Digital Commons Network^™

Whose Burden Is It Anyway? A Historical Resolution To Burden Allocation Under Federal Rule Of Civil Procedure 12(B)(3), Curtis Valencia

Northwestern University Law Review

Today, venue is generally treated as secondary to jurisdiction: statutory, waivable, and concerned with where litigation should proceed, rather than whether it should proceed at all. Yet the courts of appeals remain split over a basic question of federal venue procedure: who bears the burden of proof when a defendant moves to dismiss for improper venue under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(3)? Though seemingly technical, in practice, burden allocation can determine whether a suit survives.

This Note offers the first historically grounded approach to resolving Rule 12(b)(3)’s burden allocation problem and argues that the circuit majority approach rests on …

Originalism's General-Law Turn, Nina Varsava, Bill Watson

Northwestern University Law Review

Originalists are increasingly turning to a general-law theory of constitutional rights. Under this theory, constitutional enactment declared but did not create constitutional rights. The content of those rights was, and remains, a question of general law—a species of common law, regularly employed at the Founding, that transcends jurisdictional boundaries. This preoccupation with general law has precipitated a wave of scholarship developing general-law accounts of various constitutional rights. Yet the nature of general law itself remains poorly understood.

This Article offers a theory of general law. Using philosophical methods to reexamine early American cases and recent work in legal history, the …

Chapter 4: Untangling The “Legal Vortex”: Transit, Tolls, And Truce In The Strait Of Hormuz, James Kraska

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

Tech Oligarchs And Corporate Vigilantism, Joao Marinotti, Asaf Lubin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Big Tech’s unchecked power has evolved from a regulatory crisis into one concerning the rule of law itself. Shielded by the First Amendment, Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, corporate law, and contract law, technology giants have circumvented traditional government oversight, amassing a level of power that eclipses even that of some sovereign states. No longer guided by cautious boards of directors, today’s tech empires are often ruled by impulsive billionaire CEOs, who, through a single policy change or algorithmic tweak, can upend individual rights, destabilize global markets, and erode democratic governance itself.

The scale of such dangers …

Source & Solidarity, Sari Mazzurco

Michigan Law Review

Trademark law has become the new frontier of unionbusting. Companies like Trader Joe’s, Starbucks, and Medieval Times have brought unprecedented suits against their employee unions for trademark infringement in relation to their organizing activities. This sort of litigation puts courts in the difficult position of reconciling trademark protection with unionization rights. Their attempts to apply standard trademark doctrines in this context reveal a deeper problem: Current trademark law is incoherent when applied to labor unions.

This incoherence stems from a disconnect between current trademark law and the original purpose behind its application to labor unions. This Article recovers that basis …

Fabricating The Crime Of Undocumented Presence, Eric S. Fish, Doug Keller

Fordham Law Review

In 2025, the Trump administration’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) declared that it is a federal crime simply to be an undocumented immigrant. Congress has enacted no such crime. Congress has made it a crime for an immigrant to enter the United States in a manner that “eludes examination or inspection.” For nearly 100 years, this “elude” offense has been understood to occur only at the moment an immigrant enters the country. But the Trump administration’s OLC has reinterpreted this crime as a continuing offense. Under this new reading, an immigrant who entered unlawfully eludes examination until the moment of …

The Alien Enemies Act Of 1798, Andrew Kent

Fordham Law Review

For the first time since World War II—and for the first time ever outside a formally declared war—an American president has invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to detain and deport noncitizens. Enacted during the Quasi-War with France, the Act’s operative language remains largely unchanged today. In March 2025, President Donald J. Trump proclaimed that members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua present in the United States are “alien enemies,” asserting that their activities, allegedly coordinated with President Nicolás Maduro’s government, constitute an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” within the meaning of the statute. Litigation challenging the invocation of …

The Role Of Reliance In Stare Decisis Doctrine, Rochelle Hestnas

Fordham Law Review

The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent treatment of reliance interests in stare decisis doctrine is in flux. The Court has overruled long-standing precedent such as Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey with scant analysis as to how reliance interests factor into stare decisis doctrine, despite continuing to name reliance as a factor that should be considered. Arguments for whether and how reliance interests deserve protection are inherently challenging because it cannot be the case that every precedent should stand. Using Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization as a case study, this Note analyzes the Court’s claim …

Splitting The Baby: Determining The Causation Standard In Family And Medical Leave Act Retaliation Claims, Eliana C. Singer

Fordham Law Review

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) guarantees employees unpaid leave following certain qualifying events. The FMLA not only provides substantive rights but also prohibits retaliation against employees who exercise those rights. When employees face unlawful retaliation, they can bring retaliation claims against their employers. However, there is disagreement among courts as to how to evaluate these claims. More precisely, courts are split concerning whether employees must prove their use of leave was a but-for cause of retaliation, or merely that it was one of an employer’s mixed motives for retaliating. The U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second and …

How Many Pieces Form A Forbidden Picture? Protecting Privacy Through The Mosaic Theory Of The Fourth Amendment, Sam Ciaccio

MC Law Review

No abstract provided.

The High Cost Of Low Pay: How Mississippi's Compensation System For Indigent Defense Violates The Sixth Amendment, Whitney L. Dowell

MC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Restoring The Right To Effectiveness: How An Unreasonably High Burden For Proving Ineffective Assistance Violates The Sixth Amendment, May Hebert

MC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Red, White, And Due: How The Due Process Clause Can Prevent Homeless Encampment Cleanouts From Sweeping Individual Rights Under The Rug, Codie Hicks

MC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Judges In Command: How Judicial Creativity In Interpreting The Ftca Harms Military Discipline, John Clyde Ready

MC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Closing Loopholes Or Creating Gaps: The Future Of Obstruction Of Justice Laws After Fischer V. United States, Helaina Theos

MC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rekonstruksi Pengawasan Peradilan Substantif Atas Perjanjian Penundaan Penuntutan Korporasi Dalam Perspektif Civic Trust Dan Reintegrative Shaming, Merlin Swantamalo Magna, Ariesta Wibisono Anditya

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

Law Number 20 of 2025 on the Criminal Procedure Code introduces the Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) as a special mechanism for corporate offenders. Article 328(8) grants judges substantive authority to assess proportionality, the impact on the national economy, and the suspect's ability to meet the agreed conditions—yet provides no clear parameters. This absence risks legal uncertainty, judicial formalism, and abuse of power, while colliding with the presumption of innocence within Indonesia's civil-law tradition, in which judges have traditionally played a passive role. This study aims to construct a dogmatic framework for judges' substantive judicial-supervision authority in the DPA mechanism. Employing …

Oh No, Don't Let The Rain Come Down..., Mervyn Bennun

Nebraska Journal on Advancing Justice

No abstract provided.

The Failure Of Law Reform: Housing Codes, Bans On Retaliatory Eviction, And The Implied Warranty Of Habitability, David Ray Papke

Nebraska Journal on Advancing Justice

No abstract provided.

การพัฒนามาตรการปฏิบัติต่อผู้กระทำความผิดอาญาแทนการควบคุมตัว (Non-Custodial Measures) ในประเทศไทย: กรณีการปล่อยชั่วคราวและการควบคุมตัวในชุมชน (Development Of Non-Custodial Measures In Thailand: Provisional Release And Community-Based Supervision Of Offenders), Thitinant Tengaumnuay

Chulalongkorn University Law Journal

การใช้มาตรการควบคุมตัวผู้กระทำความผิดเกินกว่าความจำเป็นอาจก่อให้เกิดผลกระทบต่อสิทธิและเสรีภาพของบุคคล ตลอดจนเป็นปัจจัยหนึ่งที่นำไปสู่ปัญหาความแออัดในเรือนจำและยังมีข้อจำกัดในการแก้ไขฟื้นฟูผู้กระทำความผิด แนวคิดเกี่ยวกับมาตรการปฏิบัติต่อผู้กระทำความผิดแทนการควบคุมตัว (Non-custodial Measures) จึงมีความสำคัญในฐานะแนวทางที่มุ่งลดการใช้การควบคุมตัวและการจำคุกที่ไม่จำเป็นในกระบวนการยุติธรรมทางอาญา ทั้งยังสอดคล้องกับหลักสิทธิมนุษยชนและมาตรฐานสากล โดยเฉพาะหลักเกณฑ์ตามข้อกำหนดมาตรฐานขั้นต่ำแห่งสหประชาชาติว่าด้วยมาตรการไม่ควบคุมตัว หรือ ข้อกำหนดโตเกียว (Tokyo Rules) บทความวิจัยนี้มุ่งศึกษาการพัฒนามาตรการปฏิบัติต่อผู้กระทำความผิดแทนการควบคุมตัวในกฎหมายไทยในสองประเด็นสำคัญ ได้แก่ การปล่อยชั่วคราวในระหว่างการพิจารณาคดี และ มาตรการควบคุมตัวผู้กระทำความผิดในสังคม โดยศึกษาหลักเกณฑ์ตามกฎหมายไทยประกอบกับการศึกษาเปรียบเทียบกรอบกฎหมายของประเทศสหรัฐอเมริกา ประเทศอังกฤษ และประเทศออสเตรเลีย เพื่อนำเสนอแนวทางที่เหมาะสมสำหรับการพัฒนามาตรการของประเทศไทย

The Supreme Court's Ideal Audience, H. Jefferson Powell

ConLawNOW

This Essay argues that the answer to the troubling question of whether constitutional law on the Supreme Court level is truly "law," is yes. Or at least can be yes without any radical change to our modes of constitutional law reasoning by understanding how and why the Justices' write their opinions. It suggests that George Christie’s classic book, The Notion of an Ideal Audience in Legal Argument, provides part of the basis for affirming the law-ness of American constitutional law in two ways. First, using the lens of constitutional law provided by Christie’s formulation of the ideal audience concept, it …

The Great Right North: Inside Far-Right Activism In Canada, By Stéphane Leman-Langlois, Aurélie Campana, And Samuel Tanner. Mcgill-Queen’S University Press, 2024. 288 Pages. $29.95. Isbn 978-0228022848, Carmen Celestini

Journal of Hate Studies

Carmen Celestini, a scholar of religion, reviews The Great Right North: Inside Far-Right Activism in Canada, co-authored by Stéphane Leman-Langlois, Aurélie Campana, and Samuel Tanner. The Great Right North traces the history of the far right in Canada, mapping hate groups by their relationships to political and social institutions and violence as well as their construction of otherness, thereby revealing how such groups are not insular but are in fact responsive to social phenomena. After defining groups as ultra right, racial right, xenophobic right, anti-state militias, freedom conspiracists, or nostalgic racists, The Great Right North identifies commonalities and differences …

Strange People On The Hill: How Extremism Tore Apart A Small American Town, By Michael Edison Hayden. 320 Pages. $30.00 Isbn 978-1645030607, Thomas F. Schaller

Journal of Hate Studies

Political scientist Tom Schaller reviews Michael Edison Hayden’s Strange People on the Hill: How Extremism Tore Apart a Small American Town. Part memoir and part ethnography, Strange People on the Hill details Hayden’s time as an investigative journalist in Berkley Springs, West Virginia, where the Southern Poverty Law Center tasked him with learning about the purchase of an area castle by Peter Brimelow, the founder of the white nationalist group VDARE, named after Virginia Dare, the first white child born in the Americas, and his wife. Strange People on the Hill chronicles the challenges of working as a journalist …

Klandamentalism: Bob Jones At The Intersection Of Revivalism, Politics, And White Supremacy, By Camille Kaminski Lewis. Clemson University Press, 2025. Rhetorics Of Conflict. 352 Pages. $128.00. Isbn 978-1638041566, Anderson Rouse

Journal of Hate Studies

A historian by training, Anderson Rouse reviews Camille Kaminski Lewis’s Klandamentalism: Bob Jones at the Intersection of Revivalism, Politics, and White Supremacy, a study of twentieth century religion and race that examines the fusion of Protestant fundamentalism and Ku Klux Klan activity and ideology. Klandementalism focuses on the work of Bob Jones through archives beyond that of the university that bears his name, illustrating how Bob Jones University became an example of the institutionalization of racialized Protestant politics.

On Antisemitism: A Word In History, By Mark Mazower, Penguin Press, 2025. 274 Pages. $26.56. Isbn 978-0241722909, Beth A. Griech-Polelle

Journal of Hate Studies

Historian Beth A. Griech-Polelle reviews Mark Mazower’s On Antisemitism: A Word in History which explores how the term came emerged in Germany in the last 1800s and how its definition has changed over time and across cultures, including in the US, the USSR, and the Arab world. Mazower considers the roles of geography, Christan and antisemitic Zionism, intellectual and political antisemitism, Nazism, anti-Zionism, imperialism, conspiracy theories, and anti-Israel sentiment in shaping how people have historically understood and do today understand the concept—and how such differences in understanding frustrated efforts to end antisemitism.

Sharing Their Journey: A Conversation With Aziz Abu Sarah And Maoz Inon, Laura Morlock

Journal of Hate Studies

Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon, a Palestinian and an Israeli, have both lost loved ones to violence. Together, they advocate for peace. Interviewer Laura Morlock speaks with them about their shared journey, including the difficulties they face, how they handle criticism, and the validity of anger.

Patronage Pardons, Lee Kovarsky

Duke Law Journal

Abuse of presidential pardon power is taking a new and frightening turn. The Donald Trump administration is using clemency, including pardons, to signal impunity to regime allies contemplating misconduct. Such clemency has a predictable effect: it induces loyalist crime by reducing the expected penalty. "Patronage pardoning" refers to the clemency practices that power this loyalty-for-protection exchange. Those practices pose a grave threat to the rules-based constitutional order, and they are the subject of this Article.

Some historical observations predicate the diagnostic and prescriptive arguments that come later. Most importantly, the Framers concentrated federal pardon power in the president because they …

Ensuring "The Right To Live In The World": The Right To Repair Powered Wheelchairs, Maximillian J. Grahl

Duke Law Journal

Twenty-seven years ago, in Olmstead v. L.C., the Supreme Court held that improperly institutionalizing people with disabilities is a form of unlawful discrimination. In doing so, the Court acknowledged that people with disabilities have a right to live free from confinement. Yet today, repair restrictions and outdated Medicare standards combine to threaten powered-wheelchair users' ability to live out in the world. Some states have responded by passing right-to-repair laws, which require powered-wheelchair manufacturers and suppliers to provide the resources necessary for more accessible and more timely repairs. This Note analyzes these state laws in the context of previous right-to …

Private Equity For All: The Paradoxical Push To Democratize Private Markets, William W. Clayton, Elisabeth De Fontenay

Duke Law Journal

The recent push to open private equity and other private assets to retail investors represents one of the most profound changes to U.S. capital markets in decades. This "retailization" effort is often framed as an overdue democratization of superior investment opportunities. Indeed, private equity has long been viewed as special, both for its market-beating returns and its success in making companies more profitable. Yet it has historically been off-limits to retail investors.

This Article argues that the push to democratize private equity is subject to a glaring paradox: Expanding access to private equity undermines the very benefits that access aims …

Click To Sue: Defining Receipt Of Eeoc Notices In The Digital Age, Robert J. Toth Jr.

St. Mary's Law Journal

Federal employment discrimination statutes condition a claimant’s right to sue on timely receipt of a “right-to-sue” notice from the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).  Courts have historically treated certified mail slips as sufficient to trigger a claimant’s ninety-day filing window, regardless of when the claimant opened or retrieved the letter.  In the digital era, the EEOC increasingly issues notices through email and its online Public Portal, raising questions about when electronic notice constitutes “receipt.”

This Article examines recent federal appellate court decisions—Lax v. Mayorkas, McDonald v. St. Louis University, and García-Gesualdo v. Honeywell Aerospace of Puerto Rico, …

The Legal Gaps Of Financial Sextortion In The Age Of Artificial Intelligence: Why The Take It Down Act Is Not Enough To Protect Children, Andrea Toussaint

Child and Family Law Journal

No abstract provided.