Digital Commons Network^™

Theft Of The American Dream: New York City's Third-Party Transfer Program, Joseph Mottola

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

On September 5, 2018, Paul Saunders discovered a notice on the front door of his mother’s home: it stated that the property, a Brooklyn brownstone owned by the family for over forty years, now belonged to a company called Bridge Street. His mother, seventy-four-year-old retired nurse Marlene Saunders, had been notified several months earlier that her home, valued at two million dollars, was in danger of being foreclosed because she owed New York City (the “City”) $3,792 in unpaid water charges. Her son had already paid the water bill, but when he contacted the water department, he discovered that …

Separate And Unequal: Promoting Racial Equity In Public Schools In The United States And South Africa, Paige Sferrazza

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

On January 24, 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States announced that it will hear two cases, against Harvard College and the University of North Carolina, which “rais[e] serious doubts about the future of affirmative action in higher education.” The plaintiff in both cases, Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. (“SFFA”), is a non-profit organization devoted to eradicating affirmative action programs nationwide. Described as the “culmination of a years-long strategy by conservative activists,” these cases represent the first affirmative action challenges to be argued before the Court’s new conservative majority, where they “pose the gravest threats yet” to over …

Why Liberalism Persists: The Neglected Life Of The Law In The Story Of Liberalism's Decline, Kenneth L. Townsend

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Liberalism is in decline in the West. Past political divides that pitted classically liberal conservatives against moderate to progressive political liberals are giving way to a new landscape in which a liberal consensus simply cannot be assumed. From the left, socialist and identity-based critiques of liberalism have called into question core liberal assumptions regarding procedural justice, the division between public and private realms, and the rights of individuals. From the right, an increasingly vocal group of conservatives is questioning classical liberalism’s commitment to limited government, a free market, and individual rights in favor of a vision of political community …

Robert Jackson's Critique Of Trump V. Hawaii, William R. Casto

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Over seventy years ago, United States Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson accurately predicted the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. Hawaii. As he foresaw, the Court rubberstamped a President’s purposeful discrimination against a minority religion. This brief Essay explains Trump using Jackson’s critique of judicial review in national-security cases. The Essay also uses Trump to examine a flaw—probably structural—in the constitutional theory of process jurisprudence. The Trump case involved the Court’s construction of congressional legislation apparently limiting the President’s authority, but the present Essay does not address that aspect of the opinion.

Foreign-Born Children Of Disloyal Parents: Adam Muthana, Mary Arcedeckne, And The Natural-Born, John Vlahoplus

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Can Adam Muthana, the foreign-born child of an alien Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (“ISIS”) combatant and a New Jersey-born ISIS adherent, grow up to be president of the United States? He can if he attains the age of thirty-five, resides in the United States for fourteen years, and is a natural-born citizen. He has a facial claim to statutory derivative citizenship at birth through his mother, and some scholars argue that anyone who is a citizen at birth is a natural-born citizen. Nevertheless, there are significant disputes over whether he will be allowed to reside here, whether …

Evaluating Originalism: Commerce And Emoluments, John Vlahoplus

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Article suggests that originalist theories share a core focus that meaningfully competes with pluralist theories. The contest is real and appears in centuries of debates within Anglo-American and civil law. The Article locates the Anglo-American origins of originalism in a novel seventeenth-century method of legal interpretation used to achieve a specific political end: to stifle opposition to the union of Scottish and English subjects of King James after his accession to the English crown in 1603. It details the novel method and the competing traditional method of English legal interpretation. It then evaluates originalist interpretations of the Commerce …

Reasonable Action: Reproductive Rights, The Free Exercise Clause, And Religious Freedom In The United States And The Republic Of Ireland, Liam Ray

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Note will argue that by denying certiorari in Stormans v. Wiesman, the Supreme Court missed an important opportunity to provide guidance to the states as to how the Free Exercise Clause applies to the kind of stocking and dispensing regulations adopted by the State of Washington. This Note will further argue from a policy perspective that the approach to these kinds of regulations adopted by the Republic of Ireland (“ROI”) presents the best approach for states to adopt because it provides a balance in terms of respecting the free exercise rights of pharmacists and pharmacy owners with …

The Save Act Of 2015: Congress' Attempt To Reprioritize Online Child Sex Trafficking, Ashley A. Cardenas

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Note argues that the SAVE Act will not achieve Congress’ goal of prosecuting website operators and stopping the influx of online child sex trafficking advertisements. However, the potential pitfalls of this legislation does not mean the Act should be thrown out in its entirety. Instead, the Act should be rewritten to include well-crafted, yet informative definitions of online child sex trafficking, while also lowering the mens rea requirement and requiring website operators to engage in more due diligence.

Part I outlines the background of Internet sex trafficking in general. Section A discusses the parties involved in online child …

A Constitutional Case For Appointed Counsel In Immigration Proceedings: Revisiting Franco-Gonzalez, Johan Fatemi

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Article argues that had the Franco-Gonzalez court evaluated the plaintiffs’ constitutional claims by applying the classic Mathews v. Eldridge due process balancing test supplemented by more recent United States Supreme Court jurisprudence, the Franco-Gonzalez court would have arrived at an identical conclusion regarding the categorical right to appointed counsel for individuals with mental disabilities. This Article further argues that the legal rationales for the putative successful constitutional claim in Franco-Gonzalez can be used to extend civil Gideon to other classes of vulnerable immigrant groups in removal proceedings, including detained noncitizen women and children like Marisol and Jennifer.