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Burns (Gregory) V. Eighth Judicial Dist. Ct. (Doe) (Civil), 142 Nev. Adv. Op. 8 (Jan. 29, 2026), Charnel Gibson

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Nevada Supreme Court adopted a balancing test for pseudonymous civil cases. Because the sexual-assault plaintiff’s privacy outweighed any prejudice and the public interest, the Court denied mandamus relief.

Policing Agency Data Trusts, Barry Friedman

Northwestern University Law Review

Policing agencies are indiscriminately collecting, retaining, and using vast quantities of personal data from people who are suspected of no unlawful conduct whatsoever. This has caused expressions of concern or caution from many quarters, including—notably—the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). In a declassified report, the Office of the DNI stated that massive amounts of data are being collected “on nearly everyone that is of a type and level of sensitivity . . . that could be used to cause harm to an individual’s reputation, emotional well-being, or physical safety.”

This practice of universal data collection presents a conundrum. As many …

Applying The Indian Commerce Clause To Indian Commerce, Adam Crepelle

Northwestern University Law Review

Indian country commerce generates tens of billions of dollars annually and is a constant source of litigation. These disputes typically revolve around jurisdictional conflicts: whether states, tribes, or both possess regulatory authority over the business operating in Indian country, particularly those involving non-Indians. Despite numerous court cases, no clear legal framework has emerged, creating pervasive uncertainty regarding fundamental issues, such as state taxation of tribal transactions and the proper forum for resolving Indian country contract disputes. Interestingly, these commercial cases overlook the Indian Commerce Clause—the constitutional provision designed to address such matters.

This Article argues the Indian Commerce Clause prohibits …

The Establishment That Time Forgot: The Historical Understanding Of Religious Offenses And Their Unconstitutionality In Modern Law, Benjamin J. Citow

Northwestern University Law Review

This Note argues that religious offenses, meaning laws which penalize conduct for religious purposes, should be barred by the Establishment Clause of the Constitution, as the Clause was interpreted in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District. This is because Kennedy interpreted the Establishment Clause to prohibit each of the several types of laws which early Americans associated with religious establishment—the historical practice wherein early states would adopt a religion as the state religion and pass various types of laws for its support. And religious offenses, this Note argues, were amongst the types of laws which early Americans so associated with …

Federalism, Treaty Norms, And The U.N. Report On American Education, Jorge Barrera-Rojas

Notre Dame Journal of International & Comparative Law

United Nations Special Rapporteurs assess national compliance with international human rights obligations, including educational rights articulated in treaties such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights ("ICESCR"). These evaluations typically involve treaty-bound states with explicit international commitments. However, the applicability of such assessments is less straightforward in non-ratifying federal states, such as the US, which rely on diverse state-level constitutional provisions rather than federal treaty obligations.

This Article critically examines the 2025 Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, following the Rapporteur's first official visit specifically addressing U.S. K-12 education policy. The analysis identifies …

Brief For Amici Curiae Immigration Law Scholars In Support Of Petitioner-Appellee, Supporting Affirmance, Lindsay Nash

Amicus Briefs

Amicus curiae brief filed by immigration law scholars, including Cardozo School of Law Professor Lindsay Nash, in Herrera Avila v. Bondi. The brief examines the scope of mandatory immigration detention under the Immigration and Nationality Act and argues that 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A) applies to noncitizens seeking admission at the border rather than individuals apprehended within the interior of the United States.

Brief Of Amici Curiae Children's Rights Scholars And Advocates In Support Of Appellants' Opening Brief: Lighthiser V. Trump, Abigail L. Fleming, Douglas A. Ruley, Catherine Smith

Scholarly Articles

For decades, constitutional doctrine has recognized that children possess enforceable constitutional rights and that their developmental, physical, and social differences from adults are important considerations in constitutional analysis. Courts may not impute adult capacities, privileges, or political agency to children when determining whether their rights may be vindicated, leaving them no democratic mechanism to alleviate their injuries.

The district court’s dismissal of the youth plaintiffs’ claims rests on precisely that error. Although the court recognized that the children alleged concrete, severe, and escalating harms caused by the challenged executive actions, it concluded that relief must come from the political branches …

Forever Un-Wild: How The Forever Wild Clause “Locks Up” New York’S Closed Correctional Facilities, William Carswell

Pace Environmental Law Review

Article XIV of the New York State Constitution, better known as the “Forever Wild Clause,” enshrines a conservationist ideal into law. The crux of article XIV prohibits the leasing, selling, or exchanging of state-owned land within New York’s Forest Preserve to private entities. Since its inception, this mandate has dictated the State’s approach to management of its Forest Preserve. Whenever New York decides to excise a piece of its Forest Preserve, the cumbersome yet necessary constitutional amendment process is triggered. Renewed attention to this legal requirement is peaking. Since 2009, five former Department of Corrections and Community Supervision sites located …

Center For Biological Diversity V. U.S. Bureau Of Land Management, Erika C. Rader

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The Ctr. for Biological Diversity v. U.S. Bureau of Land Mgmt. marks the Ninth Circuit’s second time considering the Willow Project, which plans to drill oil in Alaska. Environmental plaintiffs brought a series of claims under NEPA, the Reserves Act, ANILCA, and the ESA to stop or stall the Project. Plaintiffs focused on the BLM’s use of a “full field development standard” in assessing alternatives to the Project. Despite the range of claims, the Ninth Circuit allowed the Project to move forward, but on remand required the BLM to explain its reasoning for departing from the full field development standard …

Time As A Constitutional Constraint: Resolving The Circuit Split On Prolonged Fourth Amendment, Ian Seabrooks

Washington Law Review Online

The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states, “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated. . . .” Some circuits, like the Ninth and D.C. Circuits, have interpreted the Fourth Amendment’s reasonableness standard to apply beyond just the initial seizure of property but also to include the continued retention of the seized property. Other circuits, such as the First, Second, Sixth, Seventh, and Eleventh Circuits, have read the reasonableness standard more narrowly and interpreted this requirement to pertain only to the original seizure. …

From Dred Scott To Barbara: Birthright Citizenship, Racial Exclusion, And The Enduring Promise Of The Fourteenth Amendment, Jenna A. Milbrodt

CMC Senior Theses

The Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause has guaranteed birthright citizenship to all children born in the United States for hundreds of years. Yet, President Trump’s January 20, 2025, executive order threatens to strip that right from children born to parents unlawfully in the country and temporary visitors. This order, if permitted to stand, would change the definition of US citizenship and render countless children stateless persons without citizenship rights. This paper examines whether birthright citizenship in the US, properly understood, extends to children of unlawful immigrants and temporary visitors. To answer this question, three time periods of change in citizenship rights …

A Clash Between Rfra And The Department Of Homeland Security: Does A Rescission Of The Sensitive Locations Policy Substantially Burden The Free Exercise Of Religion?, Mathew Pelham

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

A Democratic Consultative Constitutionalism For Marxist-Leninist (Socialist) Political Systems—The Theory And Structure Of “Whole Process People’S Democracy” (全过程人民民主), Larry Catá Backer

American University International Law Review

The Chinese Socialist (Marxist-Leninist) constitutional order has recently fully elaborated a theory and practice of democracy, one that has been offered as an alternative model to liberal democratic theory and practice. In contemporary China, this evolution has taken concrete form as the form of 全过程人民民主 (Whole Process People’s Democracy (WPPD)). This essay examines this emerging theory of Chinese democracy both within the structure of Chinese constitutionalism and as an expression of its Marxist-Leninist foundations. The essence of the distinction of this form of democratic theory with classical liberal democracy is the centrality of consultation rather than elections in this system; …

The Unilateral Reinterpretation Of The Treaty Of Waitangi: Analyzing The Treaty Principles Bill And Its Impact On Māori Sovereignty, Jason Kehoe

American University International Law Review

This comment examines New Zealand’s compliance with the Treaty of Waitangi and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by examining the countries treatment of Māori following the introduction of the Treaty Principles Bill and comparing the nations treatment of these groups to similarly situated nations. This comment analyzes the legal and moral duties imposed by the UNDRIP and ILO Convention 169 and the criticism New Zealand has faced for its pushback against the principles originally enshrined in the Treaty of Waitangi. This comment will first provide background on the treatment of Māori in New Zealand following …

Undermining Discretion: The Selective Attacks On Progressive Prosecutors, Angela J. Davis

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Prosecutors are the most powerful officials in the criminal legal system. They decide whether to bring criminal charges and what those criminal charges should be. These decisions are totally within their discretion. The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently protected the power and discretion of prosecutors in making these decisions, and legal challenges to the exercise of prosecutorial discretion have been largely unsuccessful.

In recent years, a growing number of individuals have successfully run for chief prosecutor on platforms of reducing the prison and jail populations, consistent with public safety. They pledged to use their power and discretion to implement policies …

Remote Access Restrictions To Immigration-Related Court Records, Doris H. Zhang

Fordham Law Review

Journalists today often report on newsworthy federal court cases by remotely accessing the court records online. However, thanks to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 5.2(c), remote access is not available by default in immigration-related cases. To obtain any court records in immigration cases, journalists must go to the courthouse, hire someone to go on their behalf, or ask the court to exercise its discretion to lift the Rule 5.2(c) remote access restrictions. These alternatives are burdensome, hindering the ability of the press and the public to keep track of immigration cases in federal courts. Despite the burdens on the press …

Public Rights, Democracy, And The Separation Of Powers, James L. Huffman

Marquette Law Review

This Article examines the concept of public rights in the contexts of democratic governance and the constitutional separation of powers. While the concept of public rights has a long history in Anglo-American law, over the last several decades, the term is often employed with only vague reference to its historic meanings and with little or no definition. With reliance on the centrality of the concept of rights in American constitutional government, it is commonly claimed that public rights, like private rights, can be enforced in the courts as constraints on legislative and executive actions.

In American caselaw public rights have …

Feudal Is Fine Because Property Is Sovereignty: Rational Basis Equal Protection And The New Noncitizen Land Laws, Jill M. Fraley

Scholarly Articles

States are enacting a new wave of land laws restricting noncitizens’ ownership of real property, prompting immediate constitutional challenges grounded in equal protection and federal preemption. Most commentators assume these laws are unlikely to survive modern scrutiny. This Article argues that these land laws rest on a constitutional logic that remains both doctrinally intact and normatively compelling: the treatment of real property as an incident of state sovereignty rather than an ordinary site of economic regulation.

Against prevailing accounts, this Article shows that the Court’s jurisprudence has never subjected all citizenship-based classifications to heightened scrutiny. Instead, the Court has consistently …

Tax Laws And Proportionality: Analyzing Implementation And Advocating For Reform, Moshe A. Jaffe

SJD Dissertations

The application of judicial review to tax legislation presents unique challenges and inconsistencies. This study contends that the proportionality doctrine, widely used in numerous legal systems, offers the best framework for reviewing the constitutionality of tax laws. By examining the implementation of proportionality in countries such as Germany, Israel, and Canada, this research argues that adopting this doctrine—excluding the Stricto Sensu sub-test—could provide a more consistent and fair method for judicial review of tax legislation. Specifically, this approach avoids the indeterminacy and subjectivity often associated with open-ended balancing, while still ensuring that tax measures serve legitimate aims and employ means …

Undemocratic: Antiabortion Politicians’ Attacks On Direct Democracy, Deborah Machalow

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

This Article will highlight examples of antiabortion politicians abusing their positions throughout the initiative process to maintain their preferred antiabortion status quo during the 2024 election cycle, before Election Day—despite broad and increasing support for legal abortion. Ultimately, in only Arkansas, Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota, antiabortion politicians succeeded; in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, and Nevada citizens voted to expressly protect abortion in their state constitutions through the citizen-led initiative process.

Bodily Autonomy After Dobbs: A Queer Black Perspective, Eliot T. Tracz

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

This article considers the impact of the Dobbs ruling from a black, queer perspective. It argues that the ripple effect of the Dobbs decision threatens the safety of queer black people in ways which, due to poor data collection, may not be widely understood or analyzed. It then suggests several ways in which the state and federal government can avoid these outcomes. Section II discusses the concept of bodily autonomy and the impact of the Dobbs decision. It begins by defining bodily autonomy as a concept with emphasis on the cases upon which it is founded. It then moves on …

First Amendment Protection For Unlicensed Wellness Coaches, Barbara Zabawa

Faculty Works

This article examines the constitutional implications of state efforts to license unregulated wellness practitioners, particularly wellness coaches. As occupational licensing expands, wellness services—ranging from nutrition counseling and life coaching to mindfulness and holistic practices—face increasing scrutiny. The paper argues that most wellness coaching involves speech rather than conduct and therefore qualifies for First Amendment protection. Drawing on Supreme Court and lower court precedent, it distinguishes between professional judgment that may justify state regulation and speech-based coaching practices that pose minimal risk of harm. The analysis situates wellness coaching within broader debates over professional regulation, consumer empowerment, and the marketplace of …

Constitutional Limits On The President's Authority To Adjourn Congress, Allan Erbsen

Articles

Can the President adjourn Congress, declare that the adjournment constitutes a recess, and appoint cabinet officers without the Senate’s consent? President Donald Trump has considered invoking this supposed power. Adjourning Congress would enable the President to appoint otherwise unconfirmable officials. Even if the President does not adjourn Congress, the looming threat of adjournment could chill the Senate’s review of nominees.

This Article concludes that the President cannot evade the Senate’s role in the appointments process by adjourning Congress. Three clauses in the Constitution inform the analysis: the Consent Clause, which requires each house to consent to the other’s adjournment; the …

Deconstructing Parenthood: A Critical Queer Analysis Of Gender, Law, And Bionormativity In India, Jwalika Balaji

National Law School of India Review

Parenthood (the legal connection to one’s child) is often assumed to be a biologically determined and natural status, but in reality, it is a legal and social construct shaped by historical, cultural, and political contexts. This paper critically examines the legal framework of parenthood in India, highlighting how it privileges a bionormative, dyadic, heterosexual parental unit, while marginalising LGBTQ+ individuals, unmarried couples, and alternative family structures. Through a critical queer method, the paper deconstructs the bio-essentialist juxtaposition of gender, conjugality, and reproduction that underpins Indian family law. It explores how the legal framework selectively acknowledges the constructed nature of parenthood …

An Originalist Interpretation Of Article Iii Permits And Favors Bivens Actions As A Recognition Of The Intrinsic Connection Between Rights And Remedies, Shrivathsan Margam S

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

The Bivens Doctrine, which stands for the principle that judges may infer private causes of action for money damages against federal officers from a constitutional text that does not expressly create such remedies, has faced attack from Originalists on the Supreme Court of the United States. Every case seeking to extend the Bivens principle to a new context meets rejection from the Court with concurrences calling for overturning it altogether. This Article will argue that an Originalist approach to interpreting the Constitution, specifically the Original Methods subset of the ascendant lens of Original Public Meaning, permits and counsels in favor …

Genomic Surveillance: Your Dna Is Not Neutral, You Don’T Even Own It., Uri Kim

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

Adding Family Complications To Birthright Citizenship, Scott Titshaw

Articles

On the first day of his second administration, President Trump issued an executive order purporting to restrict citizenship of U.S.-born children based on their parents’ citizenship or immigration status. In the process, it discriminates between mothers and fathers and adopts genetic definitions of “mother” and “father” to exclude any parent, who is not the child’s “immediate … biological progenitor.”

Courts and scholars have condemned this attempt to restrict birthplace citizenship as a violation of both the Fourteenth Amendment and the Immigration and Nationality Act. Yet there has been little, if any, discussion of the new family-based conditions in the order. …

Prison Labor Exploitation, As Easy As “Pie”: Private Industry Exploitation Under Pie Certified Prison Work Programs, Jack Burum

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Imprisoned Without A Verdict: The Constitutional Crisis Of Pre-Trial Solitary Confinement, Symone R. Gibbs

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Kalief Browder’s name endures as a chilling reminder of the human cost of pre-trial solitary confinement. His story reveals the constitutional paradox and moral failure at the heart of this practice: Individuals who remain legally innocent are subjected to one of the harshest punishments the state can impose. This practice strips people of their liberty twice over, first through incarceration itself, and again through prolonged isolation that inflicts devastating psychological harm. Despite its severity, the use of solitary confinement against pre-trial detainees remains largely overlooked in legal scholarship and reform, even as it undermines the presumption of innocence, exacerbates systemic …

Toys As Evidence, Randall K. Johnson

Faculty Works

This Essay asks and answers a single question, which was posed during a recent symposium at the National Museum of Toys & Miniatures. Could the study of revealed preferences, which is the idea that observed behaviors are the best indicator of one’s beliefs, improve our collective understanding about what constitutes unlawful discrimination in certain U.S. markets? A possible answer, which is informed by the Brown v. Board of Education decision, is the study of revealed preferences may improve our collective understanding for three reasons.

One reason is the study of revealed preferences provides a window into how some producers and …