CLOSING THE COURTHOUSE DOOR: CONSTRUCTING UNDESERVINGNESS IN THE TORT AND HABEAS CORPUS REFORM MOVEMENTS

Recent years have witnessed a broad series of elite efforts to withdraw legal rights extended to individuals over the preceding several decades. In closely examining two of these efforts, the tort and habeas corpus reform movements, it is argued that reform advocates have utilized a similar narrative framework to make the case for reform. By constructing plaintiffs as "undeserving," due to their improper use of the legal system to redress harms for which they are responsible, and by using anecdotes designed to advance these hegemonic constructions, the foundation is laid for the withdrawal of individual access to law.