Law Commons^™

The Need For Judicial Restriction On The Use Of Drug Detecting Canines, William R. Pomeroy

Akron Law Review

The purpose of this comment is to examine these issues, outline the conflicting positions, and attempt to forecast the direction the courts may take in their effort to bring some harmony to this unsettled (and to some, unsettling) area of law. Few people would attempt to deny law enforcement officials the use of this highly effective and relatively unintrusive law enforcement tool. Yet there are those who fear that the unsettled questions concerning limits on the use of this tool may lead to serious abuse, and who raise the specter of unlimited government intrusion should this type of investigatory activity …

Breach Of Medical Confidence In Ohio, Craig E. Johnston

Akron Law Review

Fortunately, the patchwork of state and federal statutory, administrative, and case law has greatly limited unrestricted disclosure of medical secrets through the threat of civil and criminal liability. While the law governing the disclosure of medical information sorely lacks a comprehensive approach, one overriding principle emerges from this patchwork: the concern for confidentiality represented in the Hippocratic Oath is alive in Ohio and should guide the release of any medical secrets in the state. There are several statutes that regulate the release of certain types of medical information. For example, information concerning patients suffering from alcohol or drug abuse is …

Breaking The Seal: Ohio's Revised Adoption Law, Francis Y. Ake

Akron Law Review

This Comment will review the revised statutory scheme of adoption law in Ohio which permits access to identifying and non-identifying information about birth parents, and will analyze the rights and interests affected by these changes. The analysis will also include an overview of recent studies which may have influenced these changes as public awareness of the sealed record controversy has grown.

Prince V. St. Francis-St. George Hospital, Inc., Michael Christie

Akron Law Review

This note considers the possible impact on Ohio law of the Prince holding. A review of Ohio's prior position on invasion of privacy suggests that the holding of Prince represents a substantial departure from past decisions in two respects: first, the plaintiffs alleged that their privacy was invaded when information was communicated to only one other person, and second, the invasion of the privacy of one spouse served as the basis for a claim of the other spouse. This apparent departure of Prince from prior decisions is discussed in the context of a physician's duty of confidentiality and defendant's breach …

Bad News: Privacy Ruling To Increase Press Litigation, The Florida Star V. B.J.F., Mary Ellen Hockwalt

Akron Law Review

This note analyzes the history and precedent upon which the Court relied in reaching Florida Star's "harsh outcome." Next, the note discusses how the Court, by refusing to extend its holding beyond the facts of the case and give broad Constitutional protection to publications of truth, failed to provide lower courts with any guidance in deciding future invasion of privacy actions. Finally, the note examines the Court's balancing test: weighing the privacy interests of a crime victim against the newspaper's freedom to print truthful information.

Has The Replacement Of "Probable Cause" With "Reasonable Suspicion" Resulted In The Creation Of The Best Of All Possible Worlds?, Robert Berkley Harper

Akron Law Review

Police officers sometimes need flexibility to respond appropriately to a variety of factual situations confronting them in street encounters. It is a huge task to promulgate a set of rules which will be flexible enough to cope with the enormous variations in police-citizen encounters, but which at the same time, the police can easily and effectively apply. It is not the purpose of this article to criticize the court's efforts in this area. It is the purpose of this article to evaluate investigatory stops by police officers as they perform their duties with this lesser standard than probable cause. The …

Wilson V. Arkansas: Thirty Years After The Supreme Court Addresses The Knock And Announce Issue, Todd Witten

Akron Law Review

This Note will initially discuss the historical background of the knock and announce principle and its evolution from the English common law. Next, the Note will address the facts and the holdings of Wilson, in the lower courts and the Supreme Court. Finally, the Note will analyze the Wilson decision and its precedential value.

False Light Invasion Of Privacy In Docudramas: The Oxymoron Which Must Be Solved, Matthew Stohl

Akron Law Review

According to Giardello, boxing historians, and even Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, himself, the opening sequence of The Hurricane — which purports to tell the “true story” of Carter’s unjust imprisonment — was not only far from being accurate, it was a complete falsity. In reality, the fight was a lopsided Giardello victory, to the delight of the 6,000 fans in attendance.

Joey Giardello, who knew nothing of the movie until the day he saw it in the theater, filed suit on February 16, 2000 against Universal Pictures claiming that the film inaccurately portrayed him as a weak fighter and the beneficiary …

Overgeneralization Of The Hot Pursuit Doctrine Provides Another Blow To The Fourth Amendment In Middletown V. Flinchum, Nathan Vaughn

Akron Law Review

Unreasonable searches of the home have often been regarded as a serious infringement upon one’s right to privacy. The right to privacy is currently recognized by a variety of governments and has existed for hundreds of years. Although the Constitution does not grant an express right to privacy, the Supreme Court has consistently acknowledged the rights of personal privacy and zones of privacy. Affording extra protection to the home seems to show that our right to privacy is at its peak behind closed doors.

Unfortunately, the list of exceptions to the warrant requirement is large and continuously growing. These exceptions …

Celebrity Newsgathering And Privacy: The Transformation Of Breach Of Confidence In English Law, John D. Mccamus

Akron Law Review

In recent years, a series of leading cases have returned to consider these questions. The implications of these decisions for the current shape of English law relating to civil redress for privacy invasion are the subject of this article. Surprisingly, perhaps, English courts have remained steadfast in their refusal to recognize invasion of privacy as a tort and in doing so have quite explicitly declined to rely on American experience in this area. Rather, English courts have preferred to resist innovation of this kind and leave the difficult question of privacy law reform to Parliament. On a number of recent …

Remedies, Neutral Rules And Free Speech, David F. Partlett, Russell L. Weaver

Akron Law Review

In general, plaintiffs’ ability to obtain substantial damages against media defendants is directly proportional to their ability to obtain so called “publication damages.”...In future cases, the courts may be forced to deal more straightforwardly with the First Amendment issues. In Sanders, the court avoided those issues because they were not raised. As a result, the court left open the possibility that, even in an intrusion case a media defendant might be allowed to show that the invasion of privacy was “justified by the legitimate motive of gathering the news.”...Moreover, the very existence of the litigation undoubtedly has a negative impact …

Two Wrongs Don't Make A Fourth Amendment Right: Samson Court Errs In Choosing Proper Analytical Framework, Errs In Result, Parolees Lose Fourth Amendment Protection, Rachael A. Lynch

Akron Law Review

This Note will follow the Fourth Amendment from its origins to its modern application to parolee rights, as evidenced by the Samson Court. Part II focuses on the Fourth Amendment, from the circumstances surrounding its adoption to modern court cases that have applied its tenets to prisoners, probationers, and, finally, parolees. Part III details the Supreme Court’s decision in Samson v. California, including a thorough discussion of the facts that gave rise to the case and lower court decisions. Part IV explores the problems with the Court’s framework and suggests other possible frameworks the Court could have used to come …