Jurisdiction Commons^™

Responsible Energy Storage For A Renewable Electrical Grid, Matt Longacre

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental & Innovation Law

The United States economy, its national security, and even the health and safety of its citizens depend on reliably available electricity. Electricity is largely available through the grid – more than 9,200 generating units, capable of generating more than one terawatt of electricity, connected to more than 600,000 miles of wire. The grid extends to nearly everything: from charging cellphones to cellphone towers, from light emitting diodes to street lights, and from parking meters to electric cars; the grid has become ubiquitous.

The current grid infrastructure has been valued at two trillion dollars, but much of it is aging to …

The Impact Of Cultural Heritage On Japanese Towns And Villages, Yuichiro Tsuji Dr.

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental & Innovation Law

In 1954, when historically significant clays and clay pots were found in the Iba district of Shizuoka prefecture, the city applied to the prefectural education committee for a historic site designation. The committee granted this designation to the city..

However, in 1973 the education committee lifted its permission to promote development around the location. Historians have sought revocation of this decision under the Administrative Case Litigation Act (ACLA), but the Supreme Court has denied standing. By denying standing, the Japanese Supreme Court allows the prefecture to destroy a historical site.

First, this paper seeks to discuss the doctrine of standing …

Enough Is As Good As A Feast, Noah C. Chauvin

Seattle University Law Review

Ipse Dixit, the podcast on legal scholarship, provides a valuable service to the legal community and particularly to the legal academy. The podcast’s hosts skillfully interview guests about their legal and law-related scholarship, helping those guests communicate their ideas clearly and concisely. In this review essay, I argue that Ipse Dixit has made a major contribution to legal scholarship by demonstrating in its interview episodes that law review articles are neither the only nor the best way of communicating scholarly ideas. This contribution should be considered “scholarship,” because one of the primary goals of scholarship is to communicate new ideas.

“Don’T Move”: Redefining “Physical Restraint” In Light Of A United States Circuit Court Divide, Julia Knitter

Seattle University Law Review

To reduce sentencing disparities and clarify the application of the sentencing guide to the physical restraint enhancement for a robbery conviction, this Comment argues that the United States Sentencing Commission (USSC) must amend the USSC Guidelines Manual to provide federal courts with a clearer and more concise definition of physical restraint. Additionally, although there are many state-level sentencing systems throughout the United States, this Comment only focuses on the federal sentencing guidelines for robbery because of the disparate way in which these guidelines are applied from circuit to circuit.

Court-Packing In 2021: Pathways To Democratic Legitimacy, Richard Mailey

Seattle University Law Review

This Article asks whether the openness to court-packing expressed by a number of Democratic presidential candidates (e.g., Pete Buttigieg) is democratically defensible. More specifically, it asks whether it is possible to break the apparent link between demagogic populism and court-packing, and it examines three possible ways of doing this via Bruce Ackerman’s dualist theory of constitutional moments—a theory which offers the possibility of legitimating problematic pathways to constitutional change on democratic but non-populist grounds. In the end, the Article suggests that an Ackermanian perspective offers just one, extremely limited pathway to democratically legitimate court-packing in 2021: namely, where a Democratic …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

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.

The Balance Of Safety And Religious Freedom: Allowing Sikhs The Right To Practice Their Religion And Access Courthouses, Karamvir Dhaliwal

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Does The Woman Suffrage Amendment Protect The Voting Rights Of Men?, Steve Kolbert

Seattle University Law Review

This Article—part of the Seattle University Law Review’s symposium on the centennial of the ratification of the Woman Suffrage Amendment—examines that open possibility. Concluding that the Nineteenth Amendment does protect men’s voting rights, this Article explores why and how that protection empowers Congress to address felon disenfranchisement and military voting. This Article also examines the advantages of using Nineteenth Amendment enforcement legislation compared to legislation enacted under other constitutional provisions.

Part I discusses the unique barriers to voting faced by voters with criminal convictions (Section I.A) and voters in the armed forces (Section I.B). This Part also explains how existing …

"Inciting A Riot": Silent Sentinels, Group Protests, And Prisoners' Petition And Associational Rights, Nicole B. Godfrey

Seattle University Law Review

This Article argues for increased legal protections for prisoners who choose to engage in group protest to shed light on the conditions of their incarceration. A companion piece to a similar article that focused on prisoner free speech rights, this Article uses the acts of protest utilized by the Silent Sentinels to examine why prisoners’ rights to petition and association should be strengthened. By strengthening these rights, the Article argues that we will advance the values enshrined by the First Amendment’s Petition Clause while simultaneously advancing the rights of the incarcerated millions with little to no political power.

The Article …

Attorney–Client Privilege In Bad Faith Insurance Claims: The Cedell Presumption And A Necessary National Resolution, Klien Hilliard

Seattle University Law Review

Attorney–client privilege is one of the most important aspects of our legal system. It is one of the oldest privileges in American law and is codified both at the national and state level. Applying to both individual persons and corporations, this expanded privilege covers a wide breadth of clients. However, this broad privilege can sometimes become blurred in relationships between the corporation and the individuals it serves. Specifically, insurance companies and those they cover have complex relationships, as the insurer possesses a quasi-fiduciary relationship in relation to the insured. This type of relationship requires that the insurer act in good …

Say “No” To Discrimination, “Yes” To Accommodation: Why States Should Prohibit Discrimination Of Workers Who Use Cannabis For Medical Purposes, Anne Marie Lofaso, Lakyn D. Cecil

Seattle University Law Review

This Article addresses the question of how the law should treat medical cannabis in the employment context. Using Colorado as a primary example, we argue that states such as Colorado should amend their constitutions and legislate to provide employment protections for employees who are registered medical cannabis cardholders or registered caregivers.

Part I briefly traces the legal regulation of cannabis from an unregulated medicine known as cannabis to a highly regulated illicit substance known as marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act. Our travail through this history reveals, unsurprisingly, an increasing demonization of cannabis throughout the twentieth century. That socio-legal demonization …

Unfair-But-Not-Deceptive: Confronting The Ambiguity In Washington State’S Consumer Protection Act, Emily Beale

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment will argue that Washington state courts must promulgate a new, workable definition of “unfair-but-not-deceptive” under Washington’s Consumer Protection Act. Washington courts have acknowledged that a business act or practice can be unfair but not deceptive, but a simple recognition does not fulfill the liberal intentions of the Consumer Protection Act. By continuously declining to define unfair- but-not-deceptive, Washington courts have left consumers vulnerable and without recourse. This Comment will highlight the approaches developed by the federal government and other state governments on how to confront the ambiguity of unfair-but-not-deceptive and will propose a concrete definition for the term.

Black Women And Girls And The Twenty-Sixth Amendment: Constitutional Connections, Activist Intersections, And The First Wave Youth Suffrage Movement, Mae C. Quinn

Seattle University Law Review

On this 100th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment—and on the cusp of the fiftieth anniversary of the Twenty-sixth Amendment—this article seeks to expand the voting rights canon. It complicates our understanding of voting rights history in the United States, adding layers to the history of federal constitutional enfranchisement and encouraging a more intersectional telling of our suffrage story in the days ahead.

Thus, this work not only seeks to acknowledge the Twenty-sixth Amendment as important constitutional content, as was the goal of the article I wrote with my law student colleagues for a conference held at the University of Akron …

Washington’S Young Offenders: O’Dell Demands A Change To Sentencing Guidelines, Erika Vranizan

Seattle University Law Review

This Note argues that the O’Dell decision was a watershed moment for criminal justice reform. It argues that the reasoning in O’Dell should be seized upon by the legislature to take action to remediate instances in which defendants are legal adults but do not possess the cognitive characteristics of an adult sufficient to justify adult punishment. Given both the scientific impossibility of identifying a precise age at which characteristics of youthfulness end and adulthood begins and the Court’s repeated recognition that these very factors impact culpability, the current approach to sentencing young offenders aged eighteen to twenty-five as adults simply …

Tiptoeing Through The Landmines: The Evolution Of States’ Legal Ethics Authority Regarding Representing Cannabis Clients, Karen E. Boxx

Seattle University Law Review

Despite the continued federal classification of cannabis as an illegal drug, states have legalized the possession, use, production, and sale of cannabis. In order to do so, the states have created complex regulatory schemes to control and monitor the cannabis industry and satisfy the federal government concerns, such as use by minors and organized crime involvement. First, this Article presents the ethical dilemma of cannabis lawyering. Second, this Article describes the history, evolution, and current status of the various states’ pronouncements on a lawyer’s ethical duties with respect to the business and use of cannabis that may be legal under …

Thin Separability: An Answer To Star Athletica, Angelo Marchesini

Seattle University Law Review

Courts have consistently struggled to adopt a test that appropriately interprets the Copyright Act’s language protecting works of art incorporated into useful articles. The analysis that allows protections of these works of art is called “separability,” and it has been an ambiguous area of copyright law since its inception. In essence, this analysis gives copyright protection to a work of art incorporated into a useful article as long as the work of art is “separate” from the utilitarian aspects of the useful article. The Supreme Court was positioned to end the uncertainty surrounding the separability analysis in its recent decision, …

In Memory Of Professor James E. Bond, Janet Ainsworth

Seattle University Law Review

Janet Ainsworth, Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law: In Memory of Professor James E. Bond.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents