...Imagine if Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court case legalizing abortion throughout the United States, was repealed. Think about the consequences that would go along with reversing Obergefell v. Hodges, the Court case that legalized same-sex marriage across the nation. These two cases, along with so many others that provide such critical rights to United States citizens, could be taken away if Supreme Court justices are given term limits. Fundamental rights could be taken away with term limits because term limits could have the primary effect of creating a Supreme Court composed entirely of republicans. Term limits are a bad idea because judicial rulings would be based more on political ideology than on constitutionality, there is no unanimous theory as to how the transition would work, and the old age decline argument is flawed. One of the main reasons why term limits should not be put in place is because it would increase the likelihood that justices would make decisions based on their own political ideology and less on constitutionality. For example, if the Supreme Court were debating the constitutionality of a law that would repeal Roe v. Wade, a Republican term-limited justice may feel pressured to rule in favor of this stance simply because a majority of the justice’s political...
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...A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM?: OBERGEFELL V. HODGES Kenji Yoshino The decision in Obergefell v. Hodges1 achieved canonical status even as Justice Kennedy read the result from the bench. A bare majority held that the Fourteenth Amendment required every state to perform and to recognize marriages between individuals of the same sex.2 The majority opinion ended with these ringing words about the plaintiffs: “Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”3 While Obergefell’s most immediate effect was to legalize same-sex marriage across the land, its long-term impact could extend far beyond this context. To see this point, consider how much more narrowly the opinion could have been written. It could have invoked the equal protection and due process guarantees without specifying a formal level of review, and then observed that none of the state justifications survived even a deferential form of scrutiny. The Court had adopted this strategy in prior gay rights cases.4 Instead, the Court issued a sweeping statement that could be compared to Loving v. Virginia,5 the 1967 case that invalidated bans on in––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law, New York University School of Law. I gratefully acknowledge receiving financial support from...
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...Racial and Ethnic Profiling in the U.S." Accessed on February 9, 2018, from https://www.aclu.org/report/persistence-racial-and-ethnic-profiling-united-states Benzine, C. 5 "Civil Rights and Liberties: 2 Crash Course Government # 23." PBS Digital studios, Retrieved on February 9, 2018, from http://www.pbs.org/video/crash-course-government-23/ Colb, S. 1 "The US Supreme Court Declares Warrantless Dog Sniffs of Private Front Porches Unconstitutional, Or Does it? A Closer Look at Florida v. 6 Jardines, April 17, 2013, Accessed from https://verdict.justia.com/2013/04/17/the-u-s-supreme-court-declares-warrantless-dog-sniffs-of-private-front-porches-unconstitutional-or-does-it Cornell Law School. 4 "Terry Stop/ Stop and Frisk." 1 Accessed on February 9, 20178, from https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/terry_stop_stop_and_frisk Findlaw. 7 "Are DUI Checkpoints Legal?" 8 Retrieved on February 9, 2018, from http://traffic.findlaw.com/traffic-stops/are-DUI-checkpoints-legal-.html Findlaw. “Civil Rights: U.S. Supreme Court Decisions" Accessed on 9/2/18 from http://civilrights.findlaw.com/civil-rights-overview/civil-rights-u-s-supreme-court-decisions.html Harriot, M. 1 "Philly Cops' 5 Habit of Fondling Black Men Sparks Greatest Protest of All Time." Kemp, D. 9 "The Warrant Requirement for GPS Tracking Devices." Verdict JUSTIA, November 4, 2013, Retrieved on February 9, 2018, from...
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...CANICOSA, Albert Joshua F. BSLM4A Research Paper in Legal Research On June 26, 2015, the United States of America made history when the United States Supreme Court decided that the denial of same sex marriage violates the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. In their ruling, the Supreme Court held that “The Fourteenth Amendment requires a State to license a marriage between two people of the same sex and to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-State.” (Obergefell et al. v. Hodges, Director, Ohio Department Of Health, et al., 576 U.S. __ No. 14-556 (2015) making same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states, giving them as Justice Anthony Kennedy said “equal dignity in the eyes of the law”. Though most are happy with the decision, there are some who are not glad with it. In his dissent Chief Justice John Roberts believes that it is not the Supreme Court’s duty to decide whether a law should be passed or not. “Judges have power to say what the law is, not what it should be” he adds “the Constitution authorized courts to exercise neither force nor will but merely judgment.” And because of the decision that the court made, people who are against same sex marriage will be forced to accept it. Many conservatives are disappointed with the decision; some of them are moving to make a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage. In an interview, Republican Presidential Candidate and Florida Governor...
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...The growing shift in support was mainly caused by people knowing someone, a family member, friend, or acquaintance, that is homosexual. According to a 2004 study “65 percent of those who reported knowing someone gay favored gay marriage or civil unions”(Harvard Law Today 2013), which explained the growing support for the LGBT community. In addition, popular television shows like Friends and Mad About You, which previously rejected having gay characters on screen, were now bringing gay marriage to the spotlight and celebrities such as Ellen DeGeneres, who came out publicly in 1997 on her show with an active audience of forty-six million, contributed on changing people’s views about homosexuality. These changes were important for legalizing gay marriage because they encouraged gays and lesbians to come out of the closet, and therefore, be more open, visible, and proud of who they are as well as to fight...
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...Racial & Ethnic Short-Answer Questions (15) Should reparations be paid to the descendants of victims of slavery? • Some reject the decision made in the Bakke case that providing a remedy for the effects of racial discrimination is unconstitutional. They argue that the idea of reparations is rooted in international law. • Affirmative Action is inadequate, the ‘Maafa’ (meaning disaster, i.e., slavery) is a crime against humanity, and therefore compensation is required. • In the past 50 years apologies and financial compensation has been given to a wide range of groups, including survivors of the Jewish holocaust (as well as descendants of the victims), Japanese-Americans who were imprisoned during the Second World War and native Americans who had their land illegally seized in the USA. • African Americans have been demanding compensation for slavery since the end of the American Civil War. Immediately after the abolition of slavery, the demand was for 40 acres and a mule to ensure they would not be dependent on their former slave-owners. Then, between 1890 and 1917, there was a movement to lobby the government for pensions to compensate for their unpaid labour under slavery. Since 1989, Congressman John Conyers Jnr (Michigan) has introduced a bill every year to study the case for reparations. Each of these initiatives has been largely ignored by the political establishment. • Reparations would ensure full recognition of the scale of the Maafa and, at the same time...
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