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Full-Text Articles in Law

Prosecuting Civil Asset Forfeiture On Contingency Fees: Looking For Profit In All The Wrong Places, Louis S. Rulli Jan 2021

Prosecuting Civil Asset Forfeiture On Contingency Fees: Looking For Profit In All The Wrong Places, Louis S. Rulli

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Civil asset forfeiture has strayed far from its intended purpose. Designed to give law enforcement powerful tools to combat maritime offenses and criminal enterprises, forfeiture laws are now used to prey upon innocent motorists and lawful homeowners who are never charged with crimes. Their only sins are that they are carrying legal tender while driving on busy highways or providing shelter in their homes to adult children and grandchildren who allegedly sold small amounts of low-level drugs. Civil forfeiture abuses are commonplace throughout the country with some police even armed with legal waivers for property owners to sign on the …


Consent, Coercion, And Employment Law, Samuel R. Bagenstos Jul 2020

Consent, Coercion, And Employment Law, Samuel R. Bagenstos

Articles

The Roberts Court has recently handed several high-profile wins in labor and employment law cases to anti-labor and pro-employer forces. This paper argues that those decisions replicate crucial moves made by some infamous Lochner-era cases — and that those same moves continue to underlie key elements of labor and employment doctrine more generally. In particular, these decisions rest on a contestable understanding of free worker choice. This paper begins by examining the key recent Roberts Court decisions and demonstrates that they appear to invoke at least two distinct and conflicting understandings of employee and employer choice. It then turns to …


Christianity And Bankruptcy, David A. Skeel Jr. Dec 2019

Christianity And Bankruptcy, David A. Skeel Jr.

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Although the term “bankruptcy” is nowhere to be found in the Bible, debt and the consequences of default are a major theme both in the Hebrew Bible and in the New Testament. In Israel, as in the ancient Near East generally, a debtor who defaulted on his obligations was often sold into slavery or servitude. Biblical law moderated the harshness of this system by prohibiting Israelites from charging interest on loans to one another, thus diminishing the risk of default, and by requiring the release of slaves after seven years of service. Jesus alluded to the lending laws at least …


Consent, Culpability, And The Law Of Rape, Kimberly Kessler Ferzan Jan 2016

Consent, Culpability, And The Law Of Rape, Kimberly Kessler Ferzan

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This Article explores the relationship between consent and culpability. The goal is to present a thorough exposition of the tradeoffs at play when the law adopts different conceptions of consent. After describing the relationship between culpability, wrongdoing, permissibility, and consent, I argue that the best conception of consent—one that reflects what consent really is—is the conception of willed acquiescence. I then contend that to the extent that affirmative consent standards are aimed at protecting defendants, this can be better achieved through mens rea provisions. I then turn to the current victim-protecting impetus for affirmative expression standards, specifically, requirements that the …


The Visible Hand: Coordination Functions Of The Regulatory State, Robert B. Ahdieh Dec 2010

The Visible Hand: Coordination Functions Of The Regulatory State, Robert B. Ahdieh

Faculty Scholarship

We live in a coordination economy. As one surveys the myriad challenges of modern social and economic life, an ever increasing proportion is defined not by the need to reconcile competing interests, but by the challenge of getting everyone on the same page. Conflict is not absent in these settings. It is not, however, the determinative factor in shaping our behaviors and resulting interactions. That essential ingredient, instead, is coordination.

Such coordination is commonly understood as the function of the market. As it turns out, however, optimal coordination will not always emerge, as if led “by an invisible hand.” Even …


Competing Theories Of Blackmail: An Empirical Research Critique Of Criminal Law Theory, Paul H. Robinson, Michael T, Cahill, Daniel M. Bartels Jan 2010

Competing Theories Of Blackmail: An Empirical Research Critique Of Criminal Law Theory, Paul H. Robinson, Michael T, Cahill, Daniel M. Bartels

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Blackmail, a wonderfully curious offense, is the favorite of clever criminal law theorists. It criminalizes the threat to do something that would not be criminal if one did it. There exists a rich literature on the issue, with many prominent legal scholars offering their accounts. Each theorist has his own explanation as to why the blackmail offense exists. Most theories seek to justify the position that blackmail is a moral wrong and claim to offer an account that reflects widely shared moral intuitions. But the theories make widely varying assertions about what those shared intuitions are, while also lacking any …