Law Commons^™

Election Law And Government Ethics, Christopher R. Nolen, Jeffrey S. Palmore

University of Richmond Law Review

This article surveys developments in Virginia election and government ethics laws for 2014 and 2015, with an emphasis on legislative developments. The focus is on those statutory developments thathave significance or general applicability to the implementation of Virginia's election and ethics laws.

Criminal Law And Procedure, Aaron J. Campbell

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Wills, Trusts, And Estates, J. William Gray Jr., Katherine E. Ramsey

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Mcdonnell Case: A Clarification Of Corruption Law Or A Confusing Application Of Corruption Law, Henry L. Chambers Jr.

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Opening Remarks, John D. Feerick

Fordham Law Review

I salute those who have been involved in the planning of this program and will be moderating, serving on panels, and making presentations throughout the day. I am not quite sure what my present qualifications are to be the opening speaker in such an august gathering of outstanding academics, teachers, lawyers, good government leaders, public servants, and others of distinction. My work these years of my life is largely in the field of social justice and poverty. I am no stranger to the field of law reform, however.

Why Isn’T Congress More Corrupt?: A Preliminary Inquiry, Richard L. Hasen

Fordham Law Review

In the aftermath of the indictment of New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver on corruption charges, law professor (and recent reformist gubernatorial candidate) Zephyr Teachout published an op-ed in the New York Times entitled “Legalized Bribery.” In it, she argued that campaign contributions are a “gateway drug” to bribes and that politicians are “pre- corrupted” by taking campaign contributions and doing favors for contributors. She wants campaign finance limits, public financing, and limits on outside income for legislators. Although Teachout used powerful rhetoric and suggested worthy reforms, I see her as offering an empirical hypothesis about the relationship between …

Love, Equality, And Corruption, Zephyr Teachout

Fordham Law Review

What is corruption? Unless one takes an absolute (and hard to defend) view of words’ meanings—there is a fixed meaning, it cannot differ—this question can mean different things. What has it meant in the past? What has it meant to judges? What social function does the word play? Does it have any meaning at all, or is it just another word for a different idea? Does the meaning it had historically have any coherence? Does the meaning it has now have any coherence? What do most people think it means? What do most scholars think, or most lawyers, …

Criminal Corruption: Why Broad Definitions Of Bribery Make Things Worse, Albert W. Alschuler

Fordham Law Review

Although the law of bribery may look profoundly underinclusive, the push to expand it usually should be resisted. This Article traces the history of two competing concepts of bribery—the “intent to influence” concept (a concept initially applied only to gifts given to judges) and the “illegal contract” concept. It argues that, when applied to officials other than unelected judges, “intent to influence” is now an untenable standard. This standard cannot be taken literally. This Article defends the Supreme Court’s refusal to treat campaign contributions as bribes in the absence of an “explicit” quid pro quo and its refusal to read …

Cross-Border Corruption Enforcement: A Case For Measured Coordination Among Multiple Enforcement Authorities, Jay Holtmeier

Fordham Law Review

The steady increase in cooperation and information sharing among governments is a trend commonly noted in discussions of current anticorruption enforcement. There is no shortage of evidence to support this observation. In 2013 and 2014 alone, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recognized the cooperation and assistance of foreign law enforcement authorities in at least twenty-three actions brought under the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA or “the Act”). U.S. enforcement authorities—once the world’s primary anticorruption enforcers—increasingly can and do rely on the help of their international counterparts and are pursuing more investigations that run …

The Uncomfortable Truths And Double Standards Of Bribery Enforcement, Mike Koehler

Fordham Law Review

In recent years, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement has become a top priority for the U.S. government, and government enforcement officials have stated that “we in the United States are in a unique position to spread the gospel of anti-corruption” and that FCPA enforcement ensures not only that the United States “is on the right side of history, but also that it has a hand in advancing that history.”

However, the FCPA is not the only statute in the federal criminal code concerning bribery. Rather, the FCPA was modeled in large part after the U.S. domestic bribery statute, and …

The “Demand Side” Of Transnational Bribery And Corruption: Why Leveling The Playing Field On The Supply Side Isn’T Enough, Lucinda A. Low, Sarah R. Lamoree, John London

Fordham Law Review

The domestic and international legal framework for combating bribery and corruption (“ABC laws”), including both private and public corrupt practices that are transnational (cross border) in character, has dramatically expanded over the last twenty years. Despite these developments, major gaps remain. This Article examines one of the largest systemic gaps: the absence of effective tools to control the demand side of transnational bribery and corruption—the corrupt solicitation of a benefit—especially when it involves a public official.

Keynote Address, Preet Bharara

Fordham Law Review

Thank you, professor, for that introduction. It was quite the introduction. It is true my brother started a very successful online diaper company. It was mentioned that we do not have enough followers on our Twitter feed. My brother is a much more clever member of the family. My recollection is that when he started that company, he had a slogan—he and some folks came up with this slogan for the diaper company—which was—and it was emblazoned on a t-shirt which was one of the few perks of being related to somebody who started a company, and I from time …

Fighting Corruption In America And Abroad, Jed Handelsman Shugerman

Fordham Law Review

The exchanges at the symposium and these Articles highlight the gap between public opinion and legal culture on the definition of corruption and the problems that flow from that gap. Teachout’s and Lessig’s legal argument that corruption can be institutional and banal roughly corresponds with the public’s moral intuition. Conversely, Lessig’s and Hasen’s intuitive moral reaction—that corruption is the evil of quid pro quo—maps onto the legal conclusion of the U.S. Supreme Court in Citizens United v. FEC that corruption is narrowly defined as quid pro quo. Note the reversal of moral and legal positions: Teachout and Lessig’s legal …

Corrupt And Unequal, Both, Lawrence Lessig

Fordham Law Review

Rick Hasen has presented the issue of money in politics as if we have to make a choice: it is either a problem of equality or it is a problem of corruption. Hasen’s long and influential career in this field has been a long and patient struggle to convince those on the corruption side of the fight (we liberals, at least, and, in an important sense, we egalitarians too) to resist the temptation to try to pass—by rendering equality arguments as corruption arguments, and to just come out of the closet. Hasen had famously declared that the corruption argument supporting …

Rating The Cities: Constructing A City Resilience Index For Assessing The Effect Of State And Local Laws On Long-Term Recovery From Crisis And Disaster, John Travis Marshall

Faculty Publications By Year

Superstorm Sandy, the 2008 Iowa floods, and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita all supply recent reminders that U.S. cities can no longer adopt an ad hoc approach to threats presented by climate change and natural hazards. The stories detailing long-term recovery from these disasters underscore that federal, state, and local governments are struggling to appreciate the legal tools and institutions necessary to implement the large-scale infrastructure, housing, and community development programs that climate change and more frequent natural disasters demand. This Article calls for development of a tool allowing succinct evaluation of the range of community capacities that will figure critically …

Declining Controversial Cases: How Marriage Equality Changed The Paradigm, Elena Baylis

Articles

Until recently, state attorneys general defended their states’ laws as a matter of course. However, one attorney general’s decision not to defend his state’s law in a prominent marriage equality case sparked a cascade of attorney general declinations in other marriage equality cases. Declinations have also increased across a range of states and with respect to several other contentious subjects, including abortion and gun control. This Essay evaluates the causes and implications of this recent trend of state attorneys general abstaining from defending controversial laws on the grounds that those laws are unconstitutional, focusing on the marriage equality cases as …

Dealing With Dirty Deeds: Matching Nemo Dat Preferences With Property Law Pragmatism, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

A New Fulcrum Point For City Survival, Samir D. Parikh

William & Mary Law Review

Municipalities have historically enjoyed immense stability. This era of tranquility is over, and fiscal deterioration is accelerating. Policymakers and scholars have struggled to formulate debt restructuring options; almost all have embraced federal bankruptcy law. But this resource-draining process is not the fulcrum point for any meaningful solution to municipal demise. Indeed, for the vast majority of distressed municipalities, the lever of municipal recovery will not turn on the solutions that have been offered to date. This Article radically shifts the municipal recovery debate by arguing that state law is the centralized point at which officials can exert the necessary amount …

One Centimeter Over My Back Yard: Where Does Federal Preemption Of State Drone Regulation Start?, Henry H. Perritt Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

The proliferation of cheap civilian drones and their obvious utility for precision agriculture, motion picture and television production, aerial surveying, newsgathering, utility infrastructure inspection, and disaster relief has accelerated the FAA’s sluggish effort to develop a proposal for generally applicable rules and caused it to grant more than 600 “section 333 exemptions” permitting commercial drone flight before its rules are finalized.

Federal preemption in the field of aviation safety regulation is generally assumed, but political pressure on states and municipalities to regulate drones and the ability of this revolutionary aviation technology to open up space close to the ground for …

A 'Velvet Hammer': The Criminalization Of Motherhood And The New Maternalism, Eliza Duggan

Eliza Duggan

In 2014, Tennessee became the first state to criminalize the use of narcotics during pregnancy. While women have been prosecuted for the outcomes of their pregnancies and for the use of drugs during pregnancy in the past decades, Tennessee is the first state to explicitly authorize prosecutors to bring criminal charges against pregnant women if they use drugs. This Article suggests that this new maternal crime is reflective of a social and political paradigm called “maternalism,” which enforces the idea that women are meant to be mothers and to perform motherhood in a particular fashion. This concept has developed from …

Incorporation, Total Incorporation, And Nothing But Incorporation?, Christopher R. Green

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Kurt T. Lash’s The Fourteenth Amendment and the Privileges and Immunities of American Citizenship (2014) defends the view that the Fourteenth Amendment’s “privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States” cover only rights enumerated elsewhere in the Constitution. My own book, however, Equal Citizenship, Civil Rights, and the Constitution: The Original Sense of the Privileges or Immunities Clause (2015), reads the Clause to guarantee equality broadly among similarly situated citizens of the United States. Incorporation of an enumerated right into the Fourteenth Amendment requires, I say, national consensus such that an outlier state’s invasion of the right would produce …

Comments On Public Lands: Title Transfer Proposals, Chuck Howe

Challenging Federal Ownership and Management: Public Lands and Public Benefits (October 11-13)

3 pages.

A Sitting Duck: Local Government Regulation Of Hunting And Weapons Discharge In The State Of New York, Gary E. Kalbaugh

Pace Environmental Law Review

On March 31, 2014, the New York State Legislature significantly modified New York's Environmental Conservation Law. The Environmental Conservation Law imposes limitations on the discharge of longbows. A longbow is defined by New York's Department of Environmental Conservation as “a longbow, recurve bow or compound bow which is designed to be used by holding the bow at arm's length, with arrow on the string, and which is drawn, pulled and released by hand or with the aid of a hand-held trigger device attached to the bowstring.”

Before the 2014 amendment, longbows could not be discharged in such a way that …

Municipal Wildfire Management In California: A Local Response To Global Climate Change, Sameer Ponkshe

Pace Environmental Law Review

This Note will examine the wildfire issue in California within the context of municipal government. Part II-A will present a concise look at the current state of affairs regarding climate change, which demonstrates that because little has changed on the international level regarding emissions reductions, the responsibility of protecting people from the catastrophes associated with climate change will fall to lower levels of government. Part II-B will then discuss how wildfire activity is affected by climate change, with specific attention to how the western U.S. has been affected. Part III of this Note focuses on actions of several different municipalities …

How To Avoid Constitutional Challenges To State Based Climate Change Initiatives: A Case Study Of Rocky Mountain Farmers Union V. Corey And New York State Programs, Lauren Baron

Pace Environmental Law Review

Considering the decision in Rocky Mtn. v. Corey and the EPA's actions in accordance with the President's Plan, this comment will outline best practices states can use in creating climate initiatives based on the challenges California faced in Rocky Mtn. v. Corey. Part II of this comment will analyze the reasoning in Rocky Mtn. v. Corey. Although certiorari was denied in the case, Part II will analyze recent Supreme Court dormant Commerce Clause jurisprudence to determine which cases are relevant to consider when analyzing a dormant Commerce Clause challenge to state based climate initiatives. Part III will discuss the current …

California Climate Law---Model Or Object Lesson?, Daniel A. Farber

Pace Environmental Law Review

In the invitation to this Symposium on Reconceptualizing the Future of Environmental Law, the organizers explained that the Symposium “focuses on the continued expansion of environmental law into distinct areas of the law, requiring an increasingly multidisciplinary approach beyond that of traditional federal regulation.” In short, the question posed is about the future proliferation of environmental measures outside the previous domains of federal environmental statutes.

At the risk of being guilty of local parochialism, I would like to discuss how the future described by the organizers has already arrived in California--both in the sense that a great deal is happening …

Engines Of Environmental Innovation: Reflections On The Role Of States In The U.S. Regulatory System, Alexandra Dapolito Dunn, Chandos Culleen

Pace Environmental Law Review

This article focuses on the role that states play in environmental regulation. Specifically, this article offers examples of the central part in the evolution of United States environmental regulation states played in the past, continue to play today, and will play in the future. First, this article explores the history of state environmental regulation, demonstrating that despite a lack of resources, states were actively engaged in environmental regulation before the advent of the modern era of federal environmental regulation in the 1970s. This article relates not only the regulatory efforts of states, but also the practical benefits of state regulation. …

Mens Rea, Criminal Responsibility, And The Death Of Freddie Gray, Michael Serota

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

Who (if anyone) is criminally responsible for the death of Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old African-American man who died from injuries suffered while in the custody of Baltimore police? This question has been at the forefront of the extensive coverage of Gray’s death, which has inspired a national discussion about law enforcement’s relationship with black communities. But it is also a question that may never be fairly resolved for reasons wholly unrelated to the topic of community policing, with which Gray’s death has become synonymous. What may ultimately hamper the administration of justice in the prosecution of the police officers involved …

Perspectives - William Morrish, Professor Of Urban Ecologies At Parsons The New School For Design, James Hagy

Rooftops Project

How can arts organizations with an aspiration to build their own facilities connect project design both with the broader community and with financial sustainability? The Rooftops Project’s Zulaihat Nauzo and Professor James Hagy talk with William Morrish, Professor of Urban Ecologies at Parsons The New School for Design.

An Opening For Quid Pro Quo Corruption? Issue Advertising In Wisconsin Judicial Races Before And After Citizens United, Christopher Terry, Mitchell T. Bard

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.