Law Commons^™

Law School News: Two Rwu Law Lawmakers Fight To 'Let R.I. Vote' 03-24-2022, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Pulling The Trigger On Hunting Regulations For Lead Ammunition, Lydia Shields

Villanova Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Tijuana River Valley Pollution: How The Environmental Protection Agency Expects To End A Ninety-Year Environmental And Public Health Crisis, Andrew Simmons

Villanova Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Statement Of The District Task Force On Jails And Justice Before The Committee On The Judiciary And Public Safety Of The Council Of The District Of Columbia. Budget Oversight Hearing For The D.C. Department Of Corrections, Katherine S. Broderick

D.C. Council Testimony

No abstract provided.

Ending The Economic War Among States, Nathan Altstadt

Cleveland State Law Review

The United States is under siege; however, the cause is not a foreign adversary. Rather, infighting among states to attract and retain big businesses is jeopardizing the Nation’s economic prosperity.

States compete for businesses, using tax incentives, hoping to capitalize on the benefits these businesses represent. Benefits include improved job growth numbers, a future increase in tax revenue, or, simply, elevated political clout. While competition can lead to a more efficient use of resources, unregulated competition between states for businesses does not illustrate this theory. A national auction for a business, where states are blind to rival offers, may, and …

Reforming State Electoral College Laws To Depolarize American Politics, M. Akram Faizer

Cleveland State Law Review

Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee involved the Supreme Court gutting the remaining vestiges of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), such that jurisdictions will have free rein to impose partisan burdens on franchise rights that have a disproportionate negative effect on racial minority voters who, based on racial political polarization, prefer Democratic Party candidates over their Republican opponents. Brnovich follows the highly divisive 2020 presidential election that Joe Biden won against former President Trump based on very narrow margins in highly contested swing states, notwithstanding a nationwide popular margin of more than 8 million votes. This blurring of the lines between …

A Constitutional Theory Of Territoriality: The Case Of Puerto Rico, Joel Colón-Ríos, Yaniv Roznai

Cleveland State Law Review

This Article offers an analysis of the relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States that, unlike most of the existing literature, goes beyond discussions of the jurisprudence of U.S. courts and avoids providing merely descriptive or justificatory accounts. Using the tools of constitutional theory, we seek to describe the nature of what we call the “basic structure of territoriality,” the way that structure reproduces itself, and the possibility of its replacement. The basic structure of territoriality, we argue, is comprised by ten fundamental legal rules and five principles. Although those principles are not legally enforceable, they inform in important …

Table Of Contents

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Statement Of The District Task Force On Jails And Justice Before The Committee On The Judiciary And Public Safety Of The Council Of The District Of Columbia, Katherine S. Broderick

D.C. Council Testimony

Statement of the District Task Force on Jails and Justice Before the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety of the Council of the District of Columbia. Performance Oversight Hearing for the D.C. Department of Corrections. Katherine S, Broderick. March 2, 2022.

Acknowledgments, Ren Warden

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Unmet Legal Needs As Health Injustice, Yael Cannon

University of Richmond Law Review

In Part I, this Article examines the health justice framework through which laws are understood as determinants of health equity. In Part II, this Article argues that when unaddressed for low-income individuals, legal needs serve as social determinants of health. Applying the health justice framework, the Article examines the major domains of social determinants of health (“SDOH”) and identifies areas of law for which unmet legal needs contribute to poor health and health inequity. Specifically, it analyzes how the five major domains of SDOH of the Healthy People 2030 paradigm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) …

Trustworthy Digital Contact Tracing, Emily Berman, Leah R. Fowler, Jessica L. Roberts

University of Richmond Law Review

This Article takes a closer look at digital contact tracing in the United States during the coronavirus pandemic and why it failed. It begins by explaining the shortcomings of traditional analog methods and the resulting need for digital contact tracing. It then turns to the norms regarding consent, the scope of the data collected, and the limits on subsequent use necessary for cooperative surveillance. We argue that any successful digital contact-tracing program must incorporate these elements. Yet while necessary, those strategies alone may not be sufficient. People justifiably lack trust in public health authorities, in new technologies, and in the …

Imagining A Better Public Health (Law) Response To Covid-19, Evan Anderson, Scott Burris

University of Richmond Law Review

This Article is not a thorough-going history of the pandemic response. By way of critique and suggesting a way forward for public health, we are going to imagine how public health—both the official agencies and the interconnected nodes in academia and health systems—might have approached COVID-19 differently. This is a story that focuses on good judgment as the lynchpin of optimal pandemic response and allows us to think about where good judgment seems to have been lacking, and how public health culture and institutions might change to improve the chances of better judgment next time.

The Future Of Wastewater Monitoring For The Public Health, Natalie Ram, Lance Gable, Jeffrey L. Ram

University of Richmond Law Review

This Article thus expands the extant literature by considering the legal and ethical dimensions of wastewater surveillance more thoroughly and more broadly. It arrives at an auspicious time, as the United States moves into a vaccine-mediated phase in which COVID-19 is less likely to give rise to broad stay-at-home orders and more likely to trigger narrower, more targeted interventions. It seeks to offer guidance for the legal and ethical use of wastewater surveillance along two dimensions. The first dimension considers the circumstances under which wastewater monitoring should be deployed for detecting and responding to COVID-19 specifically. The second dimension zooms …

Reforming Age Cutoffs, Govind Persad

University of Richmond Law Review

This Article examines the use of minimum age cutoffs to define eligibility for social insurance, public benefits, and other governmental programs. These cutoffs are frequently used but rarely examined in detail. In Part I, I examine and catalogue policies that employ minimum age cutoffs. These include not only Medicare and Social Security but also other policies such as access to pensions and retirement benefits, eligibility for favorable tax treatment, and eligibility for discounts on governmentally provided goods and services. In Part II, I examine different rationales underlying eligibility and discuss the imperfect fit between these rationales and the use of …

Expanding Medicaid In The Postpartum Period, Madison P. Harrell

University of Richmond Law Review

This Comment will discuss how the current Medicaid law is insufficient to address the issue of disappointing maternal health outcomes in the United States and how the federal government should begin to remedy the problem. First, I will shed light on the maternal health crisis in the United States, before discussing the history of pregnancy and postpartum Medicaid coverage. Then, I will outline the enactment of the Affordable Care Act, the subsequent court battle over its constitutionality, and the effects of that decision on the current landscape of pregnancy and postpartum Medicaid coverage. Finally, I will detail my proposal for …

Race And Washington’S Criminal Justice System: 2021 Report To The Washington Supreme Court, Task Force 2.0

Washington Law Review

RACE & WASHINGTON’S CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM:

EDITOR’S NOTE

As Editors-in-Chief of the Washington Law Review, Gonzaga Law Review, and Seattle University Law Review, we represent the flagship legal academic publications of each law school in Washington State. Our publications last joined together to publish the findings of the first Task Force on Race and the Criminal Justice System in 2011/12. A decade later, we are honored to join once again to present the findings of Task Force 2.0. Law journals have enabled generations of legal professionals to introduce, vet, and distribute new ideas, critiques of existing legal structures, and reflections …

Latinxs Reshaping Law & Policy In The U.S. South, Luz E. Herrera, Pilar M. Hernández-Escontrías

Faculty Scholarship

This article addresses the key law and policy levers affecting Latinxs in what the U.S. Census Bureau designates as the South. Since the rise of the Latinx population from the 1980s onward, few legal scholars and researchers have participated in a sustained dialogue about how law and policy affects Latinxs living in the South. In response to this gap in legal research, this article provides an overview of the major law and policy challenges and opportunities for Latinxs in this U.S. region. Part II examines the geopolitical landscape of the South with special focus on the enduring legacy of Jim …

The President Who Cried Voter Fraud: A Recurring Theme Of Baseless Allegations, Alyssa F. Mccartney

University of Massachusetts Law Review

In 2019, Pennsylvania enacted Act 77, the first update to the Pennsylvania Election Code in nearly eighty years. Passed on a bipartisan basis, the law included a measure that permitted “no reason” mail-in ballots. Act 77 allowed any registered voter to request a ballot by mail, fill it out in the applicable time frame, and send it back to be processed. In the wake of a global pandemic that left Americans unable to leave their homes, this necessary update caused quite the controversy only a few months after it was passed. The primary election used the updated process for the …

Maurer School Of Law To Host Court Of Appeals Argument, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

No abstract provided.

Recent Developments, Silas Heffley

Arkansas Law Review

In a case involving a Missouri televangelist, a purported COVID-19 cure, and state officials from Arkansas and California, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction.

Slavery And The History Of Congress's Enumerated Powers, Jeffrey Schmitt

Arkansas Law Review

In his first inaugural address, President Abraham Lincoln declared, “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” Like virtually all Americans before the Civil War, Lincoln believed in what historians call the “national consensus” on slavery. According to this consensus, Congress’s enumerated powers were not broad enough to justify any regulation of slavery within the states. Legal scholars who support the modern reach of federal powers have thus conventionally argued …

Why Arkansas Act 710 Was Upheld, And Will Be Again, Mark Goldfeder

Arkansas Law Review

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. - ironically, not Mark Twain The recent Eighth Circuit ruling in Arkansas Times LP v. Waldrip, the lawsuit revolving around an Arkansas antidiscrimination bill, has led to a lot of (at best) confusion or (at worst) purposeful obfuscation by people unwilling or unable to differentiate between procedural issues and the constitutional merits of a case. In other words, reports of the bill’s death have been very much exaggerated.

A Simple Solution To Policing For Profit, Penny J. White, Glenn Harlan Reynolds

Tennessee Law in the News

No abstract provided.

Performance Oversight Hearing For The Metropolitan Police Department , February 17, 2022, Katherine S. Broderick

D.C. Council Testimony

Statement of the District Task Force on Jails and Justice Before the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety of the Council of the District of Columbia. Performance Oversight Hearing for the Metropolitan Police Department. February 17, 2022.

Lessons Covid-19 Taught: How The Global Pandemic Demonstrated That State Healthcare Regulations Can Kill, Devon Allgood

Brooklyn Law Review

Certificate of Need (CON) laws are designed to lower the cost of healthcare and have been a staple of American law for over half a century. In the most basic sense, CON laws require that medical providers receive the government’s permission to build a new healthcare facility, purchase major medical equipment, add or remove services, and in some cases, change their hours of operation. These requirements are designed to lower the price of healthcare by limiting competition and barring providers from investing in services or equipment that are deemed “unnecessary” by the government, thus preventing these providers from passing the …

Answering The Call: A History Of The Emergency Power Doctrine In Texas And The United States, P. Elise Mclaren

St. Mary's Law Journal

During times of emergency, national and local government may be allowed to take otherwise impermissible action in the interest of health, safety, or national security. The prerequisites and limits to this power, however, are altogether unknown. Like the crises they aim to deflect, courts’ modern emergency power doctrines range from outright denial of any power of constitutional circumvention to their flagrant use. Concededly, courts’ approval of emergency powers has provided national and local government opportunities to quickly respond to emergency without pause for constituency approval, but how can one be sure the availability of autocratic power will not be abused? …

Rethinking The Process Of Service Of Process, Mary K. Bonilla

St. Mary's Law Journal

Even as technology evolves, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, specifically Federal Rule 4, remains stagnate without a mechanism directly providing for electronic service of process in federal courts. Rule 4(e)(1) allows service through the use of state law—consequently permitting any state-approved electronic service methods—so long as the federal court where proceedings will occur, or the place where service is made, is located within the state supplying the law. Accordingly, this Comment explains that Rule 4 indirectly permits electronic service of process in some states, but not others, despite all 50 states utilizing the same federal court system. With states …

Judicial Federalism And The Appropriate Role Of The State Supreme Courts: A 20-Year (2000–2020) Study Of These Courts’ Interest Evaluations Of The Fruits And The Attenuation Doctrines, Dannye R. Holley Mr.

St. Mary's Law Journal

The current composition of the United States Supreme Court increases the probability that the Court will be more likely to side with the government with respect to identifying, evaluating, and reconciling the interest of the government versus those of the people when issues of “policing” reach the high court. This opens the door for state supreme court to independently assess individually and collectively these seemingly competing interests and potentially provide greater protections to the interest of the people.

This Article is a twenty-year study of dozens of state supreme court decisions made during the period of 2000–2020. The decisions focused …

Federally Mandated Online Sales Tax: A Logistical Solution For The Future Of E-Commerce, Daniel O'Connor

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.