Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

PDF

William & Mary Law School

Discipline
Keyword
Publication Year
Publication
Publication Type

Articles 31 - 60 of 8964

Full-Text Articles in Law

The Private Abridgment Of Free Speech, Erin L. Miller Mar 2024

The Private Abridgment Of Free Speech, Erin L. Miller

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Article challenges the orthodoxy that First Amendment speech rights can bind only the state. I argue that the primary justification for the freedom of speech is to protect fundamental interests like autonomy, democracy, and knowledge from the kind of extraordinary power over speech available to the state. If so, this justification applies with nearly equal force to any private agents with power over speech rivaling that of the state. Such a class of private agents, which I call quasi-state agents, turns out to be a live possibility once we recognize that state power is more limited than it seems …


Fourteen Going On Forty: Challenging Sex Offender Registration For Juveniles Under The Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause, Emily Baker Mar 2024

Fourteen Going On Forty: Challenging Sex Offender Registration For Juveniles Under The Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause, Emily Baker

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Part I of this Note reviews the historical background leading to the development of sex offender registration laws and examines relevant Supreme Court precedent. Part II analyzes the principles of juvenile justice, the application of juvenile sex offender registration policies, and the collateral consequences of youth sex offender registration. Part III argues that registered juvenile offenders should be considered a quasi-suspect class and thus receive intermediate scrutiny in equal protection analysis, and challenges the constitutionality of juvenile sex offender registries, particularly the South Carolina statutory scheme. Part IV examines the turning legal tide against juvenile registration through the recent Model …


Appendix B - Tax Funds For Religious Schools, Allan Walker Vestal Mar 2024

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 Mar 2024

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 …


Bottom-Up Federal Sentencing Reform, Andrew W. Grindrod Mar 2024

Bottom-Up Federal Sentencing Reform, Andrew W. Grindrod

William & Mary Law Review

Today, about 160,000 people live behind the bars of a federal prison. That is roughly the population of Alexandria, Virginia. Starting from the premise that the federal system’s contribution to mass incarceration should be curbed and recognizing that broad legislative reform seems unlikely, this Article considers the federal judiciary’s potential role in sentencing reform.

Bottom-up sentencing reform consists of federal trial judges exercising their decisional authority in individual cases to engage with the fundamental premises and assumptions that underlie traditional sentencing decisions, categorically rejecting them when appropriate. This approach to reform is available under current law. In fact, a few …


The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions: Deinstitutionalization And Mass Incarceration Nation, Corinna Barrett Lain Mar 2024

The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions: Deinstitutionalization And Mass Incarceration Nation, Corinna Barrett Lain

William & Mary Law Review

They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and our failed implementation of deinstitutionalization in the 1970s is a prime example of the point. In this symposium contribution—a response to Jeffrey Bellin’s book Mass Incarceration Nation—I offer a historical account of deinstitutionalization of state mental hospitals, tracing how severely mentally ill patients were discharged from state hospitals and eventually made their way back to secure beds, but in our nation’s jails and prisons instead. Mental health and mass incarceration are not separate crises, I argue, but rather interconnected problems with an interconnected past that require …


Symposium Introduction: The Volume Problem, Jeffrey Bellin Mar 2024

Symposium Introduction: The Volume Problem, Jeffrey Bellin

William & Mary Law Review

Introduction to the 2024 William & Mary Law Review symposium, "Understanding and Responding to Mass Incarceration."


Critical Data Theory, Margaret Hu Mar 2024

Critical Data Theory, Margaret Hu

William & Mary Law Review

Critical Data Theory examines the role of AI and algorithmic decisionmaking at its intersection with the law. This theory aims to deconstruct the impact of AI in law and policy contexts. The tools of AI and automated systems allow for legal, scientific, socioeconomic, and political hierarchies of power that can profitably be interrogated with critical theory. While the broader umbrella of critical theory features prominently in the work of surveillance scholars, legal scholars can also deploy criticality analyses to examine surveillance and privacy law challenges, particularly in an examination of how AI and other emerging technologies have been expanded in …


Harmonizing Freedom Of Speech And Free Exercise Of Religion, John Fee Mar 2024

Harmonizing Freedom Of Speech And Free Exercise Of Religion, John Fee

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

[...]The close relationship between the free exercise of religion and the freedom of speech points to the sensible assumption that they should receive similar interpretation when dealing with parallel types of problems, or at least that differences in interpretation should be carefully justified.

With this premise, this Article compares freedom of speech and free exercise jurisprudence in various parallel applications, with the suggestion of harmonizing them more closely. While other commentators have compared freedom of speech and free exercise case law with a narrower focus (most commonly, focusing on the incidental burdens issue presented in [Employment Division v. Smith] …


Eavesdropping, The Fourth Amendment, And The Common Law (Of Eavesdropping), Donald A. Dripps Mar 2024

Eavesdropping, The Fourth Amendment, And The Common Law (Of Eavesdropping), Donald A. Dripps

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Article addresses two of the most momentous and controversial issues raised by the Fourth Amendment. These issues are closely related but distinct. First, is eavesdropping a “search” subject to the Fourth Amendment? Second, are Fourth Amendment “searches” limited to the interests against physical intrusion protected by the common-law torts of trespass and false arrest?

[...]

Remarkably, the debate about the Fourth Amendment, the common law, and eavesdropping has almost completely ignored the common law of eavesdropping. This Article is the first to consider the Fourth Amendment in light of an in-depth examination of the common law’s prohibition of …


Originalism V. Originalism: How James Madison's Understanding Of The Establishment Clause Can Help Combat Christian Nationalism, Patrick Sawyer Mar 2024

Originalism V. Originalism: How James Madison's Understanding Of The Establishment Clause Can Help Combat Christian Nationalism, Patrick Sawyer

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Note will focus on what can be done to prevent Christian Nationalism from ending the Establishment Clause. Part I will focus on the cases that defined former Establishment Clause doctrine and how recent cases have done away with the parameters laid out in those earlier cases. Part II will focus on the understanding that James Madison had about the Establishment Clause. Part III will argue that Madison’s understanding of complete separation can and should be codified either under Congress’ enforcement power under the Fourteenth Amendment or the Spending Power of Article I. Part IV will consider how a statute …


Tax-Funded Education Savings Account Payments To Religious Schools Violate State Constitution Compulsion Guarantees: The Iowa Example, Allan Walker Vestal Mar 2024

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 …


When All Else Fails: The Doctrine Of Foreign Equivalents As A Bar To Cultural Misappropriation, Stephanie H. Soh Mar 2024

When All Else Fails: The Doctrine Of Foreign Equivalents As A Bar To Cultural Misappropriation, Stephanie H. Soh

William & Mary Law Review

This Note argues that under trademark law, the doctrine of foreign equivalents can be utilized to prevent some aspects of legally enforced cultural misappropriation. While it would be impossible to solve cultural misappropriation in one written piece, this Note proposes that the doctrine can serve to prevent applicants from obtaining trademark protections for certain foreign words.

Part I of this Note provides background on cultural misappropriation and the doctrine of foreign equivalents. Part II argues why the doctrine of foreign equivalents is poised to solve some of the harms of cultural misappropriation both in its structure and purpose. Part III …


Killing Two Birds With One Stone: Remedying Malicious Social Bot Behavior Via Section 230 Reform, Jackson Smith Feb 2024

Killing Two Birds With One Stone: Remedying Malicious Social Bot Behavior Via Section 230 Reform, Jackson Smith

William & Mary Business Law Review

As “interactive computer services” (social media sites) expanded over the past decade, so too did the prevalence of “social bots,” software programs that mimic human behavior online. The capacity social bots have to exponentially amplify often-harmful content has led to calls for greater accountability from social media companies in the way they manage bot presence on their sites. In response, many social media companies and private researchers have developed bot-detection methodologies to better govern social bot activities. At the same time, the prevalence of harmful content on social media sites has led to calls to reform Section 230 of the …


Likes, Camera, Action: Safeguarding "Child Influencers" Through Expanded Coogan Protections And Increased Regulation Of Social Media, Dana D. Joss Feb 2024

Likes, Camera, Action: Safeguarding "Child Influencers" Through Expanded Coogan Protections And Increased Regulation Of Social Media, Dana D. Joss

William & Mary Business Law Review

As a result of the increased popularity of influencer marketing, various “child influencers” have risen to stardom on popular social media platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. To date, these children have no protections under the law to safeguard them from the dangers of the influencer industry. Namely, there are no safeguards from financial exploitation by parents and guardians; children hold no guarantee that they can retain their earnings from social media. Further, there are no regulations in place regarding the number of hours child influencers may work and such children sometimes maintain little control over the extent of …


State Sovereign Immunity And The New Purposivism, Anthony J. Bellia Jr., Bradford R. Clark Feb 2024

State Sovereign Immunity And The New Purposivism, Anthony J. Bellia Jr., Bradford R. Clark

William & Mary Law Review

Since the Constitution was first proposed, courts and commentators have debated the extent to which it alienated the States’ preexisting sovereign immunity from suit by individuals. During the ratification period, these debates focused on the language of the citizen-state diversity provisions of Article III. After the Supreme Court read these provisions to abrogate state sovereign immunity in Chisholm v. Georgia, Congress and the States adopted the Eleventh Amendment to prohibit this construction. The Court subsequently ruled that States enjoy sovereign immunity independent of the Eleventh Amendment, which neither conferred nor diminished it. In the late twentieth-century, Congress began enacting …


Preserving The Futures Of Young Offenders: A Proposal For Federal Juvenile Expungement Legislation, Amelia Tadanier Feb 2024

Preserving The Futures Of Young Offenders: A Proposal For Federal Juvenile Expungement Legislation, Amelia Tadanier

William & Mary Law Review

Picture a sixteen-year-old named Sam. Perhaps this person reminds you of yourself as a teenager. Now imagine that Sam has made a terrible mistake and is arrested for cocaine possession. Perhaps they got the drugs from another kid at school or from a family member. But now Sam has a federal criminal record, which is likely to stick with them for life.

[...]

This Note argues that federal courts should have the power to expunge juvenile records in cases like Sam’s. It advocates for legislation granting federal courts the power to expunge the criminal records of offenders who were under …


The Precarious Art Of Classifying Facts, Allison Orr Larsen Feb 2024

The Precarious Art Of Classifying Facts, Allison Orr Larsen

Faculty Publications

In their terrific new article, Fact Stripping, Joseph Blocher and Brandon Garrett bring formidable expertise from their respective fields to tackle the inscrutable puzzle of appellate fact review.

[...]

In this short reply I will add to Blocher and Garrett’s illuminating work by exploring a foundational confusion their article exposes. I will first explain why classifying facts as either suitable for trial or not is a very fraught endeavor; I will then argue that this difficulty allows for significant manipulation and the risk of unprincipled application. Finally, I will nod to prior work and forecast future work where I …


The Corporate Right To Bear Arms, Robert E. Wagner Feb 2024

The Corporate Right To Bear Arms, Robert E. Wagner

William & Mary Business Law Review

The ability of a corporation to exercise constitutional protections has been rife with uncertainty and change since the conception of corporate rights came into existence. The history and rapid development of the corporation, combined with the misapplied and misunderstood “corporate personhood” theory, have resulted in an almost unintelligible hodgepodge of corporate constitutional applications. Similarly, the concept of the right to bear arms has equally been muddled and applied very differently at varying times and locations since before the establishment of the Second Amendment. This Article attempts to clarify how an alternative to the “corporate personhood” theory, namely the “purpose” theory …


The Judicial Grassroots Of The "Arbitration Revolution", Tamar Meshel Feb 2024

The Judicial Grassroots Of The "Arbitration Revolution", Tamar Meshel

William & Mary Business Law Review

The “arbitration revolution”—the meteoric rise in the use of arbitration in the United States—is commonly imputed to the Supreme Court’s unilateral and ideologically driven expansion of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). The portrayal of the FAA’s evolution as a campaign launched by a Supreme Court that is out of touch with society and with the judicial system over which it presides usefully serves to delegitimize both this one-hundred year-old statute and arbitration more generally. This Article argues that the popular description of the Supreme Court as the sole instigator of the “arbitration revolution” is misleading because it conveniently ignores a …


Liu And The New Sec Disgorgement Statute, Andrew N. Vollmer Feb 2024

Liu And The New Sec Disgorgement Statute, Andrew N. Vollmer

William & Mary Business Law Review

In early 2021, Congress enacted a new statute for enforcement cases brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The new statute resolved important questions about the availability of disgorgement as a remedy in SEC enforcement cases, but it created other questions. The purpose of this Article is to discuss one interpretive issue that is already arising in the federal courts of appeals.

That interpretive issue is whether “disgorgement” as authorized by the new statute must abide by equitable limitations the Supreme Court imposed on disgorgement relief in SEC cases in Liu v. SEC, 140 S. Ct. 1936 (2020). The …


When Amazon Drivers Kill: Accidents, Agency Law, And The Contractor Economy, Keith Cunningham-Parmeter Feb 2024

When Amazon Drivers Kill: Accidents, Agency Law, And The Contractor Economy, Keith Cunningham-Parmeter

William & Mary Law Review

Amazon vans and Uber drivers frequently crash into other cars. Despite the many injuries and deaths that result from these accidents, Amazon and Uber deny responsibility for such claims because they categorize their drivers as “independent contractors.” But this contractor defense distorts the basic rules of agency law. Over a century ago, courts crafted agency standards that forced businesses to pay for the harms that their workers caused. Since that time, American firms have attempted to skirt this rule by labeling their workers as “contractors” rather than as “employees.” Aware of this age-old tactic to avoid liability, courts historically built …


Reparative Citizenship, Amanda Frost Feb 2024

Reparative Citizenship, Amanda Frost

William & Mary Law Review

The United States has granted reparations for a variety of historical injustices, from imprisonment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War to the Tuskegee syphilis experiments. Yet the nation has never considered reparations for 150 years of discriminatory immigration and citizenship policies that excluded millions based on race, gender, and political opinion—including some who are alive today. This Article argues that the United States can atone for these transgressions by granting “reparative citizenship” to those individuals and their descendants, following the lead of several European countries who have recently provided such relief for those wrongly expelled or excluded in …


Press Play To Presume: The Policy Benefits Behind The Trademark Modernization Act's Resurrection Of The Irreparable Harm Presumption In False Advertising Cases, Daniel Stephen Feb 2024

Press Play To Presume: The Policy Benefits Behind The Trademark Modernization Act's Resurrection Of The Irreparable Harm Presumption In False Advertising Cases, Daniel Stephen

William & Mary Law Review

Part I of this Note provides background information on the history and principles surrounding injunctions generally, the Supreme Court’s rulings in eBay and Winter, federal courts’ rulings after these decisions, and the Trademark Modernization Act of 2020. Part II presents anti-presumption advocates’ arguments against the presumption due to longstanding equitable concerns and because, in their view, requiring a showing of irreparable harm is not too difficult. Lastly, Part III discusses why the irreparable harm presumption in the TMA serves as beneficial policy by presenting counterarguments to anti-presumption reasoning and additional benefits of the presumption.

This abstract has been taken …


Loper Bright And The Future Of Chevron Deference, Jack M. Beermann Jan 2024

Loper Bright And The Future Of Chevron Deference, Jack M. Beermann

William & Mary Law Review Online

This essay proposes that the Court overrule the Chevron two-step standard of review of agency statutory construction and replace it by reviving deference under the factors announced in the Skidmore case with a twist that preserves Chevron’s greatest virtue: agency freedom to alter its statutory interpretations so long as the agency remains within the zone of reasonable construction. This essay also proposes that the Court clarify the boundary between cases involving statutory construction and cases involving agency policy decisions that are reviewed under the arbitrary and capricious standard articulated in cases such as Motor Vehicles and Overton Park. …


Supreme Court Litigators In The Age Of Textualism, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl Jan 2024

Supreme Court Litigators In The Age Of Textualism, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl

Faculty Publications

The Supreme Court’s approach to statutory interpretation has moved in a textualist direction over the last several decades, but there is little systematic information on how litigators’ briefing practices have changed during this era of textualist ascendancy. This Article examines thirty-five years’ worth of party briefs (over 8,000 briefs total), explores the briefs’ use of interpretive tools (including differences across categories of attorneys), and compares the briefs to the Court’s opinions.

This examination yields several valuable findings. Although the briefs show a textualist shift, they differ from the Court’s opinions in a few ways. The magnitude of the textualist shift …


Aggressor Status And Its Impact On International Criminal Law Case Selection, Nancy Amoury Combs Jan 2024

Aggressor Status And Its Impact On International Criminal Law Case Selection, Nancy Amoury Combs

Faculty Publications

The laws of war apply equally to all parties to a conflict; thus, a party that violates international law by launching a war is granted the same international humanitarian law rights as a party that is required to defend against the illegal war. This doctrine—known as the equal application doctrine—has been sharply critiqued, particularly by philosophers, who claim the doctrine to be morally indefensible. Lawyers and legal academics, by contrast, defend the equal application doctrine because they reasonably fear that applying different rules to different warring parties will sharply reduce states’ willingness to comply with the international humanitarian law system …


Becoming A Doctrine, Allison Orr Larsen Jan 2024

Becoming A Doctrine, Allison Orr Larsen

Faculty Publications

On the last day of the 2021–22 Term, the Supreme Court handed down a decision on “the major questions doctrine” and granted certiorari to hear a case presenting “the independent state legislature doctrine”—neither of which had been called “doctrines” there before. This raises a fundamental and underexplored question: how does a doctrine become a doctrine? Law students know the difference between doctrinal classes and seminars, but how does an idea bantered about in a seminar (say, about agencies deciding major questions) become a “doctrine” complete with judicial tests, steps, and exceptions? Taking an analogy to medicine, when does …


Intellectual Property And The Myth Of Nonrivalry, James Y. Stern Jan 2024

Intellectual Property And The Myth Of Nonrivalry, James Y. Stern

Faculty Publications

The concept of rivalry is central to modern accounts of property. When one person’s use of a resource is incompatible with another’s, a system of rights to determine its use may be necessary. It is commonly asserted, however, that informational goods like inventions and expressive works are nonrivalrous and that intellectual property rights must therefore be subject to special limitation, if they should even exist at all.

This Article examines the idea of rivalry more closely and makes a series of claims about the analysis of rivalrousness for purposes of such arguments. Within that framework, it argues that rivalry should …


National Security And Federalizing Data Privacy Infrastructure For Ai Governance, Margaret Hu, Eliott Behar, Davi Ottenheimer Jan 2024

National Security And Federalizing Data Privacy Infrastructure For Ai Governance, Margaret Hu, Eliott Behar, Davi Ottenheimer

Faculty Publications

This Essay contends that data infrastructure, when implemented on a national scale, can transform the way we conceptualize artificial intelligence (AI) governance. AI governance is often viewed as necessary for a wide range of strategic goals, including national security. It is widely understood that allowing AI and generative AI to remain self-regulated by the U.S. AI industry poses significant national security risks. Data infrastructure and AI oversight can assist in multiple goals, including: maintaining data privacy and data integrity; increasing cybersecurity; and guarding against information warfare threats. This Essay concludes that conceptualizing data infrastructure as a form of critical infrastructure …