Digital Commons Network^™

My Body, My Choice: Should Physician-Assisted Suicide Be Legalized In The United States For Individuals With Chronic Mental Illness?, Angelika Anderson

Texas A&M Law Review

Many individuals with mental illness wish to die because the symptoms of their illness are unbearable. They shoot, suffocate, and poison themselves to make their pain go away. Because this is a statistical reality, a more certain and less violent means of death should be legalized. This Comment advocates for the legalization of physician-assisted suicide (“PAS”). As of 2022, nine states and the District of Columbia have legalized PAS for terminal illness, but this Comment argues that all fifty states should legalize PAS and not only for terminal illness, but for chronic mental illness as well. To do so, this …

Property-As-Society, Timothy M. Mulvaney

Faculty Scholarship

Modern regulatory takings disputes present a key battleground for competing conceptions of property. This Article offers the following account of the three leading theories: a libertarian view sees property as creating a sphere of individual freedom and control (property-as-liberty); a pecuniary view sees property as a tool of economic investment (property-as-investment); and a progressive view sees property as serving a wide range of evolving communal values that include, but are not limited to, those advanced under both the libertarian and pecuniary conceptions (property-as-society). Against this backdrop, the Article offers two contentions. First, on normative grounds, it asserts that the conception …

Entering The Trump Ice Age: Contextualizing The New Immigration Enforcement Regime, Bill Ong Hing

Texas A&M Law Review

During the early stages of the Trump ICE age, America seemed to be witnessing and experiencing an unparalleled era of immigration enforcement. But is it unparalleled? Did we not label Barack Obama the “deporter-inchief?” Was it not George W. Bush who used the authority of the Patriot Act to round up nonimmigrants from Muslim and Arab countries, and did his ICE not commonly engage in armed raids at factories and other worksites? Are there not strong parallels that can be drawn between Trump enforcement plans and actions and those of other eras? What about the fear and hysteria that seems …

Location, Location, Mis-Location: How Local Land Use Restrictions Are Dulling Halfway Housing's Criminal Rehabilitation Potentia, Michael J. Mcgowan

Student Scholarship

Part I of this Article begins with a brief historical explanation of halfway houses as a model of criminal rehabilitation. Part II addresses why recidivism rates provide the most appropriate metric gauging halfway houses' success and how they apparently have failed to improve recidivism rates. Part III then delves into the body of scholarship that explains how an individual's likelihood of landing back behind bars is to some extent demonstrably tied to their location, meaning their surrounding cultural, economic, and criminogenic environment. Part IV discusses the sparse data on the sorts of neighborhoods where halfway houses ultimately end up and …

The Competing Objectives Underlying The Protection Of Intangible Cultural Heritage, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

One topic that has received considerable academic and policy attention concerns the key objectives underlying the establishment of this new framework. To help us develop a better and deeper understanding, this article outlines eight most widely documented objectives. While some of these objectives overlap or conflict with each other, others touch on issues that are of only marginal concern to some constituencies. By focusing on each objective in turn, this article aims to underscore the divergent, and at times competing, interests among the many stakeholders involved in the framework.

Although some readers may find the description of all eight underlying …

Immaculate Defamation: The Case Of The Alton Telegraph, Alan M. Weinberger

Texas A&M Law Review

At the confluence of three major rivers, Madison County, Illinois, was also the intersection of the nation’s struggle for a free press and the right of access to appellate review in the historic case of the Alton Telegraph. The newspaper, which helps perpetuate the memory of Elijah Lovejoy, the first martyr to the cause of a free press, found itself on the losing side of the largest judgment for defamation in U.S. history as a result of a story that was never published in the paper—a case of immaculate defamation. Because it could not afford to post an appeal bond …

Free Speech Versus Free Education: First Amendment Considerations In Limiting Student Athletes' Use Of Social Media, Mary Margaret Penrose

Faculty Scholarship

This article considers the First Amendment implications regarding limitations placed on student athletes' use of social media. Schools have a vested interest in controlling their athletes' public expressions, whether such expressions are found in tattoos, public interviews or tweets. Like it or not, a great deal of damage can occur in "140 words or less." And, displeased student-athletes have choices. Twitter or touchdowns. Facebook from your dorm or facetime on television hitting three-pointers. While universities are generally places that encourage robust speech and debate, there are defensible, and arguably lawful, reasons why schools should limit student-athletes' use of social media. …

Global Economies, Regulatory Failure, And Loose Money: Lessons For Regulating The Finance Sector From Iceland's Financial Crisis, Birgir T. Petursson, Andrew P. Morriss

Faculty Scholarship

Iceland was the first developed economy to fall into crisis in 2008, with the collapse of its banking sector, currency value, and economy. The collapse threw Iceland into a political crisis and provoked a serious international dispute between Iceland and Britain and the Netherlands over responsibility for the failed banks. Prior to 2008, Iceland had been treated as the poster child for deregulation; since 2008, it has been held up as the poster child for the dangers offinancial liberalization. Neither is accurate. Rather, Iceland presents a cautionary tale about the interrelationships between fiscal and monetary policy and regulatory measures. Excessive …

Who Wants To Be A Muggle? The Diminished Legitimacy Of Law As Magic, Mark Edwin Burge

Faculty Scholarship

In the Harry Potter world, the magical population lives among the non-magical Muggle population, but we Muggles are largely unaware of them. This secrecy is by elaborate design and is necessitated by centuries-old hostility to wizards by the non-magical majority. The reasons behind this hostility, when combined with the similarities between Harry Potter-stylemagic and American law, make Rowling’s novels into a cautionary tale for the legal profession that it not treat law as a magic unknowable to non-lawyers. Comprehensibility — as a self-contained, normative value in the enactment interpretation, and practice of law — is given short-shrift by the legal …

The Laws On Providing Material Support To Terrorist Organizations: The Erosion Of Constitutional Rights Or A Legitimate Tool For Preventing Terrorism, Sahar Aziz

Faculty Scholarship

On December 4, 2001, federal agents raided the offices of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, arrested the organization’s officers, and froze $5 million worth of assets. Ten days later on December 14, 2001, the Global Relief Fund suffered the same fate when its assets were seized, and its co-founder Rabih Haddad was arrested. That same day Benevolence International’s assets were also frozen, and its U.S. citizen president, Enaam Arnaout, was arrested and taken into custody on charges of providing material support to terrorism. Prior to their effective closure, the three organizations were the largest Islamic charities in …