Law Commons^™

Water Is Security, Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Reasonable and equitable water resource decision-making is at the core of good governance around the world. Sustained water collaboration is an antidote to foreign relations disintegration. Lack of water quality and quantity policies can lead to water insecurity for everyone, yet bureaucratic obstacles such as inertia and corruption must be averted in altering water governance schemes. There are multiple ways to lower transaction costs and strive for optimal water use. Several ingredients of good water governance include: (1) broad participation through the entire decision-making process; (2) transparent flow of information; (3) equitable opportunities to increase well-being; (4) accountability from governments, …

Human Rights And Gun Confiscation, David B. Kopel

David B Kopel

This Article addresses a human rights problem which has been generally ignored by the advocates of firearms confiscation: the human rights abuses stemming from the enforcement of coercive disarmament laws.

Part I conducts a case study of the U.N.-supported gun confiscation program in Uganda, a program which has directly caused massive, and fatal, violations of human rights. Among the rights violated have been those enumerated in Article 3 (“the right to life, liberty and security of person” ) and Article 5 (“No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”) of the Universal …

The Human Right Of Self-Defense, David B. Kopel, Paul Gallant, Joanne D. Eisen

David B Kopel

The United Nations Human Rights Council has declared that there is no human right to self-defense. Moreover, the Council has ordered all governments to enact very restrictive gun laws (more severe than those of Washington, D.C., or New York City, for example), and has declared that failure to enact such laws constitutes a human rights violation. Further, the HRC states that it is a human rights violation for a government to allow person to use a firearm in self-defense against a rapist or other criminal who is not attempting homicide.

This Article critically examines the HRC's claims by analyzing the …

The Disruption Of Marital Eharmony: Distinguishing Mail-Order Brides From Online Dating In Evaluating "Good Faith Marriage", Brandon N. Robinson

Brandon N. Robinson

ABSTRACT In today’s society, more and more people are turning to the information superhighway to find love. No longer confined to the girl or boy “next door,” many of today’s single men and women can connect with potential soul mates across the globe with the simple click of a button, symbolizing yet another consequence of a world community that is quickly becoming smaller and more interconnected. Once an international “match” has been made, the U.S. citizen can begin the complicated process of bringing his newfound loved one to the States. The IMO industry has a much more sinister underbelly, however, …

The Peculiar Story Of United States V. Miller

Brian L. Frye

This article provides a comprehensive history and interpretation of United States v. Miller, the only Supreme Court case construing the Second Amendment. It presents evidence Miller was a test case designed by the government to test the constitutionality of federal gun control. It shows the holding in Miller is narrower than generally assumed. It argues Miller adopts neither the individual nor the collective right theory of the Second Amendment. It suggests the Supreme Court’s pragmatic, deferential approach in Miller remains appropriate.

Throwing Away The Key: An Examination Of New York's Sex Offender Commitment Law, Joseph E. Fahey

Joseph E Fahey

No abstract provided.

Throwing The Key Away: An Examination Of New York's Sex Offender Commitment Law, Joseph E. Fahey

Joseph E Fahey

This article examines the Sex Offender Management and Treatment Act enacted by New York effective April 1, 2007. It examines the statute, its various flaws, the constitutional implications of those flaws, its effect on the State's judicial system, and the way in which the courts have construed it since it has been in effect.

Pleading Civil Rights Claims In The Post-Conley Era, A. Benjamin Spencer

Scholarly Articles

Much has been made of the Supreme Court's recent pronouncements on federal civil pleading standards during the latter half of the 2006-2007 Term. Specifically, what will be the fallout from the Court's decision in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, a case that abrogated Conley v. Gibson's famous no set of facts formulation and supplanted it with a new plausibility pleading standard? This Article attempts to examine and distill the impact of Twombly on the pleading standards that lower federal courts are applying when scrutinizing civil rights claims. Two main approaches emerge: that of courts that choose to continue to apply …

Faculty Emeritus Nomination Of Professor Edna Saffy, Ph.D., Edna Louise Saffy

Saffy Collection - All Textual Materials

Contents of nomination include nomination letters, letters from students, letters from Florida Community College Jacksonville President Steven Wallace, and a description of Dr. Saffy’s achievements and service to the College.

Torch (January 2008), Amy Homans, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Video Evidence And Summary Judgment: The Procedure Of Scott V. Harris, Howard Wasserman

Faculty Publications

In Scott v. Harris (2007), the Supreme Court granted summary judgment on a Fourth Amendment excessive-force claim brought by a motorist injured when a pursuing law-enforcement officer terminated a high-speed pursuit by bumping the plaintiff's car. The Court relied almost exclusively on a video of the chase captured from the officer's dash-mounted camera and disregarded witness testimony that contradicted the video. In granting summary judgment in this circumstance, the Court fell sway to the myth of video evidence as able to speak for itself, as an objective, unambiguous, and singularly accurate depiction of real-world events, not subject to any interpretation …

Supreme Court Report 2007-2008, Julie M. Cheslik, Aimee L. Morrison, Tyler J. Scott

Faculty Works

This article reviews the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court for the 2007-2008 Term that are of particular relevance to state and local governments including those involving voting and elections, speech, class-of-one equal protection claims, immunity, taxation, preemption, and the Fourth and Sixth Amendments.

Against the backdrop of the 2008 presidential election between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, and an economy plagued by recession and federal bailouts of the finance and mortgage industries, the Court continued in a largely conservative vein, reflecting the policies and predilections of the majority of justices. The Court reasserted its distaste for unfettered …

International Travel And The Constitution, Jeffrey D. Kahn

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This Article makes the case for the fundamental right of U.S. citizens to leave their country and return home again. Surprisingly, Americans do not enjoy such a right. Under current Supreme Court precedents, the right to travel abroad is merely an aspect of liberty that may be restricted within the bounds of due process. The controversial No Fly List is one result. Another is a new rule that went into effect in February 2008, under which all travelers now require the express prior permission of the U.S. Government to board any aircraft or maritime vessel that will enter or leave …

Money, Fear And Prejudice: Why The Courts Killed Terri Schiavo, Priscilla Norwood Harris

Journal Publications

On March 31, 2005, thirteen days after the court-ordered removal of her feeding tube, Theresa Marie Schindler Schiavo (Terri) died from dehydration. At the time of her death, Terri did not suffer from a terminal condition; if provided with nourishment, her life expectancy was at least ten years. Since February 1990, Terri had been unconscious. Terri left no living will or written directive as to her wishes. Family members vehemently disagreed as to whether Terri, raised in the Catholic faith, would have wanted her feeding tube removed. To legally end Terri's life, Florida law required the person petitioning for her …

Chapman Dialogues: Same Sex Marriage - Response To Professor Eskrdige, Lawrence Rosenthal

Lawrence Rosenthal

This essay, a revision of remarks originally delivered as part of the Chapman Dialogues series at Chapman University School of Law, is a response to the remarks of Professor William Eskridge of Yale Law School making the case for the recognition of a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. The essay argues that the judicial establishment of a right in the face of deeply entrenched social norms, prior to the time at which the political groundwork necessary for the enforcement of the right has been laid, risks a powerful and ultimately counterproductive backlash.

Belonging And Empowerment: A New "Civil Rights" Paradigm Based On Lessons From The Past, Rebecca Zietlow

Rebecca E Zietlow

Despite the advances that African Americans have made in our country as a result of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, poverty stubbornly persists in communities of color throughout our country. Our current civil rights paradigm, which is rooted in the Equal Protection Clause, and prohibits intentional state discrimination on the basis of immutable characteristics, simply is not working. This article suggests an alternative approach, one based not solely in equality norms but in facilitating the belonging of outsiders in our society. The subordination of people of color in our society has never been just about race. Rather, racism …

The Disaggregation Of Race And Class In United States Civil Rights Law, Rebecca Zietlow

Rebecca E Zietlow

Despite the advances that African Americans have made in our country as a result of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, poverty stubbornly persists in communities of color throughout our country. Our current civil rights paradigm, which is rooted in the Equal Protection Clause, and prohibits intentional state discrimination on the basis of immutable characteristics, simply is not working. This article suggests an alternative approach, one based not solely in equality norms but in facilitating the belonging of outsiders in our society. The subordination of people of color in our society has never been just about race. Rather, racism …

Hostile Public Accommodations Laws And The First Amendment, Daniel Koontz

Daniel Koontz

State and municipal Human Rights Commissions have recently begun aggressively interpreting public accommodations laws to punish the speech of proprietors of bars, restaurants, country clubs, and other public accommodations. The theory is that if a proprietor says something to a customer—or even displays artwork, decorations, or signs—that could potentially offend the customer based on race, religion, sex, or ancestry, the proprietor has created a “hostile environment” which denies the customer “full and equal enjoyment” of the public accommodation.

Proprietors can face liability even in the absence of allegations that they refused service to a customer. In one case, a human …

Yick Wo Re-Revisited: Nonblack Nonwhites And Fourteenth Amendment History, Thomas W. Joo

Thomas W Joo

The 1886 Supreme Court case Yick Wo v. Hopkins is often viewed as a precursor of the racial civil rights era represented by Brown v. Board of Education. In fact, the case was primarily about economic rights. In a new article, Unexplainable on Grounds of Race: Doubts About Yick Wo, forthcoming in the Illinois Law Review, Professor Gabriel Chin argues that Yick Wo "is not a race case at all." I argue that it is a "race case" because the Court’s use of the Fourteenth Amendment to vindicate economic rights necessarily entangled economic rights with race--in an ultimately pernicious way. …

Multi-Hued America: The Case For The Civil Rights Movement's Embrace Of Multiethnic Identity, Kamaria A. Kruckenberg

Kamaria A Kruckenberg

This article explores multiethnic categorization, given the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) decision to allow multiple-race identification on the 2000 Census and in all federal data collection. This decision has also prompted several states to reconsider how they categorize multiethnic individuals. Such classifications are not just about titles—they affect everything from higher education admissions policies to compliance with federal housing laws. In this article, I give a brief history of multiethnic classification in American law since colonization. Then I address a variety of critiques of the multiracial label, such as the fear of numerical dilution of minority numbers, the …

Transforming Transsexual And Transgender Rights, L. Camille Hebert

L. Camille Hebert

Transsexual and transgendered individuals receive only sporatic and non-comprehensive protection against discrimination in employment. Most efforts to extend that protection, through avenues of protection as a disability or enacting legislation extending protected class status, have been unsuccessful or incomplete. More successful in recent years has been to extend protection against sexual stereotyping to transsexual and transgendered individuals. Least successful has been the argument that discrimination against transsexual and transgendered individuals is itself prohibited sex discrimination. This article argues that in fact the structure to protect transsexual and transgendered individuals from discrimination is already in place through federal and state statutes …

Do Cognitive Biases Affect Adjudication?: A Study Of Labor Arbitrators (With Monica Biernat), Martin H. Malin, Monica Biernat

Martin H. Malin

Labor arbitrators were presented with four cases to decide, each involving a challenge to discipline or discharge of an employee resulting from a work-family conflict. Arbitrators were randomly given versions of the cases in which the gender and one other characteristivc of the employee were varied. The results showed little evidence of direct gender bias in decision-making but did reflect bias against single parents and employees with eldercare, as opposed to childcare, responsibilities. Implications for other adjudicators, including judges, jurors and administrative agency officials are discussed.

Academic Freedom And The Post-Garcetti Blues, Sheldon Nahmod

Sheldon Nahmod

No abstract provided.

Liars And Terrorists And Judges, Oh My: Moral Panic And The Symbolic Politics Of Appellate Review In Asylum Cases, Eric M. Fink

Eric M Fink

As part of the REAL ID Act, Congress amended the Immigration and Nationality Act to restrict judicial review of adverse credibility determinations by immigration judges. The change came in the wake of controversy of judicial reversals of adverse credibility determinations that the reviewing courts saw as inappropriately speculative and lacking in evidentiary support. Critics, including some appellate judges, have in turn alleged that the appellate courts have been insufficiently deferential to the factual determinations of Immigration Judges (IJs) and the BIA.

This paper examines the argument offered in support of limiting judicial review in this area, and provides an empirical …