Jed Shugerman

Jed Handelsman Shugerman is a Professor at Fordham Law School. He received his B.A., J.D., and Ph.D. (History) from Yale. His book, The People’s Courts (Harvard 2012), traces the rise of judicial elections, judicial review, and the influence of money and parties in American courts. It is based on his dissertation that won the 2009 ASLH’s Cromwell Prize. He is co-author of amicus briefs on the history of presidential power, the Emoluments Clauses, the Appointments Clause, the First Amendment rights of elected judges, and the due process problems of elected judges in death penalty cases.

He is currently working on two books on the history of executive power and prosecution in America. The first is tentatively titled “A Faithful President: The Founders v. the Unitary Executive,” questioning the textual and historical evidence for the theory of unchecked and unbalanced presidential power. This book draws on his articles “Vesting” (Stanford Law Review forthcoming Spring 2022), “Removal of Context” (Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities 2022), a co-authored “Faithful Execution and Article II” (Harvard Law Review 2019 with Fordham colleagues Andrew Kent and Ethan Leib), “The Indecisions of 1789” (forthcoming Penn. Law Review Fall 2022), and “The Creation of the Department of Justice,” (Stanford Law Review 2014). The second book project is “The Rise of the Prosecutor Politicians: Race, War, and Mass Incarceration,” focusing on California Governor Earl Warren, his presidential running mate Thomas Dewey, the Kennedys, World War II and the Cold War, the war on crime, the growth of prosecutorial power, and its emergence as a stepping stone to electoral power for ambitious politicians in the mid-twentieth century. He writes about law, history, politics, and sometimes sports on Shugerblog.com. 

Education

• Yale University, PhD in History, 2008
  Dissertation: “The People’s Courts: The Rise of Judicial Elections and Judicial Power in America”
  Prize: The American Society of Legal History’s 2009 Cromwell Prize for best dissertation or article in American legal history in 2008
• Yale Law School, JD 2002
  Yale Law Journal, Book Note-Case Note editor (2000-01); Senior Editor (2001-02)
  Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities, Managing Editor (1999-2000), Lead Editor (1999-2000)
  Joseph Parker Prize (2000) jointly awarded for the best paper in legal history at Yale Law School
  Israel Peres Prize (2001) for the best student note in the Yale Law Journal
• Yale College, BA in History, May 1996
  Magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa and Distinction in History

Representative Publications

Books

• Shugerman, Jed. The People's Courts: The Rise of Judicial Elections and Judicial Power in America (Harvard University Press 2012).

Articles

• “Removal of Context: Blackstone, Limited Monarchy, and the Limits of Originalism,” 33 Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities 125 (2022)
• “Countering Gerrymandered Courts” (Comment on Miriam Seifter’s “Countermajoritarian Legislatures”), 122 Columbia Law Review Online 18-36 (March 2022)
• “Vesting,” 74 Stanford Law Review (forthcoming Spring 2022). https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3793213
• “Presidential Removal: The Marbury Problem and the Madison Solutions,” 89 Fordham Law Review 2085 (2021) (“The Federalist Constitution” Symposium) link https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr/vol89/iss5/14/
• “The Indecisions of 1789: Inconstant Originalism,” 171 U. Penn. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2022) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3596566
• “The Indecisions of 1789: Strategic Ambiguity and the Imaginary Unitary Executive (Part I) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3596566
• The Decisions of 1789 Were Non-Unitary: Removal by Judiciary and the Imaginary Unitary Executive (Part II) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3597496
• Fiduciary Constitutionalism: Two Legal Conclusions," ___ Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy (forthcoming 2019) [with Ethan J. Leib].
• https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3177968
• Constitutional Hardball vs. Beanball: Identifying Fundamentally Antidemocratic Tactics," (Reply to David Pozen, Joseph Fishkin, and David Bernstein), 118 Columbia Law Review Online (forthcoming 2019)
  https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3326275
• Professionals, Politicos, and Crony Attorneys General: A Historical Review of the U.S. Attorney General as a Case for Structural Reform," 87 Fordham Law Review (forthcoming 2019)
• Emoluments, Zones of Interests, and Political Questions: A Cautionary Tale," 45 Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly 651-670 (2018) [with Gautham Rao
• "The Dependent Origins of Independent Agencies: The Interstate Commerce Commission, the Repeal of the Tenure of Office Act, and the Rise of Modern Campaign Finance," 31 Journal of Law & Politics 139 (2016)
• Panel Remarks: "Caperton's Next Generation," 18 NYU Journal of Legislation and Public Policy 587 (2016)
• "Foreword: Fighting Corruption in America and Abroad," 84 Fordham Law Review 407 (2015)
• "The Legitimacy of Administrative Law" (review essay), Tulsa Law Review (March 2015, reviewing Jerry Mashaw, Nicholas Parrillo, Daniel Ernst, Joanna Grisinger, Philip Hamburger)
• "The Creation of the Department of Justice: Professionalization without Civil Rights or Civil Service," 66 Stanford Law Review 121 (2014)
• Shugerman, Jed. "Economic Crisis and the Rise of Judicial Elections and Judicial Review," 123 Harvard Law Review 1061 (2010).
• Shugerman, Jed. "The Twist of Long Terms: Disasters, Elected Judges and American Tort Law," 98 Georgetown Law Journal 1349 (2010).
• Shugerman, Jed. "In Defense of Appearances: What Caperton v. Massey Should Have Said (Clifford "Rising Stars" Symposium)," 59 DePaul Law Review 529 (2010).
• Shugerman, Jed. "State Judicial Review Cases, 1780-1865 (appendix to Economic Crisis and the Rise of Judicial Elections and Judicial Review)," 123 Harvard Law Review 1061 (2010).
• Shugerman, Jed. "A Watershed Moment: Reversals of Tort Theory in the Nineteenth Century," 2 Journal of Tort Law (2008).
• Shugerman, Jed. "Judges' Duties and Affirmative Duties: Stockberger v. U.S," 120 Harvard Law Review 1228 (2007).
• Shugerman, Jed. "A Six-Three Rule: Reviving Consensus and Deference on the Supreme Court," 37 Georgia Law Review 893 (2003).
• Shugerman, Jed. "Marbury and Judicial Deference: The Shadow of Whittington v. Polk and the Maryland Judiciary Battle," 5 University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law 58 (2002).
• Shugerman, Jed. "The Louisiana Purchase and South Carolina's Reopening of the Slave Trade in 1803," 22 Journal of the Early Republic 263 (2002).
• Shugerman, Jed. "Unreasonable Probability of Error, Coleman v. State," 111 Yale Law Journal 435 (2001).
• Shugerman, Jed. "Rights Revolutions and Counter-revolutions," 13 Yale Journal of Law & Humanities 531 (2000) (book review).
• (reviewing Richard Primus, The American Language of Rights (1999) and Mary Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights (2000))
• Shugerman, Jed. "The Floodgates of Strict Liability: Bursting Reservoirs and the Adoption of Fletcher v. Rylands in the Gilded Age," 110 Yale Law Journal 333 (2000)