Digital Commons Network^™

Putting Teeth Into A.B. 109: Why California’S Historic Public Safety Realignment Act Should Require Reentry Programming, Kathleen Nye Flynn

Golden Gate University Law Review

Part I of this Comment provides a history of probation reform policies in California and an overview of realignment and its preceding litigation, with a focus on components that relate to rehabilitation in post-release. Part II explores how Plata laid the groundwork for California’s current focus on reform and demonstrates how realignment hinges on changing the role of probation, slowing recidivism, and improving rehabilitation opportunities. Part III argues that the State should provide mandatory guidelines for county rehabilitation efforts as part of realignment. Finally, Part IV recommends statutory language that would make rehabilitative programming for probationers a mandatory component of …

Presumed Guilty Until Proven Innocent: California Penal Code Section 851.8 And The Injustice Of Imposing A Factual Innocence Standard On Arrested Persons, Natalie Lyons

Golden Gate University Law Review

The statutory remedy for removing an arrest from a person’s record places an undue burden upon a person who has never been found guilty of a crime. California Penal Code section 851.8 mandates that an arrested person prove her factual innocence before the arrest record may be sealed and destroyed.

This Comment examines the injustice of this section 851.8 requirement that an arrested person prove her innocence before the arrest record will be destroyed. Part I considers the probative value of an arrest record measured against its impact on the arrested person’s life, focusing on the disparate impact of arrests …

Location, Location, Location: Updating The Electronic Communications Privacy Act To Protect Geolocational Data, Alexandra D. Vesalga

Golden Gate University Law Review

This Comment is concerned with the Electronic Communications Privacy Act’s (ECPA’s) failure to consistently protect the geolocational data associated with electronic communications. ECPA was crafted in 1986 to protect electronic communications, a fledgling technology at the time. Today, ECPA remains largely unchanged and still controls the government’s right to access individuals’ electronic communications. Senator Leahy, who originally drafted ECPA, has called for reform of the Act, stating that “today, this law is significantly outdated and out-paced by rapid changes in technology.” Senator Leahy has proposed significant changes to the Act that would eliminate many of its outmoded standards and offer …

Castle In The Cloud: Modernizing Constitutional Protections For Cloud-Stored Data On Mobile Devices, Mark Wilson

Golden Gate University Law Review

This Comment argues that the current state of Fourth Amendment law vis-à-vis searching cloud-stored documents on a mobile device is untenable. Part I of this Comment defines cloud storage and cloud computing, and it provides background information on the Stored Communications Act (SCA). Part II discusses the intricacies of applying the SCA to computers and email, which is to date the best analog for applying the SCA to cloud computing. Part III details the legislative and judicial solutions to the problems raised by new technology and concludes that, while new legislation is the most desirable response, in the meantime courts …

Maya V. Centex: Potential Liabilities For Developers Related To Speculative Injuries, Alexander Cheung

Golden Gate University Law Review

The Ninth Circuit’s decision in Maya v. Centex addresses the impacts of the sub-prime mortgage crisis on fiscally responsible homeowners. Maya is the first appellate decision to potentially permit homeowners to assert claims against developers for injuries related to market-wide decline in property values. In Maya, the Ninth Circuit decided only the narrow question of whether plaintiff-homeowners have constitutional standing to pursue claims against defendant-developers for injuries that were allegedly caused by the defendants’ high-risk marketing and financing behaviors. Although the Ninth Circuit did not resolve the plaintiffs’ claims, it held that the plaintiffs have constitutional standing to assert …

An Argument For Child Pornography Victim Restitution In The Ninth Circuit: United States V. Kennedy, Amber Pruitt

Golden Gate University Law Review

This Note argues that the Ninth Circuit erred in United States v. Kennedy by vacating restitution damages for the victims to be paid by the possessor of their images, because denying victims such restitution offends traditional understandings of the limits of proximate cause and the legislative intent behind § 2259.44 There are alternative legal tests currently used by other circuits that establish proximate cause in child-pornography-possessor cases that the Ninth Circuit should have applied in Kennedy to ensure that those responsible for harming children would not escape due liability.

Part I of this Note explains why the possession of child …

Long Live The King: United States V. Bagdasarian And The Subjective-Intent Standard For Presidential "True-Threat" Jurisprudence, Kyle A. Mabe

Golden Gate University Law Review

This Note argues that the Ninth Circuit found the proper balance between protecting speech and the President by interpreting the true-threats doctrine and the construction of presidential-threat statutes to require a subjective intent to threaten, in addition to one of the traditional objective standards for true threats. The application of a solely objective standard to threats against the President leads to unsettling results that punish speech without need. Harmless but misguided individuals have been held criminally responsible for ludicrous statements based on the sensitivities of the fabled “reasonable person,” regardless of the speakers’ actual motivations for their statements. More importantly, …