Digital Commons Network^™

The Smarter Sentencing Act Of 2026: A Major Step Toward Federal Sentencing Reform, Riley Amdor

Criminal Law Society Blog

This article examines The Smarter Sentencing Act of 2026, a bill that proposes to reduce minimum sentence requirements for certain drug offenses—particularly those that are nonviolent. Research has shown that prolonged prison sentences often do not lead to its intended effects and even tend to cause increased recidivism and criminogenic effects. Additionally, by reducing minimum sentencing requirements for these nonviolent drug offenses, judges are given more discretion when sentencing drug offenders, which allows for the branches of government to be more balanced and promotes leniency where judges believe it is warranted. Further, the reduction of minimum sentences for these nonviolent …

High-Caliber Tensions: Implications Of Florida’S Medical Marijuana Program On The Right To Keep And Bear Arms, George Bell, Kate E. Altman

University of Miami Law Review

What is more valuable—the right to protect yourself, or the right to seek medical treatment? Presently, law abiding Floridians must choose between the two. Because the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (“ATF”) classifies medical marijuana patients as “unlawful drug users,” Floridians enrolled in the State’s medical marijuana scheme are prohibited from lawfully owning firearms. A lawsuit currently pending before the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals seeks to address this constitutional conflict. This Article discusses that lawsuit, the legal framework in which it’s proceeding, and how courts may decide the appropriate balance between such fundamental questions.

What’S The Difference Without Deference: How The Eleventh Circuit Stopped Deferring To The Sentencing Commission And Shaped A New Landscape Of Federal Sentencing, Katherine Howard, Conrad Kahn

University of Miami Law Review

The Sentencing Guidelines shape nearly every federal sentence. Judges must calculate and consider the Guidelines’ recommended range before deciding how long someone goes to prison. For decades, though, courts treated the Sentencing Commission’s commentary about the Guidelines as controlling—even when the guideline’s text was clear and unambiguous.

That changed with United States v. Dupree. Sitting en banc, the Eleventh Circuit held that the Supreme Court’s decision in Kisor v. Wilkie—which limits when courts may defer to an agency’s interpretation of its own rules—applies to the Sentencing Guidelines. After Dupree, courts may not defer to the commentary unless, …

First Amendment Forum Classification: Special Use Permits, Limited Public Forums, And The “Heckler’S Veto”, Elizabeth Price Foley

University of Miami Law Review

Pride Month is an important event in many communities because it celebrates and enhances the visibility of the LGBTQ+ community. Pridefest events occurring during Pride Month are well-attended but often mired by threats of violence. Such threats are often targeted at Pridefest drag shows, which exhibit gender-bending performances by drag queens and drag kings of one biological sex, who wear extravagant costumes that exaggerate gender stereotypes of the opposite biological sex. In Naples Pride, Inc. v. City of Naples, the Eleventh Circuit addressed whether a government may impose conditions on such drag shows when threats have been levied against …

Judgment By The Record: How The Eleventh Circuit Is Shaping Retail Litigation And Regulation, Susan L. Shin, Aubrianna L. Mierow

University of Miami Law Review

The Eleventh Circuit’s 2025 term reinforced a disciplined, text-driven approach to statutory and contractual interpretation and a firm demand for proof: the court vacated an FCC rule that restricted consent beyond what the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) provides. It rejected a constitutional challenge to adjudication by the Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer (OCAHO) while emphasizing the Attorney General’s supervisory role. It required plaintiffs alleging deception through promotional content to identify the specific communication at issue. It denied standing for credit file inaccuracies absent dissemination or real-world effect. It interpreted standard limitation clauses to preserve direct damages under …

The Circuit Court Interim Docket, Jeffrey Paul Desousa, Casey Witte, Jacob Eisler

University of Miami Law Review

While there has been increased interest in the Supreme Court’s use of emergency applications to decide substantive legal questions on an interim basis (sometimes called, controversially, the “shadow docket,” or sometimes the “emergency docket,” though more aptly labeled the “interim docket”), equivalent practices at the appellate level have largely been overlooked. Yet these practices—the use of stays, injunctions, and similar urgent interventions against trial court rulings—have significant parallels to their Supreme Court counterparts. This Article sheds light on the courts of appeals’ interim practice, with a focus on the Eleventh Circuit. It first reviews the procedures that govern interim practice …

It’S Getting Too “Messi”: The Pending Litigation That Should Lead Major League Soccer To Finally Abandon Its Single Entity Structure, Aaron Glas

University of Miami Law Review

Despite being the most popular sport worldwide, soccer has never attained that level of popularity in the United States, lagging significantly behind sports like football, basketball, and baseball. Major League Soccer (“MLS”) was founded in 1995 in an effort to establish a viable, long-term professional soccer league in the United States. It was structured as a single entity to keep costs low, promote an even playing field, and avoid costly antitrust suits brought by its players. The United States Soccer Federation (“USSF”) helped insulate the league from competition in its infancy, but MLS is now a completely different league from …

Foreword, Hon. Robert J. Luck

University of Miami Law Review

No abstract provided.

From Promise To Practice: An Analysis Of The De Jure-De Facto Gap In The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, Alyssa S. Piccoli

Honors Scholar Theses

Children with disabilities face educational disparities in the United States despite the existence of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which was enacted by the U.S. Congress to ensure a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) for such children. As promises of protection are overshadowed by discrepancies in access, quality, and consistency across school districts (Seligman 2005), this paper examines the legal factors that aggravate the paradox between de jure educational rights and their de facto fulfillment for children with autism. To better understand how these challenges manifest in the legal arena, I analyze twenty-four legal cases and seventy claims …

Ndls Communicator: Week Of 05.04.26, Notre Dame Law School

NDLS Communicator

The Latest News

• In Memoriam: G. Robert Blakey, the William J. and Dorothy K. O’Neill Professor of Law Emeritus, Notre Dame Law School
• Rev. Patrick Reidy Named 2026 Distinguished Teaching Award Recipient
• ND Law student Joshua Robe receives University of Chicago Federalist Society Eaton Award
• Justice Mary Yu ’93 J.D. Delivers 2026 Peace Through Law Lecture at Notre Dame London on the Death Penalty and the Pursuit of Justice
• Notre Dame Law School’s Private Law Workshop Engages Students with Cutting-Edge Legal Scholarship
• LL.M. student Anipha Abass Mwingira attends the 70th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women …

Does Climate Disclosure Work To Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions? Emerging Evidence Suggests Cautious Optimism., Cynthia A. Williams

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The purpose of this Article is to bring some of the emerging empirical literature evaluating the effects of required greenhouse gas (GHG) disclosure to bear on discussions of disclosure as a mechanism to address climate change. Since disclosure has become such a significant part of global efforts to address climate change, whether it has the effects in fact that are attributed to it in theory is properly subject to interrogation.   In this Article, several interrelated questions will be discussed. First, what does the empirical evidence show about the effects of required (GHG) disclosures on emissions? What mechanisms are engaged in …

Law-Related Education: An Alternative To School Suspension, Tammy Thurman, Huma Zia

Justice, Law, and Public Safety Studies Department Faculty Conferences

This session explores the intersection of law-related education and youth courts through a demonstration from the presenter's 'Legal Literacy' program, which was implemented in a school district as an alternative to out-of-school suspension.  The program exposes students to practical and relevant legal principles and promotes student accountability and skill-building.

From Claiborne To Climate: Anti-Esg Boycott Legislation And Corporate First Amendment Rights, Ingrid Tjendro

Fordham Law Review Online

Since 2021, at least twenty-one states have enacted laws targeting financial institutions and companies that incorporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations into their business practices. This Comment examines the First Amendment implications of one specific category of such legislation—state anti-ESG boycott statutes—and argues that they constitute an unconstitutional suppression of protected corporate speech and association.

Drawing on traditional anti-boycott jurisprudence, including NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. and Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, Inc., and the circuit split over anti-Israel boycott legislation, this Comment centers on the recent decision in American Sustainable Business Council v. Hegar …

What Is A House?: Searching For The Meaning And Scope Of Curtilage At Common Law, Mitchell A. Del Bianco

Fordham Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

The Long Arm And The Short Stick: How Citizenship Transforms White-Collar Enforcement, Andrey Spektor, Henry B. Blaikie

Fordham Law Review Online

Transnational white-collar enforcement has expanded steadily, even amid recent Department of Justice rhetoric favoring restraint. Yet the enforcement apparatus imposes markedly different—and more costly—consequences on noncitizen defendants than on similarly situated U.S. citizens. Noncitizens are more likely to be detained pretrial and more likely to serve longer and harsher custodial terms because they are excluded from sentence-reducing mechanisms, housed in more restrictive facilities, and face an additional layer of postsentence immigration detention. These structural features convert nominally equivalent sentences into more punitive sanctions while increasing burdens on courts, prisons, the immigration system, and taxpayers.

This Essay argues that courts, as …

Ada Lobby Day 2026

Bulletin of the Ninth District Dental Association

Dr. Renuka Bijoor recounts her experience representing the Ninth District as part of NYSDA’s delegation for Lobby Day 2026. She expresses her gratitude for the opportunity to "advocate for ourselves, our profession, our team members and our patients" and makes particular note of the engaged and excited students that attended.

2026 Lobby day legislation and issues included:

• ERISA and the Improving Dental Administration Act, H.R. 7931
• Student Loans and Postgraduate Educational Debt, H.R. 2028/S.942
• Protect and Restore the Federal Oral Health Infrastructure

The article discusses to whom and how each topic was presented and concludes with one-page fliers for each.

When “Voice” Becomes Law: A Caution Against Emancipatory Complacency In Anti-Sexual Violence Feminism, Samantha Lillian To

LL.M. Essays & Theses

This Essay destabilizes a feminist project that seeks to emancipate sexually violated women in the United States through a rhetoric of voice. There is a body of feminist literature that imagines voice as unconstrained self-expression through which sexually violated women resist patriarchal oppression and heal from trauma. When projected onto the courtroom, however, this framework becomes an ideal that the legal process, by its structure, cannot fully accommodate. This Essay presents three claims. First, despite the emergence of a legal promise of “voice” after the enactment of the Crime Victims’ Rights Act, feminists should not treat it as the culmination …

Men’S Courts Or Women’S Laws? Domestic Violence, Men’S Rights Activism, And The Specter Of False Cases, Arushi Gupta

LL.M. Essays & Theses

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Indian newspapers and magazines began reporting stories of domestic abuse in matrimonial homes ranging from women subjected to dowry demands, beatings, everyday mistreatment, financial control, expulsion from the home, and even being burnt to death. Feminists recognized this as an urgent issue to respond to as these reports highlighted that domestic violence is endemic. Everybody knew a victim. Their own mothers, sisters, friends and, in some cases, they themselves were facing violence within marriage. The lobbying of women’s groups helped prompt the passage of Section 498A in 1983, which criminalized cruelty against women …

12-Year Report Of The Massachusetts Community Mediation Center Grant Program (Fiscal Years 2013 – 2024), Madhawa Palihapitiya, Karina Zeferino

Massachusetts Office of Public Collaboration Publications

This report examines the development, performance, and impact of the Massachusetts Community Mediation Center Grant Program during its first 12 years, covering fiscal years 2013 through 2024. Established under Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 75, Section 47, the Grant Program provides operational and programmatic funding to qualified community mediation centers offering free or low-cost dispute resolution services through trained community volunteers. The Massachusetts Office of Public Collaboration at the University of Massachusetts Boston administers and evaluates the program.

Over the period examined, the Commonwealth’s annual appropriation increased from $650,000 in FY2013 to approximately $3.2 million in FY2024. This investment stabilized community …

Splitting Shores: Comparative Analysis Of Italy’S And Spain’S Reactions To Immigration, William E. Montgomery V

International and Global Studies Undergraduate Honors Theses

The divergence in public immigration sentiment between Italy and Spain, two countries with striking historical, geographic, and demographic similarities, is seen as a mystery for popular theoretical frameworks. Although both nations transitioned from net emigration to net immigration beginning in the 1970s and 1980s, Italy has consistently exhibited more negative attitudes toward immigration relative to the European average, while Spain has seen sustained improvement in immigration sentiment despite receiving immigrants at historically unprecedented levels. Employing a Most Similar Systems Design and drawing on quantitative demographic and survey data, primary legislative texts, and secondary scholarly literature, this thesis tests Group Threat …

Contents & Note From The Editors, North Carolina Civil Rights Law Review

North Carolina Civil Rights Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Response To Executive Order 14321, Latonya L. Agard

North Carolina Civil Rights Law Review

No abstract provided.

Contents, North Carolina Civil Rights Law Review

North Carolina Civil Rights Law Review

No abstract provided.

Supremacy Politics: The Coding Of Power In Artificial Intelligence (Ai), Dana G. Jones

North Carolina Civil Rights Law Review

No abstract provided.

School Resource Officers: Why And How We Should Demand Change, Jillian La Serna

North Carolina Civil Rights Law Review

No abstract provided.

White Predominance Is The Point, Kimberly West-Faulcon

North Carolina Civil Rights Law Review

No abstract provided.

Protecting Abortion By Protecting Speech: Revisiting North Carolina's Mandatory Ultrasound Law After Dobbs And Nifla, Kathryn S. Rowe

North Carolina Civil Rights Law Review

No abstract provided.

More Than Just An "Atypical" Hardship: How Courts Are Missing The Mark On Solitary Confinement, Kyra Goins

North Carolina Civil Rights Law Review

No abstract provided.

Discrimination Disguised As Parental Empowerment: A Title Ix Challenge To North Carolina's Bill Of Rights, Beth Lecroy

North Carolina Civil Rights Law Review

No abstract provided.

Forgotten Campesinos, Forgotten Counties: The Rampant, Fatal Civil Rights Abuses Against H-2a Laborers In North Carolina And Their Fight For Bargaining Power In N.C. Farm Bureau Federation V. U.S. Department Of Labor, Luke O. Smith

North Carolina Civil Rights Law Review

No abstract provided.