I.
Ordinary people take countless measures to avoid being searched by police or other government agents. To get an inkling of how frequently the innocent alter their behavior, consider the responses of law-abiding people to recently enacted counterterrorism programs. When faced with delays and discomfort caused by more rigorous baggage… Read More »
A central point of contention in the debate over same-sex marriage is the importance of preserving tradition. The Article on which this post is based evaluates the role of tradition as a justification for laws challenged on equal protection grounds, focusing on laws that limit marriage to opposite-sex couples. The Article… Read More »
I. Introduction
President Clinton enacted “welfare reform” when he signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA), which abolished Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and created Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). PRWORA greatly scaled back the extent of federal welfare assistance and passed… Read More »
During the last presidential campaign, then-candidate Barack Obama pledged to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba and suggested that he would end the use of military commissions and rely exclusively on federal courts to prosecute suspected terrorists. Upon assuming office, he revised his approach and announced a bifurcated… Read More »
Recently, the Supreme Court has become more concerned with finding the appropriate rationale for its decisions than with its decisions’ substantive effects. In few areas of law is this untimely divorce of rationale and effect more evident than in the Supreme Court’s contemporary Confrontation Clause jurisprudence. Because the Court has… Read More »
Americans remain deeply divided over the question whether we have yet achieved a “post-racial” society in which race no longer matters in significant ways. How, if at all, this debate is resolved carries enormous implications for antidiscrimination law.
As just one example, characterizing contemporary America as successfully post-racial undermines the… Read More »
An Introduction to the Problem
Imagine you are a judge on one of the federal courts of appeals. You have before you a case that requires you to apply a thirty-year-old Supreme Court precedent, A v. B. Given your role as a lower-court judge, ordinarily you would simply apply A… Read More »
The criminal prosecution of immigration—principally for illegal entry and reentry, alien smuggling, and document fraud—has reached an all-time high. Not since Prohibition has a single category of crime been prosecuted in such record numbers by the federal government. Immigration, which now constitutes over half of the federal criminal workload, has… Read More »
The notion of the inviolate home and the paramount importance of constraining government search of the home are cherished tenets of constitutional law and scholarship. The doctrinal solicitude and judicial rhetoric surrounding the home reflect a belief that residential privacy rights are both psychologically and politically vital. This “housing exceptionalism”… Read More »
In debates over civil litigation, class actions have long garnered considerable attention. Controversy continues to rage over efforts to certify class actions in the face of objections from defendants. Debate also swirls over their use as a vehicle for settlement, with the defendant’s consent. All of this ferment suggests that… Read More »