Law Commons^™

Biometric Data Collection: Market Necessity Or Unconstitutional Overkill?, Thomas Langtry

GGU Law Review Blog

Congress should pass, and the President should sign into law, the National Biometric Information Privacy Act of 2020 (National BIPA). Introduced by Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT), this bill limits the ability of private entities to collect biometric data and requires them to ensure the privacy and security of data they do collect. Unlike most federal regulatory legislation, it also provides for a private right of action through which individuals can seek meaningful remedies.

Critics argue that the bill will deprive consumers of online shopping services and convenient digital security, and that employers and retailers may retaliate …

The First Step In Overhauling Criminal Justice? Abolish The Death Penalty, Rachel A. Van Cleave

Publications

Since the killing of George Floyd by a police officer, many changes to criminal justice have been proposed and some have been enacted. However, none of these reforms will be meaningful unless and until we require the government to dismantle the laws and procedures that implement the death penalty, an inherently biased and horrific practice. The fact that the federal government and twenty-seven states still have the death penalty reveals an attitude that is diametrically counter to the mindset necessary to end mass incarceration.

A Safer And More Liberating World For Sex Workers, Nicholas Kimura

GGU Law Review Blog

In recent years, violence against trans women of color has come to the forefront of public discourse. In 2020, there was a record number of fatal attacks against transgender and gender non-conforming people. This year the numbers are more devastating. Even with increased visibility of trans people, the death toll is rising, and we are set to surpass levels of violence from previous years. Trans women of color are particularly affected by the violence, facing a greater chance of being killed than the rest of the trans or cis population. Police are also responsible for disproportionate levels of violence against …

Moore’S Law, Unemployment, And Homelessness: Why An Increasingly Automated Marketplace Demands Guaranteed Income Programs For Americans, Golden Gate University School Of Law

GGU Law Review Blog

Although the rate of people experiencing homelessness was increasing even before 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic contributed to a further rise in the nation’s unemployment rate. Studies have shown that a one-percent increase in the nation’s unemployment rate could bring an increase in homelessness of 0.065 per every 10,000 people. Unemployment during the pandemic rose to over fourteen percent, meaning that the pandemic will likely precipitate increased levels of homelessness in America. The influx of economic stimulus payments during the pandemic has refocused discussions on the extent to which guaranteed income programs could be used to provide some financial support to …

Attacks On The Asian Community: When Can Prosecutors Seek Hate Crime Enhancements?, Golden Gate University School Of Law

GGU Law Review Blog

At the start of 2021, images of violent attacks on Asian individuals all across the nation began flooding social media timelines. Large protests shortly followed these attacks in support of the Asian Community to “Stop Asian Hate.” Since then, reports and images of such attacks have only become more and more common, with the Atlanta Spa Shootings at the forefront of the conversation. As a result, much of the public and the media have been referring to these attacks as “hate crimes.” Yet, prosecutors are not seeking hate-crime enhancements in many of these cases. Several high-profile cases demonstrate the evidentiary …

Covid-19 And The U.S. Federal Government Vs. Undocumented Immigrants: How The U.S. Excludes Undocumented Immigrants From Financial Relief Amid A Global Pandemic, Golden Gate University School Of Law

GGU Law Review Blog

As we reached the Coronavirus Pandemic’s first anniversary, Americans continue to face economic troubles. The federal government has approved only three stimulus checks in the last eleven months. Contrary to public belief, these stimulus checks have been made available only to certain U.S. citizens while leaving out U.S. citizens from mixed-status families (a family that includes members with different citizenship or immigration statuses.) Furthermore, although undocumented immigrants make about 11 million of the U.S. population, they have received nothing from the federal government.

Book Review: Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools For The New Jim Code, Eleanor Lumsden

Publications

Review of:

Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code Ruha Benjamin, Cambridge: Polity; 2019 (available in Hardcover, Paperback, and eBook): 286 pages (Kindle edition); $16.00, ISBN: 978-1-509-52643-7.

This book will appeal to readers who are skeptical of the touted benefits of technology – technosceptics, if you will – as well as readers who love all things tech. This is a must-read for both groups, as well as all those who wish to be informed of the newest applications that go well beyond robots and self-driving cars. This book is a great lens with which to ‘see’ how …

Reimagining Criminal Justice: The Disparate Impact Ofthe 'Castle' Doctrine, Carmen Wierenga

Reimagining Criminal Justice

On October 12, a mobile phone video showed a Black man being followed and harassed by a white man in Las Vegas. As the Black man is walking away, a voice on the recording says “why can’t you handle it like a … man?” The white man then throws a punch, and the Black man turns and shoots the white man. The white man survived, according to the sparse news coverage I found online. As of October 12, the shooter had not been found. The video spurred discussion, though: would the Black shooter succeed on a stand-your-ground claim? The answer …

Reimagining Criminal Justice: The Lasting Effects Of The 3 Strikes Law And Proposition 20, Markie Flores

Reimagining Criminal Justice

Despite many people calling for cuts to police budgets this year, police unions have contributed more than half of the nearly $4 million raised for Proposition 20’s campaign deemed the “Reducing Crime and Keeping California Safe Act.” The proposition would erode the impact of Proposition 36 and 57 and expand the list of crimes for which early release is not an option. Proposition 20 wishes to define 51 crimes and sentence enhancements as violent. Listing them as violent will ensure they are excluded from the early release program Proposition 57 enacted in 2016.

Racial & Identity Profiling Advisory Board Annual Report 2020, Racial & Identity Profiling Advisory Board

Civil Rights & Human Rights

California’s Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board (Board) is pleased to release its Third Annual Report. The Board was created by the Racial and Identity Profiling Act of 2015 (RIPA) to shepherd data collection and provide public reports with the ultimate objective to eliminate racial and identity profiling and improve and understand diversity in law enforcement through training, education, and outreach. For the first time, the Board’s report includes an analysis of the stop data collected under RIPA, which requires nearly all California law enforcement agencies to submit demographic data on all detentions and searches. This report also provides recommendations …

Access To Justice: Theory And Practice From A Comparative Perspective, Colin Crawford, Daniel Bonilla Maldonado

Publications

The papers gathered in this volume analyze access to justice in Latin America, Europe, and North America from a philosophical, legal, and sociological perspective. In these three regions of the world, as in the rest of the globe, liberal democracies face a troubling gap between the normative and the descriptive: the access to justice promises made by the legal and political system are not fully realized in practice. The studies collected here, therefore, share two baseline assumptions. First, the right of access to justice is fundamental in a liberal state. Access to justice ensures that citizens are able to defend …

Racial & Identity Profiling Advisory Board Annual Report 2019, Racial & Identity Profiling Advisory Board

Civil Rights & Human Rights

California's Racial and Identity Profiling Act of 2015 (RIPA) is truly groundbreaking legislation - the first of its kind and scale in the United States. This law requires nearly all California law enforcement agencies to collect, maintain, and analyze demographic data on all detentions and searches, thereby codifying the recommendation of the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing which aimed to improve understanding and create evidence based policies through this data collection. The Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board (Board) was created by the Act to shepherd this data collection and provide public reports with the ultimate objective to …

Racial & Identity Profiling Advisory Board Annual Report 2018, Racial & Identity Profiling Advisory Board

Civil Rights & Human Rights

The Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory (RIPA) Board began its work in July 2016 as part of the Racial and Identity Profiling Act of 2015 (AB 953) with a momentous purpose: to eliminate racial and identity profiling and improve racial and identity sensitivity in law enforcement.1 In order to achieve these goals, the RIPA Board was charged with several responsibilities including publishing an annual report on the past and current status of racial and identity profiling with policy recommendations for eliminating it. This is the first report of the RIPA Board, and similarly represents California’s first ever statewide report on …

A Brief History Of Anglo-Western Suicide: From Legal Wrong To Civil Right, Helen Y. Chang

Publications

This article will examine the history of suicide from antiquity, where certain types of self-killing were socially acceptable, to its evolution as a criminal wrong and its modern reincarnation as a moral and legal right. In the early Common Era, suicide was not a criminal wrong, but with the spread of Christianity, suicide became illegal. In the present day, a growing minority of states have legalized some forms of suicide or self-killing. In 2018, six states and the District of Columbia had legalized some form of physician-assisted suicide: California, Colorado, District of Columbia, Montana, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. Twenty-three states …

How Much Is Police Brutality Costing America?, Eleanor Lumsden

Publications

The criminal law of the United States fails to stop the unlawful killing of minorities by law enforcement. In fact, it was never meant to do so. Civil tort law is also unequal to the task. The consequences of not correcting these legal failures are far-reaching for the United States and for our neighbors, and have so far been underreported. This article explores the direct and indirect costs of these failings, positive measures already underway, and makes further sugges-tions for reform.

A Long Journey To Secure Permanent Overtime Rights For California Domestic Workers, Hina B. Shah

GGU Law Review Blog

Domestic workers are crucial part of the economic and social fabric of our country. However, isolated and hidden behind closed doors and mostly unprotected under the law, domestic workers face harsh working conditions.

A 15 Million Dollar Clock: How Much Is Too Much?, Katherine Alphonso

GGU Law Review Blog

No abstract provided.

Expanding Pride To Our Workplaces, Eric C. Christiansen

Publications

As business leaders. we need to recognize that our policies, our workplace culture and our institutional ethos radically impact the lived experience of equality for our LGBT customers and employees. In a discriminatory world, passivity (i.e .. just ensuring you don't actively discriminate) can easily send a mixed or unintended message. Even in progressive places like the San Francisco Bay Area, LGBT folks have an experience of discrimination and disfavor that shapes their expectations.

Education Disparities Based On Wealth: Struggles Facing Poor Aspiring Lawyers, Angelica Torres

Student Publications

This paper will focus on my lack of knowledge about how growing up poor would make my own struggle to become a lawyer – especially a lawyer hoping to one day serve her own community – seem cluttered with unending obstacles. Given the costs of becoming a lawyer, and given that poverty disproportionately affects minorities, it is easy to understand why diversity is still lacking in the legal profession. Furthermore, because of the economic obstacles the poor face from the very beginning, attempting to work in the public interest field can add to the lists of challenges by disincentivizing those …

Return Innocent U.S. Citizen Trapped In Egypt's Legal Black Hole, Erica L. Morris

GGU Law Review Blog

Mr. Soltan is an innocent young adult, a college graduate of the Ohio State University, and a fellow United States citizen. His human rights have been violated to an outrageous level, and he is being denied due process in all sense of the phrase. It is time the United States government turns its attention to Mr. Soltan’s situation. It is time to demand that the Egyptian government present substantial evidence of Mr. Soltan’s guilt and of the crimes he has allegedly committed; it is time to demand that they provide him with basic due process and human rights afforded to …

Viewpoint: Assessing The Legacy Of 'Pao V. Kleiner Perkins', Rachel A. Van Cleave

Publications

Whether this is a landmark case depends on what the Pao case means for gender equality, and what it means for the culture of Silicon Valley. Some commentators claim that despite the jury finding against Pao, her lawsuit was a courageous act that will eventually advance gender equality in Silicon Valley.

Just Between Yoo And He: Two Justice Department Lawyers' Imaginary Torturous Email, Stephen A. Rosenbaum

Publications

On December 9, 2014, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released its long-awaited Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program, which The New York Times described as “a portrait of depravity that is hard to comprehend and even harder to stomach.” The Times had reported four years earlier that a number of Department of Justice (DoJ) emails were determined to be missing during the Office of Professional Responsibility's investigation of the Bush Administration memoranda providing legal justification for “enhanced interrogations,” the so-called torture memos. What follows is an imaginary exchange of emails between two young …

Golden Gate University Professor Leads Bill Limiting State Prison Sterilizations, Lisa Lomba

Press Releases

Golden Gate University (GGU) is at the heart of legislation recently introduced by the California Legislative Women’s Caucus to limit sterilization surgeries in all state prisons, county jails and other detention centers.

Lecture, Q&A With John Burris, Renowned Civil Rights Attorney “Trayvon Martin & Oscar Grant: The Intersection Of Race And Criminal Justice”, Lisa Lomba

Press Releases

Join a community of lawyers, law students and professors for a public event centered on the intersection of race and criminal justice. Distinguished GGU alumnus John Burris (BS 67) will speak about the implications of the cases against George Zimmerman for the shooting of Trayvon Martin, as well as the case against the Bay Area Rapid Transit District for the shooting of Oscar Grant.

Couple Marks 20 Years Of Helping Gay Law Students, Elliot Owen

Articles About GGU Law

Golden Gate University third year law school student Kate Baldridge was awarded the Michael A. Zamperini / W. Clay Burchell Endowed Scholarship during an event last month at the Coblentz Patch Duffy and Bass LLP offices in San Francisco's Ferry Building.

Marriage And The Court: San Francisco's Role In The Debate, Kathleen Morris

Publications

No abstract provided.

Proposition 8 Oral Arguments, Cassie Heuckroth

GGU Law Review Blog

No abstract provided.

Friends In Low Places, Cassie Heuckroth

GGU Law Review Blog

Found on the blog at: http://ggulawreview.org/2013/03/20/friends-in-low-places/

Hollingsworth V. Perry: United States Supreme Court Grants Certiorari To Hear The ‘Prop 8′ Case, Executive Online Editor

GGU Law Review Blog

No abstract provided.

Save Our Children: Overcoming The Narrative That Gays And Lesbians Are Harmful To Children, Anthony S. Niedwiecki

Publications

This paper focuses on how gay rights activists had no real choice but to use the court system to advance marriage rights for same-sex couples because they were unable to use the political process to effectively rebut the claim that gays and lesbian were harmful to children. Part I begins with an overview of the ways in which the initiative process has been used to limit gay rights and prevent marriage equality. It then details how, in contrast to the political process, courts have been more receptive to advancing marriage rights for same-sex couples. Part II details Walter Fisher's narrative …