Digital Commons Network^™

Agency Capture In Immigration Law, Shalini Bhargava Ray

SMU Law Review

Debates over administrative law doctrine and practice have long occurred in the shadow of agency capture, a phenomenon by which private interests co-opt an agency’s public mission. Scholars posit that capture often operates through the migration of agency personnel to the very industries they previously regulated and vice versa, referred to as the “revolving door.” The tremendous administrative law literature on agency capture, however, has never systematically addressed the potential relevance of capture to immigration regulation and enforcement. Given the vastness of the immigration bureaucracy, the massive annual appropriations it commands, and immigration’s salience in public discourse, the possibility of …

Protect My Property, Not My Privacy!: How A Recent Circuit Split Illustrates The Need To Reinstate The Traditional Property-Based Fourth Amendment Framework, Mary Katherine Smith

SMU Law Review

The Fourth and Fifth Circuit’s split calls for reexamination of the Fourth Amendment search framework—a framework that revolves around one’s reasonable expectation of privacy. The underlying question motivating this Comment is how to account for individual privacy in a world where, arguably, old notions of privacy no longer exist. And ironically the answer lies in shifting the focus from privacy to property. The circuit split over geofence searches is a symptom of a larger problem: The current Fourth Amendment search framework is unworkable in the digital age.

Thus, this Comment has dual objectives. The first objective is analyzing the geofence …

The Homeowner Strikes Back: The Rise Of Antisquatter Laws, Sam Fowler

SMU Law Review

Beginning in 2024, a host of states across the country began enacting or considering new laws targeting squatting that seek to expedite the removal of squatters. Generally, these antisquatting laws create criminal penalties for squatters, allow sheriffs to remove squatters, and shorten the time for eviction. This wave of legislation is generally attributed to several viral videos and news stories about squatters that seem to game the system by moving into unattended homes, even those where the rightful owners or tenants are living, and then claiming they have a lease. The owners will generally call the police, who are unable …

The Granny Flat Rebellion: Preempting Local Adu Restrictions, Andrew Welch

SMU Law Review

States around the country are increasingly facing the challenge of housing shortage and uncooperative localities attempting to keep developers out of their neighborhoods. The “Not in My Backyard” (NIMBY) groups are not representative of the American desire to create affordable housing, and allowing neighborhoods to dictate national and state policy is ineffective. Accessory dwelling units (ADUs)—small, self-contained residential units on single-family-zoned property—are a cost-effective strategy to expand housing options, promote intergenerational living, and foster economic mobility. This Comment addresses how states can chisel away at the housing crisis and how ADUs may alleviate many of the problems if they are …

Front Matter

SMU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Collegiate Athletes’ Name, Image, And Likeness As A Constitutionally Protected Interest, Josh Lens

SMU Law Review

Courts have long held that collegiate athletes’ athletics participation does not constitute a liberty or property interest afforded constitutional due process protection. Thus, universities, athletics departments, and coaches generally have not had to provide much process when suspending athletes from their teams for disciplinary reasons, for example.

Recently, however, college athletics’ primary governing entity—the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA)—altered its longstanding rules to permit athletes to accept remuneration from third parties for the use of their names, images, and likenesses. This newfound ability has significantly benefited athletes in college athletics’ transformative name, image, and likeness (NIL) era.

This Article examines …

Title 18’S Property Conundrum, Karen E. Woody, Joshua L. Clardy

SMU Law Review

“Property,” in legal terms, carries significant weight. Once an object is heralded as “property,” that object becomes a step closer to being afforded the protections of the Constitution, offered equitable remedies at a court’s disposal, or even subjected to taxation by the state or federal government. Defining an object as “property” also puts it within the reach of the Title 18 property fraud statutes. Title 18’s fraud statutes have been often lauded by federal prosecutors for their “extraordinary utility.” In their current iteration, these statutes criminalize schemes to defraud “money,” “property,” and “the intangible right of honest services.” But what …

Front Matter

SMU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Symposium Preface, Madeleine Nelson

SMU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Levels Of Generality, The Limits Of Originalism, And The Supreme Court’S Second Amendment Jurisprudence, Amanda L. Tyler

SMU Law Review

Just how originalist is the Court’s Second Amendment jurisprudence after United States v. Rahimi? This is perhaps one of the biggest questions left in the decision’s wake. As it turns out, the answer is not altogether clear post-Rahimi. This is because the case produced some seven separate opinions, many of which—even though they agree as to the bottom line—get there by very different paths. This Article suggests that Rahimi, perhaps more than any other recent decision by the Court, underscores the crucial role that levels of generality in constitutional interpretation play, while illustrating the problems with …

The Mutability Of Dangerousness: Domestic Violence And Second Amendment Restoration After Rahimi, F. Lee Francis

SMU Law Review

This Article considers whether the Constitution permits the permanent disarmament of individuals once deemed dangerous—particularly in cases involving domestic violence. In United States v. Rahimi, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that the Second Amendment protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms, subject only to regulation consistent with historical tradition. That tradition, as examined under New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, does not support lifetime bans absent an ongoing threat.

The Article argues that dangerousness is not immutable. Founding-era laws recognized disarmament as a temporary, conditional measure tied to present conduct, not a …

A Critique Of Findings On Gun Ownership, Use, And Imagined Use From The 2021 National Firearms Survey: Response To William English, Deborah Azrael, Joseph Blocher, Philip J. Cook, David Hemenway, Matthew Miller

SMU Law Review

For a paper that has not yet been through peer review or even been formally published, William English’s “2021 National Firearms Survey” has been remarkably prominent in gun rights advocacy and scholarship. As of December 2024, it has been cited in roughly sixty-five briefs, invoked at oral argument in the Supreme Court and multiple courts of appeals, and regularly cited in public writings and published academic work.

This response is offered in the spirit of a peer review. Our focus is on methodological issues, questionable statistical results, and problematic conclusions. Because of serious methodological issues, English’s draft fails to provide …

Judge–Scholar Collaboration And The Second Amendment, Andrew Willinger, Eric Ruben

SMU Law Review

Legal scholarship is overly abstract and theoretical, making it unhelpful to judges and lawyers. That, at least, is the classic critique from the bench. When it comes to the Second Amendment, however, a different pattern has emerged: judges consistently cite law review articles and look to the academy for guidance. Most recently, in United States v. Rahimi, some Justices went further, implicitly inviting more scholarly work to help the Court answer open questions raised by its novel methodological approach to the Second Amendment. This Article explores this aberrant trend.

We raise several explanations for the distinctive scholarly role in …

Lobbying By Brief: Unveiling The Dominance Of Amicus Lobbying In The Development Of Business Law, W. C. Bunting, Tomer Stein

SMU Law Review

This Article uncovers the pervasive and significant impact of business law amicus lobbying, a strategic tactic whereby lobby groups have commandeered the amicus curiae filing process in state courts to shape business law according to their interests.

This Article makes three primary contributions to the literature. First, it presents the only comprehensive dataset of amicus curiae filings in business law cases. This hand-collected dataset encompasses nearly all business law amicus curiae filings from 2005 to 2022 in the key jurisdictions of New York, California, Delaware, Texas, and Nevada. Second, it reveals a striking empirical finding: lobby groups account for 67% …

History's Identity Crisis, Allison Orr Larsen

SMU Law Review

Lower court judges across the country are struggling to manage the Supreme Court’s new “history and tradition” test that applies to Second Amendment challenges. This Article articulates one fundamental reason for the struggle: nobody is quite sure what a judge is actually doing when she evaluates claims about what happened in the past. Is it traditional legal reasoning—weighing evidence and looking for patterns? Is it fact-finding of the sort we think expert historians should testify about—conveying to a trial judge the best evidence we have about the purpose of colonial gun laws? Or is it a different sort of fact-finding—generalized …

Crypto Chaos In The Courtroom: Navigating Bankruptcy’S Digital Gold Rush, Grayson Timmins

SMU Law Review

The explosion of cryptocurrency, along with other digital assets, has led to many new transactions and investment opportunities for those interested in broadening their portfolios. While cryptocurrency is new, the failure of a cryptocurrency exchange requires the application of the same bankruptcy procedures in the same way as parties using traditional U.S. currency. In bankruptcy, these intangible assets are designated property of the estate and are deemed subject to the court’s jurisdiction. At this point, an issue arises: Once classified as property of the estate, how should crypto be classified?

The lack of regulatory infrastructure regarding this classification further complicates …

Regulation And Function Of Mec-2 Alternative Splicing In Single Cells, Canyon Calovich-Benne

Biological Sciences Theses and Dissertations

One mechanism for generating diversity at the single cell level is selective expression of a unique set of transcription factors (TFs) and RNA binding proteins (RBPs). These regulatory factors contribute to functions of cells by controlling cell fate, turning genes on and off, and processing of transcripts either co- or post-transcriptionally. Many genes, especially neuronal genes, have multiple different splicing events, promoters, and/or polyadenylation sites. Post-transcriptional coordination is in the infancy of being studied and the functional consequences of this coupling at the single cell level has yet to be explored. Here we show, mec-2 coordination of alternative transcription start …

Jóvenes Y Memoria: Conflict And Vitality In Education For Human Rights, Bryan Harriss Jones

Graduate Liberal Studies Theses and Dissertations

In 2002, the Comisión Provincial por la Memoria (the Provincial Commission for Memory - CPM) of Argentina’s province of Buenos Aires (PBA) established Jóvenes y Memoria: Recordamos para el Futuro (Youth and Memory: We Remember for the Future – JyM), an elective program for secondary school students. JyM empowers students to create and communicate narratives about the history and current state of human rights based on investigations using primary sources. The goals of CPM include fostering historical memory and preventing the return of authoritarianism. JyM furthers these goals by building exemplary memory to inspire positive change in the present and …

Graph Neural Networks Powered Scientific Paper Recommendation, Junhao Shen

Computer Science and Engineering Theses and Dissertations

Scientific paper recommendation systems aim to help researchers discover relevant papers amidst the vast and ever-growing body of literature. With the exponential yearly increase in scientific publications, the demand for effective paper recommendation solutions has become both critical and increasingly challenging. In recent years, deep learning techniques have revolutionized recommender systems, and scientific paper recommendations have naturally integrated these advancements. In this dissertation, we address these challenges through three progressive contributions.

First, we enhance traditional content-based methods using Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) by introducing a Graph Convolutional Network-strengthened Topic Modeling (GCN-TM) approach. This method improves upon conventional topic modeling techniques …

Civil Liability And Intra-Fraternal, Sexually Predatory Behavior, Gregory S. Parks, Ryan W. Mckee

SMU Law Review Forum

Sexually predatory behavior has long been an issue within many institutions and organizations. The Catholic Church has been scrutinized for the involvement of Popes, priests, nuns, and others as perpetrators and enablers of child sexual abuse. Reports of child sexual abuse dating back as far as the 1940s have plagued the Catholic Church in both the US and Europe, with estimates in the US across all dioceses suggesting over four thousand priest/deacon perpetrators and over ten thousand victims affected between the 1950s and 2002. Similarly, sexual abuse has been an issue in the Boy Scouts of America, dating back to …

The Resurgence Of State-Owned Enterprise In China Under Xi Jinping, Macallister Hogan

The Dialogue

MacAllister Hogan explores the revival of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) under Xi Jinping’s administration. The paper discusses the historical role of SOEs, recent reforms to enhance their efficiency, and the implications of increased state control for China’s economic growth and market dynamics

Kenya As A Target For Al-Shabaab: A Theory For Understanding Cross-Border Terrorism, Evangeline Mathis

The Dialogue

Evangeline Mathis explores why Kenya faces disproportionate attacks from Al-Shabaab compared to neighboring states. The paper theorizes that Kenya’s international visibility and free media make it an attractive target for the Somali-based terrorist group​

U.S. Africa Command & Security Assistance To Fragile States, Joseph Kinyanjui

The Dialogue

Joseph Kinyanjui evaluates the role of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) in addressing security issues in Africa. The paper discusses whether AFRICOM's operations contribute to militarization and state fragility or effectively enhance stability through capacity building​

Rifles And Rivals: A Study Of The Domestic Effects On American Military Policy, Rachel Warren

The Dialogue

Rachel Warren analyzes the domestic forces shaping U.S. military foreign policy in the post-Cold War era. The paper evaluates the roles of political polarization and the military-industrial complex, using quantitative analysis to assess their influence on legislative decisions​

The U.S. Public Education Systems' Failure To Accurately Educate Students On The Israeli-Palestinian Conflcit, Sanaa M. Ghanim

The Dialogue

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is arguably the world’s most controversial conflict in modern history. The United States plays a central role in its mediation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the mid-twentieth century, making the ways in which the conflict is taught in American public schools especially relevant to the future of the conflict and more specifically, the role of the United States in the future of this conflict (Arieli, 2016). The United States has put forth numerous peace solutions that have all failed. In understanding why these peace solutions have failed to bring about peaceful change in the region, the U.S. …

A Texas Tradition: Analyzing Texas' Commitment To Capital Punishment, Grace E. Brandt

The Dialogue

Grace Brandt examines Texas' historical and ongoing support for capital punishment. The paper explores the evolution of execution methods, legislative frameworks, and public opinion, emphasizing the cultural and political factors sustaining the death penalty in Texas despite national trends towards abolition

Iraq, Democracy, And The United States

The Dialogue

This collaborative paper by Kevin Matejka, Arnaud Zimmern, and Lara Vidal examines the complexities of promoting democracy in Iraq and other Muslim-majority nations. The authors analyze different perspectives on democracy's compatibility with Islamic principles and explore Western and Middle Eastern viewpoints. Through an exploration of political theory and historical context, they provide insights into the challenges and prospects for democratization in the region, particularly in light of U.S. involvement

Can China Finally Follow-Through On Its Commitments, Christina Almeida

The Dialogue

Christina Almeida assesses China's adherence to WTO intellectual property commitments. Since joining the WTO in 2001, China has continued to infringe on intellectual property rights (IPR) of U.S. firms, resulting in significant economic losses. Almeida discusses factors such as state capitalism and insufficient enforcement mechanisms within China that hinder compliance. The paper recommends a multi-faceted approach, including bilateral trade mechanisms and stricter WTO oversight, to address China's ongoing IPR violations​

Cross-Party Voting In 21st Century Presidential Primaries: A Social And Empirical Analysis, Mark Trautmann

The Dialogue

This paper by Mark Trautmann explores the phenomenon of cross-party voting in U.S. presidential primaries, focusing on its prevalence and impact in open primaries. Trautmann examines cases in the Midwest, analyzing data and media narratives surrounding the Michigan Republican Primary (2000, 2012) and the Democratic Primaries in Wisconsin (2004) and Indiana (2008). The findings suggest that while media often overemphasizes the influence of cross-party voting, its actual effect on primary outcomes remains limited, though potentially disruptive in certain cases

Wither Japan?, Matthew Reitz

The Dialogue

Matthew Reitz examines Japan's evolving security policies under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, particularly the controversial 2015 Security Legislation. The paper explores how Japan's pacifist identity has adapted to external pressures like China's rise and North Korea's nuclear threat. Reitz highlights the role of domestic politics, public opinion, and international alliances in shaping Japan’s security reforms