Digital Commons Network^™

United States V. Minor: Two Major Issues, Hemangi Patel

Texas A&M Law Review

This Note analyzes a 2024 Fifth Circuit opinion concerning two issues: “(1) whether the district court erred by applying the career-offender enhancement when calculating Minor’s . . . range” under the United States Sentencing Guidelines (“Guidelines”), and “(2) if so, whether that error was harmless.” In United States v. Minor, the Fifth Circuit first held that the district court erred by applying the career-offender enhancement when calculating Minor’s Guidelines range because the defendant’s prior marijuana convictions no longer qualified as predicate offenses under the Controlled Substances Act (“CSA”). Second, the court held that the error was not harmless because …

Whose Right(S)?: Civil Rights Impact Of Cultural Conflicts In The Curriculum, S. David Mitchell

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Opponents of anti-woke legislation have challenged the presumption that the topics being taught are divisive or designed to indoctrinate students with a liberal or Left leaning ideology. Instead, they argue that these topics tell the unvarnished history of the United States. Furthermore, opponents have also challenged the asserted legality and validity of anti-woke legislation, arguing that the legislation infringes upon the First Amendment, specifically students’ and teachers’ academic freedom, students’ right to learn, and parents’ right to direct and control the education of their children. Unlike other controversial topics such as sexual education, which are taught in courses that …

Impact Of Trauma-Informed Care On The Restorative Justice Ecosystem, Amy Kight

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Created and titled as the ARTIC Project (Activating Restoration through Trauma-Informed Courts), this research addresses the gap between industrial/structural realities and relationship/nurturing realities within Substance Use Disorder (SUD) recovery and restorative justice paradigms. Grounded in Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI), the project emphasized that sustainable behavioral change requires balancing connection with correction (KPICD, 2022). Through a biblical lens, the researcher posits complete healing only comes from our Heavenly Father and occurs on an individual level. With this in mind, TBRI research affirms that organizations do not change people - people change people (KPICD, 2022). This intentional relationship between God, Creation, Others, …

Pardon Me Please: Evaluating Clemency For Marijuana Offenders, Mitchell F. Crusto

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Since 2012, several states and municipalities have decriminalized the non-violent use and possession of small amounts of recreational marijuana by adults. These criminal law reforms raise the issue of whether individuals who were convicted in the past should be exonerated retroactively by way of pardons or clemency. Consequently, many past marijuana offenders remain in state prisons for committing acts that are no longer deemed illegal in many states. Furthermore, these prisoners, as well as persons who were formerly accused or imprisoned, suffer from the stigma and negative collateral consequences of their alleged criminality. In response to these injustices, many governors …

Implicit Bias Training Standards In Health Care: Did Michigan Get It Right? A Policy And Ethical Framework Analysis, Megan Gailliard, Kieran Fogarty, Mary Lagerwey

The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy

In 2022, Michigan joined a handful of states requiring implicit bias training for its health care professionals. In its ideal application, implicit bias training of health care professionals will result in a reduction of the implicit biases held by health care providers. This bias reduction will, in theory, contribute to improved equity in the delivery of health care services. Ultimately, the less biased health professional, now delivering health care services with a more equitable hand, will help reduce health disparities in the State of Michigan.

This analysis of Mich. Admin. Code R.338.7004 - Implicit bias training standards for licensed and …

Libel Via Language Models, Peter Wills

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article explains how developers and users of large language models (LMs) may be treated by English and Canadian libel law. LMs could be economically significant, and the liability environment they exist in will affect where they are developed, who accumulates wealth from their development, and who bears the burdens of any negative consequences of their development. Understanding the existing liability environment allows both developers and policy makers to make informed decisions—about which jurisdiction to offer services and what to prioritise, for the former, and about whether the existing law serves desired policy ends, for the latter. LMs also raise …

Racial Profiling And The Rule Of Law: A Reply, Terry Skolnik, Jeanne Mayrand-Thibert, Fernando Belton

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

THIS VOLUME OF THE OSGOODE HALL LAW JOURNAL (OHLJ) contains two articles—and two replies—that explore racial profiling and the law. This academic exchange comes at a crucial moment. In Attorney General of Québec v Luamba (“Luamba”), the Court of Appeal of Quebec affirmed that the statutory police power to conduct roving traffic stops is unconstitutional because it results in arbitrary detentions and unconstitutional discrimination, neither of which were justifiable in a free and democratic society.

Finessing A Medical Expert’S Qualifications: From Professional Communities’ Boundaries To Personal Character, Patrick Garon-Sayegh

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article examines the kinds of arguments that can be made in debates regarding whether or not an expert is properly qualified to critique the work or opinions of another expert. Since these debates routinely occur in both legal and political arenas, a more fine-tuned sense of their argumentative dynamics can be fruitful for reasoning through them. This article is built around the analysis of a decision which concerned the admissibility of a physician’s testimony on the medical standard of care in a malpractice case. A detailed parsing of the arguments in that decision lays the groundwork for a theoretical …

Arbitrary Detention Powers And Section 1 Of The Charter: Two Critical Blind Spots In Luamba, François Tanguay-Renaud

All Papers

In the 2022 case of Luamba c Procureur général du Québec, the Superior Court of Quebec held that a police power to conduct roving random stop of motorists for the purpose of checking for traffic offences infringed ss 9 and 15 of the Canadian Charter in ways that were not saved under s 1. This decision was upheld by the Court of Appeal (“QCCA”) and the Supreme Court (“SCC”) has now granted leave to appeal to the AG Quebec.

In this comment, I seek expose two blind spots in the s 1 analysis carried out by lower courts: (1) …

Doing Away With Racial Profiling In Policing Without Doing Away With The Rule Of Law, François Tanguay-Renaud

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Since the turn of the millennium, Canadian appellate courts have been investing increasingly systematic efforts in demystifying and curtailing racial profiling in policing. These judicial efforts have so far been focused on the application of the legal criteria for arrest and detention as well as their regulation under section 9 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In this article, I contend that this unidimensional approach is unsound and outline a corrective path forward. First, I argue that the prevailing judicial understanding of what racial profiling is and how it affects the lawfulness of arrests and detentions has the …

Iran And Its Proxies: Attribution And State Responsibility, Jennifer Maddocks

International Law Studies

Iran has invested heavily in proxy militias since the regime's founding in 1979. In the decades that followed, groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shi'a militias in Iraq and Syria, and the Houthis in Yemen have projected Iran's influence across the region. Today, Iran's proxy network is considerably weakened due to Israel's military actions following October 7, 2023, and the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. Yet the Houthis' attacks on Israel and against Red Sea shipping demonstrate how Iran's support to these groups continues to facilitate their conduct in violation of international law. This article examines Iran's potential …

Learning About Stability Of Risk Preferences, Levon Barseghyan, Francesca Molinari, Joshua C. Teitelbaum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Classical theories posit that risk preferences are stable across decision contexts. Two branches of empirical literature assess this claim. Structural approaches examine within-person consistency of model-based estimates of risk aversion, while “model-free” approaches examine within-person correlations of risky choices. We elucidate the latent structure underlying the model-free approach. Using this structure, we develop a new approach to assessing preference stability that has stronger testable implications, and we partially identify features of stability and heterogeneity of risk preferences. Our study illustrates a general principle: partial identification through minimal assumptions grounded in economic theory robustly bridges fully structural and model-free methods.

J Am Coll Dent 2025 92 1

Journal of the American College of Dentists

The Journal of the American College of Dentists (JACD) publishes scholarly articles, editorials, essays, and reflections addressing the ethical, professional, and social dimensions of dentistry. The Journal serves as a forum for advancing ethics, professionalism, leadership, and excellence within the dental community. By fostering dialogue across disciplines and perspectives, JACD provides readers with insights that encourage ethical, professional practice, lifelong learning, and service to the public, reinforcing dentistry’s commitment to advancing oral healthcare and the common good.

Corrected Amicus Brief Filed By Amici Curiae Law Professors In 25-11612 & 25-11821, William Snape, Delicianna Winders, Patrick Parenteau, Christopher Courchesne, Hope Babcock, Holly Doremus, Paul Boudreaux, Oliver A. Houck, Zygmunt J.B. Plater, Michelle Benedict Nowlin, Daniel Rohlf

Amicus Briefs & Court Filings

STATEMENT OF THE ISSUES: Whether the district court's injunction requiring FDEP to cease Endangered Species Act-violating conduct, obtain an incidental take permit before it continues with the conduct, and implement reasonable protective measures violates principles of cooperative federalism, the Tenth Amendment, or the anti-commandeering doctrine.

W&L Law Fall Scholarship Celebration 2025, Andrew Christensen, Michelle Cosby, Brandon Hasbrouck, Jennifer Mitchell, Melanie D. Wilson

Library Events

On October 9, 2025, the Washington and Lee Law Library hosted the fifth W&L Law Fall Scholarship Celebration. The event was co-sponsored by the Frances Lewis Law Center and took place in the Law Library's main reading room from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.

On display were dozens of scholarly articles, books, chapters, and court briefs authored by the W&L Law faculty and student body between October 2022 and October 2025. Additional works were accessible online via QR codes to W&L Law Scholarly Commons institutional repository. A selection of vintage scholarship by former W&L Law professors was also on display, courtesy …

Indigent Defense: How The Attorney Shortage Crisis Raises The Continued Need For Public Defense In Rural Areas Of The Lone Star State, Cody Jess Huffman

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract: The Sixth Amendment provides numerous rights, one of the most important being the right to counsel. The right to an attorney is crucial because it attaches at adversarial hearings such as interrogations, arraignments, and other serious matters as an individual weaves throughout the obstacles of the criminal justice system. An important distinction in that right to counsel as the admonishments are delivered is that not only does an individual have the right to counsel, often meaning one can be retained, but if an individual cannot afford to hire a private attorney, one will be appointed to them. As times …

The Implications Of Pulsifer V. United States For The Interpretation Of Criminal Statutes, Aparajita (Pj) Das

San Diego Law Review

All signs in Pulsifer point to considerable discretion for courts, all while operating within the confines of statutory text. For one, the opinion indicates that courts can override the text of a statute if the context so demands. The Court’s rejection of lenity also confirms this trend in two ways. It highlights the Court’s inconsistent approach when it comes to requiring the legislature to speak clearly. It also confirms that the threshold of ambiguity required to trigger lenity continues to be a high one, thus allowing judges to selectively apply the canon, even when a split in the Court demonstrates …

Misapplying Pinkerton And Accomplice Liability In The United States Federal Sentencing Guidelines: How Courts Have Wrongly Imprisoned Criminal Defendants For Decades, Jessica Huang

San Diego Law Review

The Pinkerton and accomplice-liability doctrines are two of the most maligned doctrines in criminal law. Anyone deemed an “accomplice” to a crime can be convicted of that crime as if they had perpetrated the wrongdoing themselves; similarly, Pinkerton liability, a form of conspiracy liability, permits the government to hold someone accountable for the substantive crimes of another so long as those crimes were “in furtherance of the conspiracy,” “within the scope of the unlawful project,” and reasonably foreseeable “as a necessary or natural consequence of the unlawful agreement.” Scholars, activists, and reformers have criticized the doctrines on both constitutional and …

The History Behind The Enactment Of Public Law 115-126 And Whether Safesport Has Created A Safe Place For Competitive Athletes, Ashtyn L. Stevens

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

The Summer Olympic Games unite the world in celebrating athletic excellence, yet behind the global spectacle lies a troubling reality: the pervasive issue of sexual abuse within competitive sports. The high-profile case of former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, who sexually assaulted hundreds of athletes over decades, including Olympic champions Simone Biles and Gabby Douglas, exposed systemic failures in reporting and accountability. This comment analyzes the legal and institutional response to such abuse, focusing on the enactment of Public Law 115-126 in 2018. Designed to protect minors and amateur athletes, the law mandates timely reporting of sexual abuse to law …

Tinkering With The Machinery Of Death: Execution Through Nitrogen Hypoxia, Emiliano Villarreal

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

The modern era of the death penalty in the United States began in 1976 when the Supreme Court reinstituted the death penalty just four years after having found it to be unconstitutional. Since then, various states, as well as the federal government, have experimented with different methods of execution to find the most “humane” way of carrying out an execution. In 2018, Alabama legalized the use of nitrogen hypoxia as a method of execution, and in 2024, became the first state to execute a person with this new, previously untested method. However, the use of nitrogen hypoxia has been the …

Social Media, Social Sensibilities, And The Employment Relationship, Matthew W. Finkin

The Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues

Employers have long made decisions based on the applicant’s or incumbent employee’s respectability. Those whose transgress the bounds could be excluded; e.g., those who publicly embrace the Ku Klux Klan.[] In other words, frank speech—speech “unconstrained by anything that might normally encourage one to be more circumspect,”[] speech revealing one’s “true feelings, however repellant to popular morality”[]—is not invariably a good thing.[]

When social media came into wide use, employers extended their monitoring of applicants and incumbents for the acceptability of that speech.[] There is nothing new in that.[] In the absence of a clear direction embodied in law …

Hear Me Out: What Is Our Obligation To Listen?, Thomas Healy

The Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues

Most scholarly discussions about “cancel culture” focus on the extent to which imposing economic or social sanctions on speakers violates the principle of free speech. In this essay, I consider a related question, which is whether deliberately avoiding, ignoring, or blocking speakers one disagrees with is antithetical to free speech. Although it might seem strange to suggest that a principle concerned with the right to speak entails an obligation to listen, I argue that genuine “good faith” listening is necessary to further the goals free speech is designed to serve. However, I also argue that this obligation is imperfect, or …

Comment On Hurd And Moore, Richard Arneson

The Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues

In their essay on “Wrongful Student Speech and Rightful Private University Responses to It,” Professors Heidi Hurd and Michael Moore (hereafter, Hurd & Moore) deepen the discussion by situating it in a general account of moral limits on freedom of expression and by noting connections to some of their own views on moral theory. The result is an excellent primer on freedom of speech, and more than just a primer. Their general views are shown to have plausible implications for tangled questions about what private university administrators ought to do in response to problematic examples of campus protest. That this …

From Mill To Mussolini And On To Microsoft: Freedom Of Speech In A Neo-Corporatist Era, Maimon Schwarzschild

The Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues

John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty—a fundamental text for political liberalism—not only defended the importance of freedom of expression and debate, but suggested that social pressure from private persons and institutions can be as much, or more, of a threat to freedom, including freedom of expression, as any legal sanction or act of government. Mill feared “a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression” which “leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul to itself”.

Recent decades in America have seen efforts to suppress free expression by colleges …

Interpreting The Law And Complying With It, Larry Alexander

The Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues

In this Article, I am going to focus on a set of issues that follow from the fact that laws are created by human beings and interpreted by human beings. It is unlike morality in these respects. For morality presumably applies to us humans, whether we accept what it requires or correctly assess what it requires. But it is we who decide what laws, good or bad, should govern us, and whose interpretations of those laws, correct or incorrect, should constitute our governing laws. And if the uncertainty of what morality requires creates the necessity for laws, and if laws, …

How Free Should Campus Speech Be?, Heidi M. Hurd, Michael S. Moore

The Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues

The general topic to which this piece is devoted concerns how non-governmental entities and individuals may and should respond to the speech of other non-governmental entities and individuals. The emphasis on private, non-governmental actions removes the discussion from the ambit of the First Amendment’s constitutional right of free speech and, indeed, removes the discussion from issues of legality, more generally. Although such normative discussions can result in recommended legal actions, in the first instance at least such discussions are about the morality—as opposed to the legality—of the negative responses by private persons to the speech of others.

The particular focus …

Putting An End To Protective Privilege: Georgia Should Recognize The Psychotherapist’S Duty To Warn, Jan M. Levine

Law Faculty Publications

This article addresses several anomalies and problems with Georgia’s law concerning the duty a psychotherapist2 has towards third parties (i.e., non-patients): the lack of a duty to warn third parties about dangerous patients; flaws in the mental health commitment statute; and inconsistencies in the way the state treats medical confidentiality and evidentiary privilege. Georgia is the only state that has failed to definitively address the psychotherapist’s duty to warn via caselaw or statute; it is time to finally and definitively fix a problem that has existed at least since 1982.

Recruit Those Who Seek To Serve Others, Not Control Them, Annie Bright

Faculty Articles

ICE and law enforcement should recruit for service, not control. We need to take a hard look at law enforcement recruitment, not just at the federal level, but locally. Recruitment should invite those who seek to serve.

Take In Case Of Emergency: Reconciling Necessity Takings With The Original Meaning Of The Takings Clause, Tony Smith

Northwestern University Law Review

Does the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause permit the state to destroy property without compensation whenever it declares an emergency? The long-standing doctrine of necessity empowers the state to do exactly that.

Courts dating back to common law England have permitted governments to claim a privilege of necessity to avoid paying for private property they destroy in times of crisis. The privilege rests on the principle that the public good sometimes outweighs the harm the individual suffers. Today’s courts and academics stretch this principle to its limits, arguing necessity should be used as a vehicle for combating all manner of social …

Generative Suspicion And The Risks Of Ai-Assisted Police Reports, Andrew Guthrie Ferguson

Northwestern University Law Review

Police reports play a central role in the criminal justice system. Many times, police reports exist as the only official memorialization of what happened during an incident, shaping probable cause determinations, pretrial detention decisions, motions to suppress, plea bargains, and trial strategy. For over a century, human police officers wrote the factual narratives that shaped the trajectory of individual cases and organized the entire legal system.

This practice is about to change with the creation of AI-assisted police reports. Today, with the click of a button, large language models (LLMs), a type of generative AI using predictive text capabilities, can …