Digital Commons Network^™

Minimal Success: The Consequences Of Mandatory Minimums In Youth Sentencing, Maya Chrobot

Fordham Law Review

In New York State, children as young as thirteen can be processed as adults and sentenced to mandatory minimum sentences. Mandatory minimum sentences require judges to sentence the defendant to a statutorily set minimum term of imprisonment. Practitioners, judges, and researchers question the efficacy of mandatory minimum sentences, finding that they are ineffective at deterring crime, decreasing bias in sentencing, and increasing community safety. Additionally, there is clear evidence about the damaging effects of incarceration on young adults. Instead of functioning as rehabilitative punishment, incarceration leads young adults to experience poor mental and physical health outcomes upon release, and they …

Federal Extreme Risk Protection Orders: A Potential Pathway To Preventing Mass Shootings, Lilly H. Donahue

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

This Note examines how the creation and implementation of a federal extreme risk protection order (ERPO) statute would impact federal investigations, mass shooting prevention, and the reduction of firearm deaths at large. While ERPOs exist in several states, there is currently no federal statutory scheme to allow federal law enforcement agencies to pursue ERPOs against citizens at risk of harming themselves or others with firearms. By examining the current legal landscape of state-level ERPOs, federal agencies’ investigatory procedures and failures, constitutional and racial equity concerns, and industry best practices, this Note aims to explore what a federal ERPO statute could …

Uncertainty In Business Judgment: How A Divide Between Delaware's Judiciary And Legislature Has Changed Corporate Law, Andrea Safran

William & Mary Business Law Review

In response to controversial Chancery Court decisions, the Delaware Legislature rushed to amend the Delaware Code in order to reinforce the business judgment rule. As the foremost business court in the nation, every Chancery Court decision is thoroughly scrutinized by the corporate world, so when the court goes against normal business practices, corporations grow wary in their trust of the State. Thus ensues a scramble by the State to pass legislation that will protect corporate interests. With these recent decisions, however, the Chancery Court may have lost its footing, and Delaware could soon see a mass corporate exodus with the …

Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover: Using State Constitutions To Escape The Dead Hand Of Article V, Meg Penrose

Washington and Lee Law Review

Thomas Jefferson believed that “the earth always belongs to the living generation.” His constitutional approach would empower twenty-first century Americans to decide twenty-first century problems regularly determined by the United States Supreme Court. Article V, the formal method for constitutional change, seemingly relegates these decisions to the Supreme Court because amending the federal Constitution is nearly impossible.

Unfortunately, our fixation on federal constitutional law often eclipses the power of state constitutional law. State constitutions balance our relatively static federal Constitution with responsive state governments. There is no need to debate what the Framers thought about modern issues when Americans can …

From Waiver To Shield: The Routine Misapplication Of The Federal Tort Claims Act’S Discretionary Function Exception, Alexander Sitnikov

Cardozo Law Review

When a pedestrian trips and falls on a defective sidewalk, liability usually turns on negligence. But when the property surrounding the sidewalk belongs to the federal government, tort liability often vanishes altogether. This result is just one of the many shortcomings of the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) and one of its most controversial and heavily litigated provisions: the discretionary function exception (“DFE”). This Note explores the current judicial interpretations of the FTCA and DFE, which often work in conjunction with state laws and federal regulations. Despite the central public policy rationale and congressional intent surrounding the FTCA and its …

The Revival Of Section 5: A Return To The Ftc’S Roots In A Time Of Democratic Crisis, Shaoul Sussman

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Multi-Hatted Court: Community Courts As Boundary Organizations, Peter Dixon, Hadar Dancig-Rosenberg

Northwestern University Law Review

As a variety of the problem-solving court model, community courts have received significant scrutiny and debate. Do they help individuals by addressing the underlying needs that contribute to criminal behavior? Do they extend an unjust criminal legal system by making help conditional upon judicial involvement? This Article moves beyond such debates to ask how community court professionals and the communities who engage with them manage these and other tensions that are inherent to the model itself. As the second in a series of articles drawing on semi-structured interviews and focus groups with diverse stakeholders at the Red Hook Community Justice …

The Vanishing Enforcer: Consumer Protection In An Era Of Dual Retrenchment, Alisher Juzgenbayev

Northwestern University Law Review

Recent developments, including reductions in the federal workforce, effective suspension of certain enforcement activities, and attempted centralization of independent agency rulemaking in the White House, have significantly weakened administrative agencies. This administrative retrenchment is concerning as private enforcement of a number of consumer protection statutes has been simultaneously curtailed through the Supreme Court’s decisions in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins and TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, which dramatically narrowed plaintiffs’ standing. These decisions rely in part on a vision of strong executive authority, positing that broad private standing conflicts with an Article II framework where a politically accountable President faithfully implements laws …

Litigating With No Receipts: How The Denial Of Access To Trial Transcripts Denies People The Opportunity To Access Justice, Madisen Zent

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sea Changes In Sue-And-Settle Policy: The Tides Of Transparency And Expediency, Evan B. Fitzgerald

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Checkmate Or Stalemate: The Epa, California, And The Future Of Waivers Under The Clean Air Act, William B. Gale

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Inheriting The Mess: How Cercla Successor Liability Shapes The Landscape For Asset Purchase Deals, Liam N. Hudson

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Does Article I Of The Constitution Prohibit The States From Creating Their Own Cryptocurrencies?, Kevin Fontenot

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

The market for cryptocurrency (crypto) has exploded in size since the first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, was created in 2009. As of September 4, 2024, the value of all existing cryptocurrency was $2.02 trillion. On November 14, 2024, this value reached a high of $3.2 trillion, apparently in response to the election of pro-crypto President Donald Trump. Despite the fact that cryptocurrencies have been at the forefront of many high profile scandals, consumers still flock to them. For example, celebrities including Hailey Welch (colloquially known as “Hawk Tuah girl”), Logan Paul, and Jason Derulo have been criticized for allegedly goading consumers into …

Beyond Equality To Belonging: The Missing Value In Equal Protection Law Involving Education, Danieli Evans

Washington Law Review

Belonging is a fundamental need without which people cannot function optimally. Accordingly, school belonging—students’ perceptions of mattering or feeling cared about, accepted, respected and valued by faculty, staff, and peers—impacts students’ well-being, academic motivation and outcomes.

Equal Protection jurisprudence governing education largely overlooks the value of school belonging. Instead, it centers on a formal conception of equality, or an “anti-classification” principle, which essentially prohibits purposeful discrimination based on a fixed set of suspect traits. This formalistic “anti-classification” approach permits many policies and practices that undermine students’ sense of school belonging and inhibits schools from taking certain measures to foster belonging. …

Sidewalk Living, Michael C. Pollack

William & Mary Law Review

In City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, the Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment does not prohibit a city from enforcing a criminal ban on encampments on public property such as parks and sidewalks. But even if municipalities are now permitted to use tactics such as policing, encampment clearing, arrests, and imprisonment, these are not the right ways to address the problems of public homelessness.

Instead, homelessness must be understood as one of many conflicts over limited public space. At its best, vibrant sidewalk life enhances communities and local economies. But at its worst, every use of these …

Sidewalk Living, Michael C. Pollack

Articles

In City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, the Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment does not prohibit a city from enforcing a criminal ban on encampments on public property such as parks and sidewalks. But even if municipalities are now permitted to use tactics such as policing, encampment clearing, arrests, and imprisonment, these are not the right ways to address the problems of public homelessness.

Instead, homelessness must be understood as one of many conflicts over limited public space. At its best, vibrant sidewalk life enhances communities and local economies. But at its worst, every use of these finite …

Soil And Sovereignty: An Analysis Of Federal And State Laws Affecting Foreign Investment In U.S. Agricultural Land, Brantley Swindell

Mercer Law Review

Foreign ownership of U.S. agricultural land has risen significantly in recent years. From 2014 to 2023, the share of agricultural acres owned by foreign interests increased by 67%. Although the share of agricultural acres owned by foreign countries and interests only amounts to just over 3% of the total U.S. private farmland, the U.S. federal government and many states have passed laws to prohibit, restrict, limit, regulate or create requirements for foreign ownership of agricultural land and real property. As of 2025, twenty nine states have passed laws to regulate such foreign ownership.

This Comment outlines the regulations on foreign …

Outbound Investment Restrictions And International Law’S Challenge, Harlan Grant Cohen

Seattle University Law Review

The Outbound Investment Rule, restricting U.S. investment in certain Chinese advanced technology sectors, has largely been portrayed as an incremental measure, a modest extension to fill loopholes in the existing investment screening regime. But while perhaps the logical next step in the securitization of the economy, the Outbound Investment Rule actually reflects a momentous shift in the relationship between governments and business, one playing out in the United States and around the world and worth attention. Unlike traditional investment screening, the Outbound Investment Rule operates like a sanctions regime, designed not to protect the U.S. economy, but to hamper the …

Resilient Dispute Resolution Systems For International Energy Conflicts, Guillermo J. Garcia Sanchez

Seattle University Law Review

Energy-related conflicts are on the rise, spanning diverse issues such as the impacts of rare mineral mining on local communities, the impacts of sanctions on energy investments due to the Russia-Ukraine war, and the impacts of expanded subsidies on the electric vehicle and solar panel industries. Increasingly, companies, communities, and governments are clashing over the challenges of pursuing disparate and sometimes competing energy policies. This Article argues that dispute resolution mechanisms in the energy investment sector must be fundamentally rethought. Traditional semi-adjudicatory models, which focus on winners and losers, fail to accommodate the complex and multifaceted nature of contemporary energy …

Restricting Data Flows Is A Sign Of Weakness, Nikolas Guggenberger

Seattle University Law Review

There has been a seismic shift in American attitudes toward the free flow of data across borders.  In less than a decade, the United States has transitioned from condemning barriers to digital trade to constructing a digital fortress of its own. It passed legislation requiring TikTok’s parent company to divest its U.S. operations or face a nationwide ban affecting 170 million U.S. users, citing national security concerns about its ties to China and the potential for data surveillance and content manipulation. Upon legal challenge by TikTok on First Amendment grounds, the Supreme Court affirmed the ban’s constitutionality. Recent federal legislation …

Product Nationality And Corporate Identity, Trang (Mae) Nguyen

Seattle University Law Review

Global supply chains have long depended on a deceptively technical device: the attribution of a “nationality” to goods. A trade law principle, rules of origin assign products an “economic passport” that governs how they are treated at the border, including what markets they may enter and which tariff rates apply. In recent years, however, product nationality has taken on a new and far more ambitious role. As U.S. trade policy increasingly intersects with national security and human rights policy, policymakers rely on nationality-based measures to police supply chain linkages, curb geopolitical issues, and discipline firms for their links to forced …

Global Supply Chain Resilience In Emerging Technologies: A Case Study Of Bitcoin Mining, Kishanthi Parella, Carla L. Reyes

Seattle University Law Review

The United States has put into motion bold plans in critical and emerging technologies to bolster its national and economic security.  For example, the federal government created a national bitcoin strategic reserve and a stockpile of other cryptocurrency; while several states have committed to or are considering similar goals.  However, the security of these reserves is dependent on two types of supply chains within the Bitcoin mining industry: analogue supply chains, relating to the physical components needed for Bitcoin mining, and data supply chains, relating to the complex and layered logistical network of actors that create input into the software …

Third-Party Funding: Balancing Transparency, National Security, And Access To Justice, Victoria Shannon Sahani

Seattle University Law Review

Many lawmakers who have recently become aware of the multi-billion-dollar global third-party funding industry are raising new national security concerns that further complicate preexisting, longstanding debates about transparency, disclosure, access to justice, and the best way to regulate third-party funding. In response, this Article briefly asserts three main points relating to the question of how best to regulate third-party funding. First, this Article explains the third-party funding industry, including its global regulatory landscape and how it serves three distinct populations: consumers, businesses, and law firms. Second, this Article explains that third-party funding is one tool that can help expand access …

The Field Of International Business Transactions Law, Kathleen Claussen

Seattle University Law Review

This Article studies the evolution of the scholarly subfield referred to as the law of “international business transactions” (IBT). It reviews data on academic articles, courses, textbooks and other signifiers of the growth of this research area. Beginning around 1960, scholars began to use the term “international business transactions” and by the 1980s, several law schools were offering a course by that title. A handful of dedicated textbooks soon followed. These data reflect a gradual increase in research on the topic of IBT, particularly in the United States, but also considerable diversity of subject matters covered by those works. The …

Kim Gyeong-Seok And The Origins Of Northeast Asia’S Corporate Accountability Movement For War And Colonialism, Timothy Webster

Seattle University Law Review

For the past three decades, a transnational reparations movement has unfolded across Northeast Asia. Hundreds of victims—assisted by attorneys, academics, and activists—seek remedies from Japan for various atrocities committed during World War II, colonialism, and other historical injustices.  They press their claims in street protests, legislative hearings, dramatic performances, and other fora.  The “comfort women” are the best known of these claimants; their global redress campaign ex-tends from noisy protests outside of Japan’s embassy in Seoul, to mute statues in raucous boroughs of Berlin.  More obscure, though larger in number, were the roughly one million Koreans who performed forced labor …

Navigating Compliance In A Geopolitical Era: The Case Of Chinese Multinationals In The United States, Ji Li

Seattle University Law Review

This Article examines how Chinese multinational companies (MNCs) approach compliance in the United States amid deepening geo-political rivalry and intensified regulatory scrutiny. Drawing on original survey data, this Article maps variations in compliance structures, staffing, and governance mechanisms across Chinese firms and identifies key determinants such as industry-specific regulatory intensity, listing status, and organizational imprinting from headquarters. The analysis employs a dual institutional framework to explain how compliance systems emerge from the interplay between host-state regulatory demands and home-state institutional legacies, producing hybrid structures that blend local adaptation with headquarters-driven replication. Findings reveal that while certain compliance features—such as committee …

Volume 49 Masthead

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 49 Masthead

A Comparative Study Of Chinese And American Approaches To Shaping International Outer Space Law And Norms, Ariel G. Silverman

Seattle University Law Review

This article explores convergences and divergencies in the United States and PRC’s responses to the stalemate in the United Nations over the future of outer space resource governance. I do so by systematically analyzing these leading space-faring nations’ policy-positions and tactics deployed to shape norms around three substantive areas of outer space resource governance: rights of ownership and scope of utilization of space resources, mechanization of the “benefits sharing” principle, and the rights and responsibilities of the private sector. I theorize that these leading space-faring nations have adopted divergent approaches due to their differing historical relationships with international law and …

Table Of Contents

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Food Councils And Federal Committees: Community Responses To Inaction On Food Insecurity By Government, Kevin O'Connell, Liam R. Rupprecht

Binghamton University Undergraduate Journal

Food insecurity is a devastating force in the United States, as shown by its destructive impact on vulnerable groups like children, racial minorities, and those in poverty. Non-white urban communities of color especially have significantly higher rates of household food insecurity due to systemic racism in American food systems. Despite the prevalence of these factors, they are consistently overlooked by public and private forces. Federal efforts have failed to resolve the issue, leaving it to local “food council” organizations that attempt to help through advocacy and charity. These groups face a difficult task: how can they work to mitigate food …