States Supreme Court Research Articles

미국 연방대법원의 Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith 판결과 그 시사점

The recent United States Supreme Court ruling in Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith (2023) has clarified the concept of fair use. The Supreme Court ruling can be summarized as follows: “In the United States Copyright Act, the first factor in determining fair use is the purpose and character of the use. Transformativeness is the degree to which the use has a different purpose and character from the original work. Transformativeness is evaluated by considering the two factors of ‘commercial character’ and ‘justification of use’. If transformativeness is found, it means that the first factor of fair use has been passed favorably. Additionally, for fair use to be recognized overall, especially in relation to the first factor of the purpose and character of use, it must be reviewed in the context of the specific use of the relevant case. In the case of specific use, if the purpose of the original work and the subsequent work are different, fair use may be established.” When compared to the Google ruling of the United States Supreme Court in 2021, there is a greater possibility that the justification of use related to compatibility, standards, and efficiency will be recognized in technical cases, but the justification of use of another's work is relatively less likely to be recognized in artistic cases where the individual expression of the artist is the main part. In this regard, it is also noteworthy that the distinction between ‘technical transformativeness’ and ‘artistic transformativenss’ may be regarded as established by recent US case laws.

Updating PAJID Scores for State Supreme Court Justices (1970–2019)

AbstractWe build upon Brace, Langer, and Hall’s (2000, The Journal of Politics 62: 387–413) original measure of American state supreme court justice ideology – the PAJID scores. To do so, we gather new data on 1,666 state supreme court justices who served between 1970 and 2019 and update the PAJID scores throughout this period. Testing indicates that PAJID scores are a valid measure of state supreme court justices’ policy preferences and compare favorably, though less efficiently, to others such as Bonica and Woodruff (2015, The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 31: 472–98) and Windett, Harden, and Hall (2015, Political Analysis 23: 461–9). Given limited data availability for other ideological measures pre-1990 and post-2010, we conclude that these updated PAJID scores should prove attractive to scholars studying state courts during these periods and among those who desire additional state supreme court ideological data for robustness checks.

Recent Legal Developments: Criminal Justice Decisions of the United States Supreme Court, 2022 Term

In this paper, we review and analyze the criminal justice–related decisions of the 2022 term of the United States Supreme Court. We also provide a summary of the Court's voting patterns and opinion authorship. Fourteen of the Court's 58 decisions touched on criminal justice. There were significant decisions involving the First Amendment, the Sixth Amendment, and federal criminal statutes. Each of these is discussed in turn.

Breaking Barriers and Shaping Justice—The Transformative Power of Increasing Female Representation in the Supreme Court

The United States Supreme Court, responsible for interpreting the Constitution and shaping legal precedents, historically lacked gender diversity with significant underrepresentation of women. This essay explores the advantages of increasing female presence on the Court, asserting that greater gender diversity can contribute to a fairer and more comprehensive judicial system. Through an examination of relevant legal cases, scholarly research, and comparative examples, this essay highlights the positive impact of female representation, including improved decision-making diverse perspectives, enhanced legitimacy, and increased public confidence in the judiciary.

The United States Supreme Court’s new conservative supermajority: a Constitutional Counter-revolution?

The United States has the oldest written constitution in the world. Its staying power has proved remarkable, with the same brief document (fewer than ten printed pages) serving as the nation’s fundamental law since 1787 with only twenty-seven amendments (the first ten adopted immediately after its adoption, the three most important modifications coming after the Civil War in mid-19th century, and merely 11 ratified in the twentieth century, none after 1992). The basic principles embodied in the constitutions have remained constant, with separation of powers along with checks and balances and federalism shaping the basic structures of government.

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization: The Epitaph for Roe v. Wade

Abstract Since the Roe v. Wade decision was announced (1973), the question of abortion has constituted an important element of American constitutional discourse. This article analyses the most recent decision of the United States Supreme Court on this matter, i.e. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which rejected the thesis that the Constitution establishes the right to terminate pregnancy. It is possible to identify three fundamental points of the Court’s opinion. First, the Court allowed lawmakers to accept an ontological assumption that a foetus is a human being. Second, the decision was rooted in the doctrine of moderate originalism and in the concept of substantive due process, limited by historical factors. Third, the Supreme Court adopted a liberal interpretation of the stare decisis principle, consenting to the overturning of precedents even if they introduced new civil rights. The author contends that it is highly unlikely that the decision will constitute the last word of American jurisprudence on the question of abortion.

소수자 인권에 있어 Dobbs 판결의 의미와 반향

On June 24, 2022, the United States Supreme Court effectively removed the right to abortion from the list of fundamental rights under the U.S. Constitution in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. The right to abortion had been considered a core right, derived from the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment since its affirmation in Roe v. Wade in 1973, but it lost its constitutional value and stature in the U.S. federal legal system nearly half a century later. The debate and conflict surrounding the Dobbs decision echo the social unrest that the Roe decision, which first recognized abortion rights, initially induced.
 This article does not engage directly with the varied and contentious positions on abortion that rest on religious, moral, and political grounds. Rather, it seeks to discuss the impact of the Dobbs decision on the rights of minorities from the perspective of constitutional theory and judicial policy. The Dobbs decision not only directly affects the lives and rights of women in the United States, but it also potentially represents a critical turning point in the rights of minorities in general when viewed in light of the legal principles it espoused. Based on the Fourteenth Amendment (Due Process Clause, Equal Protection Clause), the U.S. Supreme Court has discovered a series of individual liberties and rights that are not explicitly stipulated in the constitutional text through interpretation, recognizing these as fundamental rights deserving of special constitutional protection. Restrictions or discrimination relating to fundamental rights are subjected to a high-intensity judicial review standard and are strictly controlled. The method and criteria for recognizing fundamental rights are extremely important in activating the human rights advocacy function of the U.S. Supreme Court and have a profound impact on minorities, who can only expect judicial protection as they cannot secure respect for their values and lifestyles in the political process governed by majority rule. The Supreme Court has long used ‘history and tradition’ as a key criterion in confirming fundamental rights, but the Dobbs decision applied this criterion in a more conservative direction. As a result, the decision curtailed the progressive trend observed in the fundamental rights analysis in the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision, leading to what can be seen as a counter-revolutionary conclusion - ‘evicting’ the right to abortion from the list of fundamental rights. From this point, the Dobbs decision can be assessed as a rupture in the constitutional progress that the Supreme Court has made based on the Fourteenth Amendment's fundamental rights analysis, as well as a fracture in the role and function of advocating for minority rights that the Supreme Court has emphasized.

“Originalism” of Interpretation in the United States Constitution

Originalism is a viewpoint that is one of the methods and theories of constitutional interpretation. It remains controversial in its application, particularly in the decisions of the United States Supreme Court. Originalism first held that the interpretation of the United States Constitution must follow the original intent of the constitutional drafters or those who ratified it. However, in the 1990s, this stance changed, namely that the interpretation of the Constitution must follow the original meaning of the constitutional text. The aim of this research is to understand the anti-mainstream concepts of originalism interpretation. The fundamental problem lies not to answer which one is better between originalist and non-originalist. Instead, it rather depends on how to use this approach in several cases. It is possible that in one case using an originalist approach will be more relevant and appropriate, while in another case it will be absurd, and it is happened in several decisions in the United States. The Normative legal research method was used in this research with five major approaches. Those are the statute, conceptual, historical, casuistry, and comparative approaches. The result of this study indicates that: first, originalism is a stance directly related to perspective on the issue of interpretation of the Constitution. Meanwhile, the interpretation of the Constitution itself is an attempt to understand the definitions contained in the Constitution and the objectives it aims to achieve. Second, reflecting on the practice in the United States, the originalism approach may be more relevant on some occasions. However, originalism will be absurd if applied on other occasions because society has changed so much. Therefore, in such circumstances, getting out of originalism is a necessity.

The case for making the first-trimester anatomical survey a standard of care post Dobbs

Currently, 11- to 14-week-detailed anatomic surveys are generally reserved for at-risk populations because of the lower incidence of major fetal anomalies in low-risk populations. Until recently, such standard reflects, in part, the fact that pregnant persons retain the option of abortion even if the initial anatomy scan was in the second trimester of pregnancy. However, on June 24, 2022, the US Supreme Court overturned Roe, and many states subsequently lowered the gestational age at which abortions can legally be performed. Here, we argue for a reconsideration of limitations on first-trimester scans to preserve pregnant persons' reproductive options, particularly in those states that have imposed laws limiting access to abortion. Moreover, we acknowledge and discuss some of the challenges that will be associated with this approach.

Perceptions of abortion access across the United States prior to the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision: Results from a national survey.

Abortion is common in the United States (US), although access is becoming more difficult for some. In addition to restrictive policies that ban most abortion, limit the number of providers and increase costs, barriers to access also include less supportive cultural climates and stigma related to abortion. Prior to the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health decision of the United States Supreme Court, research suggested that people generally believed it was easy to access abortion, but this research did not examine the underlying factors that drive these perceptions. In 2019, using data from closed and open-ended survey questions, we examined differences in people's assessment of abortion access within the state they reside and factors that influence those perceptions. We recruited English- and Spanish-speaking US adults (N = 2599) from Qualtrics' national panel using quota-based sampling to participate in a web-based survey. We used multinomial logistic regression to examine predictors of access perceptions across demographic characteristics and thematic analysis to analyze open-ended responses. Fifty-three percent of participants believed abortion was easy to access in their state. Spanish speakers and participants from legislatively "hostile" states were more likely to perceive access as difficult. Legality-related knowledge and pro-life identity were associated with perceiving abortion access as easy. Prior to Dobbs, participants' interpretation of the ease or difficulty of accessing abortion were subjective. Misconceptions about state abortion laws and the prevalence of providers were common, suggesting a need for more education about abortion laws, policies, and access.

Effects of selection regimes on state supreme court opinion writing

AbstractBackgroundJudicial reformers have long debated the merits of different types of judicial selection methods.ObjectivesWhile many of the debates center on how selection methods impact decision making, I argue that selection methods may also affect how justices approach opinion writing.MethodsUsing opinion data from 1953 to 2014 in 21 states and opinion data from 1953 to 2019 in five states, this article investigates whether selection methods influence the clarity of the opinions.ResultsThe results show that selection methods do not have a substantive impact on opinion clarity. What does have an effect on opinion clarity is when justices are ideologically distant from their constituents. Opinion clarity increases when nonpartisan justices are ideologically distant from their constituents, indicating that justices may use written opinions to demonstrate support for public opinion on specific issues, even if they do not generally vote in line with public opinion. In contrast, opinions in states that changed from partisan to nonpartisan are less clear, indicating that when a court changes its selection method, opinion authors may purposefully obfuscate their views and rely on their incumbency advantage to hold on to power.ConclusionThe findings suggest that judicial selection methods only influence opinion clarity in certain contexts.

In Electoral Disputes, State Justices Are Less Reliable GOP Allies than the U.S. Supreme Court—That’s the “Problem” the Independent State Legislature Claim Hopes to Solve

Scholars have identified serious drawbacks to the independent state legislature (ISL) claim, which precludes state-court review of election laws, thus preventing state guarantees like “free and fair elections” from being enforced. Considering its flaws, we ask why ISL would be pursued so fervently and why the Supreme Court, in Moore v. Harper, adopted a version of it. Examining data that compare election-law outcomes in federal and state supreme courts, we found that state supreme court justices, even if Republican, are not reliable supporters of the GOP electoral agenda. The Roberts court, by contrast, has voted in the GOP-supported direction in most election-law cases it has decided. This, we argue, is why ISL is promoted so vigorously: it takes electoral disputes—such as who can vote, what the rules for counting are, and such—out of the hands of state courts and places them squarely into the hands of the Supreme Court, a reliable partisan ally.

:Judging Inequality: State Supreme Courts and the Inequality Crisis

:<i>Judging Inequality: State Supreme Courts and the Inequality Crisis</i>

"It Has Always Been Customary to Make Slaves of Savages": The Problem of Indian Slavery in Spanish Louisiana Revisited, 1769–1803

Abstract: The enslavement of Indigenous peoples by Europeans was not a small and isolated practice in the lands that now comprise the United States. Contests for land and labor were not mutually exclusive, and enslaved Native people labored in mines, domestic households, and plantations across North America. In the vast Louisiana Colony, French records frequently enumerated enslaved Indigenous people, but their presence is conspicuously absent from Spanish period records. Scholars have previously assumed that the practice of Indian slavery had simply been outlawed and any remaining Indian slaves were emancipated under the Leyes y Ordenanzas Nuevamente de las Indias after Don Alejandro O'Reilly raised the Spanish flag over New Orleans in August 1769. However, the very first case brought before the Louisiana State Supreme Court disproves that assumption. During the period of its supposed illegality, Indigenous enslavement persisted through a discursive practice of Indigenous erasure; changing notions of race and legal personhood hid enslaved Native Americans within a socioracial order that negated their existence. These machinations allowed "Indianness" to be controlled and exploited, and Native people continued to be trafficked and enslaved across the Gulf South into the antebellum period. Their stories must become part of the broader history of American slavery.

Statute of Limitation on Civil Actionfor Child Sexual Abuse in the United States

In the case of sexual infringement against a minor, even if the victim muster up the courage to face the memory of past sexual violence and try to heal the wounds through legal remedies after becoming an adult, the civil statute of limitations has expired since the sexual infringement occurred long time ago. There is a problem of not being able to file a lawsuit due to the statute of limitation. In particular, in the case of sexual infringement against minors, in many cases, the perpetrator is a family member, teacher, religious person, etc. The victim, a minor, is economically and emotionally dependent on the perpetrator, so they do not easily think of filing civil lawsuits even as adults. Fortunately, South Korea established Article 766, Paragraph 3 of the Civil Act in 2020, and legislative improvements have been made so that the statute of limitations does not proceed until a minor becomes an adult in the case of sexual infringement. However, despite these good intentions, there are still limits to the relief, so this article will examine the US system. First of all, in the United States, state and federal laws operate different statute of limitations, and since the 1980s, the discovery rule has been applied so that victims can file lawsuits even after a considerable amount of time has elapsed after they become adults. For example, if the victim of a sexual assault is a minor and the victim has not yet discovered the injury after reaching adulthood, from the time he or she discovers the injury and the causal relationship between the injury and the sexual assault Legislative examples such as the requirement to file a claim for damages within four years reflect the discovery principle. However, despite these laws, there are many cases where the requirements are not met, and the relief of victims has not been smoothly carried out. Thus, California and New York State further extended the statute of limitations, and furthermore, through window legislation, even if the statute of limitations had expired, a period of one or two years was allowed to file a civil lawsuit. This legislation provides an opportunity to sue the victims of Jeffrey Epstein's decades of sexual exploitation of minors. The United States Supreme Court has ruled that the Windows Act is not unconstitutional. While retroactive legislation is “an identifiable injustice”, civil actions based on sexual abuse of minors are rather reasonable in light of the injustice done to the victims. Under these retroactive legislation, some religious organizations are actively raising their own funds for the relief of victims, and are paying settlements on the condition that they do not file a lawsuit against the religious organizations. The basis for such retroactive legislation is that if society has previously borne the cost of damages incurred to the victim, the perpetrator must bear the cost.

Judging Inequality: State Supreme Courts and the Inequality Crisis by James L. Gibson and Michael J. Nelson

Judging Inequality: State Supreme Courts and the Inequality Crisis <i>by James L. Gibson and Michael J. Nelson</i>

The Impact of the Dobbs Decision on Diagnostic Radiology Applicants, Residents, and Program Directors

In the Dobbs decision the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, returning the issue of abortion to the states. To date, there is little published data on the impact this might have on where future residents choose to pursue graduate medical education. We investigated the potential effects of the resultant varied political landscape of abortion care access laws with respect to influence on the selection of prospective diagnostic radiology training programs by medical students, comparing application rates for the 2022 recruitment cycle to the prior 4 years across a geographically diverse group of 22 academic and community sites across the United States. We provide strategies for program directors to consider in dealing with topics related to this continually evolving issue as it pertains to resident recruitment and retention.

About Previously "Missing" Woman Jennifer Rothwell & Abortion Rights in the United States of America (U.S.A) - #Michael Ayele (a.k.a) W Condemns the Decision of the United States Supreme Court to Overturn the Landmark 1973 Ruling of Roe v Wade

About Previously "Missing" Woman Jennifer Rothwell & Abortion Rights in the United States of America (U.S.A) - #Michael Ayele (a.k.a) W Condemns the Decision of the United States Supreme Court to Overturn the Landmark 1973 Ruling of Roe v Wade

“Feel My Rage”: Angry Feminist Claims and Affective Mobilization

In this article, I ask, “How do angry feminist claims get heard?” Angry feminist claims, I argue, inform, and mobilize by resonating with empathetic communities, legitimating feelings and experiences, and triggering energetic transfers among feminists and non-feminists. Through analysis of the 2018 protests of the nomination and confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court, I illustrate how angry feminist claims can be reclaimed as rational expressions of injustice, prompting divergent responses among differently situated audiences. Further, I demonstrate how anger as part of an affective appeal activates those attuned to hearing angry feminist claims as rational and legitimate, while simultaneously being challenged by intragroup intersectional differences.

#RoeOverturned: Twitter Dataset on the Abortion Rights Controversy

On June 24, 2022, the United States Supreme Court overturned landmark rulings made in its 1973 verdict in Roe v. Wade. The justices by way of a majority vote in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, decided that abortion wasn't a constitutional right and returned the issue of abortion to the elected representatives. This decision triggered multiple protests and debates across the US, especially in the context of the midterm elections in November 2022. Given that many citizens use social media platforms to express their views and mobilize for collective action, and given that online debate provides tangible effects on public opinion, political participation, news media coverage, and the political decision-making, it is crucial to understand online discussions surrounding this topic. Toward this end, we present the first large-scale Twitter dataset collected on the abortion rights debate in the United States. We present a set of 74M tweets systematically collected over the course of one year from January 1, 2022 to January 6, 2023.