Georgetown University Law Center

About: Georgetown University Law Center is a based out in . It is known for research contribution in the topics: Supreme court & Public health. The organization has 585 authors who have published 2488 publications receiving 36650 citations. The organization is also known as: Georgetown Law & GULC.

Muni Bonds and the Commerce Clause After United Haulers

Abstract: This Report considers the constitutionality of the common state practice of exempting interest on the state's own municipal bonds from taxation but imposing tax on municipal bonds issued in other states. In particular, we weigh the impact of a recent Supreme Court decision, United Haulers, on challenges to those statutes, including one suit, Davis v. Kentucky, in which a petition for certiorari was recently granted. In United Haulers the Court held that a municipal ordinance didn't violate the Dormant Commerce Clause because the ordinance operated as a preference for a government-owned facility. United Haulers might save from constitutional invalidity state tax laws favoring in-state municipal bonds, but we doubt it. Although United Haulers lifts the presumption of unconstitutionality from laws favoring state-run businesses in competition with private business, we argue that the Court should remain skeptical of discriminatory laws that shield state officials from the pressure of competition with activities undertaken by other states. We predict that, if constitutional law remains as it stands, state laws exempting only in-state municipal bonds will be found to violate the Dormant Commerce Clause. If we are wrong and state tax laws favoring in-state municipal bonds are shielded by United Haulers, it will mark a significant extension of the nascent state-run business exception to the Dormant Commerce Clause.

4 Simple Reforms to Address Mass Shootings and Other Firearm Violence

Abstract: After the December 2, 2015, terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California, that left 14 people dead and 21 injured, the same, repetitive, “Groundhog Day” narrative played out on gun control as with other salient mass shootings, including a school in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado, a community college in Roseburg, Oregon, and a church in Charleston, South Carolina (http://bit.ly/1lCZvbH). That narrative has become so predictable that I despair the political community ever finding middle ground. After such tragedies, Democrats urge “sensible” gun control, such as more rigorous background checks. Republicans claim that calls for gun control exploit a tragedy and are futile in preventing mass shootings. They say the answer to mass shootings is more, not fewer, guns, and firearm purchases soar after mass shootings as tens of thousands of people vote with their feet. But Australia and the United Kingdom have vastly reduced firearm-related deaths through legal reform (http://nyti.ms/1Ita9hX). And even though the US Supreme Court has ruled—controversially and ahistorically—that the Second Amendment protects private ownership of firearms (http://bit.ly/1OlJXXr), the Court recently refused to hear a Second Amendment challenge to a Chicago ordinance that banned semiautomatic assault weapons and large-capacity magazines (http://1.usa.gov/1N6APUC). And the lower US courts have all upheld reasonable firearm regulations. From a public health perspective, of course, the solution is tight regulatory control over firearms, including rigorous background checks, safety rules, and the types of firearms permitted. Here are 4 reforms to keep us safer... Language: en

When is Medical Care 'Futile'? The Institutional Competence of the Medical Profession Regarding the Provision of Life-Sustaining Medical Care

Abstract: “Medical futility,” the doctrine by which hospital ethics boards have assumed the right to authorize medical providers to unilaterally withdraw or decline to provide aggressive life sustaining medical care, has swelled in popularity in recent years and has affected the lives of countless terminal patients. The case law governing medical futility is inconsistent and appears to provide medical providers and patients alike little guidance in this extremely sensitive area of health law. Lost in the confusion created by the case and statutory law is due consideration of the normative case behind “medical futility.” “Futility,” by definition, is preceded by an important moral judgment. Assessing futility requires an opinion not just on the economic costs of treatment vis-a-vis the likelihood of physiological success, it also demands an assessment of the value of the life that hangs in the balance. Accordingly, through medical futility, medical providers have entered an area of discourse that is beyond their expertise. Science and medicine can say nothing about the value of human life generally or the lives of terminal patients specifically and the attempts by medical providers to do so are saturated in bias and moral judgment. Certainly, medical providers can and should discuss with their patients the likelihood of success and the potential pitfalls of any medical treatment. But once that discussion becomes an assertion that medical treatment is inappropriate, it transforms into a normative argument that a medical provider has no expertise to make.

Why a Disability Rights Tribunal Must Be Premised on Therapeutic Jurisprudence Principles

Abstract: There is a need for a disability rights tribunal in Asia (DRTAP) along with an information center (DRICAP) as part of that tribunal so that litigants can easily access the controlling domestic case law, statutes, and regulations of the participating nations. A successful DRTAP must be premised on therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ) principles, and that its creation would be hollow without dedicated and knowledgeable lawyers representing the population in question. In accordance with TJ principles, it must incorporate “voice, validation and voluntary participation” to insure that litigants have a sense of voice or a chance to tell their story to a decision maker. The tribunal must operate, in part, as a problem-solving court to address the underlying problems—not just the symptoms—of social issues such as substance abuse, domestic violence, child abuse, and mental illness. The idea of such courts has been exported to other nations. If the DRTAP operates in a manner consistent with these principles—following the best examples of domestic mental health courts and community courts—it will more likely fulfill the TJ mandate. The application of TJ will ensure the reshaping of legal rules, procedures, and lawyers’ roles to enhance their therapeutic potential without subordinating due process principles.

Fisher v. Grutter

Abstract: There is no reason for the Supreme Court to have granted certiorari in Fisher v University of Texas at Austin Unless, of course, the Court plans to overrule Grutter v Bollinger — the case on which the Texas affirmative action plan at issue in Fisher was based If that is its plan, the Court can invalidate the Texas program on some narrow ground that masks the magnitude of what it is doing Or it can explicitly overrule Grutter — a case that no longer commands majority support on a Supreme Court whose politics of affirmative action has now been refashioned by personnel changes The author predicts that the Court will invalidate the Texas plan in a narrow opinion that leaves open the theoretical possibility of some future affirmative action plans surviving constitutional scrutiny But ironically — as a proponent of racial justice — she hopes that any decision to invalidate the Texas plan expressly overrules Grutter and articulates the Court’s apparent preference for shutting the door on affirmative action completely, rather than disingenuously allowing the light of false hope to seep through a crack in the doorway If the Supreme Court closes the door, the political process can react directly to the Court’s racial ideology, rather than continuing to be distracted by the Court’s coquettish conception of racial equality With any luck, this will put the future of affirmative action back in the hands of the political branches — which, of course, is where it belonged to begin with