News Release

Scholars, lawyers, journalists, historians and others interested in the landmark Supreme Court case Marbury v. Madison will gather in Baltimore on Feb. 24 and Feb. 25 to mark the 200th anniversary of the decision that established the authority of the high court to declare laws unconstitutional.

Scheduled to take place at The Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland School of Law, the two-day commemoration of the Marbury decision a case with a fascinating backdrop of political intrigue involving the Jeffersonians versus the Federalists kicks off with a talk by Mark Tushnet, professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. He will give the opening address at 8 p.m. on Feb. 24 in Hodson Hall on the Johns Hopkins Homewood campus. His talk is entitled, "The Seeming Emulation of Marbury v. Madison Abroad."

"Marbury versus Madison is one of the foundation cases of American law," said Joel Grossman, a Johns Hopkins political science professor and expert on the Supreme Court. "It's one of those cases that very few people think about or know about, outside of lawyers, who know about it, but who probably haven't read it since law school."

The conference continues on Tuesday, Feb. 25, at the University of Maryland School of Law with four panel discussions of various aspects of the Marbury case, including one that delves into the origin and background of the case.

That panel, which will be moderated by Peter Quint, Jacob A. France Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Maryland School of Law, is entitled, "Origins: The Case of Marbury v. Madison (1803) and the Establishment of Judicial Review." It features experts from Stanford University, the New York University School of Law, University of Oregon School of Law and the University of Maryland, College Park and will take place in the Ceremonial Court Room, 500 West Baltimore Street, Baltimore.

Lynne A. Battaglia, a judge on the Maryland Court of Appeals, will give a luncheon address from 1 p.m. to 1:45 p.m. Tuesday in Westminster Hall of the University of Maryland School of Law.

Another panel will deal with the development of judicial review and judicial activism and features Anthony Lewis, the former Supreme Court reporter and columnist for The New York Times. That panel is entitled, "Judicial Review, Judicial Activism, Democratic Governance, and the Countermajoritarian Difficulty: Whither the Rehnquist Court?" This panel will take place in the Ceremonial Court Room.

All events are free and open to the public, but space is limited. To attend, you should register by calling 410-706-4128 or by e-mailing Lu Ann Marshall at: lmarshal@law.umaryland.edu.

This conference is sponsored by the Johns Hopkins University, the University of Maryland School of Law, the University of Baltimore School of Law, the Piper Rudnick law firm and the University of Maryland, College Park.

To watch a short video of Professor Grossman explaining the background of the Marbury case, please go to: http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/audio-video/marbury.html