Digital Commons Network^™

Capital Punishment In Context: Kenneth Smith And The Eight Amendment, Elizabeth Stamper

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

What A Waste: The Prosecution Of Hazardous Substances Crimes During The Trump Administration, Joshua Ozymy, Ph.D., Melissa Jarrell Ozymy, Ph.D.

Public Interest Law Reporter

The Trump Administration went to great lengths to roll back environmental regulatory and enforcement efforts. Yet, researchers know very little about the impact of the Administration on the criminal prosecution of hazardous substance crimes. This study utilizes content analysis of EPA criminal investigations leading to prosecution during the Trump Era to analyze charging and sentencing patterns and illustrate the greater themes that emerged during this period. Prosecutions are dominated by hazardous waste (48%), pesticide (41%), and lead-based paint (11%) crimes. Results show prosecutors were able to pursue crimes involving significant harm and culpable conduct, while securing over $90 million in …

Is Sustainable Finance The Solution To Funding The U.N. Sdgs? Exploring The Potential Of Sustainable Finance Strategies In Achieving Climate Action, Amanda Scheichet

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Limiting Tourism To Sustainable Levels: Options For HawaiʻI, Barry D. Solomon

Natural Resources Journal

Many popular tourist destinations across the world are experiencing overtourism, which can cause a variety of negative environmental and socio-cultural impacts. As a result, an increasing number of governments are searching for solutions to overtourism. In the United States, Hawaiʻi needs such solutions. Until recently, many legal scholars and other observers believed that restricting tourism may be unconstitutional. However, a careful examination of the United States Supreme Court’s decisions on the Dormant Commerce Clause and the interstate right to travel show that certain restrictions on tourism may be constitutionally permissible. Indeed, recent federal court rulings support state action designed to …

Surviving The Megadrought, Warigia Bowman

Faculty Scholarship

According to NASA, the Earth experienced its hottest day in recorded history on July 22, 2024, surpassing the previous hottest day, which was set in 2023. The year 2024 will enter the record books as the hottest year since pre-industrial times. The temperatures in 2024 exceeded the year 2023, during which the average global surface temperature was the warmest ever recorded in the past 174 years. These meteorological facts—although alarming on their own—are the backdrop for the legal analysis contained in this Article. The driest states in the Southwest, including Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah, have long relied …

Walking The Red Carpet: Hollywood And Censorship In China, Sheryl Soundar

Notre Dame Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The Structure Of U.S. Climate Policy, Michael Pappas

Publications

Urgent emission reduction and community adaptation efforts are necessary to avert catastrophic climate-change harms. To assess our nation’s progress toward such efforts, this Article develops a comprehensive structural analysis of U.S. climate policy at the federal, state, and local levels. It observes that current climate policies reflect disparate federal, state, and local strategies around emissions regulation, emission reduction subsidies, adaptation, and liability approaches. The Article then analyzes the dynamics between federal, state, and local strategies in these policy areas.

This examination leads to some surprising conclusions. Under current policy alignments, further emission regulation measures do not appear to be realistic …

Trans Animus, Scott Skinner-Thompson

Publications

No abstract provided.

Domestic Supply (A Feminist Proposal), Jennifer S. Hendricks

Publications

No abstract provided.

Mandatory Sentences As Strict Liability, William W. Berry Iii

Washington and Lee Law Review

Strict liability crimes—crimes that do not require a criminal intent—are outliers in the world of criminal law. Disregarding criminal intent risks treating the blameworthy the same as the blameless.

In a different galaxy far, far away, mandatory sentences—sentences automatically imposed upon a criminal conviction—are unconstitutional in certain contexts for the exact same reason. Mandatory death sentences risk treating those who do not deserve death the same as those that might.

Two completely separate contexts, two parallel rules of law. Yet courts and commentators have failed to see the similarities between these two worlds, leaving an analytical black hole. Indeed, equity …

The Right To Cheesecake: Prisoners’ Rights Jurisprudence Through A Jewish Lens, Arielle L. Yacker

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Disharmony In Patent Law: A Comparative Study Of Patent Eligibility Of Biological Subject Matters Between China And The United States, Xiongying Tu

Cybaris®

Disharmonies in intellectual property rights have led countries, like China and the U.S., to implement patent laws tailored to their unique culture, values, and goals while complying with international treaties. China's exclusion of treatment and diagnosis methods from patent protection prioritizes healthcare accessibility, whereas the U.S.'s allowance of patentability fosters medical innovation. Similarly, China's exclusion of animal and plant patentability aligns with cultural and agricultural values, emphasizing resource accessibility and food security. Protecting genetic resources poses challenges, with China aligning its patent law proactively with the CBD principles and the U.S. prioritizing unrestricted access. China's approach to human stem cell …

The Truth Should Never Be Illegal: The Evils & Unconstitutionality Of Ag-Gag Laws And The Need For Reform, Melanie Egas

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Non-Human Stakeholders: Testing The Boundaries Of Stakeholder Theory, Justin Blount, Michael Conklin

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Pfas, Planes, And Problems: Pfas Regulation In The Aerospace And Aviation Industries, Emery G. Green

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Known Unknowns: Unmeasurable Hazards And The Limits Of Risk Regulation, Timothy D. Lytton

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Right To Fail, Alexander A. Boni-Saenz

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Tiktok, Copyright, And Justice, Brittany Morris

Journal of Law, Technology, & the Internet

In 2019, the Copyright Office refused registration for two "dances" that were highly recognizable and traceable to specific individuals. The "Carlton" was refused because it is a "simple routine that is not registrable as a choreographic work." The "Milly Rock" was also refused registration on the same grounds. Epic Games was selling the dances as an add-on to its wildly popular video game, Fortnite, which primarily derives profits from microtransactions. The app TikTok is experiencing an analogous problem. In July 2021, Black Creators were on strike from the app.1 They alleged that the original dances they created for the app …

The Professionalized Violence Of Prosecutorial Power And Misconduct, Bina Ahmad

City University of New York Law Review

The U.S. legal system is a colonizer’s system constructed to uphold power and protect the powerful. For radical lawyers, it is the language of power we need to speak and understand to protect ourselves and our communities from this violence. As law enforcement actors, prosecutors are arguably the most powerful actors in our criminal legal system, able to ruin people’s lives at will and with absolute immunity to protect them from any accountability for any misconduct. Even with professional attorney ethics rules and state bar grievance committees tasked with holding attorneys to these ethics rules, prosecutors are still rarely disciplined. …

The Long View Of Racial Disparities In Dangerousness Determinations, Joseph R. Spadoni

Suffolk Journal of Trial and Appellate Advocacy

No abstract provided.

Copyright Law—Remedy In Need Of Reform: The Complexities Of Copyright Statutory Damages—Sullivan V. Flora, Inc., 63 F.4th 1130 (7th Cir. 2023), Zoe Lyon

Suffolk Journal of Trial and Appellate Advocacy

No abstract provided.

Employers And The Privatization Of Public Health, Sharona Hoffman

Faculty Publications

This Article focuses on the role of employers in public health and argues that they constitute increasingly important actors in the U.S. public health arena. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, a series of judicial decisions and newly enacted statutes enfeebled the public health powers of the federal and state governments. In a 2023 statement, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch clearly articulated his antagonism towards government-initiated COVID-19 interventions, describing them as “the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country.” All too many share his views.

Employers may be highly motivated to safeguard their workers’ …

Consent And Disagreement, Aditi Bagchi

Faculty Scholarship

Contracts purport to settle rights and obligations between parties. The fact that parties have consented to a given set of terms seems to hold the promise of preempting conflict about those terms after the fact. But contract gives rise to disputes about consent itself. Many disputes about implied conditions, for example, are best understood as disagreements about the scope of consent.

This article identifies several moral ambiguities in the concept of concept. We not only disagree about the analytic merits of competing conceptions among ourselves but, even as individuals, we tend not to endorse and consistently apply a single version …

Vertical And Horizontal Dimensions Of The Rule Of Law, Brian Z. Tamanaha

Emory Law Journal

Scholarly discussions about the rule of law have become a cacophony of disagreement. The more that is written about the topic, it seems, the less that we know. Thus, bringing clarity to basic issues is essential. This Essay draws out the implications of a conceptual distinction between the vertical and horizontal dimensions of the rule of law at domestic and international levels. The vertical dimension—which focuses on liberty and restraints on arbitrary government power—examines the top-down relationship between government officials and private actors in relation to how the ruling regime treats citizens and entities on matters of interest to the …

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Section 702: The Good, The Bad, And A Proposal To Make It Less Ugly, Kevin Burns

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (“FISA”) has been controversial since its inception. Created to allow intelligence collection against targeted foreign persons, electronic surveillance under Section 702 casts a wide net, often capturing communications sent to or by United States persons. Opponents point to the invasion of privacy such collection presents, and to the well-documented abuse and biased use of Section 702 data against U.S. citizens. This Note argues that despite this, Section 702 is a vital tool in the fight against terrorism and drug trafficking and the case against Section 702 is weaker than it appears. This …

Good Readers, Good Writers, And Ai: Tool, Collaborator, Author?, Katherine Jung

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) systems have revolutionized the world of creative writing. Beyond providing simple grammar or spelling assistance, the most advanced of these systems can now play a collaborative role in the writing process, increasing productivity while pushing content in new and surprising directions. AI-generated creativity raises compelling questions in the context of copyright law, which has long been predicated on the assumption of human authorship. The capacity of AI to one day generate writing at a level of mastery on par with human beings complicates traditional notions of creativity, the protection of which the entire copy …

Disclosure Puzzles In Patent Law, Jonathan S. Masur, Lisa Larrimore Ouellette

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

Since its inception, patent law has required that inventors publicly disclose information about their inventions in exchange for receiving patent rights. This foundational requirement is policed through multiple doctrines: patents fail enablement if “undue experimentation” is needed to practice the invention, and they lack adequate written description when they fail to establish the inventor’s “possession” of the invention.

Despite disclosure doctrines’ centrality, fundamental puzzles about their application remain unresolved. What are the boundaries between enablement and written description? Do equivalents claimed via the doctrine of equivalents have to be enabled or described? Are the rules different for after-arising technologies? Federal …

Admissions Essays After Sffa, Sonja B. Starr

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

The Supreme Court concluded its 2023 decision barring affirmative action in university admissions with a qualification: although they may not give weight to “race qua race,” universities may consider individual applicants’ discussion of race-related life experience that bears on their strengths and potential. This “essay carveout” provides a potential path forward for universities (and other entities to which the affirmative-action ban may eventually apply). But the Court also warned against using it to enact “indirect” affirmative action, and legal advocates of colorblindness stand poised to challenge any use of essays that appears to stray over this line. So where is …

The Geopolitics Of Digital Regulation, Aziz Z. Huq

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

Contemporary regulation of digital technologies by nation-states unfolds under a darkening shadow of geopolitical competition. The United States government operates simultaneously in a domestic political environment dominated by oligopolistic firms competing to expand, and in an international political environment wherein it competes with other sovereign nations by cultivating and deploying digital technological capacities for geostrategic ends. Thanks to the ensuing cross-cutting pressures, national and supranational regulation can take on surprisingly reticulated, even baroque or perverse, forms.

Three recent monographs offer illuminating and complementary maps of these geopolitical conflicts and the national responses to digital technologies upon which they rest. One …

Navigating The Game: Balancing Innovation And Intellectual Property Rights In Video Game Development, Alek Giecewicz

Marquette Intellectual Property & Innovation Law Review

No abstract provided.