Digital Commons Network^™

A De-Regulated Militia: The Diminished Training Requirements For Ohio Teachers To Carry Weapons In Schools, Richard Sharp

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Perennial Eclipse: Race, Immigration, And How Latinx Count In American Politics, Rachel F. Moran

Faculty Scholarship

In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Evenwel v. Abbott, a case challenging the use of total population in state legislative apportionment as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. The plaintiffs sued Texas, alleging that the State impermissibly diluted their voting power because they lived in areas with a high proportion of voting-age citizens. When total population was used to draw district lines, the plaintiffs had to compete with more voters to get their desired electoral outcomes than was true for voters in districts with low proportions of voting-age citizens. The Court rejected the argument, finding that states enjoy …

Mass Incarceration, Violent Crimes, And Lengthy Sentences: Using The Race-Class Narrative As A Messaging Framework For Shortening Prison Sentences, Eric Petterson

St. Mary's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A New Federalist Approach To Reducing Gun Violence: Model State Policy For Medicaid-Funded, Hospital-Based Violence Intervention Programs, Racquel Bozzelli

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ohio’S Failure To Protect Motorcyclists' Heads: A Law Enforcement Perspective, B. Thomas

Et Cetera

As a former police officer, the aftereffects of helmetless motorcycle crashes will forever haunt me. This Article discusses the need for helmet laws for all motorcyclists.

Tribal Court Jurisdiction And The Exhausting Nature Of Federal Court Interference, Kekek Jason Stark

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reducing Harm: The Legal Viability Of Supervised Consumption Sites In Georgia, Kathleen Kassa

Georgia State University Law Review

Every five minutes in the United States, someone dies from a drug overdose. This public health crisis, referred to as the opioid epidemic, caused the federal government and many states and localities to issue public health emergency declarations. Despite billions of dollars in funding and response at every level of government, overdoses continue to increase.

The complexity of addiction prevention and treatment, socioeconomic inequalities, and the stigmatization of drug use make the opioid crisis difficult to solve. The severity of the epidemic led many jurisdictions to adopt once-controversial harm reduction approaches aimed at reducing the stigma and negative impacts of …

Misrepresentations In Labor Trafficking: State Laws As An Alternative Theory Of Liability For Recruiters, Hannah Garvin

Georgia State University Law Review

When addressing labor trafficking of migrants, the focus is typically on prosecuting the traffickers directly involved in obtaining a victim’s labor, but traffickers cannot exploit labor without victims. Research has shown that recruiters, both those intending to provide labor traffickers with victims and those who have no knowledge of the subsequent exploitation perpetrated by the supposed employer, often misrepresent job opportunities to migrants. Both types of recruiters profit off of the exploitation of migrants and ultimately continue to propagate labor trafficking. To effectively deter trafficker-recruiters and ensure independent recruiters are acting ethically, an all-encompassing method of accountability needs to be …

Legislating Courts, Michael Pollack

UMKC Law Review

Judges are ordinarily thought of as deciders of a specific sort: people who apply the rule of law to resolve disagreements between the parties appearing before them. But in every state, judges do far more. They are charged by state statutory or constitutional law with a range of quasi-administrative, quasi-legislative, and quasi-executive law enforcement functions. These roles raise a number of theoretical and practical concerns. In many states, though, legislatures have gone even further. They have either wholly delegated significant policymaking power to state court judges or have sat idle while those judges have assumed the mantle of functions that …

Designing Sanctuary, Rick Su

Michigan Law Review

In recent decades, a growing number of cities in the United States have adopted “sanctuary policies” that limit local participation in federal immigration enforcement. Existing scholarship has focused on their legality and effect, especially with respect to our nation’s immigration laws. Largely overlooked, however, is the local process through which sanctuary policies are designed and the reasons why cities choose to adopt them through city ordinances, mayoral orders, or employee handbooks. This Article argues that municipal sanctuary policies are far from uniform, and their variation reflects the different local interests and institutional actors behind their adoption and implementation. More specifically, …

Cracking Down On Egg Law: Legal Discrepancies Impacting Sales Of Ungraded Eggs In Texas, Parker Benton

St. Mary's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

America’S “Kia Boys”: The Problem, Responses, And Recommendations, Drew Thornley

Seattle University Law Review Online

The landscape of automobile theft in the United States has undergone a dramatic transformation, marked by a notable surge in the theft of Kia and Hyundai vehicles. Once regarded as a routine occurrence, car thefts have taken on a novel dimension, propelled by a phenomenon driven by digital culture and social media virality. The thefts of these specific car brands have evolved into what is now widely recognized as the "Kia Challenge," a term echoing across popular platforms like TikTok. In this challenge, young teenage individuals, often referred to as the "Kia Boys" or variations thereof, orchestrate daring car heists, …

Cyber Security: A Lawyer’S Ethical Duty, Meagan Folmar

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

No abstract provided.

Does Minnesota’S Red Flag Bill Violate The Second Amendment?, Sherian Anikie

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

The Thinning Blue Line: Ptsd Benefits For Law Enforcement In Minnesota, Caleb Wootan

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

United States Of America, In The Forum Of Federations Handbook On Local Government In Federal Systems, Meryl Justin Chertoff

SALPAL Papers & Reports

Municipalities in the United States (US), particularly those in its largest metropolitan areas, drive economic growth and innovation and are home to the majority of the nation’s population, but their political status under the federal constitutional system of divided government is relatively weak. That does not mean US cities lack political power; it means that the federalist structure weakens, rather than enhances, city power. The US Constitution does not even mention cities, and the US federal structure has not evolved to reflect ‘city power’. There is a mismatch between the rise of cities on the global stage and their role …

Boiling Behind Bars: Exploring The Hidden Toll Of Extreme Heat On Mental Health In Texas Prisons, Sandra K. Miller

Social Work Theses - Archive

The State of Texas supports the largest prison system in the US and held 132,859 people in 100 units scattered across the state as of December 2023. Approximately 70% of Texas prison beds are not air conditioned, despite the state’s reputation for dangerously hot, humid summers. The State has officially recorded temperatures inside Texas prison facilities as high as 120 degrees with heat index values of over 150. Although there is a growing body of research on the negative physiological and psychological consequences of extreme heat among the general public, little is known about the physical and emotional toll of …

Naloxone And Methadone Access In Tribal Communities, Philomena Kebec

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

Applying The Public Trust Doctrine To Local Governments, Talia O. Thuet

Lewis & Clark Law Review

Under the public trust doctrine, the government holds public lands in trust for the public and cannot unreasonably restrict citizens from accessing them or otherwise breach its duties as a trustee. The public trust doctrine is often thought of as a state law doctrine. However, local governments own a significant portion of public land. Some local governments argue that the public trust doctrine does not apply to them because the state is the proper trustee under the public trust doctrine. This Comment argues that the public trust doctrine applies to local governments. State law preempts local government law on matters …

American Star Chamber: Online Misinformation, Government Intervention, And The Intellectual Matrix Of The First Amendment, Emily E. Burton

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

Just as monarchs and clerical authorities struggled to respond to seditious and heretical writings enabled by the invention of the printing press, twenty-first century governments are experiencing a similar information revolution as a result of the digital age and a rising tide of what the United States has labeled online misinformation. Like the printing press, the Internet has enabled the spread of information at an exponentially lower cost and an exponentially higher speed as it extends the ability to publish thoughts and opinions to an increasingly diverse array of individuals. Although this was largely celebrated during the first two decades …

Non-Judicial Recusals In Rhode Island: Empirical Evidence And Suggestions For Reform, Ross E. Cheit, Rose Lang-Maso

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Childhood Sexual Assault Pandemic: California Must Do Better, Monica Chinchilla

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

Incomplete Streets, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

Over 1700 complete streets policies have been adopted by state and local government; these policies typically provide that streets shall be designed to benefit all users, not just motorists. This article analyzes some complete streets policies, and concludes that even above-average policies are often too vague and underfunded to significantly change the status quo. The article suggests a variety of reforms that might make complete streets policies more effective.

Zoning And Land Use Law, Newton M. Galloway, Steven J. Jones, Joshua Williams

Mercer Law Review

Each annual survey of Georgia zoning and land use law since 2017 has chronicled judicial decisions ostensibly intended to transform legislative zoning decisions into quasi-judicial actions. These include City of Cumming v. Flowers, in which the Supreme Court of Georgia held a local government variance decision, and any other zoning or entitlement decision tightly controlled by the local ordinance, is quasi-judicial and may only be appealed by writ of certiorari, regardless of the mechanism for appeal set out in the local government’s ordinance; York v. Athens College of Ministry, Inc., in which the Court of Appeals of Georgia …

Commissioners Shoot For The Moon, Citizens Land Among The Stars: The Supreme Court Of Georgia Affirms Citizen Referendum Power In Camden County V. Sweatt, J. Bailey Hotard

Mercer Law Review

Georgia citizens possess few direct democratic mechanisms to check the power of their local governments. One available tool is the referendum power proscribed by the Home Rule Provision of the Constitution of the State of Georgia. Under this provision, county and municipal citizens may petition their local governing authorities for referendum when a legislative decision is largely unpopular. Relying on originalism and textualism, the Supreme Court of Georgia interpreted the Home Rule Provision broadly in Camden County v. Sweatt, a decision than ran counter to a twenty-five-year precedent. This court’s recent interpretation of the Home Rule Provision allows citizens …

Wrong Or (Fundamental) Right?: Substantive Due Process And The Right To Exclude, Jack May

Washington Law Review

Substantive due process provides heightened protection from government interference with enumerated constitutional rights and unenumerated—but nevertheless “fundamental”—rights. To date, the United States Supreme Court has never recognized any property right as a fundamental right for substantive due process purposes. But in Yim v. City of Seattle, a case recently decided by the Ninth Circuit, landlords and tenant screening companies argued that the right to exclude from one’s property should be a fundamental right. Yim involved a challenge to Seattle’s Fair Chance Housing Ordinance, which, among other things, prohibits landlords and tenant screening companies from inquiring about or considering a …

Black Liberty In Emergency, Norrinda Brown

Northwestern University Law Review

COVID-19 pandemic orders were weaponized by state and local governments in Black neighborhoods, often through violent acts of the police. This revealed an intersection of three centuries-old patterns— criminalizing Black movement, quarantining racial minorities in public health crises, and segregation. The geographic borders of the most restrictive pandemic order enforcement were nearly identical to the borders of highly segregated, historically Black neighborhoods.

The right to free movement is fundamental and, as a rule, cannot be impeded by the state. But the jurisprudence around state power in public health emergencies, deriving from the 1905 case Jacobson v. Massachusetts, has practically resulted …

Private Patrolling At The Boundaries Of Public Duty, Kathleen M. Naccarato

Northwestern University Law Review

In the shadow of contemporary debates over police functions, funding, and accountability, a new form of preventative policing has proliferated. Improvement districts, most commonly associated with downtown revitalization efforts, increasingly served a new purpose—crime control. Communities dissatisfied with public police services have found that they may leverage improvement district tax revenues to hire off-duty police officers to patrol their neighborhoods. This trend has not been without controversy. Critics have contended that these semiprivate, semipublic police patrols create a two-tier system of public safety, allowing wealthy residents to privately purchase powers that belong to the public as a whole.

This Note …

Private Police Regulation And The Exclusionary Remedy: How Washington Can Eliminate The Public/Private Distinction, Jared Rothenberg

Washington Law Review

Private security forces such as campus police, security guards, loss prevention officers, and the like are not state actors covered by the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures nor the Fifth Amendment’s Miranda protections. As members of the umbrella category of “private police,” these private law enforcement agents often obtain evidence, detain individuals, and elicit confessions in a manner that government actors cannot, which can then be lawfully turned over to the government. Though the same statutory law governing private citizens (assault, false imprisonment, trespass, etc.) also regulates private police conduct, private police conduct is not bound by …

Shooting In The Park: Distinguishing Public From Private Property Under Georgia’S Firearms Carrying Laws, Mackenzie Miller

Law Review Blog Posts

Georgia’s recent expansion of concealed carry creates safety problems for public events within the state’s parks. Exploring Georgia’s gun laws, this Article examines possible loopholes and addresses growing concerns.