Law Commons^™

Aclp - Comments Re Nys Bead Initial Proposal Volume 2 - December 2023, New York Law School

Reports and Resources

No abstract provided.

Aclp - State Broadband Profile - New York (October 2023), New York Law School

Reports and Resources

No abstract provided.

Keep Your Fingerprints To Yourself: New York Needs A Biometric Privacy Law, Brendan Mcnerney

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Imagine walking into a store, picking something up, and just walking out. No longer is this shoplifting, it is legal. In 2016, Amazon introduced their “Just Walk Out” technology in Seattle. “Just Walk Out” uses cameras located throughout the store to monitor shoppers, document what they pick up, and automatically charge that shoppers’ Amazon account when they leave the store. Recently, Amazon started selling “Just Walk Out” technology to other retailers. Since then, retailers have become increasingly interested in collecting and using customers’ “biometric identifiers and information.” Generally, “biometrics” is used to refer to “measurable human biological and behavioral …

Theft Of The American Dream: New York City's Third-Party Transfer Program, Joseph Mottola

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

On September 5, 2018, Paul Saunders discovered a notice on the front door of his mother’s home: it stated that the property, a Brooklyn brownstone owned by the family for over forty years, now belonged to a company called Bridge Street. His mother, seventy-four-year-old retired nurse Marlene Saunders, had been notified several months earlier that her home, valued at two million dollars, was in danger of being foreclosed because she owed New York City (the “City”) $3,792 in unpaid water charges. Her son had already paid the water bill, but when he contacted the water department, he discovered that …

The Law Of Equitable Distribution: When Is Domestic Violence More Than Just A Factor In Divorce?, Ada Tonkonogy

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Imagine you are married. After many years there are problems in your marriage. Some of these issues are beyond your control. You find out that your spouse is cheating on you. You plan to come home from work and confront your spouse about their infidelities. You even begin to think about the divorce process, confronting the concerns raised in your mind. I’ll be okay. I have a great career, I have worked my entire life, and I have saved. I will be okay.

That night you approach your spouse. After an argument breaks out, you tell your spouse that …

Policy Over Publicity: Evaluating Andrew Cuomo's 'Outrageoulsy Ambitious And Irrefutably Smart' Education Spending Dilemma, Colin Mckillop

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

For low- and middle-income high school students in New York, the prospect of attending college, especially on a full-time basis, has become increasingly bleak in recent years; tuition and other attendance costs continue to grow without a rise in education quality, “sixty-one percent of students graduate with college debt,” and debt held at graduation is increasing at “almost double the rate of inflation.” Thus, such students and their families were likely ecstatic on January 3, 2017, when Andrew Cuomo, the former Governor of New York, held an aggrandizing press conference to highlight the “1st signature proposal of his 2017 …

Epic Fail: Harkenrider V. Hochul And New York's 2022 Misadventure In "Independent" Redistricting, Richard Briffault

Fordham Law Voting Rights and Democracy Forum

No abstract provided.

A Living Legacy: The Katzmann Study Group On Immigrant Representation, The Honorable Denny Chin

Fordham Law Review

On March 9, 2023, hundreds of individuals—including immigration lawyers, advocates, government officials, academics, journalists, and philanthropists—gathered for a symposium at Fordham University School of Law entitled Looking Back and Looking Forward: Fifteen Years of Advancing Immigrant Representation. The symposium was organized by the Fordham Law Review and sponsored by law school centers and clinics, nonprofit organizations, and the Katzmann Study Group on Immigrant Representation (the “Study Group”). For members of the Study Group, the day was particularly poignant because several sessions at the symposium honored the life and accomplishments of the Hon. Robert A. Katzmann, the Study Group’s founder and …

Hollywood At Home: Applying Federal Child Labor Laws To Traditional And Modern Child Performers, Shannon Kate Mcgrath

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

In the past few years there has been a rise in online influencers who gain money and fame from their online content, and in many cases these influencers are children. Although this can be seen as a “job,” federal child labor laws exempt all child performers from protections. This means traditional child actors and children who create online content must rely on state laws regarding child labor. While some states have protections for child performers, several states have no such laws in place. In addition, the current protections are not available to children who take part in online content. Without …

New York's Green Amendment: The First Decisions, Michael B. Gerrard, Edward Mctiernan

Faculty Scholarship

On Nov. 2, 2021, the voters of New York by a margin of more than 2-1 approved an environmental rights amendment to the Bill of Rights in the New York State Constitution. Article I Section 19 reads in its entirety: “Environmental Rights. Each person shall have a right to clean air and water, and a healthful environment.” In the little more than a year since then, one of the great questions in New York environmental law has been — what does this mean? It looks significant, but just how much? That is left to the courts to decide. We now …

Judicial Resistance To New York's 2020 Criminal Legal Reforms, Angelo Petrigh

Faculty Scholarship

Scholars have examined judiciaries as organizations with their own culture and considered how this organizational culture can form a significant impediment to the implementation of reforms.²² There is a strong connection between judicial culture and a reform’s ability to accomplish its stated goals. Some go so far as to state that most reforms will fail because of the difficulty in altering judicial culture.²³ These studies sometimes focus on legislators misunderstanding the actual effects of legislation when it was drafted, or on the failure to account for particularities in a law’s implementation by undervaluing the fragmentation, adversarial nature, and …

White Picket Fences & Suburban Gatekeeping: How Long Island’S Land Use Laws Cement Its Status As One Of The Most Segregated Places In America, Jessica Mingrino

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

The average wealth of Black families is one-seventh that of white families in the United States today. Homeownership—the primary avenue through which Americans accumulate personal and generational wealth—is the leading driver of the wealth disparity between white and Black American families, known as the “racial wealth gap.” The systematic and intentional exclusion of Black people from developing communities during the twentieth century largely excluded people of color from the housing boom and denied them the opportunity afforded to white people to multiply their assets. Contrary to widespread belief, however, legislation-backed oppression of Black Americans did not end in the …

Surrogacy Law Reformed: Bringing New York Into The Twenty-First Century, Natalie Burke

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

Quickly End Ny’S Suppressive Ballot Policy, Rachel Landy, Jarrett Berg

Online Publications

Earlier this year, with the 2022 midterm elections looming, New York’s Democratic members of Congress sued their own state Board of Elections in federal court for unconstitutional practices that disqualify ballots cast by duly registered voters. Chief among the alleged violations of New Yorkers’ right to vote is the practice of fully disqualifying so-called “wrong church” ballots cast by lost or misdirected voters at poll sites other than the ones to which they are assigned.

A Pause On Proof-Of-Work: The New York State Executive Branch's Authority To Enact A Moratorium On The Permitting Of Consolidated Proof-Of-Work Cryptocurrency Mining Facilities, Jacob Elkin

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

As cryptocurrency mining facilities have expanded their energy consumption, certain fossil fuel power plants have increased energy generation to provide behind-the-meter power to cryptocurrency miners. The New York legislature has responded by proposing bills to enact a moratorium on state permitting of such consolidated facilities while the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) studies their impacts through a Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS), but these bills have stalled. This white paper analyzes the legal authority of the New York executive branch to put in place such a moratorium and concludes that the executive branch does possess such authority, though …

The Road To Affordable Housing: How To Replace Highways With Homes In New York City, Chad Hughes

Pace Law Review

Urban highways cause significant air, water, and soil pollution that disproportionately harm low-income and nonwhite residents. Many urban highways are reaching the end of their useful life and would be extremely expensive to repair or replace. Cities around the world have removed urban highways to improve environmental outcomes and to avoid wasteful spending.

While these teardowns have improved local and regional environmental quality and local traffic congestion, they have also led to increased land values near the retired rights of way. Without anti-displacement efforts, there is a risk that the very people who have been most harmed by urban highways …

Extraordinary (Circumstances) Injustice, Melissa Capalbo

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

The box . . . . It’s a small room, so you really don’t move
around a lot. You wake up, and there’s a toilet right next to
your head. You look out the window and you see birds fly-
ing, and that only leads your mind into wanting freedom
more. And since it’s a small room, it makes you think cra-
zy. . . .Right now, I’m five-foot-seven. I grew. I came here
when I was five feet tall.

This is Rikers Island. The 19-year-old boy who shared his story is certainly not alone. Thousands of youth from …

Regulation Of Polyfluoroalkyl Chemicals In New York, Michael B. Gerrard, Edward Mctiernan

Faculty Scholarship

Perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) are two polyfluoroalkyl chemicals (PFAS) – a class of over 7,000 compounds with unique chemical structures that repel lipids and water. As a result, PFOA and PFOS have been used in numerous household products, such as nonstick cookware and stain-resistant carpets, and commercial applications such as firefighting foam. PFOS and PFOA are frequently referred to as “emerging contaminants,” a label with no precise regulatory definition but generally understood to refer to chemicals for which there are few published standards designed to protect human health and the environment from perceived hazards. Many PFAS compounds …

Life Without Parole Is Replacing The Death Penalty -- But For Those Who Don’T Have The Possibility Of Parole, Their Future Is Bleak., Jessica Lerner

Capstones

Across the country, life sentences are increasingly being used to replace the death penalty, according to a recent study by The Sentencing Project. Nearly 162,000 people are serving life sentences – one out of every nine in prison, the study found – and for those like Darrell Powell, who don’t have the possibility of parole, their future is bleak.

https://jlerner.exposure.co/life-without-parole-is-replacing-the-death-penalty?source=share-jlerner

Why Don't We All Just Wear Robes?, Ruthann Robson

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Lawyers and law professors select our professional outfits each day, often experiencing a mix of consternation and gratification. The dread springs from our failures: to know what constitutes the “right look;” to be able to achieve that “right look;” to anticipate what the day will bring; to have prepared by doing the laundry or other tasks. The joy resides in self-expression; we fashion ourselves as works of art, even within the constraints of professional attire.

It could have been different. We could have sacrificed the satisfaction of self-expression for the complacency of conformity; we could wear robes. Judges—at least …

Prostitution Decriminalization Campaigns In The United States: Libertarianism Or A "Decent Society", Jody Raphael

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Recently, legislative campaigns to totally decriminalize the sex trade industry in a handful of U.S. states and the District of Columbia failed, but a look at campaign supporters and their arguments demonstrates that libertarian principles are mainly guiding their efforts. This article explores how libertarianism principles, when applied to the sex trade, could bring about severe and lasting harm to others, including sellers of sex, potential victims of sex trafficking to meet the new demand, and the general community. Philosophic principles of liberty have been incorporated by courts, which find that liberty is never absolute and requires a balancing test …

How To Regulate Blockchain’S Real-Life Applications: Lessons From The California Blockchain Working Group, Michele Benedetto Neitz

Publications

How should legislators write a law regulating a brand-new technology that they may not yet fully understand? With the advent of blockchain and other advanced computational technologies, this generation of legislators faces more complex questions than their predecessors. Drawing on the author’s experience as a member of California’s Blockchain Work-ing Group, this Article offers guidance to lawmakers, lawyers, and industry leaders seek-ing to draft effective laws regulating real-life applications of blockchain technology. This cutting-edge Article will do two things for its readers: (1) encourage them to be informed participants in conversations relating to federal and state blockchain regulation, and (2) …

Review Of Samuel J. Levine’S Was Yosef On The Spectrum? Understanding Joseph Through Torah, Midrash, And Classical Jewish Sources: Urim Publications, Jerusalem, New York, Nathan Weissler

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

“Portability Of The Ube: Where Is It When You Need It And Do You Need It At All?”, Suzanne Darrow- Kleinhaus

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

In New York’S Prison System, Who Is Eligible For A Second Chance?, Jackie Harris

Capstones

Robert "Bobby" Ehrenberg is 61 years old, and he is serving a 50 years to life sentence at Sullivan Correctional Facility for murdering Silvio Goldberg, a jewelry store owner, in 1992. After decades of "self-examination, education, and rehabilitative programs," Ehrenberg applied for clemency in 2020. In the audio portion, we hear who he was before incarceration and what factors led up to the murder he committed. The other multimedia display the clemency application components, incarceration population data and upcoming state legislation that could impact Ehrenberg’s sentence.

Law Library Blog (October 2020): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Contracts And The Constitution In Conflict: Why Judicial Deference To Religious Upbringing Clauses Infringes On The First Amendment, Elica Zadeh

Pepperdine Law Review

When a Hasidic person files for divorce under New York law, either party to the marriage may invoke a declaratory judgment action to establish certain rights in a settlement agreement. If children are involved, such an agreement may include a religious upbringing clause, dictating that the child is to be raised in accordance with their then-existing religion—Hasidism. Deviation from the contract risks removal from the aberrant parent who intentionally or unwittingly allows the child to wane into secularism. Although the child’s best interest is the cornerstone of custodial analysis, a problem emerges when his or her best interest is couched …

Pepperdine University School Of Law Legal Summaries, Matthew Rollin, Kelly Vollmer

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Is Airbnb Polluting The Big Apple? The Impact Of Regulating The Short-Term Rental Service In New York City, Kayla Laskin

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Imagine your boss calls you into his office on a Monday morning. You think you are going to chat about the weekly agenda ahead; however, you notice the sullen look on your boss’s face. You immediately become nervous and think that no good news could possibly come from this meeting. You begin to glance over his desk and notice printouts for unemployment counseling and job listings in the area. Sheer panic begins to spread throughout your body, and then your boss states, “I’m sorry, we’re going to have to let you go.” Your stomach drops to the floor. Your …

The Injustice Of New York’S Notice Of Claim Limitations In Medical Malpractice Actions, Jessica Simon

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.