Law Commons^™

Evidence On Fire, Valena Beety, Jennifer Oliva

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Fire science, a field largely developed by lay “arson investigators,” police officers, or similar first responders untrained in chemistry and physics, has been historically dominated by unreliable methodology, demonstrably false conclusions, and concomitant miscarriages of justice. Fire investigators are neither subject to proficiency testing nor required to obtain more than a high school education. Perhaps surprisingly, courts have largely spared many of the now debunked tenets of fire investigation any serious scientific scrutiny in criminal arson cases. This Article contrasts the courts’ ongoing lax admissibility of unreliable fire-science evidence in criminal cases with their strict exclusion of the same flimsy …

Introducing The Global Data Privacy Prize, Fred H. Cate, Christopher Kuner, Orla Lynskey, Christopher Millard, Nora Ni Loideain, Dan Jerker B. Svantesson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

More Steps Toward Fully Electronic Interbank Check Collection And Return: Amendments To Federal Reserve Board Regulation Cc And A Regulatory Resolution Of A Circuit Split, Sarah Jane Hughes

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article analyzes two actions in 2017 and 2018, respectively, by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System that amend Regulation CC, which governs expedited deposit availability and collection of checks generally and implements the Expedited Funds Availability Act of 1987 and the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act of 2003. It selects examples from the two sets of amendments that highlight regulatory strategies being used by the Board to facilitate faster payments through the movement of electronic images of checks or electronic information among banks in the check-collection process. Those strategies involve creation of new forms …

The Cultural Politics Of Dan Quayle And Mike Pence, Steve Sanders

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This essay was part of an Indiana Law Review symposium on the five U.S. vice presidents who have hailed from Indiana.

The Gallup polling organization classifies Indiana as a “pink” state, rather than a “red” state, meaning it leans Republican but is not solidly in the GOP column. Yet, if an image of Indiana persists in many people’s minds as a bastion of social conservatism and tradition, that image likely has been shaped in part by the two most recent vice presidents the Hoosier state has sent to Washington: Dan Quayle and Mike Pence.

In selecting their running mates, major …

Why States Can Tax The Gilti, David Gamage, Darien Shanske

Articles by Maurer Faculty

A centerpiece of the 2017 federal tax legislation’s reforms to international corporate income tax rules is the new global intangible low-taxed income regime (or GILTI). In a prior essay, we argued that U.S. state governments should conform to GILTI. But might there be constitutional restrictions preventing state governments from doing so? This essay argues that state governments can constitutionally conform to the federal GILTI rules and thereby tax GILTI income as part of the states’ corporate income tax bases. However, in doing so, we explain that state governments will need to be attentive to background constitutional principles.

Foreword (Public Law), Paul Craig

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Conceptualizing The Regulation Of Virtual Currencies And Providers: Friction Points In State And Federal Approaches To Regulating Providers Of Payments Execution And Custody Services And Products In The United States, Sarah Jane Hughes

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This essay evaluates the state of regulation by the United States government and State legislatures of participants in emerging virtual-currency businesses. It points to friction points as both the federal government and the States experiment with their own regulatory authority over virtual-currency businesses and provides a taxonomy of differing approaches to regulating such businesses. The essay takes the position that the States need to act in the near term if they wish to maintain their longstanding role as regulators of non-depository providers of financial products and services--or they risk being preempted by Congress or federal regulatory actions. This essay also …

Personal Jurisdiction: The Transnational Difference, Austen L. Parrish

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Article engages with some of the key debates that have emerged among international Iaw and civil procedure scholars by examining the flurry of recent transnational cases that have become a common feature on the U.S. Supreme Court's docket. It makes three principal contributions. First, it explains how the recent decisions involving persona jurisdiction should be understood within, and partly limited to, their international contexts. Disputes in involving non-resident foreign defendants raise different considerations than those involving defendants in the United States, and this Article canvasses those differences. If a concern previously was that courts gave too short shrift to …

Foreign Nations, Constitutional Rights, And International Law, Austen L. Parrish

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Private Government And The Transparency Deficit, Alfred C. Aman, Landyn W. Rookard

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Modern government is comprised of a complex admixture of public and private actors. From the provision of public services, to growing movements to sell off national parks, to the very task of legislating, the public is unlikely to encounter an area of government that is untouched by privatization. But public transparency mechanisms, including the seminal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), rely upon an outdated, rigid conception of the private-public dichotomy. They fail to provide the public with any meaningful access to what we call the “private government,” which includes the private actors who bear an increasing responsibility for performing governmental …

A New Deal For Debtors: Providing Procedural Justice In Consumer Bankruptcy, Pamela Foohey

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Across the criminal and civil justice systems, research regarding procedural justice — feeling that one has a voice, is respected, and is before a neutral and even-handed adjudicator — shows that people’s positive perceptions of legal processes are fundamental to the legal system’s effectiveness and to the rule of law. About a million people file bankruptcy every year, making the consumer bankruptcy system the part of the federal court system with which people most often come into contact. Given the importance of bankruptcy to American families and the credit economy, there should exist a rich literature theorizing and investigating how …

The Hidden Fences Shaping Resegregation, Jeannine Bell

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Article offers a window into the experiences that inform the neighborhood choices of middle-class and upper-middle-class Blacks. As I suggest below, there are many hidden fences, walling off white neighborhoods and restricting Blacks’ housing choices in de facto ways. These hidden fences exist in the form of the many challenges Blacks face when moving to white neighborhoods. The obstacles to easy, contented lives range from police harassment to anti-integrationist violence that push Blacks into less affluent neighborhoods. Ultimately, this Article demonstrates how race can circumscribe housing choice and social mobility, even in the absence of legal barriers restricting where …

Technologically Distorted Conceptions Of Punishment, Jessica M. Eaglin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Much recent work in academic literature and policy discussions suggests that the proliferation of actuarial — meaning statistical — assessments of a defendant’s recidivism risk in state sentencing structures is problematic. Yet scholars and policymakers focus on changes in technology over time while ignoring the effects of these tools on society. This Article shifts the focus away from technology to society in order to reframe debates. It asserts that sentencing technologies subtly change key social concepts that shape punishment and society. These same conceptual transformations preserve problematic features of the sociohistorical phenomenon of mass incarceration. By connecting technological interventions and …

Public Regulation And Private Enforcement In A Global Economy: Strategies For Managing Conflict, Hannah L. Buxbaum

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Stepping Up Access To The Indiana Code: Partnering For Increased Access And Preservation, Susan David Demaine, Benjamin J. Keele, Hannah Alcasid

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Judicial Ethics: A New Paradigm For A New Era, Charles G. Geyh

Articles by Maurer Faculty

As the preamble to the Model Code of Judicial Conduct indicates, traditional notions of judicial ethics operate within a rule of law paradigm, which posits that the "three I's" of judicial ethics-independence, impartiality, and integrity-enable judges to uphold the law. In recent decades, however, social science, public opinion, and political commentary suggest that appointed judges abuse their independence by disregarding the law and issuing rulings in accord with their biases and other extralegal impulses, while elected judges disregard the law and issue rulings popular with voters, all of which calls the future of the three I's and judicial ethics itself …

Societal Pressures And Procreative Preferences For Gay Fathers Successfully Pursuing Parenthood Through Ivf And Gestational Carriers, Steven R. Lindheim Md, Jody L. Madeira, Artur Ludwin, Emily Kemmer, J. Preston Parry, Georges Sylvestre, Guido Pennings

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This retrospective study surveyed decision-making and challenges among 78 gay cisgender male couples utilizing in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and a gestational carrier. While most couples (67.1%) found the decision to actively pursue fertility treatment ‘not difficult’, 32.9% felt that it was ‘somewhat difficult’ or ‘very or extremely difficult’. Almost 30% of couples had not undertaken financial planning for treatment, which introduced delays of N2 years for 25.3% of participants. Conceiving twins was ‘important to very important’ in 52.3% of couples, and 84.2% of couples chose to transfer two embryos to ‘increase the odds’ or reach an ideal family size in a …

Dignity And Social Meaning: Obergefell, Windsor, And Lawrence As Constitutional Dialogue, Steve Sanders

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The U.S. Supreme Court’s three most important gay and lesbian rights decisions—Obergefell v. Hodges, United States v. Windsor, and Lawrence v. Texas—are united by the principle that gays and lesbians are entitled to dignity. Beyond their tangible consequences, the common constitutional evil of state bans on same-sex marriage, the federal Defense of Marriage Act, and sodomy laws was that they imposed dignitary harm. This Article explores how the gay and lesbian dignity cases exemplify the process by which constitutional law emerges from a social and cultural dialogue in which the Supreme Court actively participates. In doing …

The Games They Will Play: Tax Games, Roadblocks, And Glitches Under The 2017 Tax Legislation, David Gamage, David Kamin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The 2017 tax legislation brought sweeping changes to the rules for taxing individuals and business, the deductibility of state and local taxes, and the international tax regime. The complex legislation was drafted and passed through a rushed and secretive process intended to limit public comment on one of the most consequential pieces of domestic policy enacted in recent history. This Article is an effort to supply the analysis and deliberation that should have accompanied the bill’s consideration and passage and describes key problem areas in the new legislation. Many of the new changes fundamentally undermine the integrity of the tax …

If The Legislature Had Been Serious About Data Privacy..., Fred H. Cate, Christopher Kuner, Orla Lynskey, Christopher Millard, Nora Ni Loideain, Dan Jerker B. Svantesson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

"Gatekeepers" Are Vital Participants In Anti-Money-Laundering Laws And Enforcement Regimes As Permission-Less Blockchain-Based Transactions Pose Challenges To Current Means To "Follow The Money", Sarah Jane Hughes

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Two phenomena dominate reports about blockchain-based transactions—that they will disrupt and displace legacy banking, securities, and trade intermediaries, and that they present new or greater opportunities for hiding proceeds of crimes or corruption. This essay does not deal with the former topic. Rather, the organizers of the symposium at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia School of Law asks me to consider the latter question. It proved to be a tough assignment.

This essay looks at the separate questions of (1) the degree to which permission-less blockchain transactions will disrupt current anti-money laundering (AML) regimes and enforcement efforts, and (2) what …

A Secret Weapon?: Applying Privacy Doctrine To The Second Amendment, Jody L. Madeira

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Engineered Credit Default Swaps: Innovative Or Manipulative?, Gina-Gail S. Fletcher

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Credit default swaps (“CDS”) are, once again, making waves. Maligned for their role in the 2008 financial crisis and condemned by the Vatican, investors are once more utilizing CDS to achieve results of questionable market benefit. A CDS is a financial contract that allows investors to “bet” on whether a borrower will default on its loan. However, rather than waiting to see how their bets pan out, some CDS investors are collaborating with financially distressed borrowers to guarantee the profitability of their CDS positions—“engineering” the CDS’ outcome. Under the CDS contract, these collaborations are not prohibited, yet they have roiled …

On Yang's Proposed Federal Tax On Subnational Tax Incentives, David Gamage, Darien Shanske

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This essay analyzes presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s proposal to tax subnational tax incentives for companies at a rate of 100 percent.