Digital Commons Network^™

Was The Colonial Cyberattack The First Act Of Cyberwar Against The U.S.? Finding The Threshold Of War For Ransomware Attacks, Liam P. Bradley

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

On May 7, 2021, “DarkSide,” a foreign hacker group, conducted a ransomware attack against the Colonial Pipeline (“Colonial”). That morning, Colonial discovered a “ransom note demanding cryptocurrency.” The attack forced the shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline, stopping the daily delivery of 2.5 million barrels (MMBbls) of “gasoline, jet fuel and diesel” to the East Coast. The shutdown created fuel shortages, impacted financial markets, and panicked the public. The resulting fuel shortages and economic impacts “triggered a comprehensive federal response” on May 11, 2021. On May 12, CEO Joseph Blount paid a ransom of nearly $5 million in bitcoin to …

Dropping The Ball: How The Growth Of Legalized Sports Betting Threatens The Nil Rights Of Collegiate Athletes, Peter Klensch

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

One of the more storied runs in college basketball history happened in 2014 when the seven-seeded University of Connecticut Huskies (“UConn”) made the Final Four and defeated the University of Kentucky Wildcats to win the Division I Men’s College Basketball Tournament. As the second-lowest seed ever to win the Tournament, the focus should have been on UConn’s celebration in Storrs, Connecticut. Instead, the national media was drawn to comments made by UConn’s star point-guard, Shabazz Napier, who said that he sometimes went to bed “starving.”

The remarks caught the immediate attention of state legislators in Connecticut. Representative Matthew Lesser …

In Defense Of Moses, Tamar Meshel

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

In 1925, Congress enacted a short statute to make arbitration agreements in maritime transactions and interstate commerce “valid, irrevocable, and enforceable.” Yet the Federal Arbitration Act’s (FAA) simple objective of facilitating the resolution of disputes outside of the courtroom has proven much easier to declare than to implement in practice. In the century since its enactment, the FAA has become a frequently litigated statute and the subject of 59 opinions of the Supreme Court, the majority of which have reversed lower courts’ interpretations of the Act. The Supreme Court’s FAA jurisprudence has not only been abundant but also controversial. …

Beyond Section 230 Liability For Facebook, Nancy S. Kim

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

In October 2021, a former Facebook employee, Frances Haugen, publicly revealed that the company's internal research documented harms that its products caused some of its users. The company’s response was sadly predictable. It questioned the reliability of Haugen’s testimony, asserted its commitment to doing the right thing, and then diverted the public’s attention by changing its name to Meta. The company’s deny-and-distract tactics were, by now, all too familiar and provided few answers.

More than any other platform company, Facebook has found itself at the center of controversy. Its advertisement-supported business model relies upon user engagement which means that …

Activist Extremist Terrorist Traitor, J. Richard Broughton

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Abraham Lincoln had a way of capturing, rhetorically, the national ethos. The “house divided.” “Right makes might” at Cooper Union. Gettysburg’s “last full measure of devotion” and the “new birth of freedom.” The “mystic chords of memory” and the “better angels of our nature.” “[M]alice toward none,” “charity for all,” and “firmness in the right.” But Lincoln not only evaluated America’s character; he also understood the fragility of those things upon which the success of the American constitutional experiment depended, and the consequences when the national ethos was in crisis. Perhaps no Lincoln speech better examines the threats to …

Statutory Interpretation And Agency Disgorgement Power, Caprice Roberts

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

In recent decades, the Supreme Court has showed enhanced interest in equitable principles and remedies. What began as periodic cases featuring one jurist’s idiosyncratic and sometimes misguided interpretations has manifested a broader, significant trend. A consequential theme emerges across varied cases: a revival in the Court’s emphasis on the jurisprudence of equitable remedies. The Court’s recent and current docket continues this momentum. Scholars are tracking the developments and advocating for a system of equity; focusing on historical constraints and federal equity power; and generating a restitution revival.

What happens when obstacles foreclose claims and threaten to leave parties without …

Table Of Contents

St. John's Law Review

No abstract provided.

Volume 96, Number 2

St. John's Law Review

No abstract provided.

Impacted Communities Leading Authentic Legal Mobilization: A Refugee-Led Access-To-Justice Story, Douglas Smith

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

I have a modest proposal to begin addressing the civil access-to-justice problem in the United States: eliminate the barriers for refugees to provide legal representation. In discussions of access to civil justice, immigration and immigrant rights compel our attention—images of children as young as three facing deportation without representation and non-citizens detained because of civil immigration infractions come to mind. But we hear less about the access-to-justice challenges of immigrants fighting for their rights to safe housing, public benefits, education for their children, or often-contingent or under-the-table jobs. The cries of immigrant communities about informal and formal threats from …

A Better Way: Uncoupling The Right To Counsel With The Threat Of Deportation For Unaccompanied Immigrant Children And Beyond, Laura Barrera

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

The stakes could not be higher in immigration court—families are separated; people are banished from their communities with little hope of ever legally returning; judges relegate individuals to seemingly arbitrary and indefinite detention in remote locations. Each of these hardships—and more—flow from the threat of deportation. As the Supreme Court noted in 1922, deportation “may result . . . in . . . all that makes life worth living.”

As has been the unfortunate norm in civil proceedings, many individuals face these trials without an attorney by their side because while the law states that respondents in immigration court …

Expanding The Right To Counsel In Eviction Cases: Arguments For And Limitations Of "Civil Gideon" Laws In A Post-Covid 19 World, Jennifer S. Prusak

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

With the cost of housing rising nationwide and incomes largely failing to keep pace with this increase, the United States is in the midst of interrelated affordable housing and eviction crises. The housing affordability metric that has long been the bedrock of American housing policy is that households should spend no more than thirty percent of their income on housing. This is no longer an attainable goal for many Americans. By 2017, forty-eight percent of renter households were “rent burdened”—they paid more than thirty percent of their income in rent. Over a quarter of American renters, or 11 million …

Patching The Patchwork: Moving The Civil Right To Counsel Forward With Key Data, Maria Roumiantseva

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

While the pandemic has exposed many long-standing realities about the United States, the destructive everyday crisis of eviction is top of mind as moratoria have now expired and rental assistance funds dissipate with no anticipated replenishment. Therefore, though this piece addresses legal representation in civil legal proceedings more broadly, we will start with an eviction story.

It can be taken as fact that not too far from where you are reading this piece, a tenant is facing an eviction unrepresented. She cannot afford a private attorney. She is income eligible for legal aid, but the office near her home …

Table Of Contents

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

No abstract provided.

Volume 36, Fall 2022, Issue 2

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

No abstract provided.

The “Especially Heinous” Aggravator: Sharpshooter Bonuses Do Not Belong In Capital Sentencing Law, Taylor Lopa

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

In capital cases, the jury is often left with the onerous decision about whether to impose the death penalty. To help jurors make sentencing decisions, judges will instruct them on how to apply the law. As one juror summarized, “[The judge told us] that we were to make our decision on the basis of his instructions and the law, not what we felt, not what we thought ought to be.” Because of jury instructions like this, jurors know that they must base sentencing decisions on the law rather than their personal beliefs. But what happens when the law itself …

Vulnerability As A Launching State: Why The United States Should Adopt Explicit Indemnification Procedures In Response To The Growth Of The Commercial Space Industry, Mollie Carney

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Note argues that the current United States launch license requirements should be amended to include explicit indemnification procedures, should the United States be held liable for damages as a Launching State under the Liability Convention. Part I of this Note examines the evolution of the space industry from a field marked by Cold War tensions to one that is dominated by private industry, and the risks that are associated with the rapid growth of the commercial space industry. Part II will explain the current legal regime by (1) setting a framework of liability generally, (2) examining the Liability …

Imperialism In The Making Of U.S. Law, Nina Farnia

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Article proceeds in two parts. In Part I, “U.S. Foreign Policy as Racial Policy,” I identify the four key policy pillars of U.S. imperialism: militarism, unilateral coercive measures, foreign aid, and the deployment of the dollar. I then pivot to a brief history of U.S. imperialism in the Middle East, highlighting the geographic and racial specificities that influence the ideological and legal contours of U.S. imperialism. I end this section with an analysis of The Public Report of the Vice President’s Task Force on Combatting Terrorism (1985), which was a defining document in the making of anti-terrorism law …

Assessing A Cooperative Writing Process In An Undergraduate Legal Writing Course, James A. Croft

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

I teach legal writing to undergraduate students, and I primarily do so by cooperatively writing with them, using instructional time to work through the students’ writing assignments as a class. I arrived at this process organically over several years. When I first started teaching, I was surprised by the disconnect between my expectations regarding student writing and student performance. To attempt to close that gap, I began going through parts of the research and writing process cooperatively with my students in class, and increasing the amount of work that we did together each semester until, in the semester assessed …

The Last Lecture: State Anti-Slapp Statutes And The Federal Courts, Charles W. Adams, Mbilike M. Mwafulirwa

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

An old proverb says that “when the student is ready[,] the teacher appears.” In this collaborative effort, a civil procedure law professor has partnered with his former student to address one of the most challenging topics to confront the federal courts in recent times: whether state anti-SLAPP statutes conflict with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The acronym “SLAPP” stands for “Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation.” Anti-SLAPP statutes are a spate of state legislation of recent vintage, designed “to give more breathing space for free speech about contentious public issues” and to “try to decrease the ‘chilling effect’ of …

Volume 96, Number 1

St. John's Law Review

No abstract provided.

Is There A Constitutional Common Good?, R. George Wright

Journal of Catholic Legal Studies

(Excerpt)

Identifying and pursuing some widely shared idea of the common good seems central to a sustainable constitutional order. This may seem especially true in an era of deep political division. The problem, though, is that such political division may indeed heighten the need for recognizing and promoting a shared constitutional common good, while, at the same time, preventing such an identification and pursuit of any such common good. What is needed is a way to disrupt this vicious circle. This Article is an illustration of the operation of this vicious circle and, more optimistically, a proffering of the means …

Marianist Law Schools: Demonstrating The Courage To Be Catholic, David A. Grenardo

Journal of Catholic Legal Studies

(Excerpt)

Only two Marianist law schools exist in the United States. Both University of Dayton School of Law (UDSL) and St. Mary’s University School of Law (St. Mary’s Law School) proudly embrace their Catholic and Marianist traditions in promoting their schools. For instance, St. Mary’s Law School, the only Catholic law school in Texas, openly advertises its commitment to welcome and serve “students of all faiths and uphold the Marianist tradition of hospitality, openness and the family spirit.” Similarly, UDSL’s online published materials state unequivocally: “In the Catholic, Marianist spirit, many of our students participate in pro bono activities and …

Volume 60, 2022, Number 1

Journal of Catholic Legal Studies

No abstract provided.

Technology's War On Terror: The Need For Platform Accountability In The Wake Of A National Security Crisis, Meagan Schantz

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

January 6, 2021. A day that “will live forever in infamy.” That day marked the first breach of the United States Capitol Building since 1814—and the second breach ever in American history (the first was during the War of 1812). Five people lost their lives that day and many more were injured in an unprecedented attack on American democracy. Yet, social media records show that “there were no surprises” as to what insurrectionists did on that infamous day.

The plan to “storm the Capitol” began on less-trafficked social media sites, the “darker or more-obscure corners of the internet,” including …

Giving Heroes Their Shields: Providing More Immunity To The Healthcare Industry During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Gabriella Levine

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

The year is 2022. We are experiencing a global pandemic and economic uncertainty. And while traffic might have improved, as many work remotely and socially distance, everything else is unknown as people are face-to-face with death. The future has never looked bleaker.

As of September 12, 2022, there were 1,044,461 Coronavirus (“COVID-19”) related deaths and 94,973,074 reported COVID-19 cases in the United States (“U.S.”). The effects of COVID-19 impacted people who contracted the disease, family members who lost someone, and people at risk who have been in isolation for over one year.

Another group that has been heavily affected …

Why Bigger Is Not Always Better: Dodd-Frank & Its Impact On Small Banks & Businesses, Sarah King

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Imagine that the year is 2006. Along with partners and investors, you have just taken one of the biggest risks of your life and founded a small business. Specifically, your business acts as a broker of financial instruments known as energy derivatives; it matches buyers and sellers of futures, options, and other derivatives, and a portion of the money made from the trade is collected as a fee for your services. For the most part, the business runs smoothly. You’re rarely stressed, your customers are satisfied with your services, and you and your co-workers make good money.

Imagine that …

The Right To Bear 3d-Printed Firearms: Problems Created By Modern Gunsmithing, Chelsea Karen

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Picture a typical Friday evening at London’s St. Pancras train station with travelers trying to get away for the weekend. You board a train leaving for Paris after going through a vigorous safety check, which includes walking through a metal detector and having your bag scanned. You finally take a seat in a crowded train car when you notice a man standing at the front of the car holding what appears to be a child’s toy gun. It’s clunky, plastic, and crude-looking in that it seems it would fall apart if the man attempted to pull the trigger. In …

Small Business Relief In The Time Of Covid-19: Deservingness Judgments Lead The Ppp To Failure, Blair Hendricks

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

In 2020, going to the grocery store or getting a bite to eat looked a little different than usual: normal outings in 2020 required masks and temperature checks, among other safety precautions. As if patronizing businesses was not difficult enough, operating a business in 2020 could have been downright tragic. In December 2020, Steven Klein, the owner of Vision Lanes Bowling Alley, posted a tribute on his Facebook page to his beloved business. The following is an excerpt from that post:

This is NOT a political post. My sources are telling me an extension is going to be announced. …

Table Of Contents

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

No abstract provided.

Volume 36, Summer 2022, Issue 1

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

No abstract provided.