UHLC Nota Bene

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.…” In doing so, it guarantees what Louis Brandeis called “the right to be let alone—the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.” Today, when so much of our time is spent online or on our cell phones, this right is as important as ever. New technologies raise new questions about the proper application of the Fourth Amendment, and our courts sometimes struggle to keep up with the dizzying pace of innovation.  If you’re looking for a user-friendly reference guide to keep you up to speed on Fourth Amendment law, The Fourth Amendment Handbook is for you. Now in its fourth edition, this ABA publication begins with an introductory essay outlining the history of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, followed by a survey of all Supreme Court Fourth Amendment cases through Jan...

A new volume in the Law Stories series has arrived in the O’Quinn Law Library, making a timely contribution to an especially newsworthy legal topic: reproductive rights and justice. Reproductive Rights and Justice Stories , edited by Melissa Murray, Katherine Shaw, and Reva B. Siegel brings together important cases involving the state regulation of sex, childbearing, and parenting. The twelve cases featured in the book, some famous and others unknown, range in topic from contraception and abortion to pregnancy and parenthood. The field of reproductive rights and justice is relatively new, but the book’s framework highlights the “intersecting relations of race, class, sexuality, and sex that shape the regulation of reproduction.” Reproductive Rights and Justice Stories demonstrates a different approach to the Law Stories series, concentrating not just on individual litigants and their attorneys, but the various social institutions that play a role in how laws change and unfold. B...

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” We the People: A Progressive Reading of the Constitution for the Twenty-First Century opens with this popular quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Chemerinsky’s plea to “develop and defend and fight for a progressive vision” of the Constitution. Chemerinsky describes the conservative vision of the Constitution as: ·       strongly pro-law enforcement, favoring the government and police over the constitutional rights of criminal defendants ·       powerfully pro-business, favoring the interests of corporations over those of employees and consumers ·       a vision regarding race discrimination as a thing of the past and opposing race-conscious actions to remedy the legacy of discrimination and achieve diversity ·       a vision rejecting the notion of separation of church and state ·       a vision strong...

As a professor at New York Law School and a former president of the ACLU, Nadine Strossen has spent much of her career writing and speaking about constitutional law and civil liberties. Her latest book, HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship , draws on her decades of experience with these issues to present a thoroughly researched and strongly argued case against hate speech laws. As Strossen points out in her introduction, much of the controversy over the regulation of “hate speech” is rooted in the lack of a clear definition of the term, along with widespread confusion about what kinds of speech are protected by the First Amendment and what kinds of speech are punishable. She therefore begins by laying out two of the core constitutional principles at issue: viewpoint neutrality and the emergency test. Viewpoint neutrality is defined as the principle that government may not regulate speech “solely because the speech’s message, idea, or viewpoint is disfavore...

Jesse H. Rhodes' Ballot Blocked: The Political Erosion of the Voting Rights Act gives readers a behind-the-scenes view of the history and future of the Voting Rights Act. The 1965 Act was signed into law by President Johnson, following the calls of activists in the Civil Rights movement. The legislation came in the wake of civil rights demonstrations from Selma to Montgomery, aimed at calling attention  to the desire of  African-American  citizens to exercise their constitutional right to vote. The Voting Rights Act ( PL. 89-110 ) soon became a landmark federal achievement of the civil rights movement. The Act contains both general and special provisions. For general application,  Section 2 prohibits any jurisdiction from implementing a "voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure ... in a manner which results in a denial or abridgment of the right ... to vote on account of race," color, or language, or minori...

Some Supreme Court justices stand taller in our memories than others, due to both their influential (or incendiary) opinions, and the public role they take on as Supreme Court justice. Antonin Scalia, one of the most well-known Justices in modern memory, died suddenly on February 13, 2016, leaving a long and controversial legacy. The first Supreme Court vacancy overseen by the Trump administration led to the nomination, and later, confirmation of Neil McGill Gorsuch of Colorado, then 49 years old. Far from a household name, much remains unknown about Gorsuch and the justice he will become. In Gorsuch , a new biography by journalist John Greenya, readers learn more about our newest justice, if not his jurisprudence. A relatively slim volume, at about 200 pages, Greenya’s book explores Gorsuch’s early years, career progression, and confirmation process. The reader learns about his formative experiences growing up in Colorado, and his experience as the son of a former EPA-head (Anne...

President Trump recently nominated Judge Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court to fill the vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. For those interested in learning more about the appointment process, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) has published a new report, Supreme Court Appointment Process: President’s Selection of a Nominee . It includes information on the criteria for selecting a nominee, the advice and consent role of the Senate, the political aspects of the process, and the use of recess appointments to temporarily bypass Senate confirmation. For a more detailed account of the Senate’s role, the following CRS reports may also be of interest: Supreme Court Appointment Process: Consideration by the Senate Judiciary Committee Supreme Court Appointment Process: Senate Debate and Confirmation Vote For more information on finding CRS reports online, see our blog post on the subject.

The Presidents and the Constitution: A Living History , Ken Gormley, ed. (2016), KF 5053 .P75 2016 Article II of the Constitution, at little over 1000 words, is the provision in which most of the power of the American presidency is housed.  Those words grant the office of the President great power, but its limits and relationship to the judicial and legislative branches is not well defined. In the new book  The Presidents and the Constitution: A Living History , Ken Gormely tells the story of America’s forty-four presidents and how each one interfaced with the Constitution.  With a chapter devoted to each presidency, it is a collection of essays focused on the major constitutional issues each president faced. The collection gives each President a compact biography, followed by a discussion of the major issues that President faced relating to the extent of executive power, influence on the judiciary, and the President’s role in foreign affairs. The tightly edited ...

Many of our readers are probably wondering how the death of Justice Antonin Scalia will affect the Supreme Court, and what to expect of the political battle already being waged over the nomination of his successor. A new “legal sidebar” report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) provides a brief summary of these issues. Here are a few takeaways: With the loss of Justice Scalia, the Court loses perhaps its greatest champion of constitutional “originalism,” the theory that the Constitution should be interpreted according to the understanding of those who ratified the document in the 18th century.   Justice Scalia’s absence could mean a four-to-four split in a number of cases involving high-profile issues such as abortion, immigration, and affirmative action. In the event of an even split, the Court can either affirm the lower court’s judgment (such a decision creates no binding national precedent), or schedule the case to be reargued after the vacancy is filled. A...

Today is Constitution Day, the day we commemorate the signing of the  United States Constitution  in 1787. Since 2004, September 17 has also been the celebration of Citizenship Day, which  “recognize[s] all who, by coming of age or by naturalization, have become citizens.” In fact, when Senator Robert Bryd shepherded the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2005 ( Pub. L. No. 108-447 ) into law, he added additional requirements to encourage citizens to learn more about their Constitution. Now the head of every federal agency must provide each employee with educational and training materials concerning the Constitution on September 17  and  any educational institution which receives Federal funds shall hold a program on the U.S. Constitution for students on this day. Beyond reading the Constitution, you may wish to celebrate more thoroughly by studying the   Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation .  This w...

Pursuant to legislation passed during the 83rd Texas Legislative Session, the Texas Indigent Defense Commission (TIDC) was instructed to “conduct and publish a study for the purpose of determining guidelines for establishing a maximum allowable caseload for a criminal defense attorney that…allows the attorney to give each indigent defendant the time and effort necessary to ensure effective representation.” The TIDC conducted a weighted caseload study that sought to answer two key questions:      1.  How much time "is" currently being spent on the defense of court-appointed criminal cases?      2. How much time "should" be spent to achieve reasonably effective representation? The caseload study resulted in a lengthy report, recently made available here . Three types of studies were used in order to answer these questions. First, a Timekeeping Study tracked the time spent on criminal cases by 196 private and public defense attorn...

What comes to mind when you think of Halloween? Ghosts? Goblins? First Amendment jurisprudence? If that last one sounds like a non sequitur, then you’ve probably never heard of Guyer v. School Board of Alachua County .* The case originated in Alachua County, Florida, where public elementary schools had put up decorations depicting witches, cauldrons, and brooms, and teachers had dressed up in costumes—some of them as witches in black dresses and pointy hats—in celebration of Halloween. A parent named Robert Guyer sued to enjoin the schools from using these decorations and costumes in future celebrations. In his supporting affidavit, Guyer argued that witches, cauldrons, and brooms were significant to followers of the Wiccan religion, and that the schools’ use of these symbols therefore violated the establishment clauses of the Florida and U.S. constitutions.† The Circuit Court granted summary judgment in favor of the school board, and Guyer appealed to the First District Court of ...

Cambridge University Press has recently published, The Power of Habeas Corpus in America: From the King's Prerogative to the War on Terror by Anthony Gregory ( KF9011.G74 2013 ). This book provides an historical overview of Habeas Corpus discussing its common law roots in England as well its history in the United States especially during the civil war, World War I and the war on terror. The law library has recently acquired this book and  has access to the following titles on this subject: The Body and the State: Habeas Corpus and American Jurisprudence , 2006 by Cary Federman ( KF9011.F43 2006, Law/Stacks ) Federal Habeas Corpus Practice and Procedure , 2011 by Randa Hertz and James S. Liebman ( KF9011.L54 2011, Law/Stacks )(available on Lexis/Lexis Advance)  Federal Habeas Manual (available on WestlawNext) Habeas Corpus after 9/11: Confronting America's New Global Detention by Jonathan Hafetz ( KF9011.H34 2011 , Law/Stacks ) Habeas Corpus: A Legal Research Guid...

Ever wonder which countries have constitutional provisions protecting freedom of expression?  Or if the United States is unique in providing a constitutional right to bear arms?  A new resource from the Comparative Constitutions Project can help you answer these questions and more!  Their recently launched Constitute Project contains information about over 175 constitutions from around the world.  You can choose to read a particular country’s constitution, search the full-text of the documents, or browse constitutional provisions by topic.  If you browse by topic, you can select from over 300 different options and see a list of countries with provisions on that subject, along with the text from the constitutions.  Broad topic areas include Amendment, Culture and Identity, Elections, Executive, Federalism, International Law, Judiciary, Legislature, Principles and Symbols, Regulation and Oversight, and Rights and Duties.     If you are ...

September 22-28 is the 31 st annual banned book week, an awareness campaign that celebrates the freedom to read in America. Though individual books in American are not banned by specific laws,   they are none the less often restricted by other entities. Many of the cases regarding these “banned” books center on a school library restricting access to the material in some way. Historically, in cases where a book is removed or restricted from a school library due to the graphic nature of the content or language, courts have usually sided with the judgment of the school board ( see, e.g. Presidents Council, Dist. 25 v. Cmty. Sch. Bd. No. 25, 457 F.2d 289 (2d Cir. 1972)). Yet, when book removals appear from the facts to be motivated by political or religious censorship, courts have typically ruled that this violates the challenging student’s First Amendment rights ( see, e.g. . Minarcini v. Strongsville City Sch. Dist., 541 F.2d 577 (6th Cir. 1976)).  The United States S...

When I was in law school, one of the cases I hated the most was Schmerber v. California, 384 U. S. 757 (1966) . I hated Schmerber for many reasons, but primarily because of its (in my opinion) conflated analysis of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments and its unabashedly obvious, pro-law enforcement bias resulting in a flawed Fourth Amendment analysis. At that time, I thought the Court was wrong, and I still do. It's been over 20 years since the US Supreme Court last gave more than a simple citation or two to Schmerber , and now, the Court gives us two decisions that implicate Schmerber in one term! And it's interesting (or at least I find it interesting) the differing ways the Court dealt with Schmerber in those two cases. Much like the view of the arresting officer (and the dissenting aspects of the Chief Justice's opinion) in the first of these two cases, Missouri v. McNeely, 133 S. Ct. 1552 (2013) , my understanding of Schmerber from law school was that, in instances of...

One of my favorite websites lately (and I hate to admit that I only discovered it several months ago) is the National Constitution Center 's blog, Constitution Daily . The NCC's website has a lot of great, helpful, and fascinating information, but the blog is what usually grabs my attention. The writers of the blog tackle constitutional issues, but they focus on the issues making news at the time, tackling everything from the use of drones to same-sex marriage, from the tension between a free press and a government's claim of national security to the proper place in our system for bureaucratic agencies. If you see or hear a news story about some aspect of how our government works (or should work), chances are that a blog entry explaining some of the nuances or identifying unanswered questions regarding that topic is in the works. For example, since the US Supreme Court's controversial decision in Maryland v. King (upholding the warrantless collection and testing of a...

The Justice who once said, I do not think the Supreme Court lives in a vacuum. It reads the newspapers. I suppose it is influenced by the reaction of a society to its decisions; at least I hope it is. I think it should be. Is . . . 5. Antonin Scalia!! ( See Nomination of Judge Antonin Scalia: Hearings Before the S. Comm. on the Judiciary , 99th Cong., S. Hrg. 99-1064, at 34 (1986).) [Make of it what you will.]

In this week's episode, a look back at a comment on the desirability of the Supreme Court's responsiveness to public reaction to its decisions. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to this week's exciting installment of "Which Justice Said That?". And, without further ado, let's get right to this week's quote: During the hearings on his nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States of America, this nominee declared, I do not think the Supreme Court lives in a vacuum. It reads the newspapers. I suppose it is influenced by the reaction of a society to its decisions; at least I hope it is. I think it should be. Now: Which . . . Justice . . . Said That?! Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr. Stephen G. Breyer Anthony M. Kennedy John G. Roberts, Jr. Antonin Scalia Clarence Thomas Feel free to put your guess in the Comments section below. Come back tomorrow for the exciting conclusion to this episode of "Which Justice Said That?" !!

On this day, in 1972, the Equal Rights Amendment was approved by Congress and sent to the states for ratification. The National Constitution Center has a very interesting blog post that talks about this proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as well as three other proposed amendments that came (relatively) close to being ratified: The Titles of Nobility Amendment : Sometimes referred to as " the missing 13th Amendment ", this proposed amendment, originally approved by Congress in 1810 and technically still open for ratification ( ala the 27th Amendment), came the closest of any to being ratified without succeeding, at one point needing just one more state for ratification! The Child Labor Amendment : This proposed amendment, approved by Congress in 1924, would have explicitly given Congress the "power to limit, regulate, and prohibit the labor of persons under eighteen years of age." The amendment was proposed in response to U.S. Supreme Court decisions ...