It's gated, but interesting: Jak Allen has published What Is a “Moral” Citizen? Learned Hand and the Judicial Role for Defining Immigrant Morality Tests, 1929–61, in American Political Thought 13:1 (Winter 2024):
“Good moral character” and acts of “moral turpitude” remain significant US standards for citizenship hopefuls and potential deportees. However, there is little scholarship examining whether morality standards have been used as effective exclusionary tools in the history of US immigration law. This article addresses this incomplete picture by raising topical questions about democratic process in lawmaking and prompting historical reassessment of moral expectations as barriers to immigration. It highlights the leading role of federal appellate judge Learned Hand in exposing the interpretive challenges that moral-based standards presented to courts in the early to mid-twentieth century. The article argues that Hand attempted to reduce the discretionary scope of judges by relying on society’s “common conscience” to decide legal disputes in this deeply subjective field of law. However, in applying this more layered, context-specific view of moral standard, Hand also exposed flaws in his own philosophical adherence to judicial restraint.
Learned Hand (LC)
--Dan Ernst
