Bickel's Constitution: The Problem of Moderate Liberalism

1978 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
pp. 925-940 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert K. Faulkner

Alexander Bickel's three most comprehensive books explore a common constitutional-political theme, the manner in which sound political judgment should guide judges and scholars who authoritatively interpret the United States Constitution. Yet the works differ, and the differences illuminate a dual development of Bickel's understanding: a growing fear of the contemporary obstacles to politic constitutional judgment, and a growing thoughtfulness in coming to grips with these obstacles. The Least Dangerous Branch had invented politic techniques for applying the judiciary's principles. The Supreme Court and the Idea of Progress cautioned against judicial application, by novel techniques, of an impolitic egalitarian faith. The Morality of Consent, upon which this paper concentrates, elaborates Bickel's turn from the techniques of judicial power to the wise direction of judicial power. The paper considers the direction that Bickel proposes.

1989 ◽  
Vol 83 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-90
Author(s):  
Rose Cecile Chan

Plaintiffs, Sperry Corp. and Sperry World Trade Inc. (Sperry), received an award from the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal (Tribunal). Upon payment of the award, the United States deducted 2 percent of the total amount pursuant to a directive license issued by the Secretary of the Treasury regarding recovered claims by U.S. nationals against Iran. When plaintiffs challenged the authority of the Treasury to make the deduction and the United States Claims Court announced a preliminary ruling that concurred with plaintiffs’ position, the Executive persuaded Congress to approve legislation authorizing specified percentages to be deducted by the United States from Tribunal awards to U.S. citizens. Responding to the plaintiffs’ challenge to the constitutionality of the newly enacted statute, the United States Claims Court dismissed the suit and, on appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (per Meyer, J.) reversed and held: that the deduction constitutes a taking without compensation in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In September 1988, the United States filed notice of appeal with the Supreme Court.


2002 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 218-242
Author(s):  
Mark Berger

The Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution provides that no person may be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself. The Boyd decision in 1886 recognised an intimate relation between the privilege against self-incrimination and the restrictions on search and seizure in the Fourth Amendment and created a virtually impenetrable barrier to government demands that a suspect or defendant be compelled to produce evidence against himself. However, since that time the Supreme Court has progressively restricted the scope of Fifth Amendment protection in relation to the compelled production of evidence. This has been achieved by requiring all citizens to appear before grand juries; by denying Fifth Amendment protection to entities; by holding that the compelled production of evidence does not breach the Fifth Amendment unless the very act of production is self-incriminatory; and by denying the privilege in relation to required records. The Supreme Court's stance reflects a recognition of the complexity of contemporary law enforcement problems and may be seen as an attempt to balance the state's interest in the successful prosecution of crime against the citizen's interest in being free from state intrusion. The effect of the Supreme Court's reforms has been to broaden government authority to compel offenders to assist in their own prosecutions whilst limiting Fifth Amendment protection to incrimination through the accused's own testimony or its equivalent.


1911 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 302-324
Author(s):  
James Brown Scott

On February 15, 1911, the Senate of the United States advised and consented to the ratification of the International Prize Court Convention adopted by the Second Hague Peace Conference and signed by the American delegates October 18, 1907. Although transmitted to the Senate with the various Hague conventions on February 27, 1908, and favorably recommended by the President and Secretary of State, action upon the convention was deferred by the Committee on Foreign Relations because the convention in its original form involved an appeal from the Supreme Court of the United States to the international court at The Hague. This feature of the otherwise acceptable convention raised doubts as to its constitutionality, because Article 3, section 1, of the Constitution provides that “ the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court.” An appeal from the Supreme Court to the court at The Hague seemed to some inconsistent with this provision, for a court can not be considered supreme if an appeal lies from its decisions. To this it may be answered that the court to be established at The Hague is not a court of the United States, and, therefore, is not contemplated by the Constitution; for the Hague court is a diplomatic tribunal for the settlement of questions which would otherwise be adjusted by diplomacy, or referred to a mixed commission specially constituted for their determination, or which if not determined by either of these methods, might result in war.


Author(s):  
Maryam Ahranjani

The very first amendment to the United States Constitution protects the freedom of speech. While the Supreme Court held in 1969 that students “do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate,” since then the Court has limited students' freedom of speech, stopping short of considering the boundaries of off-campus, online speech. Lower court holdings vary, meaning that a student engaging in certain online speech may not be punished at all in one state but would face harsh criminal punishments in another. The lack of a uniform standard leads to dangerously inconsistent punishments and poses the ultimate threat to constitutional knowledge and citizenship exercise: chilling of speech. Recent interest in technology-related cases and the presence of a new justice may reverse the Court's prior unwillingness to address this issue. In the meantime, this chapter argues that school districts should erect a virtual schoolhouse gate by implementing a uniform standard.


Author(s):  
Randy E. Barnett

This chapter applies the concepts of interpretation and construction to the contentious issue of judicial review and examines the originalist evidence that overwhelmingly supports the judicial power to nullify unconstitutional laws. According to Article III of the Constitution: “The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such Courts as Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” The Constitution does not say explicitly that the “Supreme Court, and such inferior courts as may be established by Congress, shall have power to nullify a Law enacted by Congress and signed by the President if the Law is unconstitutional.” The absence of a clearly expressed grant of power has moved some critics of judicial review to question its legitimacy. The chapter also considers the concepts of judicial nullification and judicial supremacy as they relate to judicial review.


Numen ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 184-212
Author(s):  
Winnifred Fallers Sullivan

AbstractThe meaning and application of the religion clauses of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution are currently a matter of intense and increasingly intractable public debate. The academic study of religion can make a positive contribution to this debate by inviting its participants into a conversation about human religion that is already struggling with problems of definition and of language and that wishes to affirm the existence and importance of human religion without establishing a particular definition of religion, without unconsciously theologizing. A close examination of the legal debate can, in turn, serve the purposes of scholars of religion. The politically charged context of First Amendment jurisprudence provides an interesting laboratory in which to test theories of religion.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 106-141
Author(s):  
Becky Harris

On Monday, May 14, 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States struck a fatal blow to the federal Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) when it determined PASPA violated the Tenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Prior to the PASPA repeal, Nevada had been the only state in the United States (US) authorized to offer a full complement of legal sports betting options. Because, Nevada’s race books and sports pools have had the ability to offer wagers on sports since 1947, those legal sports betting operations were “grandfathered” into PASPA when it was passed by Congress in 1992. Having anticipated repeal as a possible outcome, four states passed laws making sports betting legal in case the Supreme Court ruled in New Jersey’s favor, and one state pre-emptively legalized sports betting through a ballot measure. With barriers removed by the PASPA repeal, state gambling regulators were able to grant licenses and adopt regulations. State legislatures were also able legalize sports wagering during their upcoming legislative sessions. And they did!


1988 ◽  
Vol 43 (12) ◽  
pp. 1019-1028 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald N. Bersoff ◽  
Laurel P. Malson ◽  
Donald B. Verrilli

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