Digital Commons Network^™

The Misuse Of Ratification-Era Sources By Unitary Executive Theorists, Jed Handelsman Shugerman

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This symposium essay suggests that, given an ostensibly originalist Supreme Court, the future depends on getting the past right. The unitary executive theory is approaching its political and doctrinal zenith in 2025, at the very moment it is approaching an evidentiary crisis. This essay details that crisis: a subset of misuses and misrepresentations of sources in the unitary executive scholarship. This subset focuses on serious misrepresentations of the Ratifications debates.

The Ratification debates appropriately have become the primary source of evidence for original public meaning, the dominant theory of originalism. The Ratification debates have always been a significant problem for …

Feeding The Fire: The Feedback Loop Created By Mass Incarceration And Climate Change And Why Abolition Is The Only Way To A Stable Climate, Mandy Mericle

North Carolina Civil Rights Law Review

No abstract provided.

Title Ix And Financial Assistance In The Nil Era, Barbara Osborne

North Carolina Civil Rights Law Review

No abstract provided.

Old Gills Breathe New Life: A Recent Fish Protection Case Constitutionalized North Carolina Citizens’ Environmental Rights, Julia Rhine

North Carolina Civil Rights Law Review

No abstract provided.

Antiquated Practices In Mississippi That Are Impeding The Right To Vote, Amanda Noel

SLU Law Journal Online

Mississippi is historically one of the most difficult states to cast a vote, especially for marginalized groups. Despite voting becoming more accessible throughout the United States, recently, Mississippi courts and legislature have sought to reverse years of progress by denying those convicted of felonies the right to vote upon reform and by making it a crime to assist others in casting absentee and mail-in ballots. In this paper, Amanda Noel discusses the implications of Mississippi’s attempts at disenfranchisement and proposes feasible solutions to aid those in accessing their fundamental right to vote.

Faculty Page

MC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Issue Introduction, Hannah G. Eckel

MC Law Review

The 2023 Mississippi College Law Review Symposium explored the unique legal and systemic challenges faced by U.S. veterans, from navigating Veterans Treatment Courts (VTCs) to addressing the complexities of the VA claims process and advocating for legislative reform. Panels featured legal experts, judges, and veterans sharing insights on supporting veterans’ mental and physical health, promoting rehabilitation over incarceration, and addressing outdated policies. The Symposium emphasized the critical role of informed advocacy and legislative action in improving outcomes for veterans and ensuring they have the resources needed to thrive in civilian life.

From The Mouths Of Babes: Evidentiary Issues, Child Declarants, And Statements Made For Medical Diagnosis Or Treatment, Hugh M. Mundy, Marc D. Ginsberg

University of Baltimore Law Review

No abstract provided.

Deadly Deliberations: Nonunanimous Juries And The Equal Protection Tightrope Of Capital Punishment, Dallon Danforth

University of Baltimore Law Review

No abstract provided.

Caught In The Crossfire: Eighth Circuit Inconsistencies In Judicial Review And Mental Health Hardship To Citizen Children, Maggie N. Munsterman

Missouri Law Review

designed to thwart undocumented immigrants from remaining in the country, often hinge on the mental health of these very children.3 Caught in the crossfire of competing concerns, citizen children bear the unintended consequences of a legal framework that treats their hardships as both a policy concern and an adjudicative hurdle. Though these challenges arise from a deepl

The Impact Of Proptech And The Datafication Of Real Estate On The Human Right To Housing, Michele E. Gilman

All Faculty Scholarship

Proptech is undermining the human right to housing. Proptech is a term of art for the digital transformation of the real estate industry. It includes a range of real estate businesses engaged in development, financing, construction, management, and more. Proptech’s boosters promise frictionless and efficient housing markets. However, Proptech appears to be reinforcing existing power imbalances in real estate markets that are masked by the supposed objectivity and opacity of computer-generated processes. Meanwhile, countries across the globe face a profound housing crisis, with a lack of affordable and safe housing, high rates of homelessness, and rampant housing discrimination and segregation. …

Law School Record, Vol. 71, No. 2 (Spring 2025), Law School Record Editors

Law School Record

• Message from the Dean
• Law School Celebrates Ten Cohorts of Rubenstein Scholars
• Criminal and Juvenile Justice Clinic Secures Commutations for Clients
• A Glimpse Into the Rare Book Collection of the D’Angelo Law Library
• With Chevron Deference Ended, What Happens Next?
• Building on Our Strengths
• Three State AG's: One Law School
• Theory in Practice
• Professor Curtis Bradley Discusses his New Book: The Unwritten Constitution of Foreign Affairs
• A Compilation of Other Recently Published Books by Faculty
• Professor Emeritus Bill Landes Reflects on Fifty Years of Teaching
• International Law Programs and Global Perspectives: Two Students Share Their Experiences
• Development News
• Two Alumni …

Your Car Is Killing You: Reducing Traffic To Promote Healthy Communities, Andrew D. Levy

Health Matrix: The Journal of Law-Medicine

In the United States, cars contribute to a bevy of health problems, constituting a large cost to U.S. taxpayers who must subsidize the medical treatment that stems from them. This Note explores solutions to this health problem by attempting to minimize the number of cars in urban spaces. In particular, it looks at reworking statutory funding strategies for bicycle lanes, calls for using certain types of bicycle lanes that will lead to wider utilization, and advocates for rezoning urban areas to promote density.

A Benefit For The Masses: A Practical Look On How West Virginia, Rural America, And The United States Can Benefit From Statutory Horizontal Well Pooling, Leading To Increased Energy Production And Security, Garrett M. Spiker

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

From Data To Decisions: Safeguarding Athletes In The Age Of Ai, Nathan Elmer

SLU Law Journal Online

Artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics are transforming professional sports by enhancing player performance, injury prevention, and scouting. However, the rapid adoption of AI raises significant concerns about data privacy, ownership, and decision-making biases that affect athletes. While collective bargaining agreements in major sports leagues provide some protections, they fail to address the complexities of AI-driven data collection and processing. The United States should adopt a regulatory framework similar to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to safeguard athletes’ personal data. Implementing explicit consent requirements, addressing power imbalances, and ensuring transparency in AI decision-making would protect athletes while …

Amendment 7 Ballot Candy And The Single Subject Rule: How The Legislative Supermajority Amended The State Constitution To Limit Voter Choice, Joshua A. Jones

SLU Law Journal Online

During the most recent general election, Missouri voters passed Amendment 7, a legislative ballot measure which erected bulwarks around an election process that limits voter choice. This article will discuss some of Missouri’s constitutional protections against deceptive ballot provision packages, specifically the single subject rule, as well as why they necessarily fall short of total efficacy. It does not argue for a more stringent application of the rules, because doing so would have implications for one of Missourians’ most powerful tools of direct democracy. The paper will examine Amendment 7 for its use of “ballot candy” that legislators successfully dangled …

Government-Backed Insurance For Artificial Intelligence Technologies, Renee Henson

Faculty Publications

Artificial intelligence (AI) is an unpredictable technology that has the capacity to both help and harm people. Although insurance plays a key role in compensating for harms in other contexts, AI-produced damages evade traditional principles of risk pricing which limits viable commercial insurance coverage. AI requires modified insurance systems that can compensate diverse and unpredictable losses. Just like AI, at one time nuclear energy was viewed as a new and profitable, yet wholly unpredictable, technology that had the capacity to cause devastating harm. AI poses similar threats to society in certain domains, including, for example, health care (e.g., risk management …

The Soulful Lawyer: Jungian Practices For Legal Professionals, Luis Chiesa

Buffalo Law Review

The legal profession faces a profound crisis of meaning, with lawyers experiencing some of the highest rates of depression, anxiety, and substance abuse of any profession. While techniques like mindfulness meditation have gained traction as tools to address lawyer well-being, they often fall short of fostering the deeper sense of purpose and fulfillment that so many legal professionals seek. This Article explores how Jungian depth psychology and contemplative practices can address the root causes of dissatisfaction, or “dukkha,” within the legal profession. Drawing from Carl Jung’s concepts of persona, shadow, and collective unconscious, it examines how lawyers can unmask their …

Generative Privacy Doctrine: The Case For A New Legal Privacy Framework For Gen^Ai, Karina Devi Etminani

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

From quills to queries, from secrets once scrawled in private to personal prompts on glowing screens, debates over privacy rights endure. Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) further confounds by conflating confession with code, and intimate thoughts with algorithms. Although technologists have predicted AI’s ascent before, and have critically assessed privacy rights for decades, the unprecedented engagement with GenAI following OpenAI’s public launch of ChatGPT marks a distinct moment— one where a generation of rights holders actively builds and converses with emerging platforms while the law strains to keep pace.

Existing privacy doctrines are ill-prepared for GenAI’s dynamic data processing and its …

From Murphy To The Seminole Compact: California’S Pathways To Sports Betting Legalization Without A Constitutional Amendment, Makenalani “Roo” Cash

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

No abstract provided.

Privatized Medicaid: An Incentivized System Of Constant Denials, Hannah R. Courtney

West Virginia Law Review

The Medicaid Program was created to fill the gap of what private insurance would not do—provide vulnerable populations with meaningful access to quality health care—but now it has been thrown into the pitfalls of private insurance. Over the last two decades, there has been a significant rise in states contracting with private Managed Care Organizations (“MCOs”) to provide services to a percentage of their Medicaid enrollees. MCOs now make decisions each year to approve or deny millions of requests for Medicaid coverage of health care services using prior authorization. Until now, the criticisms and fears surrounding privatized Medicaid have largely …

The Public Utility Regulation Of Dollar General, Olivia R. Sokos

West Virginia Law Review

As food insecurity persists across the country, few solutions have been proposed to address the lack of access to healthy food in rural regions. This Note explores whether public utilities regulation is a theoretical avenue for addressing rural food deserts. The contribution of this Note is to encourage the recognition of healthy food as a critical public good through a modern public utility lens and build solutions to inadequate food access in rural regions by considering the qualities unique to rural populations. One solution proposed herein is to apply a modern public utility framework to dollar stores, ensuring reliable and …

Stars, Stripes, And Pills: The Stock Narratives That Blind, Michelle Wilde Anderson

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Five Prairie Reflections On Reviving Rural America, Hannah Haksgaard, Sean Kammer, Travis L. Letellier

West Virginia Law Review

This Essay offers five reflections on Ann E. Eisenberg’s book Reviving Rural America: Toward Policies for Resilience. Each reflection approaches the book from the positionality of writing from rural America, specifically the prairies of South Dakota. Collectively, the reflections cover the politics of voting in a red rural state, policies of local municipal government, the central economic principles in the book, the presence of energy production in rural America, and environmentalism’s relevancy and impact.

Liability For Ai Agents, Maarten Herbosch

North Carolina Journal of Law & Technology

No abstract provided.

Completing Social Security: Paid Leave And The Social Security Act, Molly Weston Williamson

Journal of Legislation

The Social Security Act of 1935’s twin flagship programs, unemployment insurance and retirement benefits, each provide cash benefits to replace lost wages when income is cut off due to harms beyond our control. But the Social Security Act fails to protect workers against wage loss due to serious but temporary illness, which poses a risk to economic security that parallels job loss and old age. This missing insurance protection is better known today as paid leave.

The omission of wage loss insurance for serious illness leaves a profound gap in the Social Security Act that was recognized since the law’s …

Judicial Review Of Settlements Under The Class Action Fairness Act And Deference Due To The Department Of Justice And State Attorneys General, Michael E. Solimine, Hailey E. Martin

Journal of Legislation

The Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (CAFA) makes it easier to remove consumer class actions from state to federal court and, among other things, regulates the procedure of federal court approval of settlements of those cases. CAFA requires that before any court approval or disapproval, the parties must notify the Attorney General of the United States, and the attorneys general of states where members of the class live, of the pending settlement in order to receive any objections or other input. While such notice is frequently sent, since most class action cases settle out of court, it appears that …

The Myth Of The Best Interest Of The Child, Victoria Mikesell Mather

West Virginia Law Review

One of the basic tenets of Family Law as applied to children is consideration of “best interest of the child” in making decisions. Standards for custody, termination, adoption, and all other matters affecting children are overlaid with consideration of best interest. Unfortunately, the promise of best interest is lost in the actual mechanics of making these critical decisions involving children. This Article explores the disconnect between the ideal of using the best interest of the child as a key factor in legal decisions affecting children and the practicalities of competing interests. The Article first explores the common concern of the …

No Just Cause: A Decades-Long Strategy Of Deception And Secrecy That Enabled America's Deadly Opioid Crisis, Patrick C. Mcginley, Suzanne Weise

West Virginia Law Review

This Essay examines the national epidemic of prescription opioid addiction and overdose deaths that began in the mid-1990s and continues to the present. Litigating from West Virginia—ground-zero of the opioid crisis—the authors draw from their experiences providing pro bono representation of a West Virginia newspaper and The Washington Post to successfully uncover long-buried facts. If revealed to the public, that hidden information could have stopped the epidemic in its tracks, saving millions of Americans from addiction and hundreds of thousands from cruel overdose deaths. The Essay highlights how political influence and industry capture hindered effective oversight of prescription opioid profiteers. …

“Everybody Else Seems To Be Able To Get Help”: Rural Regulation, Access Loss, And Antigovernment Sentiment, Jennifer Sherman

West Virginia Law Review

This Essay draws upon two decades of the author’s research on rural United States communities to explicate ways in which the regulatory state has intervened in rural areas and economies, often with the claim of protecting land, natural resources, and/or wildlife. The outcomes are frequently disastrous for the human populations of those communities and generally are not planned for or mitigated by policy. The Essay argues that rural distrust of and aversion to government oversight is not caused primarily by ideological or cultural stances, but rather is an outcome of experiences of abandonment by the agencies that are meant to …