Law Commons^™

Resurrecting Weighted Voting, Norman R. Williams

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Case For Waivable Employee Rights: A Contrarian View, William R. Corbett

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

The "Bounds" Of Moore: Pluralism And State Judicial Review, Leah M. Litman, Katherine Shaw

Articles

In Moore v. Harper, the Supreme Court rejected a maximalist version of the “independent state legislature theory” (ISLT), invoking state judicial practices both before and after the Constitution was ratified. This piece uses Moore’s method to examine another variation on the ISLT, one pushed most recently by Justice Brett Kavanaugh and before him by Chief Justice William Rehnquist. The Rehnquist-Kavanaugh version of the ISLT would empower federal courts to review state officers’ interpretation of state laws regarding federal elections. But the logic of Moore is fatal to that potential version of the ISLT. The Rehnquist-Kavanaugh version of the ISLT contemplates …

Navigating The First Amendment In School Choice: The Case For The Constitutionality Of Washington’S Charter School Act, Stephanie Smith

Washington Journal of Social & Environmental Justice

No abstract provided.

The California Supreme Court Replaces Gingles Prong One, Bruce A. Wessel, Jason D. D'Andrea

Fordham Law Voting Rights and Democracy Forum

No abstract provided.

Ohio’S Failure To Protect Motorcyclists' Heads: A Law Enforcement Perspective, B. Thomas

Et Cetera

As a former police officer, the aftereffects of helmetless motorcycle crashes will forever haunt me. This Article discusses the need for helmet laws for all motorcyclists.

Inequitable By Design: The Strategic Distribution Of Costs And Benefits By Business Improvement Districts And Special Assessments, Molly Gillespie

Et Cetera

Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) are most commonly credited for their innovative strategies in rejuvenating the economic vitality in American cities. However, their implementation raises concerns about fairness and equity. The current practice of financing BIDs through special assessments, particularly applying the front footage method, disproportionately burdens certain property owners for the benefit of others. Consequently, property owners face a range of issues, including financial strain, involuntary annexation, and potential threats to property ownership. However, the existing framework of state constitutions lack the necessary provisions to adequately address these challenges, underscoring the need for significant reform.

This Note addresses these concerns …

S.B. H(8): Battle Of The Bills And Private Enforcement, Hailey Martin

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Tribal Court Jurisdiction And The Exhausting Nature Of Federal Court Interference, Kekek Jason Stark

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Filling The Potholes Of Pretextual Traffic Stops: A Better Road Forward For Ohio, Jordan Weeks

Cleveland State Law Review

The Fourth Amendment was one of the driving forces behind the United States Revolution. This Amendment generally protects individuals against “unreasonable” searches and seizures. But what does “reasonable” mean in the context of a traffic stop?

In 1996, the U.S. Supreme Court in Whren v. United States tried answering this question. In so doing, the Court determined that pretextual traffic stops are “reasonable.” Pretextual traffic stops occur where an officer stops a vehicle and cites a lawful reason for the stop, yet the underlying reason is unlawful. The Whren Court determined that an officer’s intent is completely irrelevant to whether …

Protecting Our Pups At All Costs: Why Dogfighting Cases Require A Mandatory Restitution Assessment, Ayah Ighneim

Cleveland State Law Review

This Note recommends that Congress acknowledge the dangers behind dogfighting by updating the federal mandatory restitution statute to include “animals” within the definition of a “victim” eligible to receive restitution and by updating federal animal-cruelty laws. This recommendation stems from the popularization of dogfighting in the twenty-first century. Specifically, this Note articulates the link between the prevalence of dogfighting in America and the lack of deterrence targeted toward dogfighting in America. This Note then argues that this lack of deterrence is a result of the lack of Congressional guidance within both the federal restitution statute and within federal animal-cruelty laws. …

Combating Substance Abuse And Violence In Jackson County, Missouri: A Public Health Approach To The "War On Drugs", Danielle Bukacheski, Grant Baker, Stephen R. Bough

UMKC Law Review

In 1989, Jackson County, Missouri, made history - voters passed the first tax solely dedicated to funding substance abuse prevention and treatment. Today, the COMmunity Backed Anti-Crime Tax ("COMBAT") continues to annually generate between $25 to $30 million that supports Jackson County courts, the Jackson County Prosecutor's Office, local law enforcement agencies, and nonprofit organizations focusing on prevention and treatment. COMBAT has achieved success through its de-emphasis on punitive law enforcement practices and emphasis on public health. Instead of focusing on the prosecution of drug-related offenses, COMBAT is leading a more holistic "War on Drugs" by funding community-based resources to …

The Model Law Enforcement Officer And Other First Responder's Deflection Act: A National Blueprint For Creating Successful Deflection Programs Across The Country, Marc Consalo

UMKC Law Review

The idea of finding alternatives to the traditional approach of arresting, prosecuting, and punishing an individual for criminal behavior in the hopes it will deter future illegal conduct is not new. In 1947, the Judicial Conference of the United States met to make recommendations for the first diversion programs focusing on youthful offenders. Approximately fifteen years later, states began to explore diversion as an option for some adult lawbreakers.

The birth of diversion generated a novel approach to addressing criminal activity. However, before any individual could participate in a diversion program, law enforcement arrested the person which imposed a host …

Legislating Courts, Michael Pollack

UMKC Law Review

Judges are ordinarily thought of as deciders of a specific sort: people who apply the rule of law to resolve disagreements between the parties appearing before them. But in every state, judges do far more. They are charged by state statutory or constitutional law with a range of quasi-administrative, quasi-legislative, and quasi-executive law enforcement functions. These roles raise a number of theoretical and practical concerns. In many states, though, legislatures have gone even further. They have either wholly delegated significant policymaking power to state court judges or have sat idle while those judges have assumed the mantle of functions that …

Building A Successful Team In A Problem-Solving Court: The Western District Of Missouri Model, Carie Allen, Stephen R. Bough, Lajuana Counts, Arthur Diaz, Jeffrey Mccarther, Katie Meister, James Parker

UMKC Law Review

Problem-solving courts work. We know that reentry programs and intensive supervision programs like drug courts are effective alternatives to incarceration that reduce recidivism. For example, the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri's Reentry Court has an 85.7% success rate for graduates, meaning they complete their term of supervised release without any new charges. A reduction of recidivism means hefty savings of tax-payer dollars. More importantly, successful problem-solving courts mean people engage in their communities, raise families, work productive jobs, and pay taxes.

Courts and legislators and executive branches around the country are increasingly turning to problem …

Iiaas And The Montreal Protocol: The Legal Minefield Inside The Most Successful Environmental Treaty In History, Jackson Elder

UMKC Law Review

The most successful environmental treaty in history might break international law's core principle, and it all depends on who you ask. International law consists of rules and principles relating to states, international organizations, and individuals. The source of all international law is the consent of nations, and each nation is governed by the treaties they consent to. Provisions that force states to behave according to its text and do not satisfy international law's traditional consent standard are consequential. As no term exists for these provisions currently, these clauses have been termed as international imposed axiomatic alterations ("IIAA"s). IIAAs, for this …

Foreword: The Legal Profession And Social Change, Atinuke O. Adediran, Bruce A. Green

Fordham Law Review

Fordham University School of Law’s Stein Center for Law and Ethics has collaborated with the Fordham Law Review every year since the late 1990s to encourage, collect, and publish scholarly writings on different aspects of the legal profession, including its norms, regulation, organization, history, and development—that is, on themes relating to what law schools loosely call “legal ethics.” The legal profession is an important subject of study for legal scholars, among others. Although one U.S. Supreme Court Justice, himself a former law professor, airily derided legal ethics as the “least analytically rigorous . . . of law-school subjects,” we dispute …

Should State Trial Courts Become Laboratories Of Upl Reform?, Bruce A. Green

Fordham Law Review

There is a growing “access to justice” movement that is principally driven by lawyers and judges. It has multiple objectives. One such objective is to make state court proceedings fairer, more reliable, and more accessible. This is important because state courts have a significant impact on peoples’ lives. They are where family members lose custody of children, where property owners obtain permission to evict tenants, where creditors are empowered to repossess people’s cars or garnish their wages, and (in some jurisdictions) where judges send people to jail to compel them to pay judgments or fees that they cannot afford to …

Appendix B - Tax Funds For Religious Schools, Allan Walker Vestal

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

The Uncertain Future Of Tourism On Migrating Barrier Islands: How And Why The Outer Banks Of North Carolina Should Adjust To Growing Threats, Lillian Coward

William & Mary Law Review

Erosion, storms, and the migration of the barrier islands that comprise the Outer Banks themselves are not new. The rising seas that have resulted from climate change have merely exacerbated what has always occurred. What is new, however, is the economic havoc that natural processes and disasters alike can wreak on the islands. Today, because climate change has accelerated natural island migration, individuals, local governments, and the federal government alike have a lot to lose in the fight against the tides.

[...]

This Note will evaluate a variety of potential solutions to the problems that pose nearly existential threats to …

Just Don’T Do It: Why Cannabis Regulations Are The Reason Cannabis Businesses Are Failing, Edward Adams

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Tax-Funded Education Savings Account Payments To Religious Schools Violate State Constitution Compulsion Guarantees: The Iowa Example, Allan Walker Vestal

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

[...] This Article makes the unremarkable and conservative argument that the transfer of public funds to religious schools under Iowa’s education savings account program violates the Iowa Constitution’s compulsion guarantee.

We start by looking at the Iowa compulsion guarantee, including a review of the Iowa authorities which have construed it, the historical record and setting of its adoption, and the history of its New Jersey antecedent. We then introduce the education savings account mechanism by which Iowa’s religious schools stand to receive more than a third of a billion dollars annually by FY 2027. After that, we consider whether education …

Preempting Private Prisons, Christopher Matthew Burgess

Washington Law Review

In 2019 and 2021, respectively, California and Washington enacted laws banning the operation of private prisons within each state, including those operated by private companies in contracts with the federal government. Nevertheless, the federal government continues to contract with private prisons through Immigrations and Customs Enforcement for the detention of non-United States citizens. In 2022, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held in GEO Group, Inc. v. Newsom that federal immigration law preempted California’s private prison ban.

Preemption—when federal law supersedes state law—is a doctrinal thicket. Federal courts analyze preemption issues in multiple different ways in a particular case, often …

Reducing Harm: The Legal Viability Of Supervised Consumption Sites In Georgia, Kathleen Kassa

Georgia State University Law Review

Every five minutes in the United States, someone dies from a drug overdose. This public health crisis, referred to as the opioid epidemic, caused the federal government and many states and localities to issue public health emergency declarations. Despite billions of dollars in funding and response at every level of government, overdoses continue to increase.

The complexity of addiction prevention and treatment, socioeconomic inequalities, and the stigmatization of drug use make the opioid crisis difficult to solve. The severity of the epidemic led many jurisdictions to adopt once-controversial harm reduction approaches aimed at reducing the stigma and negative impacts of …

Misrepresentations In Labor Trafficking: State Laws As An Alternative Theory Of Liability For Recruiters, Hannah Garvin

Georgia State University Law Review

When addressing labor trafficking of migrants, the focus is typically on prosecuting the traffickers directly involved in obtaining a victim’s labor, but traffickers cannot exploit labor without victims. Research has shown that recruiters, both those intending to provide labor traffickers with victims and those who have no knowledge of the subsequent exploitation perpetrated by the supposed employer, often misrepresent job opportunities to migrants. Both types of recruiters profit off of the exploitation of migrants and ultimately continue to propagate labor trafficking. To effectively deter trafficker-recruiters and ensure independent recruiters are acting ethically, an all-encompassing method of accountability needs to be …

Designing Sanctuary, Rick Su

Michigan Law Review

In recent decades, a growing number of cities in the United States have adopted “sanctuary policies” that limit local participation in federal immigration enforcement. Existing scholarship has focused on their legality and effect, especially with respect to our nation’s immigration laws. Largely overlooked, however, is the local process through which sanctuary policies are designed and the reasons why cities choose to adopt them through city ordinances, mayoral orders, or employee handbooks. This Article argues that municipal sanctuary policies are far from uniform, and their variation reflects the different local interests and institutional actors behind their adoption and implementation. More specifically, …

Can We Really Be The Change We Wish To See? The Inherent Limitations Of Citizen Suits In Remedying Environmental Injustice Under The Clean Air Act, Alexandra M. George

Villanova Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Sidewalk Government, Michael C. Pollack

Michigan Law Review

This Article is about one of the most used, least studied spaces in the country: the sidewalk.

It is easy to think of sidewalks simply as spaces for pedestrians, and that is exactly how most scholars, policymakers, and laws treat them. But this view is fundamentally mistaken. In big cities and small towns, sidewalks are also where we gather, demonstrate, dine, exercise, rest, and shop. They are host to commerce and infrastructure. They are spaces of public access and sources of private obligation. And in all of these things, sidewalks are sites of underappreciated conflict. The centrality of sidewalks in …

Saving Democracy From The Senate, David Froomkin, A. Michael Froomkin

Utah Law Review

It should not be surprising that Americans say they are frustrated with their national institutions. Congress, particularly the Senate, responds poorly to the public’s needs and wants because it is increasingly unrepresentative of the electorate. Reform is difficult, however, because each state’s “equal Suffrage” in the Senate is protected by a unique constitutional entrenchment clause. The Entrenchment Clause creates a genuine bar to reform, but that bar is not insurmountable. We first argue that the constitutional proscription on reforming the Senate has been overstated, identifying a range of constitutional reform options that would be permissible despite the Entrenchment Clause. Several …

Sidewalk Government, Michael C. Pollack

Articles

This Article is about one of the most used, least studied spaces in the country: the sidewalk.

It is easy to think of sidewalks simply as spaces for pedestrians, and that is exactly how most scholars, policymakers, and laws treat them. But this view is fundamentally mistaken. In big cities and small towns, sidewalks are also where we gather, demonstrate, dine, exercise, rest, and shop. They are host to commerce and infrastructure. They are spaces of public access and sources of private obligation. And in all of these things, sidewalks are sites of under-appreciated conflict. The centrality of sidewalks in …