Law Commons^™

Deodand, Brian L. Frye

Seattle University Law Review SUpra

Deodands are a delightful example of a common law doctrine that caused something to happen: the Crown was enabled to tax tortfeasors. But not in a way anyone expected at the time or anyone understands today. Look on their logic and despair. You’ll never figure it out, no matter how hard you try. And that’s what makes them so lyrical. The concept of the deodand is beautiful even though we can’t understand it. Or rather, it’s beautiful because we can’t understand it. If we understood deodands, surely they would be as prosaic as life insurance and conceptual art.

In 1964, …

Afterword: Collective Knowledge Production Toward Transformative Social Change: A Community-Grounded Model, Steven Bender

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Excessive Force: Justice Requires Refining State Qualified Immunity Standards For Negligent Police Officers, Angie Weiss

Seattle University Law Review SUpra

At the time this Note was written, there was no Washington state equivalent of the § 1983 Civil Rights Act. As plaintiffs look to the Washington state courts as an alternative to federal courts, they will find that Washington state has a different structure of qualified immunity protecting law enforcement officers from liability.

In this Note, Angie Weiss recommends changing Washington state's standard of qualified immunity. This change would ensure plaintiffs have a state court path towards justice when they seek to hold law enforcement officers accountable for harm. Weiss explains the structure and context of federal qualified immunity; compares …

Mccleary V. State And The Washington State Supreme Court's Retention Of Jurisdiction—A Success Story For Washington Public Schools?, Jessica R. Burns

Seattle University Law Review SUpra

No abstract provided.

Micro-Housing In Seattle Update: Combating “Seattle-Ization”, Taylor Haines

Seattle University Law Review SUpra

No abstract provided.

The Right To Counsel In Utah: An Assessment Of Trial-Level Indigent Defense Services, The Sixth Amendment Center, The Defender Initiative

Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality

The Right to Counsel in Utah

World Poverty And Food Insecurity, Carmen Gonzalez

Faculty Articles

Our present global economic order produces a stable pattern of widespread malnutrition and starvation among the poor, with some eighteen million persons dying each year from poverty related causes, and there are likely to be feasible alternative regimes that /ill not produce similarly severe deprivations. If this is so, the victims of avoidable deprivations are not merely poor and starving, but impoverished and starved through an institutional order coercively imposed upon them. There is an injustice to this economic order, which it would be wrong for its more affluent participants to perpetuate.

A Homeless Bill Of Rights (Revolution), Sara Rankin

Faculty Articles

This article examines an emerging movement so far unexplored by legal scholarship: the proposal and, in some states, the enactment of a Homeless Bill of Rights. This article presents these new laws as a lens to re-examine storied debates over positive and social welfare rights. Homeless bills of rights also present a compelling opportunity to re-examine rights-based theories in the context of social movement scholarship. Specifically, could these laws be understood as part of a new “rights revolution”? What conditions might influence the impact of these new laws on the individual rights of the homeless or the housed? On American …

Tracermarks: A Proposed Information Intervention, Margaret Chon

Faculty Articles

We live in a world of information. But paradoxically, we simultaneously suffer from a scarcity of “smart” information: information that is traceable and therefore reliable, trust-worthy, and ultimately verifiable. Combining the insights of global governance theory with behavioral economics, this Article approaches this challenge from a knowledge governance framework, sets forth various reasons for this unnecessary deficit and proposes an intervention to address it — tracermarks. Envisioned as a hybrid of trademarks and certification marks, tracermarks would encourage various stakeholders to disclose, disseminate and ultimately make decisions about previously hidden qualities of specific goods and services throughout global value networks. …

Incarcerated Child Birth And “Broader Birth Control”: Autonomy, Regulation, And The State, Deborah Ahrens

Faculty Articles

In recent years, the scholarly literature, the journalistic press, and even pop culture have begun to grapple with the many ways in which prison life works to degrade and dehumanize female prisoners, particularly pregnant women and new mothers. These voices are drawn — quite understandably — to the worst abuses, to practices (such as the shackling of laboring women) that underscore the dichotomy between the brutality of prison life and the allegedly autonomous norms governing pregnancy and parenting in the outside world. This article supplements — and in crucial places challenges — the narrative implicit in those depictions by, first, …

Precarious Existence And Capitalism: A Permanent State Of Exception, Tayyab Mahmud

Faculty Articles

The contemporary neoliberal era is marked by an exponential expansion of contingent and precarious labor markets. In this context, the construct of precarity emerged to signify labor conditions of permanent insecurity and precariousness. Coming at the heels of the era of Keynesian welfare, precarity is mostly seen as an exception to the normal trajectory of capitalist formations. The basic argument of this paper is that under capitalism, for the working classes precarious existence is the norm rather than the exception. Precarity is the outcome not only of insecurities of labor markets but also of capital’s capture and colonization of life …

All That Heaven Will Allow: A Statistical Analysis Of The Co-Existence Of Same Sex Marriage And Gay Matrimonial Bans, Deirdre Bowen

Faculty Articles

This article offers the first analysis to date of national data evaluating whether defense of marriage acts (mini or super-DOMAs) preserve and stabilize the family. After finding that they do not—just as same sex marriage does not appear to destabilize families—the article analyzes what variables are, in fact, associated with family stability. Specifically, those variables are: families below the poverty line; men and women married three or more times; religiosity; percent conservative versus liberal in a state; disposable income; percent with bachelor’s degree; and median age of first marriage. Next, the article applies the sociological concepts of moral entrepreneurism and …

The Invention Of Asian Americans, Robert S. Chang

Faculty Articles

The essay begins by examining amicus briefs submitted in Fisher v. Texas by Asian American organizations in support of and in opposition to affirmative action. What does it mean when groups that purportedly protect, advance, and represent the interests of Asian Americans invoke the historical treatment of Asian Americans and present facts about Asian Americans but end up advocating for opposite outcomes? This Essay starts with the competing Asian American perspectives and assertions of authority expressed in these briefs to explore the theme of a Symposium at the UC Irvine School of Law, provocatively entitled, Reigniting Community: Strengthening the APA …

Full Disclosure: Cognitive Bias, Informants, And Search Warrant Scrutiny, Mary Bowman

Faculty Articles

This article posits that cognitive biases play a significant role in the gap between the rhetoric regarding Fourth Amendment protection and actual practices regarding search warrant scrutiny, particularly for search warrants based on informants’ tips. Specifically, this article examines the ways in which implicit bias, tunnel vision, priming, and hindsight bias can affect search warrants. These biases can affect each stage of the search warrant process, including targeting decisions, the drafting process, the magistrate’s decision whether to grant the warrant, and post-search review by trial and appellate courts. These biases create room for informant falsehoods to go unchecked, with a …

Review Of Colin Dayan’S The Law Is A White Dog: How Legal Rituals Make And Unmake Persons, Dean Spade

Faculty Articles

Professor Dean Spade reviews Colin Dayan’s The Law Is a White Dog: How Legal Rituals Make and Unmake Persons.

Debt And Discipline: Neoliberal Political Economy And The Working Classes, Tayyab Mahmud

Faculty Articles

Over the last three decades, neoliberal restructuring of the economy created a symbiosis of debt and discipline. New legal regimes and strategic use of monetary policy displaced Keynesian welfare, facilitated financialization of the economy, broke the power of organized labor, and expanded debt to sustain aggregate demand. Public laws and policies created a field of possibility within which financial markets extended their reach and brought ever-increasing sections of the working classes and the marginalized within the ambit of the credit economy. Reordered public policies and new norms of personal responsibility demarcated the horizon within which the economically vulnerable pursued strategies …

Your Mayor, Your “Friend”: Public Officials, Social Networking, And The Unmapped New Public Square, Bill Sherman

Faculty Articles

The use of online social networks by local public officials has drawn the ire of local governments, some of whom have gone so far as to bar public officials from social networks for fear of violating campaign finance, open meeting, freedom of information, and government ethics laws. These objections overlook the unique nature of civic social networks as an emerging political institution, characterized by a high degree of transparency and intense public pressure for accountability. The nature of this new institution renders the alarmist reaction overblown. Civic social networks are the new public square, and local governments should embrace them …

On (Cr)Edibility: Why Food In The United States May Never Be Safe, Denis Stearns

Faculty Articles

Most critiques of regulation are premised on the concepts of “free markets” and “market failures” as justifying, or not, the need for government interventions and control of the marketplace. Using the market for food as an example, this article questions not only the possibility of a buyer being a free actor when buying food, but also whether it is meaningful to speak in terms of a “free” market at all. One centerpiece of this questioning is the author’s coining of the term “(cr)edibility” to stand for the twinned ideas of credibility and edibility as defining the nature of all commercial …

Half-Full, Half-Empty? Asian American Electoral ‘Presence’ In 2008, Robert S. Chang, Keith Aoki

Faculty Articles

The article discusses the role of Asian Americans in the election of the U.S. President Barack Obama in 2008. It notes that the influence of Asian American in national politics may not significantly affect the next cycles of presidential elections in the U.S. It notes the importance of patience and optimism in envisioning and constructing Asian American electorate.

Stories Absent From The Courtroom: Responding To Domestic Violence In The Context Of Hiv And Aids, Jane Stoever

Faculty Articles

HIV/AIDS dramatically impacts domestic violence survivors' needs and demands reconceptualization of current responses to domestic violence. This article aims to illuminate the problem of domestic violence in the context of HIV/AIDS and to prompt further development of legal response systems. Specifically, this article brings together the worlds of law, public health, and women's lived experiences to argue for recognizing and responding to domestic violence in the context of HIV/AIDS in the United States. Utilizing accounts of clients' experiences and data from public health studies, this article sets forth eight categories of HIV/AIDS-related domestic violence: repercussions from partner notification, use of …

Squatters, Pirates, And Entrepreneurs: Is Informality The Solution To The Urban Housing Crisis?, Carmen Gonzalez

Faculty Articles

Giving the poor legal title to the lands they occupy extra-legally (informally) has been widely promoted by the World Bank and by best-selling author Hernando de Soto as a means of addressing both poverty and the scarcity of affordable housing in the urban centers of the global South. Using Bogota, Colombia, as a case study, this article interrogates de Soto's claims about the causes of informality and the benefits of formal title. The article concludes that de Soto's analysis is problematic in three distinct respects. First, de Soto exaggerates the benefits of formal title and fails to consider its risks. …

The Challenges Of Representing Detained Non-Citizens In Expedited Removal Proceedings From The Perspective Of The Dickinson School Of Law Immigration Clinic, Won Kidane

Faculty Articles

Persons deprived of their liberties as a result of administrative detention for immigration reasons face a multitude of serious challenges. There is currently no recognized right to the government-appointed representation in immigration proceedings. As a result, on a very small percentage of immigrants obtain pro bono or any other kind of legal representation. This problem is compounded by the fact that most immigration detainees are detained in remote rural areas where the private bar is virtually unavailable. Those who are fortunate to obtain pro bono or other types of legal representation also face some serious challenges at the different stages …

Immunity For Hire: How The Same-Actor Doctrine Sustains Discrimination In The Contemporary Workplace, Natasha Martin

Faculty Articles

This article provides a doctrinal critique of an employment discrimination principle recognized by the courts-the same-actor inference-based on its incongruence with both cognitive psychological research and the social dynamics of the workplace. The same-actor principle, in its most potent form, provides that where the same decision-maker engages in an alleged adverse employment action within a short period of time of making a positive employment decision, such evidence creates a strong presumption that the decision-maker harbored no unlawful discriminatory animus. The same-actor doctrine was first recognized by the Fourth Circuit in Proud v. Stone, in which the court deemed the nature …

The Terrorism Exception To Asylum: Managing The Uncertainty In Status Determination, Won Kidane

Faculty Articles

The Immigration and Nationality Act ("INA "), as it must, excludes a terrorist from receiving asylum. The substantive criteria, and the adjudicative procedures set forth under the INA for the identification of the undeserving terrorist inevitably exclude those who are neither terrorists nor otherwise undeserving. Such unintended consequences are perhaps unavoidable in any well-conceived statutory scheme. What is disconcerting is, however the margin of the possible error in the application of this statutory scheme. Those who may be excluded by the application of these provisions are often not those who are supposed to be excluded as terrorists. Moreover, the existing …

John Calmore’S America, Robert S. Chang, Catherine Smith

Faculty Articles

In their contribution to this symposium honoring Professor John Calmore, Professors Robert Chang and Catherine Smith analyze the recent school desegregation case, Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, through the lens of Professor Calmore's work. In particular, they locate this case as part of what Professor Calmore calls the Supreme Court's Racial Project. Understood as a political project that reorganizes and redistributes resources along racial lines, the Supreme Court's Racial Project creates a jurisprudence around race that solidifies the work of the new right and neoconservatives. Borrowing from Calmore's methodology, Professors Chang and Smith clarify …

Theology In Public Reason And Legal Discourse: A Case For The Preferential Option For The Poor, Russell Powell

Faculty Articles

There is a strange disconnect between the formal understanding of the separation of religion from government in the United States and the almost ubiquitous use of religious language in political discourse, not to mention the web of complicated religious motivations that sit on or just below the surface of policy debates. This paper presents an argument for the relevance of the principle of the "preferential option for the poor" from Catholic social thought in public reason and legal discourse in order to explore the possible advantages of making the veil between religion and the secular state more permeable. As a …

Committing A Crime While A Refugee: Rethinking The Issue Of Deportation In Light Of The Principle Against Double Jeopardy, Won Kidane

Faculty Articles

The Double Jeopardy Clause of the United States Constitution provides: No person shall...be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb . . . If a refugee who has committed a deportable offense and served his sentence is subsequently deported from a place where he calls home to a place where he would face persecution, he could literally be said to have been twice put in jeopardy of life and limb. That seems to be a prima facie violation of the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment. This constitutional guarantee is, however, …

Afterword: The Race Question In Latcrit Theory And Asian American Jurisprudence, Robert S. Chang, Neil Gotanda

Faculty Articles

In the tradition of LatCrit Afterwords, Professors Chang and Gotanda take the liberty of raising questions that extend beyond the particular themes of this LatCrit Conference and the papers published in this Symposium. They return to two questions - ethnicity versus race and black exceptionalism - that were raised in early LatCrit Conferences but which have since been moved to the background. They ask what LatCrit Theory and Asian American Jurisprudence might teach us about minority on minority conflict and other ethno-racial fault lines. They present an analytic model to help understand commentaries on racial conflict and coalition. This model …

Postcoloniality And Mythologies Of Civil(Ized) Society, Tayyab Mahmud

Faculty Articles

This article argues that the discourse of viability of civil society in postcolonial polities is theoretically ungrounded, and helps to further marginalize subordinated sections of these societies. These failings result from the imprisonment of dominant social theories in Eurocentric unilinear evolutionism, an imprisonment that blinds one from the particularities of supposedly universal categories that issue from Europe's experience of modernity. Furthermore, enthusiasm for civil society ignores the truncated colonial career of modernity and the nature of the postcolonial state. In order to substantiate these propositions, the paper traces the genealogy of the concept of civil society, examines the colonial career …

Equal Protection Unmodified: Justice John Paul Stevens And The Case For Unmediated Constitutional Interpretation, Andrew Siegel

Faculty Articles

In one of his first major writings on the United States Supreme Court, Justice John Paul Stevens famously argued that "[t]here is only one Equal Protection Clause." In the ensuing three decades, that quotation has become something of a battle cry for commentators critical of tiered equal protection review, many of whom not only seek to dismantle tiered equal protection scrutiny but also to replace it with an alternative (usually more complicated) doctrinal super-structure. This Article argues that his association with these commentators has partially obscured Justice Stevens's unique equal protection methodology. While he shares (indeed inspired) their critique of …