmi Burton’s² book, Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt, urges us to process such reporting with a healthy dose of skepticism. What if prison rebellions were telling us something else, something even more important? What if they were …

The Problem Of Biased Precedents, Ronen Avraham, Issachar Rosen-Zvi

Cardozo Law Review

This Article addresses the problem ofbiased precedents, wherein sophisticated repeat players, often corporate and state entities armed with superior resources and a vested interest in shaping the law, manipulate legal proceedings to systematically establish self-advantageous precedents. Specifically, by strategically choosing to litigate cases they anticipate will lead to favorable precedents and settling those expected to produce unfavorable outcomes, these players systematically bias the law over time to their advantage, at the expense of one-shot parties and society at large. The problem of biased precedents challenges the commonly held view about the efficiency and fairness of the legal system and raises …

Calderbank Offer Sebagai Instrumen Untuk Meningkatkan Efisiensi Di Bani Arbitration Center, Lalu Adhim, Sinta Dewi, Mursal Maulana

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

This article explores the shifting landscape of international arbitration, traditionally valued for its efficiency. Today, increased costs and prolonged dispute resolution processes change this perception. The article introduces the Calderbank offer, a strategic instrument from common law that promotes early settlement. By integrating civil law’s adversarial approach and practice to settle with settlement offer in common law, this concept aligns with peace theory and could enhance efficiency in BANI Arbitration Center. This instrument allows arbitral tribunals to impose cost penalties on parties who reject settlement offers and subsequently fail to achieve a more favorable award. In this research, the authors …

The Regulatory Triad: Reimagining Environmental Law In The Post-Chevron Era, Shai Stern, Itay Biton

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Revving Up Or Stalling Out? Examining The Effectiveness Of Electric Vehicles In Combating Climate Change, Meghan E. Miller Termat

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.