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Vol. 4 No. 1, Fall 2012; Illinois's Drug-Induced Homicide Statute: Injecting Some Sense Into A Misinterpreted Law, Seth Mcclure

Northern Illinois Law Review Supplement

In 1988, Illinois went on the offensive in the War on Drugs by creating the Drug-Induced Homicide Statute. In essence, this statute creates increased punishment beyond normal drug trafficking penalties when a person delivers drugs to another person and, as a result of that delivery, somebody dies. For twenty years, the law remained mostly dormant, only being charged and prosecuted in a handful of cases. In a new push to fight drug-related deaths across Illinois over the last few years, prosecutors have dusted off the old law and vastly increased the number of drug-induced homicide charges. As these charges become …

Vol. 4 No. 1, Fall 2012; Beyond The Womb: An Argument For Fundamental Rights In Vaccination Exemption Law, Samantha Hardt

Northern Illinois Law Review Supplement

This Comment analyzes jurisprudence from the areas of abortion law and family autonomy rights, blending principles from both to suggest that a parent's right to decline vaccinations for his/her child should be deemed fundamental and, thus, should be statutorily protected by philosophical exemptions.

Vol. 4 No. 1, Fall 2012; Table Of Contents & Masthead, Northern Illinois University Law Review Online Supplement, Northern Illinois University Law Review Online Supplement

Northern Illinois Law Review Supplement

No abstract provided.

To Drink The Cup Of Fury: Funeral Picketing, Public Discourse And The First Amendment, Steven J. Heyman

All Faculty Scholarship

In Snyder v. Phelps, the Supreme Court held that the Westboro Baptist Church had a First Amendment right to picket the funeral of a young soldier killed in Iraq. This decision reinforces a position that has become increasingly prevalent in First Amendment jurisprudence – the view that the state may not regulate public discourse to protect individuals from emotional or dignitary injury. In this Article, I argue that this view is deeply problematic for two reasons: it unduly sacrifices the value of individual personality and it tends to undermine the sphere of public discourse itself by negating the practical and …

To Drink The Cup Of Fury: Funeral Picketing, Public Discourse And The First Amendment, Steven J. Heyman

Steven J. Heyman

In Snyder v. Phelps, the Supreme Court held that the Westboro Baptist Church had a First Amendment right to picket the funeral of a young soldier killed in Iraq. This decision reinforces a position that has become increasingly prevalent in First Amendment jurisprudence – the view that the state may not regulate public discourse to protect individuals from emotional or dignitary injury. In this Article, I argue that this view is deeply problematic for two reasons: it unduly sacrifices the value of individual personality and it tends to undermine the sphere of public discourse itself by negating the practical and …

Whose Invention Is It Anyway? Employee Invention-Assignment Agreements And Their Limits, Parker A. Howell

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

Pre-invention assignment provisions have become important and commonplace facets of employment agreements, supplanting common law rules for invention ownership. Yet statutes in seven states—including California, Washington, and Minnesota—restrict invention assignment. These statutes make agreements unenforceable when a worker invents on his or her own time without use of employer resources and the invention does not relate to the employer’s business or the employee’s work. Employers should be ready to argue why a given invention is not excluded from assignment by statute, although judicial decisions suggest many disputed inventions nonetheless belong to the employer. Statutory arguments notwithstanding, employee-inventors may challenge the …

Get Outta My Face[Book]: The Discoverability Of Social Networking Data And The Passwords Needed To Access Them, Mallory Allen, Aaron Orheim

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

Under what circumstances can a social network user be compelled to turn over his or her user identification and password in civil litigation? In three recent cases, courts attempted to answer this question with varied results. The New York Supreme Court Appellate Division refused to allow discovery of private Facebook information in McCann v. Harleysville Insurance Co. because the discovery request was not sufficiently tailored to reach discoverable information. Soon thereafter, the same court allowed discovery of similar material in Romano v. Steelcase, Inc. based on the level of publicity of the social networking account. In McMillen v. Hummingbird Speedway, …

Googling Jurors To Conduct Voir Dire, J. C. Lundberg

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

During voir dire in Johnson v. McCullough, a medical malpractice case in Missouri, at least one juror failed to answer honestly a question about whether he had been a defendant or plaintiff in a lawsuit. After the verdict was entered, the plaintiff conducted a search on Missouri’s online case database and discovered that one of the jurors had been a defendant in a personal injury suit. In the resulting appeal, the Supreme Court of Missouri held that litigants should conduct a search in this database during voir dire, instead of waiting until after a verdict is entered. Johnson is …

Social Media Policies For Character And Fitness Evaluations, Jessica Belle

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

In 2009, Florida became the first U.S. jurisdiction to articulate a Character and Fitness Evaluation (CFE) policy of examining the social media accounts of bar applicants who had demonstrated a history of questionable conduct such as substance abuse or seeking to violently overthrow the U.S. government. This policy may allow access to otherwise legally inaccessible data, which creates a risk of the bar unlawfully considering information protected by applicants’ constitutional rights. Over the past 60 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has split on whether bar organizations may constitutionally deny bar admission to applicants who refuse to answer certain questions on …

Vol. 33, No. 1, Fall 2012: Table Of Contents, Northern Illinois University Law Review

Northern Illinois University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Interfaith Dialogue In Spain—Religious Mediation: A Brief Analysis Of Spain's Religious Liberty Law, José Ferrer Sánchez

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Declaratory Judgment Before Exhausting Administrative Remedies Under Illinois Law, Deborah A. Ostvig, Brian E. Neuffer

Northern Illinois University Law Review

Government agencies increasingly are pursing enforcement actions and litigation against companies they believe have violated laws and the agency's regulations. News reports of multimillion-dollar settlements with government agencies are commonplace. Companies targeted by government agencies often feel powerless because the agency has its own administrative review procedure for challenging its enforcement actions, and that process is usually time consuming and futile. However, from our nation's founding, the judicial branch has been the primary check on government agencies. This Article explores how the declaratory judgment procedure in Illinois may be used to test the validity of agency actions in the courts …

Substantive Reasonableness Review Of Federal Criminal Sentences: A Proposed Standard, Tim Cone

Northern Illinois University Law Review

After the United States Supreme Court announced in United States v. Booker that, henceforth, federal criminal sentences would be re-viewed for “reasonableness,” it instructed that appellate courts could review sentences for “substantive reasonableness.” However, its observations about “substantive reasonableness” review have not congealed into concrete parameters. As a result, a circuit conflict exists regarding “substantive reasonableness” review, some circuits holding that the re-weighing of sentencing factors is a legitimate part of substantive reasonableness review, while others holding it is not. This Article argues the re-weighing of sentencing factors should not be a part of substantive reasonableness review. It proposes that …

Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Mo: The Cost Of Not Including Domestic Violence Shelters Within The Definition Of Dwelling, Arielle Denis

Northern Illinois University Law Review

As the law currently stands, domestic violence shelters are not included in the definition of a “dwelling” in Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 and, therefore, these shelters can turn away any protected class. This Comment argues domestic violence shelters must be considered a “dwelling” within Title VIII before a 2010 amendment to the Illinois Human Rights Act, adding “order of protection status” as a protected class, can be effective.

Pa-'Trolling' The False Marking Frontier: Giving Section 292 The Proper Makeover In Wake Of The America Invents Act, Kevin Zickterman

Northern Illinois University Law Review

Prohibiting false patent marking on various products and goods is not a new concept in intellectual property law. For the last 170 years, laws have been on the books to prevent individuals and manufacturers from deceiving the public, inventors, and other manufacturers into believing that an item or its design retains certain patent rights by law. But in passing the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, a monumental piece of patent legislation on numerous levels, sweeping changes were made to long-standing false marking law and its concepts. This Comment takes a step back to explore the recent explosion of false marking litigation …

Religion / State: Where The Separation Lies, Vincent J. Samar

Northern Illinois University Law Review

Recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions regarding the scope of the Establishment Clause have failed to provide a clear framework for determining what government actions are prohibited. Part of the problem concerns what kinds of actions constitute an establishment of religion. What criteria should determine the boundaries of an establishment challenge? Are governmental actions that may only indirectly affect religion (either positively or negatively) prohibited? This article aims to provide a coherent and normatively justified understanding of the Establishment Clause to help answer these questions by considering not just the history of the Clause or the cases the Court has decided …

The Forgotten Jurisdiction, John C. Massaro

Northern Illinois University Law Review

This article is the first exclusively devoted to analyzing nine over-looked words in Article III of the Constitution. While there has been extensive mining of most of the three sentences in Article III that the framers used to describe the role and jurisdiction of the federal courts, little, if any, attention has previously been given to the “affecting jurisdiction,” which is the second of the nine heads of jurisdiction and the first of the two forms of Supreme Court original jurisdiction. Examining the language and structure of Article III, the proceedings at the constitutional convention, the ratification debates, and the …

U.S.Foreign Trade Zones, Tax-Free Trade Zones Of The World, And Their Impact On The U.S. Economy, Susan W. Tiefenbrun

Susan W Tiefenbrun

ABSTRACT

U.S. Foreign Trade Zones, Tax-Free Trade Zones of the World, and Their Impact on the United States Economy , by Susan Tiefenbrun

Free trade zones (FTZs) date back to the time of the Phoenicians; they developed in the l970s and proliferated from 1980 until today. FTZs are duty-free areas where goods may be warehoused, processed, sold, serviced, distributed, showcased, packaged, labeled, sorted, assembled, and/or manufactured as finished goods prior to re-exporting them as duty-exempt finished products. More than one 135 countries operate tax-free trade zones. There are more than 3,500 of these zones and subzones all over the world, …

Restorative Justice In The Gilded Age: Shared Principles Underlying Two Movements In Criminal Justice, Ali M. Abid

Ali M Abid

Two very different approaches to Criminal Justice have developed in recent years suggesting systemic reforms that would reduce rates of crime and incarceration and lessen the disproportionate effect on minority groups and other suspect classes. The first of these is the Restorative Justice movement, which has programs operating in most US states and many countries around the world. The Restorative Justice movement focuses on reintegrating offenders with the community and having them repair the damage directly to their victims. The movement describes itself as based on the systems of indigenous and pre-modern societies and as wholly distinct from the conventional …

How Librarians Can Help Improve Law Journal Publishing, Benjamin J. Keele, Michelle Pearse

Library Staff Publications

Librarians are well positioned to improve law journal publishing and help it evolve in the ever-changing digital environment. They can provide student editors with advice on a variety of issues such as copyright, data preservation, and version control. Librarians can also help journals adopt technical standards and improve the discoverability and usability of journal content. While few libraries will be able to adopt all these suggestions, a checklist of ideas is provided to help librarians select those that are most suitable to their libraries and journals.

Law Library Annual Report 2011-2012, Georgia State University Law Library

Law Library Annual Reports

No abstract provided.

Technology, Travel Companies & Taxation: Should Expedia Be Required To Collect And Remit State Occupancy Taxes On Profits From Facilitating Hotel Room Rentals?, Kerra J. Melvin

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

Online travel companies (“OTCs”) like Expedia and Hotels.com facilitate discounted hotel room rates for customers by contracting with hotels at a wholesale rate and then allowing customers to book rooms on their websites at a marked-up rate that is above the wholesale rate but below the market rate. Many states allow cities and counties to assess an occupancy or bed tax upon persons reserving hotel rooms, with the collections typically used to promote state and local tourism. Such statutes generally require the hotel operator to collect and remit the tax. OTCs have traditionally remitted the wholesale rate and the occupancy …

Facebook Firings And Twitter Terminations: The National Labor Relations Act As A Limit On Retaliatory Discharge, Bryan Russell

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

In every state except Montana, at-will employment is the default rule, leaving employers free to discharge employees for their use of social media. The National Labor Relations Act’s (NLRA) protection of collective action, however, is emerging as a substantial limitation to at-will terminations. In Hispanics United of Buffalo, the National Labor Relations Board concluded that Facebook posts critical of the non-profit employer were protected as collective action and that the employer’s retaliatory termination of five employees violated Section 8 of the NLRA. To be protected as collective action under the NLRA, an employee’s use of social media must be …

Who Are You? Difficulties In Obtaining Trademark Protection For Domain Names, Luke M. Rona

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

Three appellate decisions illustrate the difficulty of acquiring trademark protection for domain names that include a top-level domain (“TLD”), such as “.com.” Courts have characterized these marks as generic or merely descriptive, which carries implications for the party seeking registration: generic marks cannot be protected, while descriptive marks can, assuming they possess a secondary meaning that makes the mark distinctive. Generic and descriptive domain names often indicate the services a company provides, with the addition of the “.com” TLD to indicate online services. One key test of genericness is whether the public identifies the mark with a service generally or …

Finding Safe Harbor: Navigating Washington's New Unfair Competition Law, Daniel Shickich

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

Under a new law, manufacturers and retailers that sell products in Washington State could face stiff penalties if their products are made using stolen or misappropriated information technology (“stolen IT”). In 2011 the Washington Legislature passed Substitute House Bill 1495, creating a new cause of action that allows private plaintiffs or the state attorney general to seek injunctive relief and damages against manufacturers that use stolen IT in their business operations. The law also creates an additional claim for actual damages of up to $250,000 against third parties who contract with violating manufacturers and sell the products in Washington. Using …

Pawing Their Way To The Supreme Court: The Evidence Required To Prove A Narcotic Detection Dog's Reliability, Monica Fazekas

Northern Illinois University Law Review

Historically, courts have given great deference to the anatomical scent detectors from which the canine’s heightened sense of smell derives. In 2005, the Supreme Court supported this position and held that a drug detection dog’s sniff did not constitute a search under the Fourth Amendment. The Court partially based its reasoning on the classification of the dog sniff as sui generis. With this holding, courts began admitting evidence of a drug detection dog’s alert to narcotics to constitute the requisite probable cause for an officer’s search. Virtually every circuit allows a canine alert to establish such probable cause by presenting …

Collateral Matters: Housing Code Compliance In The Mortgage Crisis, Kermit J. Lind

Northern Illinois University Law Review

This article begins by describing the paradigm shift in mortgage loan servicing produced over the past two decades by securitization and exotic financing products using residential property for collateral. It shows how current mortgage servicing and debt collection practices ignore mortgage collateral and renders conventional housing code compliance procedures obsolete. It then suggests that new strategic thinking is needed to redesign and retool code compliance processes. Residential neighborhoods and communities need to protect themselves against the wanton lending and servicing practices produced in the wake of the mortgage disaster. There is still immanent disaster not only from the new financial …

Then I Saw The Contract, Now I'M A Believer: Why "Concept Groups" Are "Works For Hire" And Cannot Invoke Statutory Termination Rights After 2013, Daniel Porter

Northern Illinois University Law Review

The year 2013 will mark the first opportunity for musicians to exercise the copyright assignment termination rights granted by § 203 of the Copyright Act of 1976. In theory, exercising these termination rights will allow artists to reclaim the rights to their songs and albums which they had to assign to the various record companies as a means of recording, publishing, and selling their music. Artists that invest their creativity, musical talent, and time into making a successful record deserve to ultimately reap the benefits that flow from that success. On the other hand, artists that merely record songs written …

Vol. 32, No. 3, Summer 2012: Table Of Contents And Masthead, Northern Illinois University Law Review

Northern Illinois University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Avoiding A Lawyers' Race To The Foreclosure Bottom: Some Advice To Lawyers For Lenders And Borrowers On Their Roles In Foreclosure Litigation, James Geoffrey Durham

Northern Illinois University Law Review

Lawyers for lenders and borrowers are joining their clients in questionable actions in foreclosure litigation as a massive number of borrower defaults have led to a flood of lawsuits. This article describes some of the practices lawyers for lenders and borrowers have undertaken in this race to the bottom likely rationalized by “the ends justify the means” and “everyone else is doing it, why can’t I?” It goes on to outline the minimum standards set by the rules of legal ethics and to describe just what foreclosure lawyers should be doing. The lessons are not new, but the foreclosure crisis …