Constitutional

Finally, the Supreme Court may have to decide what the Second Amendment means. But how much will really change?

Harvard Law School Professor Carol Steiker ’86, several students, and two HLS alumni celebrated a supreme victory on April 25 when the high court ruled that death sentences in three cases from Texas should be overturned. Steiker and several of her research assistants contributed to the defense of three individuals on death row, along with Jordan Steiker ’88 and Robert Owen ’89, co-directors of the University of Texas at Austin School of Law’s Capital Punishment Clinic.

The following op-ed was published in the Boston Globe on January 5, 2007: Deval Patrick is off to a bad start. If the amendment to prohibit gay marriage ever reaches the people, I shall vote against it. I regret that the Supreme Judicial Court, in its closely divided 2003 decision in the Goodridge case, proclaimed that the state Constitution requires same-sex marriage.

With a little help from your friends: Amicus briefs are meant to offer judges some extra information. But is amicus practice getting out of hand?

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer '64 talks with the Bulletin in chambers.

When Justices William Rehnquist and Sandra Day O’Connor left the bench last year, conservatives were in an anxious mood: though pleased at the prospect of shifting the Supreme Court to the right, they were worried by the record of past Republican appointments. The refrain in conservative commentary, repeated with special intensity during the Harriet Miers affair, was: Not another Souter. Not another Kennedy. Not another O’Connor.

Professor Charles Fried writes: I am convinced of the urgent necessity of such a surveillance program. I suppose but do not know -- the revelations have been understandably and deliberately vague -- that included in what is done is a constant computerized scan of all international electronic communications.

When it comes to Supreme Court nominees, conservatives are in agreement: Situation matters. Pundits on the right shouted down Harriet E. Miers over concerns that her evangelical backbone would whither under Washington winds. Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. stepped into her spot seeming of far more stalwart vertebrae, but as his backers have stressed recently, he is a creature of situation as well.

Professor Mary Ann Glendon writes: At first glance, it is hard to see why these side-glances at what other countries do have provoked such alarm. True, the references have increased somewhat, but they remain rare, and no one suggests that the court has directly based any of its interpretations of the Constitution on foreign authority.

When Professor Elizabeth Bartholet ’65 spoke at a conference on international adoption in Guatemala City early this year, she addressed a room full of activists, lawyers and politicians. But at the heart of her speech, and her pro bono advocacy, are children–living in institutions or foster care around the world.

Local governments have long had broad authority to accomplish urban planning through the power of eminent domain--taking land away from private owners for fair market value and converting it to uses that meet public needs.

After columnist Robert Novak published leaked information in July 2003 revealing that Valerie Plame, the wife of a prominent critic of the Bush administration, was a CIA operative, a special prosecutor launched an investigation to determine who was responsible for the leak.

Children, according to Professor Charles Fried, are natural lawyers.

This winter, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a tug-of-war between the states and the federal government over drug policy. We asked constitutional law expert Professor Richard H. Fallon to predict how the Court will rule.

Professor Archibald Cox, 1912-2004, taught the nation what it means to be true to one's principles. Professor Emeritus Archibald Cox '37 died on May 29 at age 92. Tenured at Harvard Law School in 1946, he taught generations of students torts, administrative and constitutional law.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health last fall has allowed gay marriage in the commonwealth--at least for now.

Because of two 5-4 Supreme Court decisions, physical desecration of the American flag is legal. Professor Richard Parker ' 70 supports a constitutional amendment that would change that.

With devotion to the president and the office, Alberto Gonzales '82 tackles the complications and controversies of the White House counsel's job.

In October, the Supreme Court heard a challenge to the constitutionality of a law extending copyright by 20 years. But the question posed by the case, says Assistant Professor Jonathan Zittrain '95, is whether copyright can last forever.