Category: Supreme Court
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Hencely and Boyle: Reconsidering Tort Immunity for Government Contractors
By Kent Heo — Since Boyle v. United Technologies Corporation in 1988, courts have understood that sovereign immunity from tort claims must extend to private contractors under the federal government. So long as the party is executing the terms of…
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The Erosion of Smith: Mahmoud v. Taylor and its Implications for the Free Exercise Clause
By Daeun Kim — Mahmoud v. Taylor marks a significant erosion of Employment Division v. Smith and signals a doctrinal shift toward revitalized, pre-Smith Free Exercise protections. By relying on Wisconsin v. Yoder rather than Smith, the Court reframed parental…
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GEO Group’s Claim to Merge Government Contractor Liability and Immunity Doctrines
By Mary Grace Walker — The Supreme Court’s grant of certiorari in GEO Group, Inc. v. Menocal, No. 24-758 (U.S. argued Nov. 10, 2025), raises a procedural question about the collateral-order doctrine, but it also raises a deeper doctrinal inconsistency…
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Vacated Votes: Ensuring Fair Elections in an Era of Conspiracy
Jaylee Witcher — The election of Joe Biden in 2020, bringing an end to Donald Trump’s presidency, sparked a wave of false allegations from the Republican Party and its conservative allies. Chief among their grievances were claims questioning the legitimacy…
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Are We All Americans?: Elk v. Wilkins and Native American Citizenship Before, During, and After Reconstruction
By Carolina Pardo — When Robert E. Lee went to negotiate his terms of surrender at the Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865, he stopped at the sight of a brown man amongst the Union generals. Everyone held their breath…
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The Independence of State Constitutional Interpretation and The New Jersey Courts’ Reliance on Federal Doctrines of Liberty
By David Chau — Under the American Federalism system, 51 constitutions coexist. They often overlap and come into conflict with each other over a plethora of issues from governance to individual liberties. As state constitutional law continues to rise in…
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The Puzzle of Federal Indian Law: The Doctrine of Preemption in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta
By Carolina Pardo — In his concurring opinion in United States v. Lara (2004), Justice Thomas writes, “Federal Indian policy is, to say the least, schizophrenic.” Justice Thomas aptly characterized Federal Indian law as contradictory and inconsistent. Since Christopher Columbus…
