Posts for June 22, 2015
These are the posts that are accumulated in our
newsletter which goes out every 4-6 days during the school year. The posts are
organized by the major units in our Con Law (5th ed.) student textbook.
I. Introduction to Law, the Constitution, and the Supreme Court [See TOPICS 1-10 in the 5th edition of Constitutional
Law] Here are some recent articles that are relevant to
this unit:
The Supreme Court and the Art of
Saving the Best Opinions For Last [WSJ, 6/22/15]: The Supreme Court sure knows how to put an
eager audience on edge.
The Bill of Rights as a Justification for Power [Gerard Magliocca, 6/22/15]: “A point that I’ve
developed in my new draft and that I’ll be discussing further in the next book
is that the Bill of Rights does more to expand the power of government that to
limit power.”
II. Defining the Political System: Federalism and Checks and
Balances [See
TOPICS 11-15 in the 5th edition of Constitutional Law]
Here are recent articles that are relevant to this unit:
Supreme Court strikes down federal raisin
program as unconstitutional [USA
Today, 6/22/15]: The Supreme Court sided with a renegade raisin farmer Monday
in his battle against a federal program designed to keep excess raisins off the
market. A majority of justices ruled that the Agriculture Department program,
which seizes excess raisins from producers in order to prop up market prices
during bumper crop years, amounted to an unconstitutional government
"taking."
The decision in Horne
v. Dept. of Agriculture is at:
California Unaffected By
Obamacare Supreme Court Case on Subsidies [KQED, 6/22/15]: While a Supreme Court decision to eliminate health care
subsidies would throw most states into turmoil, whatever the court decides,
there will be no direct impact on California.
III. The Political
System: Voting and Campaigns [See TOPICS 16-20 in the 5th edition of Constitutional
Law] Here are some recent articles that are relevant to this unit:
Clinton embraces 'first
mama' role in second White House run [AP,
6/21/15]: Eight years ago, Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived in New Hampshire as a
presidential candidate with something to prove.
Jeb Bush Lays Out
Post-Obamacare Plan for the GOP [Nat.
Journ., 6/22/15]: And he's raising an
uncomfortable fact for Republicans: Many of the features of the Affordable Care
Act come from a plan drafted by the conservative Heritage Foundation.
IV. Criminal Law and Procedure (4th,
5th, 6th, and 8th amendments) [See TOPICS 21-28 in the 5th edition of Constitutional Law] Here are some recent
articles that are relevant to this unit
Justices
block police searches of hotel registries [USA Today / Jurist, 6/22/15]: By a 5-4
vote, the justices invalidated a Los Angeles law that required hotel and motel
owners to keep lists of their guests, and to let the police inspect them on
demand.
The case decision in Los
Angeles v. Patel
is at:
The
Destruction of Defendants' Rights [New Yorker, 6/21/15]: The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death
Penalty Act of 1996 (A.E.D.P.A.) is surely one of the worst statutes ever
passed by Congress and signed into law by a President. The heart of the law is
a provision saying that, even when a state court misapplies the Constitution, a
defendant cannot necessarily have his day in federal court.
Supreme Court rules for inmate in pre-trial excessive
force case [Jurist, 6/22/15]: The plaintiff in the case brought an excessive force
claim against the government under the Fourteenth Amendment's due
process clause and 42 USC
§1983. The government had argued that the standard should be subjective:
whether an officer used more force than they believed was necessary, and cited
Eighth Amendment cruel and
unusual punishment precedence involving inmates already convicted of a crime.
The 5-4 decision in Kingsley
v. Hendrickson can be found at:
V. 1st Amendment (Speech, Religion, Press and
Assembly) [See TOPICS
29-33 in the 5th edition of Constitutional Law] Here are some recent articles that are relevant to
this unit:
VI. 14th Amendment, Discrimination, Privacy, Working,
Citizenship & Immigration [See
TOPICS 34-41 in the 5th edition of Constitutional Law] Here are some recent articles that are relevant to
this unit:
U.S. Supreme Court on brink of deciding gay
marriage question [SJ Merc /
Bloomberg, 6/21/15]: Two years ago, the
nation braced for the U.S. Supreme Court to decide if Kris Perry and Sandy
Stier, a Berkeley couple, would gain the right for gays and lesbians to legally
marry in California and, perhaps, everywhere. The high court indeed paved
the way for same-sex marriage in the Golden State, unraveling voter-approved
Proposition 8's ban on gay nuptials and sparking a wave of same-sex weddings
across California. But it did so through a convoluted legal avenue that left
broader questions unanswered.
International Law, Citizenship and Immigration [TOPIC 40-42]
UN Report: Growing number
of refugees due to increasing global conflict [Jurist, 6/21/15]: According to data collected by the
UNHCR in 2014 the number of refugees grew from roughly 51 million in 2013 to 60
million in 2014. The data suggests that 1 in every 122 persons is displaced
throughout the world.
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