Social Welfare Law Commons^™

The High Price Of Poverty: A Study Of How The Majority Of Current Court System Procedures For Collecting Court Costs And Fees, As Well As Fines, Have Failed To Adhere To Established Precedent And The Constitutional Guarantees They Advocate., Trevor J. Calligan

Trevor J Calligan

No abstract provided.

Women Made Whole: How Tort Law Can Change The Lives Of Domestic Violence And Sexual Assault Victims, Sara L. Crewson

Sara L Crewson

Tort law and insurance companies are failing to provide female domestic violence victims with adequate access to civil courts, proper legal mechanisms with which to gain that access, and are far behind the times when compared to other gender-linked crimes like those of rape and sexual assault. The Restatement of Torts (Third) has classified domestic violence as an intentional tort, and most insurance policies will not provide coverage for harms that were committed intentionally. Certain homeowners' insurance policies won't provide coverage if a spouse tries to sue another spouse for harms committed, leaving vulnerable wives unable to seek compensation for …

Tell Us A Story, But Don't Make It A Good One: Resolving The Confusion Regarding Emotional Stories And Federal Rule Of Evidence 403, Cathren Page

Cathren Page

Abstract: Tell Us a Story, But Don’t Make It A Good One: Resolving the Confusion Regarding Emotional Stories and Federal Rule of Evidence 403 by Cathren Koehlert-Page Courts need to reword their opinions regarding Rule 403 to address the tension between the advice to tell an emotionally evocative story at trial and the notion that evidence can be excluded if it is too emotional. In the murder mystery Mystic River, Dave Boyle is kidnapped in the beginning. The audience feels empathy for Dave who as an adult becomes one of the main suspects in the murder of his friend Jimmy’s …

Unfulfilled Promise: Mental Disability Voting Rights And The Halving Of Hava’S Potential, Benjamin Hoerner

Benjamin O Hoerner

In 2012, the heated presidential election between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney reanimated the debate surrounding the voting rights of mentally disabled citizens in the United States. A decade earlier, in October 2002, President George W. Bush signed into law the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), aiming to protect the voting rights of the country’s disabled population. At the time of its enactment, legislators and commentators lauded HAVA as “the most important voting rights bill since the passing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.” However, since its passage, HAVA has been subjected to a flurry of …

Addressing Early Marriage: Culturally Competent Practices And Romanian Roma (“Gypsy”) Communities, Judith Hale Reed

Judith A Hale Reed

Early marriage affects many communities around the world. Examples of commonly practiced early marriage can be found today in the U.S., India, Syria, and many other places. Although most countries have instituted minimum age laws for marriage, so that legal marriage can only occur after an age set by law, early marriage is still practiced for tradition, control, security, and other reasons. This article explores the harms of early marriage and the international instruments meant to defend against these harms in Part II. Part III reviews theoretical perspectives from legal anthropology and presents a case study of early marriage in …

A Complete Property Right Amendment, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

The trend of the eminent domain reform and "Kelo plus" initiatives is toward a comprehensive Constitutional property right incorporating the elements of level of review, nature of government action, and extent of compensation. This article contains a draft amendment which reflects these concerns.

Parents Involved & Meredith: A Prediction Regarding The (Un)Constitutionality Of Race-Conscious Student Assignment Plans, Eboni S. Nelson

ExpressO

During the October 2006 Term, the United States Supreme Court will consider the constitutionality of voluntary race-conscious student assignment plans as employed in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No.1 and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education. These cases will mark the Court’s first inquiry regarding the use of race to combat de facto segregation in public education. This article examines the constitutionality of such plans and provides a prediction regarding the Court’s decisions.

The article begins with an analysis of the resegregation trend currently plaguing American educational institutions and identifies two causes for the occurrence: …

Parental Consent And Notification Laws In The Abortion Context: Rejecting The "Maturity" Standard In Judicial Bypass Proceedings, Anna Bonny

ExpressO

The choice to become a parent, to give a baby up for adoption, or to terminate a pregnancy presents a life-altering decision for a minor. The majority of states require minors to engage their parents or legal guardians in their choice to obtain an abortion, but not in decisions to give their babies up for adoption or to become parents. Though the Supreme Court has held that parental consent and notification laws do not infringe on a minor's constitutional rights if judicial bypass options are available, the reality of these judicial proceedings demonstrates a biased and unworkable legal avenue. Even …

Breaking The Bank: Revisiting Central Bank Of Denver After Enron And Sarbanes-Oxley, Celia Taylor

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Out Of Bounds: San Francisco's Homeless Policies, Alexandra Flynn

ExpressO

Homelessness, both a legal and public policy issue, has dominated the City of San Francisco government agenda for over fifteen years. Despite the front-and-center nature of homelessness, the policies enacted have done little to reduce the count. This paper, first, presents San Francisco’s new approach to the issue; namely, the creation of a new and far more limited class of “chronically homeless” persons. This first section includes an examination of the causes of homelessness, the physical alienation of homeless persons through “quality of life” laws, and recent policy initiatives used to social exclude the bulk of homeless persons by limiting …

Mental Disorder And The Civil/Criminal Distinction, Grant H. Morris

University of San Diego Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series

This essay, written as part of a symposium issue to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the University of San Diego Law School, discusses the evaporating distinction between sentence-serving convicts and mentally disordered nonconvicts who are involved in, or who were involved in, the criminal process–people we label as both bad and mad. By examining one Supreme Court case from each of the decades that follow the opening of the University of San Diego School of Law, the essay demonstrates how the promise that nonconvict mentally disordered persons would be treated equally with other civilly committed mental patients was made and …

A State's Power To Enter Into A Consent Decree That Violates State Law Provisions: What "Findings" Of A Federal Violation Are Sufficient To Justify A Consent Decree That Trumps State Law?, David W. Swift

ExpressO

In the last forty years federal courts have played a prominent role in reshaping our public institutions. And while some scholars question the efficacy of these structural injuctions, the authority of federal courts to order such relief is generally unquestioned. What is open to debate, however, is whether state officials can agree to a remedy they would not have had the authority to order themselves; and if so, to what extent must an underlying constitutional violation be proved so as to justify the remedy?

This article discusses the competing theories and concludes that a remedy that violates state law may …