Constitutional Law

“What makes the Fifth Circuit so stunning is not only that it’s dominated by Republican appointees but how conservative they are,” Dean Chemerinsky said.

“There are still some open questions about the extent to which states can issue rules like this,” said Tejas Narechania, faculty director at the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology. “I think the decision here maybe points toward the states being able to do more of that. I think that’ll be true in the tech space, in particular.”

“The decision is not remarkable in that it follows decades of precedent,” writes Dean Chemerinsky. “Its significance is that it did not impose significant new restrictions on states’ regulatory power. But given how readily the Roberts court has abandoned precedents and ruled in favor of business and against regulation, it is notable and welcome.”

“It is the responsibility of those who know her and that she respects to ask her to do a final act of great public service for California and the country: resign,” writes Dean Chemerinsky.

Former federal judge Jeremy Fogel, now executive director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute at UC-Berkeley Law School, said in prepared remarks it was “awkward” for him to testify because he admires Roberts and understands the complications of adopting a code of ethics for the justices.

“There should be no First Amendment right to use speech to cause a reasonable person to fear for their safety,” writes Dean Chemerinsky. “Based on oral arguments in the Supreme Court on April 19 in Counterman v. Colorado, however, it appears that the justices are likely to make it much harder to prove that speech is a threat.”

“I think the court is slower this year, but it has been pretty slow in recent years, too,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. “It does mean that there again will be a flurry of blockbuster decisions in June,” he added.

Dean Chemerinsky discusses a few of the United State Supreme Court’s most high profile cases to be decided this year.

“The ultimate liberty is the right to be left alone, and Dobbs established a clear mandate for state courts to define that right under their state constitutions,” write David Carrillo and Brandon V. Stracener of the California Constitution Center at Berkeley Law. “This is an opportunity for states to abandon their flawed lockstep doctrines, reassert themselves as the primary guarantors of individual liberty, and restore the state–federal balance of power in this area of the law.”

In a piece by Edward Wasserman, professor and former dean of UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, Dean Chemerinsky said “The law is clear that retaliation against a person—that includes a corporation—for its speech violates the First Amendment. Gov. DeSantis and the Florida legislature have done exactly that, and said that is what they were doing, in its reprisal against Disney.”