Law Commons^™

Targeted Killing - Death By Drone, Jeffrey F. Addicott

Faculty Articles

Following the targeted killing of American born al-Qa’eda leader, Anwar al -Awlaki, targeted killings of American citizens has been a hotly contested issue. A targeted killing is defined as the “intentional, premeditated and deliberate use of lethal force, by states or their agents acting . . . against a specific individual who is not in the physical custody of the perpetrator.” The rule of law that justifies a state killing another human rests in either the law of war or the legal right of self-defense.

The term targeted killing is most often associated with the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles …

Second Amendment Challenges To Student Housing Firearms Bans: The Strength Of The Home Analogy, Michael L. Smith

Faculty Articles

Public colleges and universities or state governments often ban the possession of firearms on public university or college property. These bans typically extend to student housing. While much has been written about campus bans on the carrying of concealed firearms, the topic of gun bans in the student housing context has been largely unaddressed in Second Amendment literature. This Comment seeks to fill that gap by evaluating potential student challenges to firearms bans in the student housing context in light of potential standards of review courts may apply and in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's decisions in District of …

What Is The Matter With Antigone?, Emily A. Hartigan

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Economic Justice And The Internal Point Of View, Adam J. Macleod

Faculty Articles

The West is in a tumult about money. In the United States, the Tea Party movement and the Occupy Wall Street movement captured the public's attention, sounding themes of fiscal irresponsibility and material inequality, respectively. Political negotiations over the so-called "fiscal cliff," the debt ceiling, taxes, and entitlement spending, have kept these themes before the public eye. In Europe, the protests have been more dramatic, and the declarations of national leaders that the European Union is in no danger of disintegrating have sounded at times suspiciously forceful.

Despite all of the exhortations that lawmakers should do something, the public debates …

Prosecuting The Undead: Federal Criminal Law In A World Of Zombies, Michael L. Smith

Faculty Articles

Adam Chodorow's recent essay, Death and Taxes and Zombies, has alerted the legal world to the dangers posed by the looming zombie apocalypse. Chodorow successfully demonstrates that existing tax laws are woefully inadequate in a world where the undead outnumber the taxpaying living. In this Essay, I argue that while tax law may be ill suited to address the zombie apocalypse, federal criminal law offers an alternative approach to solving the problems that Chodorow identifies. In fact, the only plausible explanation for the existence of seemingly pointless features of federal criminal law is that these features are precautions for this …

Confronting The Myth Of State Court Class Action Abuses Through An Understanding Of Heuristics And A Plea For More Statistics, Patricia W. Moore

Faculty Articles

The Supreme Court heard six cases involving class actions this term. One of these cases, Standard Fire Insurance Company v. Knowles, brought the Class Action Fairness Act to the Court for the first time. Petitioner insurance company and its numerous business-interest amici repeatedly claimed before the Court that "state court class action abuses" justified removal of the case (which was based on state law and filed in state court) to federal court.

The charge of a "flood" of "abusive state court class actions" echoed the same rhetoric that CAFA's supporters used a decade ago in their ultimately successful efforts to …

Lafler And Frye: A New Constitutional Standard For Negotiation, Rishi Batra

Faculty Articles

The Sixth Amendment guarantees "[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense." In 1984, the Supreme Court in Strickland v. Washington established the standard for ineffective assistance of counsel that is a violation of this right. In a pair of decisions handed down in 2012, Lafler v. Cooper and Missouri v. Frye the Supreme Court extended the holding in Strickland to cover ineffective assistance by defense counsel in the plea-bargaining phase. Recognizing that pleas account for ninety-five percent of all criminal convictions, the court stated that "the negotiation …

Search Engine Liability For Autocomplete Defamation: Combating The Power Of Suggestion, Michael L. Smith

Faculty Articles

In September 2012, Bettina Wulff, a former first lady of Germany, sued Google for defamation. Mrs. Wulff's complaint arose from Google's autocomplete function: when Mrs. Wulff's name was entered into the search engine, the search engine automatically suggested terms such as "prostitute" and "red light district." Rumors that Mrs. Wulff was a former prostitute dated back to 2006 when she first met Christian Wulff, her eventual husband and president of Germany from 2010 until his resignation in February 2012. Mrs. Wulff denied the truth of these rumors.

Mrs. Wulff contended that these autocomplete results were defamatory and that they caused …

Providing Dispute Resolution Expertise To The Community, Rishi Batra

Faculty Articles

As schools and other public institutions struggle for funding, law schools and their students have new opportunities to fill unmet needs by providing consulting expertise in facilitation and dispute resolution. Such partnerships can provide valuable service for the institutions while giving students a chance to apply their skills to issues in nearby communities.

Texas Annual Survey: Securities Regulation, George Lee Flint Jr

Faculty Articles

The Fifth Circuit’s determination of a passive investor’s equity interest in a limited liability company as “securities” brings this class of investors under the protection of the Texas Securities Act (“TSA”). The TSA recognizes vicarious liability theories of aiding and abetting liability and control person liability, which hold secondary parties accountable for their actions. During the Survey period, several cases found secondary parties with positions of control or who met the elements of common law fraud culpable. In Fernea v. Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner & Smith, Inc., the court found that a business could be liable for an employee’s actions …

Secured Transaction History: Protecting Holmes’ Notes Through The Conditional Sales Acts, George Lee Flint Jr

Faculty Articles

The historical explanation for the adoption of the conditional sales acts is woefully lacking. How and why the first conditional sales acts arose are investigated. Grant Gilmore, when presenting his theory, confessed ignorance concerning the origins of the conditional sale transaction, first known as Holmes’ notes. The failure of traditional legal historians to explain the passage of the conditional sales acts encourages inquiry into their legislative history to find an explanation. Pre-Act American decisions provide clues regarding the ratification of the acts. The courts provided three explanations for their passage: to treat the conditional sale as a chattel mortgage, to …