Goldman on State Prosecutions of State Crimes in Federal Courts

David N. Goldman, Law Clerk to Judge David R. Stras, United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, and a recent graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, has posted The Neglected History of State Prosecutions for State Crimes in Federal Courts, which is forthcoming in the Texas Tech Law Review:

The Constitution provides the federal and state governments certain tools to contest and check one another. One of these tools is the authority of federal courts, a forum thought to be more hospitable to national interests, to hear cases “arising under” federal law. But what suits arise under federal law? The question has long perplexed academics and the courts. This article explores the issue through the lens of Congress's historical attempts to use this jurisdiction as a shield against state interference with federal policy. The history implicates timeless questions regarding the means by which Congress can navigate this Nation’s system of competing sovereignties, and the broader federal-courts question of just how far arising-under jurisdiction goes.

--Dan Ernst