State and Local Government Law Commons^™

Rejecting Sovereign Immunity In Public Law Litigation, Howard M. Wasserman

Howard M Wasserman

No abstract provided.

Dusty Order: Law Enforcement And Participant Cooperation At Burning Man, Manuel A. Gomez

Manuel A. Gómez

Media depictions of Burning Man focus on the picturesque and eccentric appearance of the weeklong affair. The event is sometimes misportrayed as a lawless environment where participants are encouraged to engage in rowdy behavior. Most carnivalesque events offer an escape from reality and are generally thought to enable unruly conduct. Despite stereotypes, Burning Man is a different beast. Not only is the crime rate in Black Rock City lower than any other city of comparable size, but Burners show a high level of cooperative and law abiding behavior that helps maintain the social order without depending on official means of …

Florida Water Management Districts And The Florida Water Resources Act: The Challenges Of Basin-Level Management, Ryan Stoa

Ryan B. Stoa

Florida’s plentiful freshwater resources are indispensable to the state’s municipal, agricultural, and environmental interests. As such, decision-makers presiding over complex water management decisions wield extraordinary powers. The Water Resources Act of Florida vests these powers in five water management districts drawn according to hydrological (not political) boundaries. The water management districts have robust technical, financial, and regulatory powers, and hold the key to Florida’s sustainable development. But with the stakes so high, Florida’s water management districts are at the center of a broader fight for control of water resources. In particular, transboundary water conflicts, political pressure, and ecological needs show …

Second Chances For The Second City's Vacant Properties: An Analysis Of Chicago's Policy Approaches To Vacancy, Abandonment, & Blight, Elizabeth Butler

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Addressing the externalities of vacancy and blight is a major challenge for the Chicago metropolitan area. While neighborhoods on the South and West sides of Chicago struggle with blight, neglect, and abandonment, downtown Chicago and the northern neighborhoods and suburbs experience stronger market conditions. This crisis has amplified entrenched socioeconomic divisions and ultimately burdens the entire region by perpetuating a cycle of poverty, violence, and physical and social disorder that tarnish Chicago’s image.

This Note outlines Chicago’s vacant property challenge by discussing the history of urban decline in Chicago. It examines factors that led to a high level of vacant …

Corp. Bishop, Lds V. Seventh Jud. Dist. Ct., 132 Nev. Adv. Op. 6 (Jan. 28, 2016), Mackenzie Warren

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined that a State Engineer did not improperly apply NRS § 533.3705(1) retroactively or constitute a retroactive application for two reasons: (1) the statute unambiguously applies to only approved applications; and (2) the applications at issue were approved almost five years after the statute took effect. Thus, the Court denied petitioner’s request for extraordinary writ attempting to bar the State Engineer from applying NRS § 533.3705(1) to the disputed water permit applications.

Appeal No. 0905: Virginia Ohio Oil Company, Llc, V. Division Of Oil & Gas Resources Management, Ohio Oil & Gas Commission

Ohio Oil & Gas Commission Decisions

Chief's Order 2015-43; William Hartley #1 Well

Florida's Stand Your Ground Regime: Legislative Direction, Prosecutorial Discretion, Public Pressures, And The Legitimization Of The Criminal Justice System, Mary Elizabeth Castillo

Journal of Legislation

This note seeks to examine the tripartite relationship between legislative delegation, prosecutorial discretion, and public pressures in the context of Florida's "Stand Your Ground" regime. In the context of high profile criminal cases, a prosecutor faces significant public and political pressures that may influence her exercise of discretion in that case. Ultimately, Castillo argues that when a prosecutor succumbs to these pressures, it undermines her expertise, experience and exercise of discretion, and undercuts the legitimacy of the criminal justice system as a whole.

City Of Fernley V. State, Dep’T Of Tax, 132 Nev. Adv. Op. 4 (January 14, 2016), Daniel Ormsby

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined that the Local Government Tax Distribution Account under NRS § 330.660 was general legislation, survived rational basis scrutiny, and therefore was not unconstitutional under Article 4, Sections 20 and 21 of the Nevada Constitution.

Appeal No. 0892: R.E. Disposal, Llc, V. Division Of Oil & Gas Resources Management, Ohio Oil & Gas Commission

Ohio Oil & Gas Commission Decisions

Chief's Order 2014-421

A New Frontier In Campaign Finance Regulation, John M. Greabe

Law Faculty Scholarship

In recent years, the United States Supreme Court has taken what many regard as a doctrinaire approach to campaign finance regulation. It has seized on the indisputable proposition that limits on campaign expenditures and contributions implicate important First Amendment values and, pressing the proposition to logical extremes, invalidated a number of federal and state laws that had imposed such limits.

This newspaper editorial discusses recently proposed legislation in the state of New Hampshire that would collect fees on expenditures made by individual political candidates, PACs, and Super PACS. The collected fees would be used to help the state justice department …

What's Going On In Our Prisons?, Michael B. Mushlin

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Additional governmental oversight is urgently needed to truly change the culture of a system that holds 53,000 inmates across 54 prisons in New York State. What goes on inside these prisons is largely hidden from view, and there is little accountability for wrongdoing. The State Legislature should follow the A.B.A.’s guidance and establish a monitoring body with unfettered access to prison facilities, staff, inmates and records in announced or unannounced visits.

University Of Baltimore Law Forum Volume 47 No. 1 (Fall 2016) Front Matter

University of Baltimore Law Forum

No abstract provided.

The Regression Of "Good Faith" In Maryland Commercial Law, Lisa D. Sparks

University of Baltimore Law Forum

“Good faith,” in the affirmative or as the absence of bad faith, has always been a challenge to define and judge as a matter of conduct, motive, or both. Different tests apply a subjective standard, an objective standard, or even a combination of the two. Some parties may be held to different expectations than others. This determination of good faith has always been fact-driven and somewhat transcendental. Until recently, however, the question invoked a construct of fairness, resting on a two-pronged metric, at least insofar as several key titles of the Maryland Uniform Commercial Code were concerned. Since June 1, …

Comment: Maryland State Bank: The Responsible Solution For Fostering The Growth Of Maryland's Medical Cannabis Program, David Bronfein

University of Baltimore Law Forum

In 2013, Maryland passed its initial medical cannabis law.1 Although seemingly a success in the medical cannabis reform movement, the law only allowed for “academic medical centers” to participate in the program.2 In essence, an academic medical center could dispense medical cannabis to patients who met the criteria for participation in their research program.3 The success of this type of program structure was a concern for medical cannabis advocates,4 and the concerns were validated when no academic medical centers decided to participate.5 As a result of this lackluster program, the General Assembly responded by passing a bill6 during the 2014 …

University Of Baltimore Law Forum Volume 46 No. 2 (Spring 2016) Front Matter

University of Baltimore Law Forum

No abstract provided.

Whose Bright Idea Was This Anyway? The Origins Of Judicial Elections In Maryland, Yosef Kuperman

University of Baltimore Law Forum

This paper describes how Maryland switched from the life-tenured appointed judiciary under its original Constitution to an elected judiciary. It traces the history of judicial selection from the appointments after 1776 through the Ripper Bills of the early nineteenth century to the eventual adoption of judicial elections in 1850. It finds that the supporters of judicial elections had numerous complex motives that boiled down to trying to make the Judiciary less political but more publically accountable. At the end of the day, Marylanders trusted elections more than politicians.

Recent Development: Peterson V. State: Limitations On Defense Cross-Examination Are Permitted When The Testimony Lacks A Factual Foundation, Is Overly Prejudicial, Or Has Not Been Adequately Preserved, Meghan E. Ellis

University of Baltimore Law Forum

The Court of Appeals of Maryland held that the defendant’s right to confrontation was not violated when the defense was precluded from cross-examining a witness about hallucinations and his potential sentence prior to entering into a plea agreement. Peterson v. State, 444 Md. 105, 153-54, 118 A.3d 925, 952-53 (2015). The court found that the defendant failed to preserve the issue of a witness’s expectation of benefit with respect to pending charges, and failed to show sufficient factual foundation for a cross-examination regarding the expectation. Id. at 138-39, 118 A.3d at 944. In addition, the court found that, although not …

Recent Development: State V. Waine: A Court May Reopen A Closed Post Conviction Proceeding To Address A Challenge To An Advisory Only Jury Instruction, Ashley N. Nelson-Raut

University of Baltimore Law Forum

The Court of Appeals of Maryland held that advisory only jury instructions are not harmless error and the Unger v. State precedent should be applied retroactively. State v. Waine, 444 Md. 692, 122 A.3d 294 (2015). In addition, the court held that a defendant’s motion to reopen his or her post-conviction case after the Unger decision met the “interests of justice” standard required for reconsideration of the constitutionality of the defendant’s conviction.

Recent Development: Varriale V. State: The State May Store And Use A Voluntarily Provided Dna Sample And Resultant Profile For Any Future Criminal Investigations, Unless The Suspect Provides An Express Limitation, C. Harris Schlecker

University of Baltimore Law Forum

The Court of Appeals of Maryland held that when a suspect does not expressly limit consent to DNA testing, the Fourth Amendment does not prevent the State from storing and using his voluntarily provided DNA in later, unrelated criminal investigations.

Recent Development: Williams V. State: A Confession Is Voluntary Unless The Defendant Unambiguously Invokes His Constitutional Right To Remain Silent Or The Confession Is Obtained Through Coercion Or Inducement, Pascale Cadelien

University of Baltimore Law Forum

The Court of Appeals of Maryland held that “I don’t want to say nothing. I don’t know,” is an ambiguous invocation of the right to remain silent. Williams v. State, 445 Md. 452, 455, 128 A.3d 30, 32 (2015). The court reasoned that the defendant’s addition of “I don’t know” to his initial assertion “I don’t want to say nothing” created uncertainty about whether he intended to invoke his right to remain silent. Id. at 477, A.3d at 44. This allowed a reasonable officer to interpret his statement as an “ambiguous request to remain silent.” Id. Furthermore, the officers’ implication …