Digital Commons Network^™

Just Kids: Establishing A Minimum Age Of Jurisdiction In Maine’S Juvenile Court, Allie Smith

Maine Law Review

In Maine, there is no such thing as a child too young to be prosecuted. Maine’s Juvenile Code grants the juvenile court jurisdiction over a child of any age, even one who would have been considered too young to prosecute in the fifteenth century. As of 2024, just over half of states in the country have rejected this approach and established minimum ages of jurisdiction for their juvenile courts. These minimum age laws protect the youngest, least culpable, and least competent children from prosecution, and generally require states to respond to young children through services rather than punishment. This Comment …

Slow, Expensive, And Out Of Control: A Statutory Solution To The Competency Crisis, Robert Barnhart

Maine Law Review

The United States Constitution guarantees both the right to a speedy trial and the right to be competent to stand trial. United States Supreme Court decisions have recognized both of these rights but left the hard work of implementing them to legislatures and rulemakers. After turning the technicalities over to the states, the Supreme Court has generally stayed out of the business of setting bright-line rules to follow, both for setting speedy trial limits and ensuring defendants are evaluated and restored to competency. This delegation has led to a dual crisis. Cases are not resolved on time, and a substantial …

Quo Vadis, Fair Use? The Future Of Fair Use After The Warhol Decision, Vicenç Feliú, Josh Lida

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

This article critically examines the recent Supreme Court decision in Warhol v. Goldsmith and its impact on fair use within the realm of visual art. The paper traces the historical development of fair use from its inception in Folsom v. Marsh in 1841 to its formal integration into the Copyright Act of 1976 and subsequent evolution through landmark Supreme Court rulings.

The article focuses on the Court’s scrutiny of the first factor of the fair use doctrine in Warhol v. Goldsmith, particularly the emphasis on commercial intent in determining fair use. It argues that the Court’s elevation of commercial …

Un©Ertainty And Dis©Omfort, Richard Chused

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

This essay explores creative works that produce powerful reactions of discernment, hostility, or deep uncertainty from mysterious forms of “blankness.” They all use silence or similarly ineffable qualities to challenge the thoughtfulness and tolerance of audience members. They force us to understand that creativity sometimes manifests itself in strange and bizarre ways that test not only our viewing tolerance, but also our traditional notions of creativity and of intellectual property boundary lines. It is like forcing fully sensory-enabled people to think about creativity in ways that may mimic a small fragment of the daily experience of those with limited sight …

Get In The Flow: Policy Changes That Can Increase Texas's Surface Water Transfers, Amy Hardberger

Texas A&M Law Review

The prior appropriation or “first in time” system of surface water allocation was initially adopted during the California Gold Rush and later implemented throughout the western U.S. to distribute water rights. Those same states are now experiencing massive population increases, often with over-appropriated rivers exacerbated by climate change. Although water is scarcer, it is often not put to its highest value or most efficient use because prior appropriation protects inefficient and wasteful uses.

Because water rights are property rights, one way to move water to new users is through water market transfers; unfortunately, prior appropriation rules create high transaction costs, …

The Excessive Fines Clause In The Federal Courts: A Quarter-Century Of Narrowing, Michael O'Hear

Texas A&M Law Review

The Eighth Amendment prohibits “excessive fines,” but what exactly does “excessive” mean? The question has taken on some urgency in recent years as American legislatures have sharply increased the economic penalties associated with criminal convictions. In 1998, in United States v. Bajakajian, the Supreme Court for the first time established a test of sorts to determine whether an economic penalty is “excessive” in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The test was not without its ambiguities but offered some potentially robust protection against the rising tide of fines, fees, forfeiture, and restitution. However, the promise of Bajakajian has been undermined …

Protecting The Anti-Oppression Legacy Of Obergefell After Dobbs, Tracy Turner

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Article contributes to the task of revitalizing Justice Kennedy’s analysis after its absence from Dobbs by explaining the inadequacies not only of the Glucksberg substantive due process test, but also of the Court’s interpretation of the Equal Protection Clause. The flaws in equal protection doctrine include the Court’s overly narrow view of which groups are entitled to protection as “suspect classifications” and its failure to address unintentional government support of systemic discrimination. When these gaps in equal protection doctrine are viewed together with the gaps in the Glucksberg test for substantive due process, the need for Justice Kennedy’s …

True Experimental Research Design, Mustafa Demir

Open Educational Resources

This assignment, created by Mustafa Demir of the Law and Police Science Department at John Jay College, tasks students with designing a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to evaluate the impact of body-worn cameras (BWCs) on police use-of-force incidents in a city of the student's choice. Students must gather setting and demographic data from open data sets, such as those available from the Census Bureau, to inform their research design.

Reforming H-2a: Protecting Migrant Workers Before Arrival On U.S. Farms, Isabella J. Cheng

Duke Law Journal

Migrant farmworkers who seasonally enter the United States to work on farms using H-2A visas suffer well-documented abuses. Dependent on their employers for legal status, housing, transportation, and food, H-2A workers succumb to a power dynamic that keeps workers from speaking out for fear of being fired and possibly deported. However, little academic attention has been paid to the problematic dynamics that trap these workers in a cycle of abuse long before they even set foot on U.S. farms, starting with the H-2A recruitment process. This process, which often starts in Mexico, involves an opaque and complicated network of recruiters …

Teaching Around Generative Ai Plagiarism Risks, Nancy C. Marcus

Faculty Scholarship

Much has been written and said about generative AI's potential uses and misuses by lawyers and law students in the past year. This essay does not rehash the many ongoing discourses about whether, how, and to what extent generative AI (GenAI) can be used for and taught in legal writing courses. Rather, this essay is written under the assumption that, at least to some extent early on in the law school experience, some professors don't want 1L legal writing students using GenAI to draft legal memoranda and briefs for them. As the American Bar Association's Formal Ethics Opinion 512 warns, …

Community-Driven Policy Solutions To Police Accountability, Rashawn Ray

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

George Floyd’s death shifted public opinion as 76% of Americans agreed that incidents such as the killing of Floyd are signs of racism within law enforcement. While police reforms such as implicit bias training and body-worn cameras gained public support, they insufficiently address the structural, cultural, and organizational components of policing that can obstruct accountability and contribute to racial disparities in policing. In this lecture, Brooking Senior Fellow Rashawn Ray presents interview, survey, social media, and virtual reality data with police officers, activists, and civilians, and demonstrates state- and city-level databases on police reform legislation. Ray posits that evidence-based policy …

Social Bulimia And The Deportation Pipeline In New York City, David C. Brotherton, Sarah Tosh

Publications and Research

Twenty-seven years after the IIRAIRA in New York City, that iconic destination of migrants has undergone extraordinary challenges to its status as a welcoming refuge to the tired and teeming masses of the globe. In this article, based on recent qualitative and quantitative research, we trace the policing of its migrant communities as the U.S. state has resorted to increasingly punitive measures to regulate the lives of non-citizens regarded as deportable aliens within the rubric of contemporary immigration laws. Findings from the research show that while the city with its long history of immigrant advocacy has in part resisted the …

The Times They Are A-Changin': Adapting Copyright Law To Generative Ai, Giovanni Lomonaco

Pace Law Review

Artificial intelligence has come a long way since the days of the “heartless” tin man of the Wizard of Oz, and the cool, precise autonomy of Kit from Nightrider. We have moved rapidly from mere questions about what life could be like with autonomous machines, to having books, movies, and albums created using machines for part or even all of the process. The Copyright Act, however, has not come as long of a way since the implementation of the most recent version of the Act in 1976. Recently, the federal district court for the District of Columbia held …

Mistaken About Mistakes: Error Analysis As An Untapped Tool For Law School Success, Elissa Jacob

Pace Law Review

Mistakes: everyone makes them, perhaps the new law student more than most. But why do our students continue to make the same errors despite our concerted efforts to prevent them? This article explores this question and provides ideas on how to utilize mistakes to fuel the learning process. Science has proven that the human brain is hardwired to benefit from errors. However, the psychological effects of failing, cultural systems, and the American educational system are frequent barriers to this biological process.

To overcome these obstacles and most effectively employ error analysis, I propose a three-step model. First, professors must lay …

Pursuing Patent Protection In The U.S. Via The Pct: Legal And Practical Implications For 371 And Bypass Routes, Francisco Tschen

Cleveland State Law Review

The Patent Cooperation Treaty (“PCT”) has emerged as a pivotal mechanism for inventors and companies seeking international patent protection. The PCT provides a unified application process accepted by member countries, simplifying, and standardizing the procedural aspects of filing for patent protection in multiple countries. For inventors pursuing patent protection in the United States via the PCT, inventors must submit their application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) and choose between one of two primary routes: 1) entering the U.S. national stage under 35 U.S.C. §371 (“371 route”), or 2) filing a continuation or divisional of the PCT …

Keeping Private Citizens Out Of The Government’S Shoes: How To Retool The Qui Tam Apparatus To Survive A Constitutional Challenge, Timothy R. Wagner

Seton Hall Journal of Legislation and Public Policy

No abstract provided.

From Deliberate Indifference To Civil Negligence: Protecting Male Prisoners From Sexual Violence In United States Prisons, Olivia Martini

Immigration and Human Rights Law Review

Sexual violence in United States prisons is a pervasive issue that disproportionately impacts male inmates, revealing systemic failures in the current legal framework designed to protect incarcerated individuals. The deliberate indifference standard, established by the United States Supreme Court, imposes an excessively high burden of proof on survivors, requiring evidence of prison officials’ subjective awareness of specific, substantial risks.

This article critiques the shortcomings of the deliberate indifference standard and proposes a civil negligence framework as a promising alternative. Grounded in an objective duty of care, a civil negligence approach emphasizes proactive measures that institutions must take to avoid liability. …

Pleading For The Fifth: How Assisting Law Enforcement For T & U Visas Violates Immigrants’ Right Against Self-Incrimination, Maya Huffman

Immigration and Human Rights Law Review

Human trafficking is a transnational crime that has decimated the lives of many innocent victims, especially those seeking to immigrate to the United States. In 2000, Congress enacted the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which created T and U visas for victims of severe forms of trafficking and other crimes, respectively. Although these visas were created to protect especially vulnerable immigrants, they ultimately are more harmful than helpful. A condition for being granted a T or U visa is that the applicant must assist law enforcement in the investigation and prosecution of the perpetrator of the crime they are a victim …

Icca Handbook Supplement 137: Venezuela, Manuel A. Gomez, Gilberto A. Guerrero-Rocca

Faculty Books

i. Introduction This National Report describes the legal framework of domestic and international arbitration in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (“Venezuela”). It includes the most relevant and recent case law, and other important aspects that have shaped the development and use of commercial and investment treaty arbitration in recent times. This Report also discusses the regulation and use of mediation/conciliation given its distinction – alongside arbitration – as a non-judicial form of dispute resolution. The description offered here also considers the social, economic and political context insofar it is relevant to the discussion about arbitration in Venezuela. This Report is …

The Primacy Of International Treaties In The Republic Of Kosovo: A Critical Review Of The Kosovo Constitutional Court Case No. 95/13 Through The Lenses Of The Law Of Treaties, Besfort T. Rrecaj

UC Law SF International Law Review

In 2013, the Constitutional Court of Kosovo (the Court) issued an important verdict in its constitutional review of the first agreement between Kosovo and Serbia. In its obiter dictum, the Court made conclusions regarding the relationship between international treaties and domestic law, and the hierarchy between these two norms as well as signature, ratification, and entry into force of treaties. Ten years post-judgment, this research returns to the Court’s arguments presented by the Court and argues that the Court made significant mistakes in its arguments and therefore made erroneous interpretations in its rather short arguments of the judgment. Using well …

Social Contracts: The State Convention Drafting History Of The Lockean Natural Rights Guarantees, Anthony B. Sanders

UMKC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Voter F̶R̶A̶U̶D̶ Mistake, Benjamin Plener Cover

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

False narratives challenging electoral integrity often cite ineligible voting as a prime example of so-called widespread voter fraud. This Article demonstrates that ineligible voting often consists of mistakes that are problematically treated like fraud. Some jurisdictions criminalize ineligible voting on a strict liability basis, imposing punishment even when the ineligible voter is unaware of her ineligibility. When jurisdictions impose this strict criminal liability, mistakes are often misunderstood or misrepresented as fraud. This harsh and confused treatment of voter mistake undermines the criminal justice system by severing criminality from culpability, punishing good faith democratic participation, targeting marginalized populations, and amplifying systemic …

The Devil Wears Dupes: Legal Implications Of “Dupe Culture” In The Fashion Industry And How Trademark Law Should Adapt, Alexis Theoharidis

The Business, Entrepreneurship & Tax Law Review

The proliferation of dupes in the fashion industry—affordable imitations of high-end designs—has created a complex intersection of intellectual property challenges, ethical concerns, and consumer behavior shifts. While dupes democratize fashion by providing low-cost access to high-end aesthetics, they undermine brand integrity, dilute designer creativity, and exacerbate labor and environmental issues tied to fast fashion. Current trademark law, centered on the Lanham Act, insufficiently addresses these challenges, particularly when dupes avoid direct counterfeiting and exploit legal gray areas. This article critiques the limitations of existing protections, evaluates alternative legal reforms, including updates to anti-dilution provisions and the use of blockchain technology, …

The Prison Penalty: Use Of Force Litigation After Kingsley V. Hendrickson, Danielle C. Jefferis

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Original Understanding Of The Western State Constitutions' Protections From Searches, Seizures, And Self-Incrimination, Greg Sergienko

UMKC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Law And Literature—Centering Counternarratives: The Need For Enhanced Law And Literature Curriculum In Arkansas Law Schools To Remedy A History Of Dispossession, Michelle Smith

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Law—Arkansas’S Unconstitutional Gun Restrictions For The Formerly Mentally Ill, Michael Frost

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Advice Of Counsel Defense: No Longer A Fraudster’S Shield, Maxwell Newman

North Carolina Banking Institute

No abstract provided.

Camera-Shy Courtrooms: Balancing Extraordinary Transparency And The Appearance Of Justice, Caroline Olsen

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

High-profile trials alert us to the dissonance between transparency and accountability in the federal judiciary. This Note will explore this tension and argue that when policymakers respond to calls for “extraordinary transparency,” transparency should be subordinate to fairness. Part I will discuss the principles underlying public adjudication and how, through various constitutional challenges, the limits of public access have changed over time. Analyzing modern high-profile trials, Part II will demonstrate how those very principles are inadequately protected in jurisdictions that allow unrestrained public access to the courtroom. Part III will describe how transparency, when conflated with accountability, threatens procedural due …

Financial Hardship And Forum Selection Clauses, John F. Coyle

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.