Law Commons^™

How To Interpret The Securities Laws?, Zachary J. Gubler

Seattle University Law Review

In discussions of the federal securities laws, the SEC usually gets most of the attention. This makes some sense. After all, it is the agency charged with administrating the securities laws and regulating the industry as a whole. It makes the majority of the laws; it engages in enforcement actions; it reacts to crises; and it, or sometimes even its individual commissioners, intervene publicly in policy debates. Often overlooked in such discussion, however, is the role of the Supreme Court in shaping securities law, and a new book by Adam Pritchard and Robert Thompson demonstrates why this is an oversight. …

Students For Fair Admissions: Affirming Affirmative Action And Shapeshifting Towards Cognitive Diversity?, Steven A. Ramirez

Seattle University Law Review

The Roberts Court holds a well-earned reputation for overturning Supreme Court precedent regardless of the long-standing nature of the case. The Roberts Court knows how to overrule precedent. In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA), the Court’s majority opinion never intimates that it overrules Grutter v. Bollinger, the Court’s leading opinion permitting race-based affirmative action in college admissions. Instead, the Roberts Court applied Grutter as authoritative to hold certain affirmative action programs entailing racial preferences violative of the Constitution. These programs did not provide an end point, nor did they require assessment, review, periodic expiration, or revision for greater …

Verses Turned To Verdicts: Ysl Rico Case Sets A High-Watermark For The Legal Pseudo-Censorship Of Rap Music, Nabil Yousfi

Seattle University Law Review

Whichever way you spin the record, rap music and courtrooms don’t mix. On one side, rap records are well known for their unapologetic lyrical composition, often expressing a blatant disregard for legal institutions and authorities. On the other, court records reflect a Van Gogh’s ear for rap music, frequently allowing rap lyrics—but not similar lyrics from other genres—to be used as criminal evidence against the defendants who authored them. Over the last thirty years, this immiscibility has engendered a legal landscape where prosecutors wield rap lyrics as potent instruments for criminal prosecution. In such cases, color-blind courts neglect that rap …

The Sffa V. Harvard Trojan Horse Admissions Lawsuit, Kimberly West-Faulcon

Seattle University Law Review

Affirmative-action-hostile admissions lawsuits are modern Trojan horses. The SFFA v. Harvard/UNC case—Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina, et. al., decided jointly—is the most effective Trojan horse admissions lawsuit to date. Constructed to have the distractingly appealing exterior façade of a lawsuit seeking greater fairness in college admissions, the SFFA v. Harvard/UNC case is best understood as a deception-driven battle tactic used by forces waging a multi-decade war against the major legislative victories of America’s Civil Rights Movement, specifically Title VI and Title VII …

Going Forward: The Role Of Affirmative Action, Race, And Diversity In University Admissions And The Broader Construction Of Society, Steven W. Bender

Seattle University Law Review

The third annual EPOCH symposium, a partnership between the Seattle University Law Review and the Black Law Student Association took place in late summer 2023 at the Seattle University School of Law. It was intended to uplift and amplify Black voices and ideas, and those of allies in the legal community. Prompted by the swell of public outcry surrounding ongoing police violence against the Black community, the EPOCH partnership marked a commitment to antiracism imperatives and effectuating change for the Black community. The published symposium in this volume encompasses some, but not all, the ideas and vision detailed in the …

Memories Of An Affirmative Action Activist, Margaret E. Montoya

Seattle University Law Review

Some twenty-five years ago, the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) led a march supporting Affirmative Action in legal education to counter the spate of litigation and other legal prohibitions that exploded during the 1990s, seeking to limit or abolish race-based measures. The march began at the San Francisco Hilton Hotel, where the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) was having its annual meeting, and proceeded to Union Square. We, the organizers of the march, did not expect the march to become an iconic event; one that would be remembered as a harbinger of a new era of activism by …

After Affirmative Action, Meera E. Deo

Seattle University Law Review

This is a time of crisis in legal education. In truth, we are in the midst of several crises. We are emerging from the COVID pandemic, a period of unprecedented upheaval where law students and law faculty alike struggled through physical challenges, mental health burdens, and decreased academic and professional success. The past few years also have seen a precipitous drop in applications to and enrollment in legal education. Simultaneously, students have been burdened with the skyrocketing costs of attending law school, taking on unmanageable levels of debt. And with the Supreme Court decision in SFFA v. Harvard, we are …

Religious Freedom And Diversity Missions: Insights From Jesuit Law Deans, Anthony E. Varona, Michèle Alexandre, Michael J. Kaufman, Madeleine M. Landrieu

Seattle University Law Review

This Article is a transcript of a panel moderated by Anthony E. Varona, Dean of Seattle University School of Law. During the panel, Jesuit and religious law school deans discussed what law schools with religious missions have to add to the conversation around SFFA and the continuing role of affirmative action in higher education.

Same Crime, Different Time: Sentencing Disparities In The Deep South & A Path Forward Under The Fourteenth Amendment, Hailey M. Donovan

Seattle University Law Review

The United States has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. The American obsession with crime and punishment can be tracked over the last half-century, as the nation’s incarceration rate has risen astronomically. Since 1970, the number of incarcerated people in the United States has increased more than sevenfold to over 2.3 million, outpacing both crime and population growth considerably. While the rise itself is undoubtedly bleak, a more troubling truth lies just below the surface. Not all states contribute equally to American mass incarceration. Rather, states have vastly different incarceration rates. Unlike at the federal level, …

We Shall Overcome: The Evolution Of Quotas In The Land Of The Free And The Home Of Samba, Stella Emery Santana

Seattle University Law Review

When were voices given to the voiceless? When will education be permitted to all? When will we need to protest no more? It’s the twenty-first century, and the fight for equity in higher education remains a challenge to peoples all over the world. While students in the United States must deal with the increase in loans, in Brazil, only around 20% of youth between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-four have a higher education degree.

The primary objective of this Article is to conduct an in-depth comparative analysis of the development, implementation, and legal adjudication of educational quota systems within …

Asking For It: Gendered Dimensions Of Surveillance Capitalism, Jessica Rizzo

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

Advertising and privacy were once seen as mutually antagonistic. In the 1950s and 1960s, Americans went to court to fight for their right to be free from the invasion of privacy presented by unwanted advertising, but a strange realignment took place in the 1970s. Radical feminists were among those who were extremely concerned about the collection and computerization of personal data—they worried about private enterprise getting a hold of that data and using it to target women—but liberal feminists went in a different direction, making friends with advertising because they saw it as strategically valuable.

Liberal feminists argued that in …

Privacy And Property: Constitutional Concerns Of Dna Dragnet Testing, E. Wyatt Jones

Honors Projects

DNA dragnets have attracted both public and scholarly criticisms that have yet to be resolved by the Courts. This review will introduce a modern understanding of DNA analysis, a complete introduction to past and present Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence, and existing suggestions concerning similar issues in legal scholarship. Considering these contexts, this review concludes that a focus on privacy and property at once, with a particular sensitivity to the inseverable relationship between the two interests, is Constitutionally consistent with precedent and the most workable means of answering the question at hand.

A Synthesis Of The Science And Law Relating To Eyewitness Misidentifications And Recommendations For How Police And Courts Can Reduce Wrongful Convictions Based On Them, Henry F. Fradella

Seattle University Law Review

The empirical literature on perception and memory consistently demonstrates the pitfalls of eyewitness identifications. Exoneration data lend external validity to these studies. With the goal of informing law enforcement officers, prosecutors, criminal defense attorneys, judges, and judicial law clerks about what they can do to reduce wrongful convictions based on misidentifications, this Article presents a synthesis of the scientific knowledge relevant to how perception and memory affect the (un)reliability of eyewitness identifications. The Article situates that body of knowledge within the context of leading case law. The Article then summarizes the most current recommendations for how law enforcement personnel should—and …

The Power Of The Dissent And Writing The Future Of Justice: Maat, Aristotle's Rhetoric, And Justice Ginsburg's Dissent In Kentucky V. King, Livan Davidson

Intercultural Human Rights Law Review

This article explains why Ginsburg's dissent in King is rhetorically superior to the majority opinion. It evaluates, by way of comparing and contrasting, the persuasiveness of the dissent and majority opinions in King. This article examines the opinion through the lens of Aristotle's rhetorical model and the ancient tenet of Maat. It analyzes Ginsburg and Justice Alito's (Alito) use of rhetorical devices that appeal to persuasion, including logos (appeal to logic), ethos (appeal to credibility), pathos (appeal to emotions), and Maat (rightness in the world). This article concludes that Ginsburg's use of rhetoric has a superior appeal to fairness and …

Let's Make Some "Scents" Of Our Fourth Amendment Rights: The Discriminatory Truths Behind Using The Mere Smell Of Burnt Marijuana As Probable Cause To Search A Vehicle, Alessandra Dumenigo

St. Thomas Law Review

This Comment addresses the negative effects that have resulted and will continue to result if police officers are encouraged by jurisprudence to conduct a warrantless search of an entire vehicle based on the smell of burnt marijuana. Warrantless searches of an entire vehicle based merely on the smell of burnt marijuana grant officers unlimited power that will likely result in police misconduct, an increase in racially profiled traffic stops, and a distrust between police officers and the Black community amid the nationwide outrage over the death of George Floyd. Part II of this Comment discusses the history of the Fourth …

Cryptography, Passwords, Privacy, And The Fifth Amendment, Gary C. Kessler, Ann M. Phillips

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Military-grade cryptography has been widely available at no cost for personal and commercial use since the early 1990s. Since the introduction of Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), more and more people encrypt files and devices, and we are now at the point where our smartphones are encrypted by default. While this ostensibly provides users with a high degree of privacy, compelling a user to provide a password has been interpreted by some courts as a violation of our Fifth Amendment protections, becoming an often insurmountable hurdle to law enforcement lawfully executing a search warrant. This paper will explore some of the …

Drones: Where Does The National Airspace System Start?, Jason T. Lorenzon J.D.

National Training Aircraft Symposium (NTAS)

Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), Unmanned Aeronautical Vehicles (UAV), drones and Personal Aerial Vehicles (PAV) constitute the greatest technological advancement since the jet age. (Elaine Chao, Secretary of Transportation, October 26, 2017) This technological advancement has prompted significant public policy challenges and the need for new laws regarding navigable airspace. This proposal investigates how airspace used by drones will evolve given existing Constitutional and common law principals. These principals will influence the creation, development and modification of UAS airspace regulations by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Two critical but unanswered questions concerning the National Airspace System, are where does navigable airspace …

Reevaluating School Searches Following School-To-Prison Pipeline Reforms, Josh Gupta-Kagan

Faculty Publications

The Supreme Court held in New Jersey v. T.L.O. that school officials could search students without a warrant and with only reasonable suspicion, not probable cause, because of schools’ need for discipline and the relationship between educators and students. That case belongs to a body of Fourth Amendment cases involving, in T.L.O.’s terms, “special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement.” What Fourth Amendment standard, then, governs searches involving one of the roughly 20,000 school resource officers (SROs) in American schools? Most state courts to decide the issue ruled in the 1990s and 2000s that T.L.O. applied to SRO-involved …

Harmless Constitutional Error: How A Minor Doctrine Meant To Improve Judicial Efficiency Is Eroding America's Founding Ideals, Ross C. Reggio

CMC Senior Theses

The United States Constitution had been in existence for almost two hundred years before the Supreme Court decided that some violations of constitutional rights may be too insignificant to warrant remedial action. Known as "harmless error," this statutory doctrine allows a court to affirm a conviction when a mere technicality or minor defect did not affect the defendant's substantial rights. The doctrine aims to promote judicial efficiency and judgment finality. The Court first applied harmless error to constitutional violations by shifting the statutory test away from the error's effect on substantial rights to its impact on the jury's verdict. Over …

Welcome To Trump's Ice Age: Violations Of Undocumented Immigrants' Fourth Amendment Rights During Workplace Raids, Gianni Piantini

St. Thomas Law Review

This Comment addresses the implications of ICE agents violating Fourth Amendment rights of undocumented immigrants who have been unreasonably seized during workplace raids. Part II discusses how the Fourth Amendment protections extend to the workplace, as well as the influence of ICE on immigration law and how the Fourth Amendment applies in the immigration context. Part IH addresses how Trump's antiimmigrant oratory has encouraged ICE to conduct workplace raids, which result in egregious violations of the Fourth Amendment. Part III further addresses the effect of the holding in Delgado on workplace raids and how ICE has conducted the raids in …

Tactful Inattention: Erving Goffman, Privacy In The Digital Age, And The Virtue Of Averting One's Eyes, Elizabeth De Armond

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Katz V. United States: Back To The Future?, Michael Vitiello

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Protecting Florida's Marine Life With Conservative Drones, Daniel Grammes

St. Thomas Law Review

This comment analyzes drones under current Fourth Amendment jurisprudence and focuses on the issues contributing to unsustainable fisheries in Florida. Part II explains the basic concept of drones and discusses privacy issues through the Fourth Amendment as well as Florida marine patrol statutes that are relevant to an analysis of drone technology. Part III highlights that Florida's fisheries are at an unsustainable level because there are not enough Florida marine patrol officers and the simplicity of disposing illegally harvested wildlife into the ocean. Part IV suggests that Florida adopt legislation authorizing a drone enforcement program for marine patrol. Part V …

Tactful Inattention: Erving Goffman, Privacy In The Digital Age, And The Virtue Of Averting One's Eyes, Elizabeth De Armond

Elizabeth De Armond

No abstract provided.

Procedural Due Process Claims, Erwin Chemerinsky

Erwin Chemerinsky

No abstract provided.

Preventing An Air Panopticon: A Proposal For Reasonable Legal Restrictions On Aerial Surveillance, Jake Laperruque

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Digital Technology And Analog Law: Cellular Location Data, The Third-Party Doctrine, And The Law's Need To Evolve, Justin Hill

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Carpenter Privacy Case Vexes Justices, While Tech Giant Microsoft Battles Government In Second U.S. Supreme Court Privacy Case With International Implications, Richard J. Peltz-Steele

Faculty Publications

Fall 2017 saw a major privacy case with international implications reach the U.S. Supreme Court this term, Carpenter v. United States. Now a second such case pits the Government against Big Tech in United States v. Microsoft. Carpenter is a criminal case involving federal seizure of cell phone location data from service providers. Arising under the “reasonable grounds” provision of the Stored Communications Act (SCA), the case accentuates Americans’ lack of constitutional protection for personal data in third-party hands, in contrast with emerging global privacy norms. The second major privacy case headed for Supreme Court decision in 2018 also arises …

Newsroom: Goldstein On Drug Databases 6-27-2016, Sheri Qualters, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Procedural Due Process Claims, Erwin Chemerinsky

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.