Federal Courts: State Laws as Rules of Decision in Federal Courts

1924 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 425
Author(s):  
J. C. J.
Keyword(s):  
Federal Courts ◽  
State Laws

Stemming the Tide: Assisted Suicide and the Constitution

1995 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 389-397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl H. Coleman ◽  
Tracy E. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
State Level ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
The State ◽  
Equal Protection ◽  
State Court ◽  
State Laws ◽  
Equal Protection Clause ◽  
The Right

On November 8, 1994, Oregon became the first state in the nation to legalize assisted suicide. Passage of Proposition 16 was a milestone in the campaign to make assisted suicide a legal option. The culmination of years of effort, the Oregon vote followed on the heels of failed referenda in California and Washington, and other unsuccessful attempts to enact state laws guaranteeing the right to suicide assistance. Indeed, in 1993, four states passed laws strengthening or clarifying their ban against assisted suicide. No doubt, Proposition 16 is likely to renew the effort to legalize assisted suicide at the state level.The battle over assisted suicide is also unfolding in the courts. Litigation challenging Proposition 16 on the grounds that it violates the equal protection clause is ongoing in Oregon. More significantly, three cases, two in federal courts and one in Michigan state court, have been brought to establish assisted suicide as a constitutionally protected right.

The United States: Creation, Reconstruction, the Progressives, and the Modern Era

2021 ◽  
pp. 97-182
Author(s):  
Steven Gow Calabresi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
American People ◽  
State Governments ◽  
State Laws

This chapter focuses on the origins and growth of judicial review of the constitutionality of federal and state legislation in the United States. American judicial review emerged from the vertical federalism umpiring of the King-in-Council, which reined in errant colonies; and from the open political space created by bicameralism, the separation of powers, and federalism, which gave the federal courts the political leeway to engage in judicial review of the constitutionality of federal and state laws. American judicial review took its present form of allowing horizontal separation of powers and enumerated powers vertical judicial review during the critical years between 1776 and 1803 when the faith of the American people shifted away from state legislatures and state governments and toward stronger executives and courts and a much stronger national government. This theory is set forth correctly by Professor Gordon S. Wood in both articles he has shared with me and in conversation. The addition of the three Reconstruction Amendments, and the enormous statutory expansions of federal court jurisdiction and of the number of lower federal court judges after the Civil War, occurred for rights from wrongs reasons. They led, after the incorporation of the Bill of Rights against the states between 1940 and 1970, to a situation where the Supreme Court now reins in errant state legislatures in much the same way the King-in-Council used to rein in errant colonial legislatures.

Judicial Review of State Laws: The Meaning of the Privileges or Immunities Clause

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randy E. Barnett
Keyword(s):  
Judicial Review ◽  
Due Process ◽  
Supreme Court Decision ◽  
Fourteenth Amendment ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Early Years ◽  
State Laws ◽  
Original Meaning ◽  
Due Process Of Law ◽  
The Republic

This chapter examines the original meaning of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in order to determine what stance federal courts should take toward state laws. The original Constitution contained several explicit restrictions on state power. In the early years of the Republic, federal courts actively scrutinized state enactments to ensure they did not violate these expressed prohibitions, especially the Contracts Clause. When it came to legislation not implicating these prohibitions, however, the courts deferred to states in their exercise of their police power. The chapter first considers what the term “privileges or immunities” encompasses before discussing the Supreme Court decision in the so-called Slaughter-House Cases, which set aside the original meaning of the Privileges or Immunities Clause. It then looks at the Due Process Clauses and shows that the due process of law includes judicial review.

scholarly journals Affirmative Power to Strip State Courts of Jurisdiction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael C. Dorf
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Essential Role ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
State Courts ◽  
State Laws ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Constitutional System

The very substantial literature on the scope of congressional power to strip courts of jurisdiction contains a gap: it does not discuss the source of the affirmative power of Congress to strip state courts of their jurisdiction. Laws granting exclusive federal court jurisdiction over some category of cases are necessary and proper to the exercise of the power to ordain and establish lower federal courts, but what power does Congress exercise when it strips both state and federal courts of jurisdiction? The answer depends on the nature of the case. In stripping all courts of the power to hear federal statutory claims and challenges to federal statutes, Congress exercises whatever affirmative power authorizes the substantive statute. However, Congress lacks affirmative power to strip all courts of the power to hear constitutional challenges to state laws. That conclusion is important in its own right but also complements views—such as Henry Hart’s contention that the Supreme Court must have such jurisdiction as necessary to play its “essential role” in our constitutional system—about the scope and limits of congressional power under the Exceptions Clause of Article III. The limit on affirmative congressional power to strip state courts of jurisdiction to hear constitutional challenges to state laws ensures that there will be cases over which the Supreme Court can exercise its appellate jurisdiction in order to play its essential role.

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