Oregon Law Review : Vol. 97, No. 2 (2019)

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Rational Justice: Equal Protection Problems Amid Veterans Treatment Court Eligibility Categorizations
(University of Oregon School of Law, 2019-06-19) Pomerance, Benjamin
This Article fills a gap in the existing legal scholarship by conducting this Equal Protection Clause examination. Part I provides an overview of the basic Veterans Treatment Court model and describes classification-based eligibility criteria that frequently differ among various courts. Part II discusses the appropriate legal framework for evaluating classification-based distinctions that Veterans Treatment Courts often use when determining eligibility and ultimately concludes that rational basis review is the proper standard to apply in such instances. Part III summarizes the history of rational basis review, points out the practical uncertainties of this court-made test, and addresses some of the ways that the judiciary has historically resolved these ambiguities. Lastly, Part IV applies the rational basis test to several classification-based distinctions that Veterans Treatment Courts commonly draw when determining which veterans are eligible for their services, which proves that some of these classifications cannot satisfy even this low-level standard of review.