FINAL EXAM Flashcards
(90 cards)
Identify the context of this quotation: “[N]othing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.” What are two possible ways that this language could be
interpreted?
Heller. Could mean that those prohibitions are constitutional, or that the Court isn’t saying either way
What are the similarly-named cases (a) from
1851, which could have supplied an alternative foundation for the result in Dred Scott, without getting into the citizenship of African-Americans or the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise, and (b) from 1880, which gave an important explanation of the principle expressed in the Fourteenth Amendment, which overruled Dred Scott?
Strader and Strauder.
What case from 1833 involves the
interpretation of constitutional clauses using
the passive voice?
Barron (interpreting passive voice in 5A & I/9)
How can the distinction between “this
Constitution” and the rest of the Preamble be used to support the interpretive move in Heller, in light of Article VI?
Article VI makes “this Constitution” binding,
not the purposes, fitting with Heller making the operative provision binding, even if it
doesn’t fit with the 2A preamble.
What cases refuse to overrule earlier cases
after (a) 137 years, (b) 58 years, and (c) 19
years? What cases overrule others after (a) 1
year, (b) 17 years, and (c) 58 years?
McDonald, Bolling, Casey, Knox (or Jones &
Laughlin), Lawrence or Malloy, Brown.
Identify the context of this quotation: “Our
Nation’s history, legal traditions, and practices thus provide the crucial ‘guideposts for responsible decisionmaking’ that direct and restrain our exposition of the Due Process Clause.” Does the Court agree today?
Glucksberg; no—Obergefell disavows, at least for “marriage and intimacy” cases.
What case disappointed those who were
hoping for an analogy of the form “Reed is to Craig as Romer is to ____”?
Windsor, refusing to raise level of scrutiny for sexual-orientation discrimination, as CA2 had done.
What does Roe say about arguments for
abortion rights that (a) are consistent with fetal personhood, or (b) deny fetal personhood?
Arguments like (a) (e.g., Thomson) are
completely ignored, because the Court says
personhood requires abortion prohibition.
The Court is agnostic on arguments like (b)
(e.g., Tooley).
Identify the context of this quotation: “[T]he
law need not be in every respect logically
consistent with its aims to be constitutional. It is enough that there is an evil at hand for correction, and that it might be thought that the particular legislative measure was a rational way to correct it.” Name two earlier cases that disagree with this general approach.
Williamson; different approach in Lochner
and Nebbia.
How do the majority and dissent in Heller use Miller differently?
The Heller majority notes that the case would have been much easier under the Heller dissent’s interpretation, because the gun-owner in that case, Miller, was obviously not part of a state-run militia. The Heller dissent generalizes from Miller’s reasoning that a relationship of the gun to a militia was required to a general requirement of a relationship between a gun-owner and a militia.
What 1960s incorporation cases change earlier answers to whether a right in the Bill of Rights is applied to states? What cases change or refine the earlier question, i.e., the mode of analysis used to decide such issues?
Malloy overrules Adamson and Twining;
Benton overrules Palko; Mapp overrules
Wolf; Duncan overrules Maxwell; these are all changed answers. One case refines the
question: Duncan refines the Palko “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty” analysis into one based on tradition.
What ratio of states did McDonald regard as
important to its analysis? How does that fact undermine one possible argument that Lochner was properly decided in 1905, but would not be properly decided the same way today?
McDonald cares about 22/37 in 1868, rather
than 44/50 today. That prevents us from saying that there was a consensus in favor of laissez-faire in 1905, but there no longer is one; if the 44/50 ratio doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter whether there is a present consensus.
How can Dred Scott be used to support
Brown and attack Plessy on originalist principles?
Like Brown but not Plessy, Dred Scott sees
that racial-separation laws imply inferiority.
What provisions adopted in 1791 and 1868
might directly support the holding in Bolling?
5A due process clause and 14A citizenship
declaration.
Identify the context of this quotation: “Pressing public necessity may sometimes justify the existence of such restrictions; racial antagonism never can.” How is this case generally regarded today?
Korematsu. High prestige on doctrine, low
prestige on result.
What two, or perhaps three, circumstances allow an exception to the usual rule for the level of scrutiny for alienage classifications?
Significant interest (Foley), federal government (Mathews), maybe illegal aliens (Plyler).
When was the last time the Court answered an incorporation question with a full “no”? When has the Court answered “partly”?
1947, Adamson; said partly in Apodaca in
1972 and Wolf in 1949.
Was Justice Blackmun’s position on the existence of a constitutional duty to protect consistent between 1973 and 1989?
Yes—Roe assumes duty to protect, because
personhood of fetus requires state to ban
abortion. DeShaney disagrees, but Blackmun dissents.
Identify the context of this quotation: “DOMA’s principal effect is to identify a subset of state-sanctioned marriages and make them unequal.” Which way does that cut in Obergefell?
From Windsor; if federal government can’t
take position on SSM contrary to states,
Obergefell claim fails, but if it’s not essential to holding, might still be OK to nationalize SSM.
What do cases from 1857 and 2008 say about the limits placed on constitutional interpretation by framers’ originally-understood applications?
Binding, because framers couldn’t assert
principles inconsistent with their actions (Dred Scott), not limited to them, e.g., muskets (Heller).
How did the Court’s attitude toward the constitutionality of implications of racial inferiority change between 1880 and 1896?
It didn’t. Plessy agreed with Strauder that they are unconstitutional, but said segregation wasn’t such an implication.
Explain the context of this quotation: “We do
not sit as a super-legislature to determine the wisdom, need, and propriety of laws that touch economic problems, business affairs, or social conditions.” How is this claim in tension with the cases on which this case relies?
Griswold’s reaffirmation of rejection of
Lochner, which is odd, since it relies on
Pierce, which comes from Meyer, which relies centrally on Lochner.
How did the Court’s standard for incorporation from 1937 get changed in 1968 and 2010?
Palko’s “implicit in concept of ordered liberty” gets understood to mean “required by Anglo-American legal tradition” in Duncan, then restricted to “required by American legal tradition” in McDonald.
What differing uses did the majority and dissent in Heller make of Miller?
Scalia says on dissent’s reading, made no sense to talk about status of gun, since Miller the man wasn’t in militia; Stevens says relationship of person to militia should match relationship of gun to militia.