Document Type
Brief
Case Name
Eleanor McCullen v. Martha Coakley
Publication Date
9-16-2013
Abstract
No. 12-1168
Eleanor McCullen v. Martha Coakley
On Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
From the Summary of Argument
Even many steadfast supporters of abortion rights believed that the Court erroneously applied the First Amendment in Hill v. Colorado, 530 U.S. 703 (2000). As put bluntly by leading liberal scholar Professor Laurence Tribe, Hill was among the candidates for “most blatantly erroneous” decisions of the 1999 Term. Tribe added that the case was “slam-dunk simple” yet the Court got it “slam-dunk wrong.”
Specifically, pro-choice and pro-life scholars alike agreed that the Hill majority wrongly deemed the Colorado statute “content-neutral.” The ACLU, for instance, called the statute “fundamentally flawed,” and urged the Hill Court to strike down the law because it “distinguishes among speakers based on what they are saying and not on what they are doing . . . [s]uch distinctions are plainly content-based and trigger strict scrutiny.” Kathleen Sullivan and Erwin Chemerinsky also opposed the Hill majority’s content-neutrality finding.
Recommended Citation
Walsh, Kevin C.; Fitzgerald, Matthew A.; Daly, Andriana S.; and Garnett, Richard W., "Brief of Eugene Volokh, Richard W. Garnett, Michael Stokes Paulsen, Timothy Zick, William E. Lee, Alan K. Chen, & Ronald J. Krotoszynski, Jr. as Amici Curiae in Support of Petitioners" (2013). Court Briefs. 103.
https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/sct_briefs/103
Included in
Constitutional Law Commons, Courts Commons, First Amendment Commons, Supreme Court of the United States Commons
Comments
Amici are constitutional law professors who teach and write in the area of First Amendment law. Although amici have divergent perspectives on the Court’s abortion jurisprudence, amici agree on the importance of the First Amendment principles at stake in this case.
See the listing on pages 1-3, including Notre Dame Law School's Richard W. Garnett.