Constitutional Law in 1917–1918. II: The Constitutional Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in the October Term, 1917

1919 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-250
Author(s):  
Thomas Reed Powell
Keyword(s):  
Due Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
Eminent Domain ◽  
Fourteenth Amendment ◽  
Turn On ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Due Process Of Law ◽  
Pennsylvania Hospital ◽  
Constitutional Decisions ◽  
Proper Interpretation

There is little or no homogeneity to the questions to be considered under the head of retroactive legislation. A dispute whether a state has passed a law impairing the obligation of contracts may turn on a question as to the proper interpretation or application of language, or on opposing views of what is sufficient consideration or what agreements are against public policy. It was under the obligation-of-contracts clause that the Pennsylvania Hospital case decided that the power of governmental authorities to exercise eminent domain could not be bargained away. The crucial question is more often whether alleged rights existed than whether undoubted rights have been impaired. The Fourteenth Amendment and the doctrine of vested rights combine to make the obligation-of-contracts clause almost superfluous, as it is difficult to think of any impairment of the obligation of contracts which that clause inhibits which could not equally well be held deprivations of liberty or property without due process of law.This is apparent from the fact that retroactive legislation by Congress is questioned under the due-process clause of the Fifth Amendment, a contract being regarded as a property right that can be interfered with only when there is sufficient justification for what is done.

Constitutional Law in 1918–1919. II: The Constitutional Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in the October Term, 1918

1920 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-73
Author(s):  
Thomas Reed Powell
Keyword(s):  
Due Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fourteenth Amendment ◽  
The State ◽  
Personal Property ◽  
Commerce Clause ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Constitutional Decisions ◽  
Extra State ◽  
Foreign Corporation

Several of the cases already considered under the commerce clause involved further questions under the Fourteenth Amendment. Georgia's misuse of the mileage ratio in applying the unit rule to the taxation of wandering cars was found so arbitrary as to violate the requirement of due process. The minority insisted that “the case presents no question of taxing a foreign corporation with respect to personal property that never has come within the borders of the state.” This was not specifically denied by the majority who seem to base their decision on excessive valuation of property within the jurisdiction rather than on taxation of property outside the jurisdiction. Yet in substance the case is one of taxing extra-state values though not extra-state tangible objects.Missouri's excessive fee for certificates authorizing the issue of bonds secured by railroad property within the state, which was held an unconstitutional regulation of interstate commerce, was alleged by complainant to be a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment as well. The opinion of the court did not pass on the due-process question, but the cases cited under the commerce clause relied also on the Fourteenth Amendment.

Legal Aid for Children: Some Reflections

1979 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 29-32
Author(s):  
Brian Lucas
Keyword(s):  
United States Of America ◽  
Due Process ◽  
Juvenile Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fourteenth Amendment ◽  
Court System ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Legal Aid ◽  
Legal Representation ◽  
The Supreme Court

In its Second Main Report, Law and Poverty in Australia, the Commission of Inquiry into Poverty expressed the view that “legal representation for children appearing before the children's court, whether in the criminal or protective jurisdiction, is necessary if justice is to be done.”This view coincides with the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States of America in In re Gault. It has been said that this decision “unleashed a frontal assault on the juvenile court system.” It confirmed that juveniles were entitled to “due process” and the same protection which the Fourteenth Amendment and the Bill of Rights afforded to adults.

Court Decisions and Crime

1969 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 449-458
Author(s):  
William J. Brennan
Keyword(s):  
Due Process ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
Fourteenth Amendment ◽  
Common Interest ◽  
Court Decisions ◽  
Free Society ◽  
Federal Constitution ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Due Process Of Law ◽  
The Common

In the perennial debate on whether court decisions have helped heighten the crime problem, it is essential to reiterate that criminals are not freed on "technicalaties." Not only do these cases usually result in new trials, rather than release of the defendant, but the reversals enforce constitutional guarantees that protect the common interest against oppression. Fifty-five years ago the Supreme Court ruled that evidence obtained through a violation of the Fourth Amendment could not be introduced in a federal court. When the same rule was applied to the states eight years ago, it was hardly an innovation. Rather, it represented a lag in applying the Fourteenth Amendment, which, requiring the states to apply due process of law as called for in the federal constitution, had been adopted in 1868. The evolving decisions are part of a lengthy re-examination de manded by the fact that government has become more powerful and more pervasive than in the days of our ancestors. The de cisions are essential to the preservation of the constitutional structure of government in a free society.

Constitutional Law in 1909-1910: The Constitutional Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in the October Term, 1909

1910 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 483-497
Author(s):  
Eugene Wambaugh
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Due Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Fourteenth Amendment ◽  
Successful Attempt ◽  
Commerce Clause ◽  
State Statutes ◽  
The Supreme Court

It is indeed a substantial grist that the Supreme Court of the United States at the last term of court has ground for students of political science. The first opinion was delivered on November 1, 1909, and the last on May 31, 1910, and the court decided no less than sixty-five constitutional cases. Notice that with caution it is merely said that the court decided no less than that number; for it is often somewhat a matter of opinion whether a case should be classed as constitutional, and it may well be that there are readers who will find that the court exceeded sixty-five. And how were those sixty-five divided? Many turned on more constitutional points than one, and thus an enumeration of the cases bearing on the several clauses of the Constitution will reveal a total exceeding sixty-five. The enumeration, subject to amendment in accordance with each student's views, gives the following results: The Fourteenth Amendment, twenty-four cases; the Commerce Clause, twenty-one; the Obligation of Contracts Clause, eight; whether cases arise “under the laws of the United States,” eight; Full Faith and Credit Clause, five; and sixteen other clauses, from one to four cases each, aggregating twenty-seven.Through these dull figures some important facts shine distinctly. The Fourteenth Amendment and the Commerce Clause clearly took a vast part of the court's energy, and each of these provisions has to do with the curtailment of functions which prima facie belong to the several states. In other words, the chief feature of this term, as of every recent term, has been a more or less successful attempt of litigants to overthrow state statutes as denials of due process and equal protection or as interferences with interstate commerce.

How Trains Became People: Southern Pacific Railroad Co.’s Networked Rhetorical Culture and the Dawn of Corporate Personhood

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-213
Author(s):  
Nicholas S. Paliewicz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Human Subject ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fourteenth Amendment ◽  
Corporate Personhood ◽  
Legal Discourses ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Pacific Railroad ◽  
Southern Pacific Railroad

This essay analyzes how a rhetorical culture emerged in which the Supreme Court of the United States assumed corporations were constitutional persons under the Fourteenth Amendment. Approaching rhetorical culture from a networked standpoint, I argue that corporate personhood emerged from Southern Pacific Railroad Co.’s networks and alliances with environmental preservationists, politicians, publics, lawyers, judges, and immigrants in the late 19th century. Contributing to literatures on rhetorical culture and agency, this study shows how Southern Pacific Railroad Co., through networks of influence and force, was a rhetorical subject that shaped a networked rhetorical culture that expanded the boundaries of the Fourteenth Amendment even though the Supreme Court of the United States had not worked out the philosophical underpinnings of corporate personhood. Corporate personhood remains theoretically restrained by legal discourses that reduce subjectivity to a singular, speaking, human subject.

22. A Revolution by Due Process of Law?

2021 ◽  
pp. 613-648
Author(s):  
Ian Loveland
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Due Process ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Court Decisions ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Legal Basis ◽  
High Court ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Due Process Of Law

This chapter analyses the conduct and constitutional implications of the United Kingdom’s proposed withdrawal from the European Union. The chapter begins by examining the legal basis, conduct, and result of the withdrawal referendum. The chapter then assesses the High Court and Supreme Court decisions in the first of the two Miller judgments. It continues with a discussion on the extreme positions of ‘hard brexit’ and ‘soft brexit’ and the assesses the significance of the results of the unexpected 2017 general election. The chapter goes on to examine the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 and the subsequent fall of the May government and its replacement by an administration led by Boris Johnson. In the final part of the chapter the Miller (No 2) and Cherry litigation and its political aftermath are discussed in full, with a particular focus laid on the controversial way in which the Supreme Court deployed the notion of ‘justiciability’ in its judgment in Miller (No 2).

Plessy’s Long Shadow

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derrick Bell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Due Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fourteenth Amendment ◽  
Equal Protection ◽  
Political Equality ◽  
Race Riots ◽  
Black And White ◽  
The Law

The supreme court’s 1896 Decision in Plessy v. Ferguson served to bring the law into a dismal harmony with the nation’s view of race in life. The Court decided that segregation in public facilities through “separate but equal” accommodations for black citizens would satisfy the equal protection clause in the Fourteenth Amendment. The years since the sporadically enforced policies of Reconstruction ended in 1876 had been hard for those former slaves and their offspring whose slavery had legally ended with the passage of the Thir­teenth Amendment in 1865. To ensure their rights to due process and the equal protection of the law, the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 provided that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, . . . are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Despite legislation intended to provide enforcement of these rights, the laws were poorly enforced and most were subsequently declared unconstitutional. Corrupting law but relying on intimidation and violence, southern governments stripped blacks of political power. Given meaningful if unspoken assurances that the federal government would not protect black civil rights, conservative southerners regained power utilizing racial fear and hatred to break up competing populist groups of poor black and white farmers. In addition to the disenfranchisement of blacks, whites sought to secure their power through intensive anti-Negro propaganda campaigns championing white supremacy. Literary and scientific leaders published tracts and books intended to “prove” the inhumanity of the Negro. In this hostile climate, segregation laws that had made a brief appearance during Reconstruction were revived across the South, accompanied by waves of violence punctuated by an increase in lynchings and race riots. In an effort both to protest the indignity of segregation and challenge its validity, Homer Plessy, acting for a New Orleans civil rights group, attempted to ride in a railroad car reserved for whites. He was arrested and convicted of violating Louisiana’s 1890 segregation law. On appeal, the Supreme Court acknowledged that the Fourteenth Amendment required absolute equality of the two races before the law, adding: “but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either.”

6 Extraterritorial Application of U.S. Law

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bradley Curtis A
Keyword(s):  
Due Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
Criminal Prosecution ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Habeas Corpus ◽  
State Laws ◽  
Guantanamo Bay ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Right

This chapter considers the application of federal and state law to conduct that takes place outside the territory of the United States. It begins by discussing the territorial scope of U.S. constitutional rights. Special consideration is given to the extraterritorial application of the right of habeas corpus in light of the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in Boumediene v. Bush, concerning the habeas corpus rights of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba. The chapter then discusses the “presumption against extraterritoriality” that the Supreme Court applies when interpreting federal statutes. For situations in which the presumption is overcome or is inapplicable, the chapter explains how customary international law principles relating to prescriptive jurisdiction can be relevant in U.S. litigation through application of the Charming Betsy canon of construction. In addition, the chapter discusses the role of “universal jurisdiction” in U.S. litigation and criminal prosecution. Possible constitutional limitations on the extraterritorial application of both federal statutes and state laws, based on due process and other considerations, are also considered.

Need for a more Democratic Procedure of Amending the Constitution

1916 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 683-688
Author(s):  
Seba Eldridge
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Due Process ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
Fourteenth Amendment ◽  
Political Discussion ◽  
Legislative Authority ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
History Of ◽  
Electoral Control ◽  
Democratic Procedure

That final legislative authority in this country is lodged in the letter of a constitution that is amended with the greatest difficulty, and with a supreme court which is entirely independent of electoral control has become a commonplace of political discussion.To quote Professor Goodnow: “Acts of congress and of state legislatures are declared to be unconstitutional ‥‥ because they cannot be made to conform to a conception of the organization and powers of government which we have inherited from the eighteenth century;” and Dr. Blaine F. Moore: “If we may judge from the decisions based on the due process clause in the fourteenth amendment and applying to the States, the court has it in its power to make the similar clause in the fifth amendment cover practically all federal legislation dealing with new problems concerning which there are few or no precedents. If the court does make this entirely possible extension of its power, then the legislation dealing with the more recent and pressing questions is under the control of the popularly inaccessible justices of the supreme court.”Both these quotations are from studies published before the adoption of the sixteenth and seventeenth amendments, but they are only a little less true now than then, as an analysis of the history of those amendments will show.

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