E-mail:
Jack Balkin: jackbalkin at yahoo.com
Bruce Ackerman bruce.ackerman at yale.edu
Ian Ayres ian.ayres at yale.edu
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Mary Dudziak mary.l.dudziak at emory.edu
Joey Fishkin joey.fishkin at gmail.com
Heather Gerken heather.gerken at yale.edu
Abbe Gluck abbe.gluck at yale.edu
Mark Graber mgraber at law.umaryland.edu
Stephen Griffin sgriffin at tulane.edu
Jonathan Hafetz jonathan.hafetz at shu.edu
Jeremy Kessler jkessler at law.columbia.edu
Andrew Koppelman akoppelman at law.northwestern.edu
Marty Lederman msl46 at law.georgetown.edu
Sanford Levinson slevinson at law.utexas.edu
David Luban david.luban at gmail.com
Gerard Magliocca gmaglioc at iupui.edu
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Linda McClain lmcclain at bu.edu
John Mikhail mikhail at law.georgetown.edu
Frank Pasquale pasquale.frank at gmail.com
Nate Persily npersily at gmail.com
Michael Stokes Paulsen michaelstokespaulsen at gmail.com
Deborah Pearlstein dpearlst at yu.edu
Rick Pildes rick.pildes at nyu.edu
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Richard Primus raprimus at umich.edu
K. Sabeel Rahmansabeel.rahman at brooklaw.edu
Alice Ristroph alice.ristroph at shu.edu
Neil Siegel siegel at law.duke.edu
David Super david.super at law.georgetown.edu
Brian Tamanaha btamanaha at wulaw.wustl.edu
Nelson Tebbe nelson.tebbe at brooklaw.edu
Mark Tushnet mtushnet at law.harvard.edu
Adam Winkler winkler at ucla.edu
One issue in the upcoming appeal of the Colorado decision on Section Three is whether the Supreme Court should follow Chief Justice Chase's circuit opinion in Griffin's Case. I offered an internal and external critique of Griffin's Case in my law review article. Baude and Paulsen provide a more detailed takedown in their paper. Here I want to reveal another troubling dimension of the case, which involves facts that were not described by the Chief Justice. What occurred, though, was widely discussed in the newspapers at the time, as well as in subsequent books on Reconstruction in Virginia.
Ceasar Griffin was a Black man who refused to step aside for a white woman who was walking down the street. The woman's son, outraged by this "insult," got a switch and went after Griffin to beat him. But Griffin was armed with a pistol and shot his attacker (though not fatally). A crowd then tried to lynch Griffin, but he was saved in the nick of time, put on trial, and convicted. (His assailant was not charged.) Many saw this case as an injustice, which helps explain why Griffin was pardoned right after the Chief Justice issued his decision denying habeas corpus relief.
It would be a shame if a case with this fact pattern was embraced by the Supreme Court as foundational for interpreting Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment narrowly.