Constitutional Law

President Obama has the talent to say things that are demonstrably false and make them sound not only plausible but inspiring. When asked a couple of weeks ago whether he thought the Supreme Court would uphold ObamaCare as constitutional or strike it down as unconstitutional he replied: "I'm confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of...

Soon after President Barack Obama's inauguration, "I want my country back!" became the shrill battle cry of the tea party. Garrett Epps, a legal scholar based at the University of Baltimore, has a battle cry of his own: "I want my Constitution back!" Epps believes the tea party and the politicians it supports are among the collaborators in extravagant myth-making about the law of the land, and the movement has gone from the fringe to the conservative mainstream to the Supreme Court.

Gerald Gunther, 75, the author of the standard American law school casebook Constitutional Law who was mentioned as a Supreme Court prospect, died in San Francisco on Tuesday of lung cancer. Mr. Gunther was born in 1927 in Usingen, Germany, near Frankfurt. From 1956 to 1962 he was a faculty member at Columbia University School of Law until he was lured away to teach at Stanford, where he was a faculty member the next 40 years. Mr. Gunther was an expert on the U.S. Supreme Court. A poll issued in 1987 by New York Law Journal ranked him as the "best qualified" choice for appointment to the Supreme Court.

President Obama has the talent to say things that are demonstrably false and make them sound not only plausible but inspiring. When asked a couple of weeks ago whether he thought the Supreme Court would uphold ObamaCare as constitutional or strike it down as unconstitutional he replied: "I'm confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of...

WASHINGTON -- The briefing books are the same. The White House and Justice Department inquisitors are the same. Even the questions are largely the same: about abortion rights, the right to privacy and the 14th Amendment. The difference, of course, is that the lead character has changed, as has the political climate. Harriet E. Miers, the unobtrusive White House counsel who helped to run the so-called "murder boards" that prepared Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. for his Senate confirmation hearings, is now the one whose future life as a Supreme Court justice is at stake.

I was taught Constitutional Law by William Van Alstyne, one of the great constitutional scholars of the last 50 years. No one would ever have considered him anything but a political liberal, but he was bright enough to see the complexity of constitutional issues and was even-handed in his analysis of arguments opposed to his own. His was different in every way from the arrogant, muddled thinking of "scholars" like Garrett Epps. Mr. Epps' article ("The champion of fairness," April 21)

Barbara Mello, who taught constitutional law and defended people's rights under it as attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, died of lung cancer complications Saturday at her Owings Mills home. She was 71. Ms. Mello was the first salaried staff attorney hired by the state ACLU chapter, and taught for more than two decades at the University of Baltimore's School of Law, where she had graduated first in her class in 1976 after a midlife career change. "She was a perfect civil libertarian in that she had strong beliefs, but she was also witty, sardonic, skeptical, and irreverent, even about civil liberties matters," said John Roemer, a Park School teacher and former executive director of the ACLU, who hired her there in 1976.

GEORGE BROOKS SR., 81 Civil rights activist The Rev. George Brooks Sr., a longtime civil rights activist in Phoenix who founded a church, served in the state Legislature and led an Arizona NAACP chapter in the 1960s, died Wednesday after an extended illness, said his son, George Brooks Jr. Mr. Brooks took the helm of the Maricopa County chapter of the NAACP in 1961 and fought for the rights of blacks who struggled to get jobs, were barred from Phoenix...

Soon after President Barack Obama's inauguration, "I want my country back!" became the shrill battle cry of the tea party. Garrett Epps, a legal scholar based at the University of Baltimore, has a battle cry of his own: "I want my Constitution back!" Epps believes the tea party and the politicians it supports are among the collaborators in extravagant myth-making about the law of the land, and the movement has gone from the fringe to the conservative mainstream to the Supreme Court.

Emotions flare over same-sex marriage Despite rejection of a similar bill by House lawmakers last month, a Senate committee took up yesterday the emotionally charged debate over whether Maryland should ban same-sex marriage in its constitution. Clergy, constitutional law experts and children of gay parents were among those who packed the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee room to speak out on the issue. The marriage debate dominated the opening weeks of the legislature after a Baltimore judge sided with 19 gay men and women, ruling that Maryland's 33-year-old law defining marriage between a man and a woman was unconstitutional.

I was taught Constitutional Law by William Van Alstyne, one of the great constitutional scholars of the last 50 years. No one would ever have considered him anything but a political liberal, but he was bright enough to see the complexity of constitutional issues and was even-handed in his analysis of arguments opposed to his own. His was different in every way from the arrogant, muddled thinking of "scholars" like Garrett Epps. Mr. Epps' article ("The champion of fairness," April 21)

In the endless war of words about gun rights, the academic community has done little but pock the discourse with vague, theoretical utterances. Unfortunately, the courts have been listening. Earlier this year, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia became the first federal tribunal to strike down a local gun-control law, holding that the Founding Fathers would have allowed all private citizens to arm themselves. In so doing, Judge Laurence H. Silberman adopted the National Rifle Association's selective history of the Second Amendment.

GEORGE BROOKS SR., 81 Civil rights activist The Rev. George Brooks Sr., a longtime civil rights activist in Phoenix who founded a church, served in the state Legislature and led an Arizona NAACP chapter in the 1960s, died Wednesday after an extended illness, said his son, George Brooks Jr. Mr. Brooks took the helm of the Maricopa County chapter of the NAACP in 1961 and fought for the rights of blacks who struggled to get jobs, were barred from Phoenix...

Emotions flare over same-sex marriage Despite rejection of a similar bill by House lawmakers last month, a Senate committee took up yesterday the emotionally charged debate over whether Maryland should ban same-sex marriage in its constitution. Clergy, constitutional law experts and children of gay parents were among those who packed the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee room to speak out on the issue. The marriage debate dominated the opening weeks of the legislature after a Baltimore judge sided with 19 gay men and women, ruling that Maryland's 33-year-old law defining marriage between a man and a woman was unconstitutional.

It was just a small thing, but I was taken aback when I received a memo saying that the offices at work would be shut down during "winter closure." Then it dawned on me that "winter closure" was what we used to call "Christmas vacation." Various colleges and universities have long since stopped calling it the Christmas vacation. A large shopping mall in San Francisco was decked out in all sorts of holiday decorations, including a huge tree, with Santa Claus sitting next to it - but nowhere was there that now-controversial phrase, "Merry Christmas."

For Priscilla Zotti and her students at the U.S. Naval Academy, the Constitution is alive. Buzzwords such as "constructionism" and "judicial activism" give way to the history of American ideas, the eclectic personalities of Supreme Court justices and historic cases that changed the American experience. This has been quite a semester for Zotti and the midshipmen taking her constitutional law class. One of two vacancies on the Supreme Court has been filled, and the justices heard arguments in a Fourth Amendment case about a crime that took place only a few blocks from the military college's Annapolis campus.

GEORGE WALLACE gets treated better by black people than Clarence Thomas. Even those who will never forgive the former Alabama governor for "standing in the schoolhouse door" to thwart integration in the '60s have applauded his expressions of remorse since. Mr. Thomas has not backed down from his controversial positions as only the second African-American to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. Consequently, his opinions opposing affirmative action and majority-black voting districts have vilified him in the minds of the liberal African-American leadership.

For Priscilla Zotti and her students at the U.S. Naval Academy, the Constitution is alive. Buzzwords such as "constructionism" and "judicial activism" give way to the history of American ideas, the eclectic personalities of Supreme Court justices and historic cases that changed the American experience. This has been quite a semester for Zotti and the midshipmen taking her constitutional law class. One of two vacancies on the Supreme Court has been filled, and the justices heard arguments in a Fourth Amendment case about a crime that took place only a few blocks from the military college's Annapolis campus.

WASHINGTON -- Rebounding from the failed nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, President Bush is poised to select between two of the nation's leading conservative federal appeals court judges -- both experienced jurists with deep backgrounds in constitutional law -- for what promises to be a bruising Senate confirmation battle. With an announcement expected Sunday or Monday, administration officials have narrowed the focus to Judges Samuel Alito of New Jersey and Michael Luttig of Virginia, sources involved in the process said.

WASHINGTON -- The briefing books are the same. The White House and Justice Department inquisitors are the same. Even the questions are largely the same: about abortion rights, the right to privacy and the 14th Amendment. The difference, of course, is that the lead character has changed, as has the political climate. Harriet E. Miers, the unobtrusive White House counsel who helped to run the so-called "murder boards" that prepared Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. for his Senate confirmation hearings, is now the one whose future life as a Supreme Court justice is at stake.