The Roundtable

Welcome to the Roundtable, JLPP’s online blog featuring student commentary on current cases and legal developments!

If you are interested in becoming a Staff Writer or Contributing Writer for the Roundtable, e-mail Notes Editors Kyle Reynolds (mreynolds@jd18.law.harvard.edu) or Chadwick Harper (charper@jd19.law.harvard.edu).

Contra Koppelman: What Mere Natural Law was About – Hadley Arkes

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Contra Koppelman: What Mere Natural Law was About – Hadley Arkes

Download PDF Contra Koppelman: What Mere Natural Law was About Hadley Arkes Andrew Koppelman and I have just missed connecting at different meetings over the last several months; I know he was eager to give me his reactions to Mere Natural Law, and now, I’m pleased enough to see, he has had his chance to unloose them.  I appreciate, as ever, his willingness to engage an argument, and I feel especially complimented here by his willingness to draw passages from other books of mine, from years past.  But I’m afraid that while he takes fragments...

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Critiquing Hadley Arkes’s not-so-mere Natural Law Theory – Andrew Koppelman

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Critiquing Hadley Arkes’s not-so-mere Natural Law Theory – Andrew Koppelman

Download PDF Critiquing Hadley Arkes’s not-so-mere Natural Law Theory Andrew Koppelman* Law can’t be separated from morality, because law is a kind of human conduct.  So is compliance with the law.  Morality constrains all of human conduct.  So the idea of natural law, a set of moral constraints binding on any possible legal system, has perennial appeal. Hadley Arkes is a leading contemporary proponent of a revived natural law.  His prominence is deserved.  His work is smart and learned and entertaining.  He writes with admirable moral...

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The Third Rails of Second Amendment Jurisprudence: Guidance on Deriving Historical Principles Post-Bruen – Mark W. Smith

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The Third Rails of Second Amendment Jurisprudence: Guidance on Deriving Historical Principles Post-Bruen – Mark W. Smith

Download PDF The Third Rails of Second Amendment Jurisprudence: Guidance on Deriving Historical Principles Post-Bruen Mark W. Smith*   This article proposes a method by which courts and litigants can resolve recurring questions presented in litigation over the right to keep and bear arms. Three Supreme Court cases, District of Columbia v. Heller (2008),[2] New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022),[3] and United States v. Rahimi (2024)[4] established a text-first, history-second methodology for deciding whether a...

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Misconstruing the Electoral Count Act: A Response to Evan A. Davis and David M. Schulte – Seth Barrett Tillman

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Misconstruing the Electoral Count Act: A Response to Evan A. Davis and David M. Schulte – Seth Barrett Tillman

Download PDF Misconstruing the Electoral Count Act: A Response to Evan A. Davis and David M. Schulte Seth Barrett Tillman* In an article appearing on The Hill,[1] Evan A. Davis and David M. Schulte put forward the position that president-elect Trump is barred by Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment from becoming President. Or, to put it more plainly, in spite of the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. Anderson,[2] Congress is free to ignore the Court’s decision and to determine that Trump was and remains disqualified. In those...

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St. John Henry Newman’s Development of Doctrine and Law: Some Preliminary Notes and Questions – Jeffrey A. Pojanowski

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St. John Henry Newman’s Development of Doctrine and Law: Some Preliminary Notes and Questions – Jeffrey A. Pojanowski

Download PDF St. John Henry Newman’s Development of Doctrine and Law: Some Preliminary Notes and Questions Jeffrey A. Pojanowski* When one thinks about the relationship between Newman’s thought on the development of doctrine in the Church and the development of legal doctrine, it is hard to know where to begin. There are so many potential parallels and fruitful avenues of inquiry, but also worries about superficial resemblances or imperfect analogies between theological doctrine and legal doctrine. This is all the more challenging because...

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The Very Idea of Tradition in the Law – Marc O. DeGirolami

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The Very Idea of Tradition in the Law – Marc O. DeGirolami

Download PDF The Very Idea of Tradition in the Law Marc O. DeGirolami* It is a pleasure to be with you, on the occasion of this conference to honor the polymath and prince of the Church, St. John Henry Newman. It is customary in lectures of this sort to make grand pronouncements to other scholars in one’s field. But I have a different audience in mind. I want to talk to students, friends, colleagues in other areas, and generally interested people, about tradition. To those who might find in tradition something appealing, enchanting, and...

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The Presidential Immunity Decision – Robert Delahunty & John Yoo

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The Presidential Immunity Decision – Robert Delahunty & John Yoo

Download PDF The Presidential Immunity Decision Robert Delahunty & John Yoo * In Trump v. United States,[1] the Supreme Court issued one of the most resounding defenses of executive power in its history.  It held that former Presidents enjoy absolute immunity from federal prosecution for actions within their core constitutional powers.  Writing for a 6-3 majority, Chief Justice John Roberts claimed the decision had little to do with the charges against Donald Trump for the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack and everything to do with the...

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Keeping the Faith: How Recent RLUIPA Decisions Are Reshaping Religious Freedom for Incarcerated Individuals – Nick Reaves

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Keeping the Faith: How Recent RLUIPA Decisions Are Reshaping Religious Freedom for Incarcerated Individuals – Nick Reaves

Download PDF Keeping the Faith: How Recent RLUIPA Decisions Are Reshaping Religious Freedom for Incarcerated Individuals By Nick Reaves* Introduction The freedom to practice one’s faith while incarcerated is on the upswing. One could even argue that the Supreme Court’s current interpretation of the legal standard set forth in the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) is more protective of incarcerated individuals’ religious freedom than free exercise law has been at any other time in our Nation’s history. Nevertheless,...

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Textualism, the Gun Control Act, and ATF’s Redefinition of “Firearm” – Stephen P. Halbrook

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Textualism, the Gun Control Act, and ATF’s Redefinition of “Firearm” – Stephen P. Halbrook

Download PDF Textualism, the Gun Control Act, and ATF’s Redefinition of “Firearm” Stephen P. Halbrook* The Supreme Court has granted the Attorney General’s petition for a writ of certiorari in a case concerning agency authority to adopt regulations that expand the definitions found in the Gun Control Act of 1968, 18 U.S.C. § 921 et seq. (“the GCA”).  In VanDerStok v. Garland, the Fifth Circuit decided that the regulations unlawfully expanded the reach of the GCA’s criminal provisions and exceeded the powers that Congress delegated to the...

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Problems with Rulemaking by District Court Enforcement Action: the SEC’s Improper Cryptocurrency Regulation – Eric Wessan & Phil Pillari

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Problems with Rulemaking by District Court Enforcement Action: the SEC’s Improper Cryptocurrency Regulation – Eric Wessan & Phil Pillari

Download PDF Problems with Rulemaking by District Court Enforcement Action: the SEC’s Improper Cryptocurrency Regulation Eric Wessan and Phil Pillari* Introduction Cryptocurrencies have become a vibrant part of the global economy. Unsurprisingly, the United States is the global leader in developing and advancing cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. But as with any new technology, the rise and prominence of cryptocurrencies create both opportunities and challenges. Some of those challenges are regulatory in nature. As States, the federal...

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