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Articles 1 - 16 of 16
Full-Text Articles in Law
A Literary Lens Into Constitutional Interpretation And A Possible Synthesis Of Natural And Positive Law: The Silmarillion, Charles Edward Andrew Lincoln Iv
A Literary Lens Into Constitutional Interpretation And A Possible Synthesis Of Natural And Positive Law: The Silmarillion, Charles Edward Andrew Lincoln Iv
Student Scholarship
The nature of identity in the United States lies in the Constitution. Perhaps this is due to “veneration” of the document. It has also been argued that the Declaration of Independence holds a seminal role in the American identity.
The rift seems to occur with the concept of a “living constitution,” whereby the concept of an ever-evolving jurisprudence allows for an evolving interpretation of the Constitution as society changes.
This rift can be demonstrated by the world of J.R.R. Tolkien. In The Lord of the Rings and Silmarillion, the various languages of groups of Middle Earth represent and have distinct …
Community In Property: Lessons From Tiny Homes Villages, Lisa T. Alexander
Community In Property: Lessons From Tiny Homes Villages, Lisa T. Alexander
Faculty Scholarship
The evolving role of community in property law remains undertheorized. While legal scholars have analyzed the commons, common interest communities, and aspects of the sharing economy, the recent rise of intentional co-housing communities re-mains relatively understudied. This Article analyzes tiny homes villages for unhoused people in the United States, as examples of co-housing communities that create a new housing tenure—stewardship—and demonstrate the growing importance of community, co-management, sustainability, and flexibility in con-temporary property law. These villages’ property relationships challenge the predominance of individualized, exclusionary, long-term, fee simple ownership in contemporary property law and exemplify property theories such as progressive property …
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Holmes: A Tale Of Two Testaments, Stephen R. Alton
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Holmes: A Tale Of Two Testaments, Stephen R. Alton
Faculty Scholarship
Author's Note: This Article takes the form of an epistolary exchange across the centuries, comparing and contrasting two noted wills in Victorian literature. To preserve verisimilitude, the author lets these letters and emails speak for themselves, without any formal introduction, just as would have occurred in Victorian epistolary fiction. It is the author's hope that the relevant testaments and the legal issues they present will make themselves clear as these exchanges proceed. Any reader desiring a more formal introduction to this Article is directed to the first email (below) written by the author to Mr. Utterson and Mr. Holmes; this …
The Paradox Of Minority Attorney Satisfaction, Milan Markovic, Gabrielle Plickert
The Paradox Of Minority Attorney Satisfaction, Milan Markovic, Gabrielle Plickert
Faculty Scholarship
A substantial literature documents the challenges faced by minority attorneys in the legal profession, ranging from underrepresentation in prestigious practice settings and lower incomes to discrimination from fellow lawyers, clients, and judges. In light of the foregoing, one would expect minority attorneys to regret their decisions to attend law school and become lawyers. Yet, empirical research indicates that minority attorneys are predominately satisfied with their decision to become attorneys and that their satisfaction is on par with that of white attorneys. How to account for this seeming paradox?
Drawing on data from a large cross-section of Texas lawyers, this is …
Assigned Counsel Mentoring Programs: Results And Lessons From Two Pilot Projects, Susan Saab Fortney
Assigned Counsel Mentoring Programs: Results And Lessons From Two Pilot Projects, Susan Saab Fortney
Faculty Scholarship
Working with a team of three subject matter experts, the National Legal Aid and Defender Association implemented and evaluated two pilot mentoring projects aimed at helping lawyers who serve as assigned counsel. This report discusses the program design, evaluation outcomes, and offers guidance through lessons learned for other jurisdictions interested in introducing assigned counsel mentoring programs. The author of the report was the principal investigator who evaluated the programs.
This project was supported by grant number 2015-AJ-BX-K043 awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs to the National Legal Aid and Defender Association. The opinions, findings, and …
Sane Gun Policy From Texas? A Blueprint For Balanced State Campus Carry Laws, Aric Short
Sane Gun Policy From Texas? A Blueprint For Balanced State Campus Carry Laws, Aric Short
Faculty Scholarship
merican universities are caught in the crosshairs of one of the most polarizing and contentious gun policy debates: whether to allow concealed carry on campus. Ten states have implemented "campus carry" in some form; sixteen new states considered passage last year; and a growing wave of momentum is building in favor of additional adoptions. Despite this push towards campus carry, most states adopting the policy fail to strike an effective balance between the competing rights and interests involved. When states give universities the option to opt out of the law, for example, they almost always do. Other states impose a …
Historic Partition Law Reform: A Game Changer For Heirs’ Property Owners, Thomas W. Mitchell
Historic Partition Law Reform: A Game Changer For Heirs’ Property Owners, Thomas W. Mitchell
Faculty Scholarship
Over the course of several decades, many disadvantaged families who owned property under the tenancy-in-common form of ownership—property these families often referred to as heirs’ property—have had their property forcibly sold as a result of court-ordered partition sales. For several decades, repeated efforts to reform State partition laws produced little to no reform despite clear evidence that these laws unjustly harmed many families. This paper addresses the remarkable success of a model State statute named the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act (UPHPA), which has been enacted into law in several States since 2011, including in five southern States. The …
Bloody Hell: How Insufficient Access To Menstrual Hygiene Products Creates Inhumane Conditions For Incarcerated Women, Lauren Shaw
Bloody Hell: How Insufficient Access To Menstrual Hygiene Products Creates Inhumane Conditions For Incarcerated Women, Lauren Shaw
Texas A&M Law Review
For thousands of incarcerated women in the United States, dealing with menstruation is a nightmare. Across the country, many female prisoners lack sufficient access to feminine hygiene products, which negatively affects their health and rehabilitation. Although the international standards for the care of female prisoners have been raised in attempt to eliminate this issue, these stan- dards are often not followed in the United States. This Comment argues that denial of feminine hygiene products to female prisoners violates human de- cency. Additionally, this Comment considers possible constitutional violations caused by this denial, reviews current efforts to correct this problem, and …
Reconsidering Christianity As A Support For Secular Law: A Final Reply To Professor Calhoun, Wayne Barnes
Reconsidering Christianity As A Support For Secular Law: A Final Reply To Professor Calhoun, Wayne Barnes
Faculty Scholarship
This symposium has revolved around Professor Calhoun’s article, which posits that it is completely legitimate, in proposing laws and public policies, to argue for them in the public square based on overtly religious principles. In my initial response, I took issue with his argument that no reasons justify barring faith-based arguments from the public square argument. In fact, I do find reasons justifying the prohibition of “faith-based,” or Christian, arguments in the public square – and, in fact, I find such reasons within Christianity itself. This is because what is being publicly communicated in Christian political argumentation is that if …
Senate Bill 4: Police Officer's Opinions On Texas's Ban Of Sanctuary Cities, Megan E. Reed
Senate Bill 4: Police Officer's Opinions On Texas's Ban Of Sanctuary Cities, Megan E. Reed
Student Scholarship
For this Article, the Author interviewed six local law enforcement agencies in Texas regarding SB4. Based on those interviews and other research, this Article concludes that SB4 likely does not uproot and change Texas policing practices and asserts that SB4 may in fact be highly ineffective at improving resident safety, which was Texas lawmakers’ stated purpose for SB4. SB4 continues to have far reaching impacts, including concerns of racial profiling, victims and witnesses refusing to come forward due to fears of deportation, and damage to police officers’ reputations. Further, while some local law enforcement agencies claim they will not have …
Promoting Equality Through Empirical Desert, Ilya Rudyak
Promoting Equality Through Empirical Desert, Ilya Rudyak
Texas A&M Law Review
According to empirical desert theory, good utilitarian grounds exist for distributing criminal punishment pursuant to the (retributive) intuitions of the lay community on criminal liability. This theory’s insights, based on original empirical research and informed by social science, have significantly influenced contemporary criminal law theory. Yet, ostensibly, the theory is hampered by serious limitations, which may have obstructed its progress and its potential to guide criminal justice reform. Chief among them: it draws from community intuitions, and community intuitions—as the theory acknowledges—are sometimes immoral. In addition to these “immorality objections,” (commonly illustrated by alluding to the antebellum South and Nazi …
The "Uncanny Valley" And The Verisimilitude Of Sexual Offenders--Part I: An "Ethorobotic" Perspective, Michael T. Flannery
The "Uncanny Valley" And The Verisimilitude Of Sexual Offenders--Part I: An "Ethorobotic" Perspective, Michael T. Flannery
Texas A&M Law Review
This Article is the first in a series of three articles in which I explain the cycle of misperception of sexual offenders that has encouraged the unconstitutional application of sexual offender laws, including civil commitment laws, in a false effort to quell public fear, protect children, and reduce sexual victimization. In this first Article of the series, I propose that this cycle of misperception and the resistance to the release of civilly committed sexual offenders may be, in part, the product of a novel phenomenon known as the “uncanny valley” effect.
The Self-Delegation False Alarm: Analyzing Auer Deference’S Effect On Agency Rules, Daniel E. Walters
The Self-Delegation False Alarm: Analyzing Auer Deference’S Effect On Agency Rules, Daniel E. Walters
Faculty Scholarship
Auer deference holds that reviewing courts should defer to agencies when the latter interpret their own preexisting regulations. This doctrine relieves pressure on agencies to undergo costly notice-and-comment rulemaking each time interpretation of existing regulations is necessary. But according to some leading scholars and jurists, the doctrine actually encourages agencies to promulgate vague rules in the first instance, augmenting agency power and violating core separation of powers norms in the process. The claim that Auer perversely encourages agencies to “self-delegate”—that is, to create vague rules that can later be informally interpreted by agencies with latitude due to judicial deference—has helped …
Reefer Madness: The Constitutional Consequence Of The Federal Government's Inconsistent Marijuana Policy, Zachary Ford
Reefer Madness: The Constitutional Consequence Of The Federal Government's Inconsistent Marijuana Policy, Zachary Ford
Texas A&M Law Review
In the past twenty years, the United States has witnessed over half of its states create marijuana laws that expressly contradict the federal government’s complete ban of the drug. Nine states have completely legalized marijuana for recreational use in the past five years alone. Meanwhile, much of the country remains staunchly opposed to legalization in any form. This difference between state and federal law has the largest negative impact on noncitizens, namely lawful permanent residents whom reside in states that follow the federal government’s complete ban. Congress’s Immigration and Nationality Act broadly defines “conviction,” so even minor drug convictions under …
Taking Stock Of The Benefit Corporation, Ronald J. Colombo
Taking Stock Of The Benefit Corporation, Ronald J. Colombo
Texas A&M Law Review
Almost a decade ago, the “benefit corporation” first appeared on American soil. Its supporters proclaimed that this would usher in a new era of corporate social responsibility. Its detractors complained that the benefit corporation would facilitate managerial abuses that corporate law had worked so hard to curb. After nearly ten years of experience with the benefit corporation, who was the more accurate prognosticator? Moreover, has the benefit corporation given rise to developments, whether beneficial or negative, that were not expected or foreseen?
This Article traces the history of the benefit corporation, with a focus on the promise that its early …
Community Law Practice, Luz E. Herrera
Community Law Practice, Luz E. Herrera
Faculty Scholarship
Community-embedded law practices are small businesses that are crucial in addressing the legal needs that arise in neighborhoods. Lawyers in these practices attend to recurring legal needs, contribute to building a diverse profession, and spur community development of modest-income communities through legal education and services. Solo practitioners and small firm lawyers represent the largest segment of the lawyer population in the United States, yet their contributions to addressing the legal needs of modest-income clients are rarely recognized or studied. This essay sheds light on the characteristics, motivations, and challenges these law practices face in providing access to justice to modest-means …