Law Commons^™

Accounting For Adolescents’ Twice Diminished Culpability In California’S Felony Murder Rule, Raychel Teasdale

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

In 2018, the California legislature passed S.B. 1437 to narrow California’s felony murder rule and theoretically apply the rule only to those with the greatest culpability in a murder. However, whether intentionally or negligently, the law leaves room to disproportionally and unjustly affect adolescents by charging those with “reckless indifference” with first-degree murder. Imbedded in psychology and neuroscience research is the conclusion that adolescent brain structure and function are still rapidly developing. As a result, adolescents are less able to weigh the risks of their actions, resist peer pressure, regulate their emotions, and control their impulses. Therefore, this Note argues …

Misdemeanors For All Purposes? Interpreting Proposition 47’S Ameliorative Scope In A New Era Of Criminal Justice Reform, Kayla Burchuk

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

In 2014, Proposition 47 reclassified seven low-level felonies to misdemeanors, demonstrating voters’ striking rejection of California’s historically punitive sentencing policies. This Note examines the recent wave of California Supreme Court jurisprudence interpreting Proposition 47 by exploring the court’s varied readings of the initiative’s ballot materials and statutory text. While the court has liberally construed relief for affected property crimes, it has responded ambivalently in more controversial areas such as drug offenses, mandatory parole periods, and automatic resentencing. This variation reveals ideological tensions between the goal of expanding ameliorative benefits to low-level offenders and anxiety regarding public safety. This Note analyzes …

Members Only: Can A Trustee Govern An Llc When Its Member Files For Bankruptcy?, Theresa J. Pulley Radwan

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

Limited-liability entities allow owners to limit their personal risk similar to shareholders of a corporation while enjoying the ability to operate the business more in the manner traditionally used for a partnership. These attributes have made these business forms increasingly popular business over the past few decades because they offer the best of partnership world—control and pass-through taxation—while also offering the best of corporate world—limited liability to all of its owners. But if financial problems arise for these businesses and their owners, bankruptcy may be the final option to remedy financial difficulties. The current bankruptcy code, adopted at the same …

The Future Of Bail In California: Analyzing Sb 10 Through The Prism Of Past Reforms, Adam Peterson

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

The cash bail system is the cause of numerous injustices. It favors the rich over the poor, it packs jails to the breaking point, and it forces those who have yet to be found guilty to sit in jail—often for weeks or months at a time. In 2018, the California legislature passed SB 10. The bill purported to abolish cash bail wholesale and replace it with a risk assessment program. While SB 10 is a step in the right direction, it faces many obstacles before it accomplishes its goal. This Note examines the bill in light of past attempts at …

Legislating Morality: Moral Theory And Turpitudinous Crimes In Immigration Jurisprudence, Abel Rodríguez, Jennifer A. Bulcock

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

Congress could have framed the country’s immigration policies in any number of ways. In significant part, it opted to frame them in moral terms. The crime involving moral turpitude is among the most pervasive and pernicious classifications in immigration law. In the Immigration and Nationality Act, it is virtually ubiquitous, appearing everywhere from the deportability and mandatory detention grounds to the inadmissibility and naturalization grounds. In effect, it acts as a gatekeeper for those who wish to enter and remain in the country, obtain lawful permanent residence, travel abroad after admission, or become United States citizens. With limited exceptions, noncitizens …

Procreative Autonomy In Gestational Surrogacy Contracts, Vanessa Nahigian

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

With the growing practice of gestational surrogacy, many women bear children with whom they have no genetic relationship, allowing intended parents to have children of their own when they are otherwise unable to do so. This practice, however, creates a ripple in the abortion debate. This Note addresses procreative autonomy in the context of gestational surrogacy agreements, examines the underlying constitutional interests at stake for each party involved, and suggests a solution to fill California’s current statutory void.

It’S All About The Drd, What’S Wrong With Foreign Branches, And A Few Other Things You Should Know About The New International Tax Provisions, Rebecca Rosenberg

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

This Article highlights and analyzes some important points about the new international tax rules. For example, such provisions do not create an entirely territorial system. The partial movement towards territorial objectives is accomplished largely through the new 100% dividends received deduction (DRD) for certain foreign dividends from foreign corporations. However, this new DRD is much more limited in its application than most taxpayers may realize (for example, due to a very long holding period requirement). Even when the DRD potentially applies, taxpayers may attempt to claim foreign tax credits instead.

In addition, some of the new tax provisions show a …

A Child Litigant's Right To Counsel, Kevin Lapp

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

As the Supreme Court put it a half century ago, the right tocounsel for juveniles reflects “society’s special concern for children” and “is of the essence of justice.” In a variety of legal proceedings, from delinquency matters to child welfare proceedings to judicial bypass hearings, the law requires the appointment of counsel to child litigants. While coherent in the whole, the law regarding counsel for child litigants is a patchwork of state and federal constitutional rulings by courts and statutory grants. Legal scholarship about a child litigant’s right to counsel is similarly fragmented. Predominantly, legal scholars have examined arguments for …

Not Yet Forgiven For Being Black: Haiti's Tps, Ldf, And The Protean Struggle For Racial Justice, Raymond Audain

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

In November 2017, the Trump administration announced its intention to terminate Temporary Protected Status for Haitians in the United States. This Article considers the termination and the lawsuits it prompted, which are helping to define the state of the plenary power doctrine, the breadth of the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection guarantee, and the purchase of the communitarian ideal. This Article also focuses on the lawsuit that the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) filed. Although this may appear to be a new operational context for the organization, the author describes LDF’s strong interest in ensuring that the federal …

Mission Creep And Wiretap Act 'Super Warrants': A Cautionary Tale, Jennifer S. Granick, Patrick Toomey, Naomi Gilens, Daniel Yadron Jr.

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

Congress enacted the Wiretap Act in 1968 in an effort to combat organized crime while safeguarding the privacy of innocent Americans. However, the Act instead served to legitimize wiretapping, and its privacy protections have eroded over time. As a result, there has been a significant increase in wiretapping in the decades since the Act’s passage. As technology evolves, the Wiretap Act does less to protect Americans’ private communications from government interception. Nevertheless, policy makers see the Wiretap Act, with its “super-warrant” procedures, as the gold standard for statutory privacy protection. To the contrary, when considering how to regulate new and …

Immigration Politics: Shifting Norms, Policies And Practices, Felicia Escobar, Annie Lai, Hiroshi Motomura, Karen Tumlin, Kathleen Kim

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

Suffocate Or Innovate: An Observation Of California's Regulatory Framework For Cryptocurrency, Jane Kim

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

Transactions involving cryptocurrency are rapidly gaining traction in the United States, prompting the need for regulation. Hence, California legislators proposed the cryptocurrency regulation Assembly Bill 1123. However, based upon the outcome of a virtually identical regulation in New York, this proposed bill is theoretically projected to stifle business growth and potential innovation. This Article focuses on one approach to remedy this by advocating for reform at the federal level and recommending the utilization of the regulatory sandbox as a framework for future regulation.

Regulating Short-Term Rentals In California's Costal Cities: Harmonizing Local Ordinances With The California Costal Act, Lucy Humphreys

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

In the past several years, local governments throughout California have debated and implemented new ordinances in order to regulate short-term rentals, such as those listed on peer-to-peer vacation rental platforms like Airbnb.California’s coastal cities face distinct challenges whentrying to regulate short-term rentals due to the popularity of short-term rentals in their jurisdictions, rising housing prices along the coast, and California Coastal Act requirements. One of the primary goals of the California Coastal Act is to maximize public access to the coast. This Article explores the interplay between state policy embodied by the Coastal Act and the ordinances passed by local …

Burning A Hole In The Pocket Of Justice: Prop. 66'S Underfunded Attempt To Fix California's Death Penalty, Flavia Costea

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

California has struggled with the administrative and financial burdens of a flawed death penalty system for decades. In an effort to save the death penalty, the voters of California enacted Proposition 66, which promised to deliver a quicker and more cost-effective system. This Article focuses on the provision of Prop. 66 that expands the number of lawyers who can act as defense lawyers for inmates on death row. While this provision superficially seems to solve the shortage of defense attorneys willing to take on death penalty cases, without significant funding, the shortage of resources and pressure to speed up executions …

Weed Whacking Through The Tenth Amendment: Navigating A Trump Administration Threat To Withhold Funding From Marijuana-Friendly States, Arlen Gharibian

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

The Trump administration has taken a firm stance against marijuana legalization at the state level. While an official federal policy is still pending, this Article focuses on whether the Trump administration’s threats to preventCalifornia from pursuing its duly enacted marijuana legalization law violates the Tenth Amendment. This Article then addresses how the federal government could achieve its goal while remaining within the bounds of the Constitution.