States Supreme Court Research Articles

미국 연방대법원과 사법적 구제 쇠퇴

사법제도(司法制度)는 법 위반에 대해 응답하고 해결책을 제공하기 위한 것이다. 정의의 실현과 사법적 구제를 통한 공정한 결과의 도출을 요구하는 것은 국내법과 국내법에서 공히 인정되는 기본권이다. 사법적 구제수단이 없다면 사법제도를 이용하는 해결을 기대할 수 없기 때문에 위법행위로 인한 피해자들이 사법절차를 이용할 이유가 없다. 사법적 구제수단은 모든 다른 권리를 충족시키기 위한 필수불가결한 것이다. 피해를 주장하는 자가 구제받을 길이 없다면 효과적인 권리보호를 받을 수 없다.BR 이러한 것은 의심할 여지가 없는 것처럼 보이는데도 2021-2022년의 미국연방대법원의 현재 다수의견은 종전에 헌법적으로나 실정법적으로 요구되는 영역에서의 사법적 구제를 구하는 원고들의 권리범위를 꾸준히 축소해 왔다.BR 본 논문에서 소개 된 8개의 사례(Shinn v. Ramirez, Shoop v. Twyford Brown v. Davenport, Garland v. Gonzalez, Patel v. Garland, Vega v. Tekoh, Cummings v. Premier Rehab Keller, P.L.L.C., and Egbert v. Boule)에서 미국연방대법원은 과거의 선례와 최근의 선례를 모두 뒤집고 청구인들에 관한 사건을 연방법원의 관할로부터 차단했다.BR 예를 들어 Shinn v. Ramirez 사건과 Shoop v. Twyford 사건에서 연방대법원은 두 명의 사형 피고인들에게 구속적부심사청구를 부인하여 변호인의 조력을 제대로 받지 못한 것을 재판상 다툴 여지를 주지 않았다. 다른 사형선고 사건인 Brown v. Davenport 사건에서 연방대법원은 최근의 선례를 뒤엎고 반테러법 및 유효사형법 하에서 구속적부심사에 의한 구제의 범위를 더욱 좁히고 부인하여, 피고인은 거의 불가능에 가까운 기준을 충족시켜야만 하도록 했다.BR Garland v. Gonzalez 사건과 Patel v. Garland 사건에서 연방대법원은 단체소송 사건의 법정관할과 이민자에 대한 행정명령에 대한 사법심사를 제거하였는데, 앞으로 이민절차에서의 헌법적·실정법적 권리침해를 주장하는 자들이 항소하지 못하게 될 것이 분명하다.BR 본 논문에서 논의된 모든 사례 및 다른 사건에서, 연방대법원은 선례 및/또는 법정관할의 논리적 해석을 번복하여 법원에 대한 접근을 부인하였고, 향후의 사건에서 다수의견은 사법 구제를 계속 거절할 것으로 예상된다.BR 개인(생식건강권을 뒤엎은 Dobbs v. Jackson WHO 사건), 주정부(공해배출을 규제하는 환경보호기관의 권한을 제한한 West Virginia v. EPA 사건), 주의 통치권 (뉴욕주 총기안전법을 뒤집은 NYSRPA v. Bruen 사건) 등의 권리에 대하여 국제적으로 비난을 받은 대담한 변화를 가져온 법원의 최근 결정과 대비하면, 본 논문에서 요약한 사건들은 헌법상의 절차적 권리를 서서히 점진적으로 축소하는 것이다.BR 근래의 사건들은 선례를 무시하고, 재판받을 기본권에 직접적으로 반하여 비논리적인 실정법의 해석 및 적용을 함으로써 헌법상의 권리를 축소하는 결과를 가져 온다는 것을 보여주고 있다.BR 만일 연방 입법이 구속적부심사청구의 관할, 이민자의 항소, 헌법상의 사법적(私法的) 구제의 확장을 도입하지 않는다면 사법제도(司法制度)는 형평을 위한 것이라기 보다는 정의에 관한 환상에 불과할 것이다.

The Relationship Between Access to Abortion and Mental Health in Women of Childbearing Age: Analyses of Data From the Global Burden of Disease Studies.

Background It has often been suggested that restricting access to legal abortion could have a negative impact on the mental health of women seeking this procedure. The recent judgment of the United States Supreme Court in the Dobbs case has brought the question of the psychological impactof changes in abortion policy into focus. The results of studies on the link between induced abortion and mental health are contradictory, and interpreting the results of these studies is complex due to a multitude of potential confounding factors. However, there is little data on the relationship between the availability of legal abortion and its effects onthe mental health of women of childbearing age in the general population. Objective The objective of the current study was to examine cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between access to legal abortion and the prevalence of common mental disorders in women of childbearing age at a cross-national level while correcting for potential confounding factors. Methods The current study employs both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of nation-level data for 197 countries and regions. As data on global abortion policy were compiled in 2009 and 2017 by the Guttmacher Institute, data on access to legal abortion for these yearswere examined in relation to the prevalence of anxiety disorders and depression in women of childbearing age for each country, obtained from the Global Burden of Disease Studies for the most recent subsequent year (2010 and 2019). The relationship between changes in abortion policy and changes in the prevalence of these disorders in each country was examined for the aforementioned period. All analyses were adjusted for the potential confounding effects of gender development, gender inequality, and intimate partner violence. Cross-sectional associations were examined using Pearson's bivariate and partial correlations, while longitudinal associations were examined using a general linear model and analyses of covariance. Results At the cross-sectional level, broad legal access to abortion was associated with a lower prevalence of depression in women aged 25-49 years, however, this association was not significant after correcting for measures of gender development, gender inequality, and intimate partner violence. At the longitudinal level, a slight but significant decrease in the prevalence of anxiety disorders in women aged 25-49 years was observed in countries where access to legal abortion was broadened in the period 2009-2017. This association remained marginally significant after adjustment for the above confounders. Conclusions The current study suggests that there is a modest relationship between access to legal abortion and its effects on themental health of women aged 25-49 years. However, this relationship appears to be largely indirect in nature and influenced by factors, such as gender development, gender inequality, and intimate partner violence. These results may lead to further exploration of the links between reproductive rights and mental health of women in the general populationand drawattention to the influence of gender inequality and intimate partner violence on mental health of women of childbearing age.

Post-Roe emergency medicine: Policy, clinical, training, and individual implications for emergency clinicians.

In June 2022, the United States Supreme Court decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization overturned Roe v. Wade, removing almost 50 years of precedent and enabling the imposition of a wide range of state-level restrictions on abortion access. Historical data from the United States and internationally demonstrate that the removal of safe abortion options will increase complications and the health risks to pregnant patients. Because the emergency department is a critical access point for reproductive health care, emergency clinicians must be prepared for the policy, clinical, educational, and legal implications of this change. The goal of this paper, therefore, is to describe the impact of the reversal of Roe v. Wade on health equity and reproductive justice, the provision of emergency care education and training, and the specific legal and reproductive consequences for emergency clinicians. Finally, we conclude with specific recommended policy and advocacy responses for emergency medicine clinicians.

“South Bend Bossed by a Woman?”: Alice Mannering, Socialist Feminism, and the Common Good

In July 1917, Alice Mannering became the Socialist Party nominee for mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and the first woman candidate for the office of mayor in the state of Indiana. Suffragists across Indiana were anticipating being able to vote in the November 1917 elections, after the passage of a partial suffrage bill by the state General Assembly. Mannering's ambitions, and the hopes of suffragists, were dashed when the state Supreme Court ruled the legislation unconstitutional. Jamie Wagman examines the life of Alice Mannering—suffragist, socialist, and political activist—and considers how she challenged gender roles and inspired generations of her descendants to social activism.

Organizational abortion support benefits in the post-Roe world: employee and employer perspectives

PurposeThe authors discuss the implications of the recent United States Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson and its impact on employees and employers. Although several employers issued public statements regarding the provision of abortion-related benefits, the authors highlight some of the obstacles to their implementation.Design/methodology/approachWith a focus on employee wellbeing, the authors discuss the obstacles in implementing abortion care benefits.FindingsWhile it is encouraging to see many organizations make public statements in support of abortion rights, the authors temper their enthusiam with questions about practicality.Research limitations/implicationsBased on the research on hidden stigmas and the job demands-resources model, the authors argue that employees who need to use abortion-related benefits may be unlikely to seek them.Practical implicationsThe authors highlight some unanswered questions relating to the requesting and granting of abortion healthcare benefits.Social implicationsThe Dobbs decision takes away rights. While the authors applaud organizations’ efforts to restore them, facilitating access to an abortion in other states is quite complicated.Originality/valueAlthough abortions are very common, very little organizational research has addressed the topic. In light of the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, the paper raises some timely questions about employer-sponsored abortion healthcare.

The United States Supreme Court ruling and women’s reproductive rights – A position statement issued by The European Board and College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (EBCOG)

The judicial review by the Supreme Court of the United States on Roe v. Wade has fundamentally limited the ability of women to exercise choice and control of their sexual and reproductive rights in the United States. The global organisations are concerned that there remains a risk that women’s rights will be diminished globally in future.

Recent Legal Developments: Criminal Justice Decisions of the United States Supreme Court, 2021 Term

In this paper, we review and analyze the criminal justice-related decisions of the 2021 term of the United States Supreme Court. We also provide a summary of the Court's voting patterns and opinion authorship. 18 of the Court's 58 decisions touched on criminal justice. There were significant decisions involving the Second Amendment, the Eighth Amendment, and federal criminal statutes. Each of these is discussed in turn.

State Supreme Court Responsiveness to Court Curbing: Examining the Use of Judicial Review

State legislatures introduce court-curbing legislation as they threaten to restrict the independence of state high courts. While scholars have examined when this legislation is introduced and what drives the introduction, we know little about how state supreme courts react to this legislation. In this paper, I begin the examination into how state courts react to court-curbing legislation by looking to the court’s exercise of its judicial review power. I theorize that state supreme courts are less likely to invoke their power of judicial review when facing increased court-curbing legislation because judicial review is the most direct form of communication between the branches. I also argue communication is necessarily conditioned by the methods of selection and retention in the states. Examining narrow and broad court curbing, I find that neither type of introduction affects the use of judicial review by the state supreme courts and that, in line with previous scholarship, courts are using legislative ideology as an informational signal in this interbranch interaction.

OTC oral contraceptive could come to U.S. pharmacies

French pharmaceutical company HRA Pharma has applied for FDA approval of what could be the first OTC oral contraceptive in the United States. An OTC birth control pill would increase access to contraception at a time when reproductive rights are under threat. The company filed for the Rx-to-OTC switch less than 3 weeks after the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade.

Using a decentering framework to create English/Spanish surveys about abortion: Insights into comparative survey research (CSR) for new survey development and recommendations for optimal use

ABSTRACT The growth of populations for whom English is not a native language has reinforced the need for multilanguage survey data collections. This is particularly true in the study of sexual and reproductive health issues such as abortion. However, the limited number of bilingual surveys about abortion and the lack of information regarding the translation process for bilingual surveys necessitates the development of new surveys specifically attuned to linguistic and cultural nuances in Spanish-speaking communities. To that end, this paper explores various comparative survey research frameworks, with emphasis on simultaneous survey development through decentering. We also highlight the processes, successes, and challenges of our team’s development of a bilingual English and Spanish abortion survey using Erkut’s Dual Focus Model—an approximation of the asking the same question by decentering (ASQD) approach—to co-construct an English and Spanish survey about abortion in the wake of the nomination and confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court. We conclude with recommendations, including that comparative survey research be conducted with team-based and systematic translations.

Conception of Sanctions for Same-Sex Marriage Couples in the Perspective of Balinese Customary Law (Comparison of Laws in the United States)

In Balinese customary law, same-sex sexual intercourse is known as “salah krama”, or sexual intercourse with wrong partners and it is strictly prohibited in Hindu law. The reason is the situation will make the offenders become cuntaka, leteh or impure. The purpose of this study is to analyse and reveal the paradigm of same-sex marriage from the perspective of international law and customary sanctions against same-sex marriage couples in Bali. The type of research used in this study is normative legal research. Based on analysis, the results of this study revealed that the United States government’s policy paradigm regarding same-sex marriage can be seen from the United States Supreme Court Decision which issued a policy that completely changed the existence of the LGBT community in the United States. Furthermore, the concept of customary sanctions against same-sex marriage couples in Bali is made in the form of giving customary sanctions to those practicing LGBT that must be executed strictly. The customary sanctions that can be given take the form of arta danda, sangaskara danda, and jiwa danda.

Elevating the Needs of Minor Adolescents in a Landscape of Reduced Abortion Access in the United States

Elevating the Needs of Minor Adolescents in a Landscape of Reduced Abortion Access in the United States

Adolescent Medicine Providers: A Critical Extension of the Abortion Service Network

Access to safe abortion is a critical element of reproductive freedom as per the World Health Organization [1]. However, following the United States Supreme Court's ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization which overturned Roe v. Wade and vacated the constitutional right to abortion, 26 states are expected to heavily restrict or ban abortions [2]. While the policy environment surrounding abortion continues to change rapidly, the ensuing geographic shift in both patients and service provision will eliminate or delay access to this time-sensitive medical procedure and disproportionately impact adolescents and young adults (AYAs), especially those already experiencing health disparities stemming from systemic racism and bias [3].

Threatening Property: Race, Class, and Campaigns to Legislate Jim Crow Neighborhoods

Threatening Property: Race, Class, and Campaigns to Legislate Jim Crow Neighborhoods

Religious-based discrimination in the commercial context on the basis of sexual orientation: A comparative perspective

This paper considers how three jurisdictions, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, have sought to reconcile freedom of religion with equality rights, particularly in the commercial context, and particularly in relation to sexual orientation. The recent decisions of the United Kingdom Supreme Court and United States Supreme Court form the backdrop for that discussion. It is argued that the former made piecemeal, and misleading, use of American case law, and a fuller consideration of that jurisdiction’s position was warranted, and would have led to a different view of the recent American decision. It argues that the United Kingdom Supreme Court was in error in viewing a message on a cake ordered from a baker as an example of the baker's expression, leading it to an incorrect conclusion at odds with statutory mandates in the commercial sphere around refusals of service. Both high court decisions risk undermining progress on the equality front.

The Walls Within: The Politics of Immigration in Modern America by Sarah Coleman

Reviewed by: The Walls Within: The Politics of Immigration in Modern America by Sarah Coleman Kathryn Schumaker (bio) The Walls Within: The Politics of Immigration in Modern America. By Sarah Coleman. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021. Pp. 272. $35.00 cloth; $35.00 ebook) Historians of immigration in the twentieth-century United States have long noted how restrictive policies created a class of unauthorized people who lived in the shadow of the law. At the same time, the 1960s spurred a revolution in individual rights, expanding the scope of claims all persons—including noncitizens—could make through the Fourteenth Amendment. Sarah Coleman's The Walls Within: The Politics of Immigration in Modern America examines the people caught in between these two important developments, exploring the battles over the rights of unauthorized immigrants. This well-written and thoroughly researched book tells an often-surprising story that reveals how the states—and not the federal government—were frequently the laboratories of restrictive immigration policies in the late twentieth century. Coleman begins with Plyler v. Doe (1982), a landmark United States Supreme Court case that questioned the constitutionality of a Texas state law that allowed school districts to charge tuition to students who could not prove their legal status. The Supreme Court had ruled a decade earlier that the Fourteenth Amendment did not include a constitutional right to education. Could Texas charge tuition to unauthorized families or exclude them from public schools entirely? The first two chapters examine how these questions vexed the Carter and Reagan administrations, where officials saw unauthorized children as sympathetic figures, but also recognized that immigration [End Page 449] was a hot-button issue with voters. Though unauthorized immigrants were a convenient political target for members of state legislatures—especially in their inability to respond at the ballot box—officials were wary of punishing children. The Supreme Court eventually ruled the law unconstitutional in 1982. But the concerns about childhood that restrained some policymakers and judges in Plyler did little to deter efforts by state legislatures to target adults. Amid press warnings that linked rising unemployment rates to unauthorized workers, states passed laws criminalizing the employers who hired them. The next two chapters examine how this issue scrambled traditional partisan divides. The Chamber of Commerce and many Republicans opposed a federal law because it targeted business owners. Latino advocacy groups recognized that the law risked the possibility that, fearful of prosecution, employers could refuse to hire any identifiably Latino person. Ultimately, these concerns contributed to the passage of the 1986 federal immigration law that included (largely unenforceable) sanctions for employers, but also prohibited discrimination on the basis of alienage and national origin in hiring. The final chapters focus on the 1990s, when both political parties lurched rightward on immigration. The fifth chapter examines how immigration again came to the fore amid an economic downturn, culminating in Clinton-era welfare reform that ended the ability of noncitizens to access public benefits, including cash assistance and food stamps, regardless of their legal status. The final chapter explains how states paved the way for new restrictive immigration policies, leading Congress to ultimately buttress the authority of state and local officials to carry out immigration enforcement in the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. The Walls Within is a story of lawyers, judges, policy advisers, senators, and other elites as they made immigration law and policy in courtrooms and offices. Unauthorized immigrants existed abstractly for these people, especially for politicians who sought to use [End Page 450] immigration policy to woo conservative white voters (in the case of Clinton) or appeal to Latino voters (as Reagan did). The book, therefore, has less to say about how these legal and policy changes affected immigrants' everyday lives. Nonetheless it offers a clear policy and legal history of the fraught issue of immigrants' rights in the modern United States, especially in its contributions to the growing scholarship on federalism and immigration. [End Page 451] Kathryn Schumaker KATHRYN SCHUMAKER is a historian at the University of Oklahoma. She is the author of Troublemakers: Students' Rights and Racial Justice in the Long 1960s and is at work on a new book project about interracial families in...

Contradiction and Legislation Regarding the Right to Life

Contradiction and Legislation Regarding the Right to Life Kevin L. Flannery, S.J. Unborn Human Life and Fundamental Rights: Leading Constitutional Cases under Scrutiny. Edited by Pilar Zambrano and William Saunders, with concluding reflections by John Finnis. Berlin: Peter Lang, 2019. The most fundamental principle of law is the principle of non-contradiction. This is Thomas Aquinas's position in the seminal article on the natural law, Summa theologiae I-II, question 94, article 2, where, citing Aristotle, he formulates the principle as, "One should not simultaneously affirm and negate." Lafter in the same article, Thomas offers a practical formulation of the same principle, "Good is to be done and pursued and evil avoided"; but in law, since it is contained in propositions (airmations and negations) as distinct from ideas regarding the pursuit of goods, the prior formulation is the more immediately relevant of the two. The book under review is important in that, by going through the legal history regarding abortion and related issues in a number of different countries—the United States, Canada, Italy, Spain, Poland, Ireland (Eire), Costa Rica, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, and Peru—it causes to emerge any number of times the realization that legislation and judicial decisions in favor of abortion "rights" invariably infect a legal system with contradictions and inconsistencies of various sorts. The present essay is, therefore, not your typical book review. Its objective is simply to list some of the legal contradictions and inconsistencies identified by the book's various authors as they describe the legal status of the unborn in their respective nations. [End Page 1323] William Saunders's very clear and comprehensive first chapter is entitled, "Judicial Interference in the Protection of Human Life in the United States: Actions and Consequences." In it, he describes, among other things, the Human Cloning Prohibition Act passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in 2003, which prohibited "any person or entity, public or private" from performing human cloning (23). He speaks also of a bill proposed in the U.S. Senate once the Human Cloning Prohibition Act had passed in the House of Representatives. This Senate bill (which was entitle, "The Human Cloning Ban and Stem Cell Research Protection Act") would have prohibited "any person or other legal entity" from conducting human cloning, even while allowing nuclear transplantation, which it defines as "transferring the nucleus of a human somatic cell into an oocyte from which the nucleus . . . ha[s] been . . . removed or rendered inert." The problem here, as Saunders explains, is that this latter definition "is the very definition of cloning" (25). In other words, in the same year, two pieces of legislation were considered in the Congress of the United States, both purporting to ban human cloning, one of which would have permitted what the other described (correctly) as human cloning and so prohibited. In the second chapter, "Whither United States Abortion Law?" by Gerard V. Bradley, discussed, among other things, is the inconsistency between the United States Supreme Court's pro-abortion decision Roe v. Wade and various laws, both state and federal, prohibiting feticide. Bradley says of the 2004 federal Unborn Victims of Violence Act that, "in pertinent part it says that 'whoever' 'causes the death of or bodily injury to,' a 'child who is in utero' is guilty of an offense apart from any accompanying offense against the woman carrying the child." The penalty for such an act is the same as would be imposed if the act were inflicted upon the unborn child's mother: if, for instance, the mother was killed. "A child in utero," reports Bradley, "is defined as a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb'" (37). The problem here is that prosecutable under this law are acts identical with those performed legally by abortionists. Bradley mentions two cases in which a woman's male partner—in one case the woman's husband—effected by stealth the abortion of her child. In one case, the male purchased abortion pills and affixed to their container a pharmacy label indicating that it contained a common antibiotic; in the other, the husband obtained the same type of...

Trustees Act on AAMC Brief in Harvard Case, Multiple Other Issues

Trustees Act on AAMC Brief in Harvard Case, Multiple Other Issues

Response

Response Bernadette J. Brooten (bio) Thank you to Joseph Marchal, who organized this special section, to the respondents, each of whom has taken such care in engaging my work, and to the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion for publishing it. First, a word about the time in which I wrote. Jennifer Glancy and Mónica Rey have observed that, when I published Love Between Women in 1996, same-gender marriage was illegal. Beyond that, same-gender sexual contact itself was actually a crime in many states until 2003. In Lawrence v. Texas (2003), the United States Supreme Court overruled Bowers v. Hardwick, a 1986 Supreme Court case, and declared that a Texas statute criminalizing consensual same-gender sex between adults was unconstitutional under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.1 As this goes to press, the constitutionally guaranteed right to privacy is at risk, which could mean turning back the clock on same-gender marriage and other hard-fought rights.2 [End Page 191] When New Testament scholars discussed Rom 1:26–27 at all, many assumed that Paul was speaking hypothetically about sexual relations between females: "For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their females exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the males, giving up natural intercourse with females, were consumed with passion for one another. Males committed shameless acts with males and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error" (NRSV, slightly altered). I vividly recall speaking with a fellow, male member of the Society for New Testament Studies, who insisted to me that sexual relations between women did not exist in Paul's world, that Paul was simply hypothesizing such relations. Similarly, one well-known feminist theologian in Germany, speaking about my plans to write this book, once told another German feminist theologian, "I don't know any lesbians," to which her friend responded, "You know me." Silence. I cannot stress enough how wonderful I feel seeing more junior scholars working to interpret some of the same texts and artifacts about which I wrote and introducing new ones into the discussion. While writing about some of the more obscure texts, I felt as if I were excavating by drilling through ice in Antarctica, with no other experienced scholar in sight. I did, of course, discuss these sources with talented research assistants Denise Kimber Buell, Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre, Caroline Johnson Hodge, and many others. But how encouraging it is now to be able to communicate with each of you in this panel, and to read of other interpretations, such as in Joseph Marchal's Appalling Bodies.3 Marchal deeply engages a broad range of ancient sources, proposing new meanings of being a receptive erotic partner. Angela Standhartinger has outlined some of the difficulties that I faced in the 1980s in Tübingen with Hans Küng, who opposed the very subject of the research. Numerous German feminists, LGBTQ+ individuals and groups, and simply fair-minded persons supported my work in numerous ways. I want to single out for special mention my friend of over four decades, Sheila Briggs, who spent countless hours with me in long-distance phone calls between Claremont, California, and Tübingen, counseling me on how to fight for the academic freedom necessary to write this book. Thank you, also, Angela Standhartinger, for mentioning my early work in addressing anti-Judaism within feminism and some of my other experiences and initiatives in Germany in the 1970s and 1980s. I am thrilled about all that has lasted and grown since the meaningful years that I spent in the lovely small city of Tübingen. Thank you, Mónica Rey, for highlighting Love Between Women's contributions to women's history. I set out to establish that people in the Hellenistic and [End Page 192] Roman Mediterranean world knew of female homoerotic desires and acts. This largely involved studying male fantasies, some of them bizarre and distorted. I did, however, also find fragmentary evidence for women's history. Now, some people are not interested in history. That's all right. Not everyone has the same interests. Some think that a desire to write...

Choice of Law and Nazi-Looted Art Restitution: Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation

On April 21, 2022, the Supreme Court came to an unanimous decision in Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation, a case concerning the legal ownership of a valuable painting by Camille Pissarro that was appropriated by the Nazi regime during the 1930s when its Jewish owners fled to the United States. After World War II, the painting changed ownership several times, ultimately to be acquired by Baron Hans Heinrich who sold it to the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation in the Kingdom of Spain. After sixteen years of litigation and four appeals to the Ninth Circuit, the Supreme Court vacated and remanded the case back to the Ninth Circuit. The opinion, written by Justice Kagan, contended that in a suit raising non-federal claims against a foreign state or instrumentality under the FSIA, a court should determine the substantive law by using the same voice of law rule applicable in a similar suit against a private party. This paper will introduce the facts of Cassirer, present its procedural history, and dissect its treatment before the United States Supreme Court. This analysis will conclude with a discussion of the potential implications of the Cassirer decision on future Nazi-looted art claims.