Document Type
Article
Publication Date
10-2009
Publication Title
William and Mary Law Review
Publication Title (Abbreviation)
Wm. & Mary L. Rev.
Volume
51
Issue
1
First Page
143
Last Page
182
Abstract
Americans have long been bound by a shared sense of constitutional commonality, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly condemned the notion that federal constitutional rights should be allowed to depend on distinct state and local legal norms. In reality, however, federal rights do indeed vary, and they do so as a result of their contingent relationship to the diversity of state and local laws on which they rely. Focusing on criminal procedure rights in particular, this Article examines the benefits and detriments of constitutional contingency, and casts in new light many enduring understandings of American constitutionalism, including the effects of incorporation doctrine and the nation’s mythic sense of shared constitutional commitment.
Rights
© 2009 Wayne A. Logan
Faculty Biography
http://law.fsu.edu/our-faculty/profiles/wlogan
Recommended Citation
Wayne A. Logan,
Contingent Constitutionalism: State and Local Criminal Laws and the Applicability of Federal Constitutional Rights, 51
Wm. & Mary L. Rev.
143
(2009),
Available at: https://ir.law.fsu.edu/articles/177
Included in
Constitutional Law Commons, Criminal Law Commons, Fourth Amendment Commons, State and Local Government Law Commons
Comments
First published in William and Mary Law Review.