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Full-Text Articles in Law

Measuring Brief (Cordelia Lear), Haley Chee, Mahesh Cleveland, Kevin Yolken Nov 2017

Measuring Brief (Cordelia Lear), Haley Chee, Mahesh Cleveland, Kevin Yolken

Pace Environmental Law Review Online Companion

No abstract provided.


Measuring Brief (Brittain County, New Union), Spencer Newman, Davis Vaughn Nov 2017

Measuring Brief (Brittain County, New Union), Spencer Newman, Davis Vaughn

Pace Environmental Law Review Online Companion

No abstract provided.


Measuring Brief (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service), David Sheaffer, Caitlin Brown, Jacob Simon Nov 2017

Measuring Brief (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service), David Sheaffer, Caitlin Brown, Jacob Simon

Pace Environmental Law Review Online Companion

No abstract provided.


2017 Bench Memorandum Nov 2017

2017 Bench Memorandum

Pace Environmental Law Review Online Companion

No abstract provided.


2017 National Environmental Moot Court Competition Problem Nov 2017

2017 National Environmental Moot Court Competition Problem

Pace Environmental Law Review Online Companion

No abstract provided.


Report And Recommendations Concerning Environmental Aspects Of The New York State Constitution, New York State Bar Association Environmental And Energy Law Section Oct 2017

Report And Recommendations Concerning Environmental Aspects Of The New York State Constitution, New York State Bar Association Environmental And Energy Law Section

Pace Law Review

The purpose of the Report is to inform and enrich understanding of environmental issues which may be considered at a Constitutional Convention (should one occur) or with respect to proposals to amend the Constitution through the legislative process.


Updating New York’S Constitutional Environmental Rights, Nicholas A. Robinson Oct 2017

Updating New York’S Constitutional Environmental Rights, Nicholas A. Robinson

Pace Law Review

The stakes are high as New York State considers whether to amend the constitution. The electorate contemplates the gathering crises of sea level rise, disruption of weather patterns, intensified summer heat waves, and other climate change impacts. New York also faces escalating environmental problems, which the newly perceived climate impacts in turn exacerbate. It is timely to debate whether or not New York should recognize the right to the environment to its constitution. In 2016, the House of Delegates of the New York State Bar Association adopted the report of its committee on the constitution, regarding the environmental conservation article …


Subnational Environmental Constitutionalism And Reform In New York State, James R. May Oct 2017

Subnational Environmental Constitutionalism And Reform In New York State, James R. May

Pace Law Review

The State of New York’s constitution was perhaps the first in the world to embody environmental constitutionalism, most directly in what is known as its “Forever Wild” mandate from 1894. In contrast to many subnational environmental provisions, courts in New York have regularly enforced Forever Wild. New York’s Constitution also contains a remarkable mandate that every twenty years voters decide whether to hold elections for delegates to convene a convention to amend the state’s constitution, with the next such opportunity on November 7, 2017. This article explores how subnational constitutionalism from around the world informs discussions about whether and how …


Home Rule In New York: The Need For A Change, Michael A. Cardozo, Zachary W. Klinger Oct 2017

Home Rule In New York: The Need For A Change, Michael A. Cardozo, Zachary W. Klinger

Pace Law Review

This article is intended to provide a practical lens into how Home Rule issues unfold in complex matters involving the City, and to suggest how a much-needed Home Rule constitutional amendment could re-shape or, at the very least, clarify Home Rule standards. Section II will provide some historical and legal background on Home Rule; Section III will analyze some of the more well-known Home Rule cases that the Law Department litigated during the Bloomberg Administration; and Section IV will discuss insights gleaned with respect to, and will offer several recommendations for, the future of Home Rule in New York.


The Constitutional Convention And Court Merger In New York State, Jay C. Carlisle, Matthew J. Shock Oct 2017

The Constitutional Convention And Court Merger In New York State, Jay C. Carlisle, Matthew J. Shock

Pace Law Review

In November 2017, voters in New York, for the first time in twenty years, will be asked to decide whether there “[s]hall be a convention to revise the constitution and amend the same?” If it is decided by the electorate to call a convention, “delegates will be elected in November 2018, and the convention will convene in April 2019.” One of the significant goals of a convention would be the achievement of court merger in the Empire State. The purpose of this perspective is to discuss the pros and cons of a constitutional convention with an emphasis on court merger.


The Road To A Constitutional Convention: Reforming The New York State Unified Court System And Expanding Access To Civil Justice, Jonathan Lippman Oct 2017

The Road To A Constitutional Convention: Reforming The New York State Unified Court System And Expanding Access To Civil Justice, Jonathan Lippman

Pace Law Review

This article will focus on the judiciary reforms and access to justice—starting with reforms to the structure of the Unified Court System and discussing other ways that a constitutional convention might serve to improve the operation of the courts. The article will then explore the state’s deficiency in providing its low-income citizens access to justice in civil matters relating to housing, family safety and security, and subsistence income, and how a convention can highlight these issues.


Constitutionalizing Ethics, Bennett L. Gershman Oct 2017

Constitutionalizing Ethics, Bennett L. Gershman

Pace Law Review

The purpose of this essay is not to weigh in the wisdom or utility in revising New York’s Constitution. However, in my opinion, one of the most compelling reasons to amend New York’s Constitution is the need to incorporate into the fundamental charter a meaningful code of ethics, including procedures for its enforcement, and sanctions for violations. New York over the past fifteen years has experienced more scandals, criminal prosecutions, and convictions of lawmakers and other government officials for corruption than any state in the nation. It is certainly arguable that the extent of New York’s corruption, and the widespread …


Unusual “Politics As Usual”: The 2017 Ballot Proposition Calling For A Constitutional Convention In New York, Peter J. Galie Oct 2017

Unusual “Politics As Usual”: The 2017 Ballot Proposition Calling For A Constitutional Convention In New York, Peter J. Galie

Pace Law Review

The first task of constitutional reformers is to make the people of the state aware that they live under a constitution that, for better or worse, affects their everyday lives whether they live on in remotes sections of the Adirondacks routes in villages or a teeming megalopolis. Until this is done, the people are not likely to demand or even accept the more thoroughgoing revision so badly needed in New York.


The Amending Clause In The New York Constitution And Conventionphobia, Gerald Benjamin Oct 2017

The Amending Clause In The New York Constitution And Conventionphobia, Gerald Benjamin

Pace Law Review

The amending clause is the nineteenth of the New York State Constitution’s twenty articles. Followed only by the enacting clause, for all intents and purposes this is the document’s final word. Well, maybe not the final word. An alternative is to think of this amending clause as a part of an ongoing several-centuries-long conversation. The clause is a message from one past group of designers and drafters of New York’s governing system, the 1846 Constitutional Convention majority, to all of us who gave them the charge to “secure [for us] the blessings of freedom,” that is to “we the people” …


Hope Vs. Fear: The Debate Over A State Constitutional Convention, Henry M. Greenberg Oct 2017

Hope Vs. Fear: The Debate Over A State Constitutional Convention, Henry M. Greenberg

Pace Law Review

On November 7, 2017, New Yorkers will go to their polling places and receive ballots containing a thirteen-word referendum question: “Shall there be a convention to revise the constitution and amend the same?” That question appears on the ballot because the New York State Constitution commands that at least once every twenty years voters are asked whether or not to call a constitutional convention. The mandatory referendum reflects Thomas Jefferson’s belief that every generation the people should be given a chance to revise their basic law.


Environmental Human Rights In New York’S Constitution, Nicholas A. Robinson Oct 2017

Environmental Human Rights In New York’S Constitution, Nicholas A. Robinson

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

There is an environmental case to be made in favor of convening a Constitutional Convention. On the 200th anniversary birth of Henry David Thoreau, we can remember his admonition: “Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.” What has this to do with the Constitution?


Sony, Cyber Security, And Free Speech: Preserving The First Amendment In The Modern World, Conrad Wilton Jun 2017

Sony, Cyber Security, And Free Speech: Preserving The First Amendment In The Modern World, Conrad Wilton

Pace Intellectual Property, Sports & Entertainment Law Forum

Reprinted from 16 U.C. Davis Bus. L.J. 309 (2016). This paper explores the Sony hack in 2014 allegedly launched by the North Korean government in retaliation over Sony’s production of The Interview and considers the hack’s chilling impact on speech in technology. One of the most devastating cyber attacks in history, the hack exposed approximately thirty- eight million files of sensitive data, including over 170,000 employee emails, thousands of employee social security numbers and unreleased footage of upcoming movies. The hack caused Sony to censor the film and prompted members of the entertainment industry at large to tailor their communication …


Let’S Be Reasonable: Why Neither Nollan/Dolan Nor Penn Central Should Govern Generally-Applied Legislative Exactions After Koontz, Glen Hansen Jun 2017

Let’S Be Reasonable: Why Neither Nollan/Dolan Nor Penn Central Should Govern Generally-Applied Legislative Exactions After Koontz, Glen Hansen

Pace Environmental Law Review

This article explains why the Nollan/Dolan test should not apply to legislatively imposed exactions, provided that such exactions satisfy two key criteria: (1) the exaction is generally-applied; and (2) the exaction is applied based on a set legislative formula without any meaningful administrative discretion in that application. Legislative exactions that fail to meet those two criteria should be governed by the Nollan/Dolan standard of review in the same manner as the ad hoc adjudicative exaction in Koontz. Furthermore, legislative exactions that satisfy those two criteria also should not be governed by the factored analysis in Penn Central Transportation Co. v. …


Rethinking Riley: Applying Commensurate And Intermediate Scrutiny Standards To Judicial Evaluation Of Charitable Solicitation Regulation, James J. Fishman Jun 2017

Rethinking Riley: Applying Commensurate And Intermediate Scrutiny Standards To Judicial Evaluation Of Charitable Solicitation Regulation, James J. Fishman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In Riley v. National Federation of the Blind, the Supreme Court struck down as unduly burdensome and unconstitutional a North Carolina statute requiring professional fundraisers to disclose to those solicited the average percentage of gross receipts actually turned over to the charity for all charitable solicitations conducted in the state within the previous twelve months. The Court applied a strict scrutiny standard of review of the regulated speech, rather than a more deferential intermediate or rational standard of scrutiny. The Court’s reasoning was that the commercial speech elements of the charity’s message were inextricably intertwined with the fully protected educational …


On The Categorical Approach To Free Speech – And The Protracted Failure To Delimit The True Threats Exception To The First Amendment, Wayne Batchis Mar 2017

On The Categorical Approach To Free Speech – And The Protracted Failure To Delimit The True Threats Exception To The First Amendment, Wayne Batchis

Pace Law Review

On June 1, 2015, the Supreme Court decided Elonis v. United States on statutory rather than constitutional grounds. In doing so, it turned away an important opportunity to provide needed clarification of true threats, a category of expression relegated to a lower level of protection by the Court almost a half-century ago. The categorical approach to free speech made its first explicit appearance in Supreme Court case law in 1942. Since that time, the Court has relied heavily on this method of constitutional interpretation, carving out discrete exceptions from the seemingly absolutist mandate of the First Amendment that Congress make …


Aging Injunctions And The Legacy Of Institutional Reform Litigation, Jason Parkin Jan 2017

Aging Injunctions And The Legacy Of Institutional Reform Litigation, Jason Parkin

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Institutional reform litigation has been an enduring feature of the American legal system since the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. The resulting injunctions have transformed countless bureaucracies notorious for resisting change, including public school systems, housing authorities, social services agencies, correctional facilities, and police departments. But these injunctions face an uncertain future. The Supreme Court has held that institutional reform injunctions must be easier to terminate than all other injunctions issued by the federal courts. Some institutional reform injunctions go unenforced or are forgotten entirely. Others expire due to sunset provisions. At the same time, doctrinal …