Law Commons^™

In Re Cook And The Franklin Proceeding: New Door, Same Dilapidated House, Christopher Hawthorne, Marisa Sacks

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

The California Supreme Court’s decision in In re Cook was supposed to bring about a sea change in the way trial courts conduct Franklin mitigation hearings for youthful offenders. In fact, while Cook changed the procedure for initiating a post-conviction Franklin proceeding, little else has changed, including the lack of agreement among attorneys concerning best practices in these proceedings, and a less than less-than-enthusiastic response from the criminal defense bar. Absent any guidance from higher courts, the Franklin proceeding is limited by the personal and institutional energies and preferences of judges, prosecutors, public defenders and private defense counsel. The authors …

People V. Buza: A Step In The Wrong Direction, Emily R. Pincin

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

Foreword, Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

Misdemeanors For All Purposes? Interpreting Proposition 47’S Ameliorative Scope In A New Era Of Criminal Justice Reform, Kayla Burchuk

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

In 2014, Proposition 47 reclassified seven low-level felonies to misdemeanors, demonstrating voters’ striking rejection of California’s historically punitive sentencing policies. This Note examines the recent wave of California Supreme Court jurisprudence interpreting Proposition 47 by exploring the court’s varied readings of the initiative’s ballot materials and statutory text. While the court has liberally construed relief for affected property crimes, it has responded ambivalently in more controversial areas such as drug offenses, mandatory parole periods, and automatic resentencing. This variation reveals ideological tensions between the goal of expanding ameliorative benefits to low-level offenders and anxiety regarding public safety. This Note analyzes …

The Future Of Bail In California: Analyzing Sb 10 Through The Prism Of Past Reforms, Adam Peterson

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

The cash bail system is the cause of numerous injustices. It favors the rich over the poor, it packs jails to the breaking point, and it forces those who have yet to be found guilty to sit in jail—often for weeks or months at a time. In 2018, the California legislature passed SB 10. The bill purported to abolish cash bail wholesale and replace it with a risk assessment program. While SB 10 is a step in the right direction, it faces many obstacles before it accomplishes its goal. This Note examines the bill in light of past attempts at …

Suffocate Or Innovate: An Observation Of California's Regulatory Framework For Cryptocurrency, Jane Kim

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

Transactions involving cryptocurrency are rapidly gaining traction in the United States, prompting the need for regulation. Hence, California legislators proposed the cryptocurrency regulation Assembly Bill 1123. However, based upon the outcome of a virtually identical regulation in New York, this proposed bill is theoretically projected to stifle business growth and potential innovation. This Article focuses on one approach to remedy this by advocating for reform at the federal level and recommending the utilization of the regulatory sandbox as a framework for future regulation.

Regulating Short-Term Rentals In California's Costal Cities: Harmonizing Local Ordinances With The California Costal Act, Lucy Humphreys

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

In the past several years, local governments throughout California have debated and implemented new ordinances in order to regulate short-term rentals, such as those listed on peer-to-peer vacation rental platforms like Airbnb.California’s coastal cities face distinct challenges whentrying to regulate short-term rentals due to the popularity of short-term rentals in their jurisdictions, rising housing prices along the coast, and California Coastal Act requirements. One of the primary goals of the California Coastal Act is to maximize public access to the coast. This Article explores the interplay between state policy embodied by the Coastal Act and the ordinances passed by local …

Burning A Hole In The Pocket Of Justice: Prop. 66'S Underfunded Attempt To Fix California's Death Penalty, Flavia Costea

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

California has struggled with the administrative and financial burdens of a flawed death penalty system for decades. In an effort to save the death penalty, the voters of California enacted Proposition 66, which promised to deliver a quicker and more cost-effective system. This Article focuses on the provision of Prop. 66 that expands the number of lawyers who can act as defense lawyers for inmates on death row. While this provision superficially seems to solve the shortage of defense attorneys willing to take on death penalty cases, without significant funding, the shortage of resources and pressure to speed up executions …

Weed Whacking Through The Tenth Amendment: Navigating A Trump Administration Threat To Withhold Funding From Marijuana-Friendly States, Arlen Gharibian

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

The Trump administration has taken a firm stance against marijuana legalization at the state level. While an official federal policy is still pending, this Article focuses on whether the Trump administration’s threats to preventCalifornia from pursuing its duly enacted marijuana legalization law violates the Tenth Amendment. This Article then addresses how the federal government could achieve its goal while remaining within the bounds of the Constitution.

No Child Left Behind Bars: Suspending Willful Defiance To Disassemble The School-To-Prison Pipeline, Danielle Dankner

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

With the criminalization of school discipline and the subsequent increased involvement between students and the juvenile justice system, a path from school to prison became entrenched. Public schools across the nation continued to increase their reliance on punitive disciplinary measures to punish a range of behaviors. Through these measures, schools began to perceive pushed out students as problematic, despite the lack of evidence supporting the efficacy of such policies. Due to school disciplinarians’ implicit bias when enforcing exclusionary policies, students of color and students with disabilities are most at risk. In the hopes of alleviating the devastating effects of the …

Guilty Until Proven Innocent: California's Prop. 50 Turns The Concept Of Due Process On Its Head, Brantley I. Pepperman

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

For decades, “good governance” has been little more than a talking point for politicians on the road to reelection or a promotion to higher office. In 2014, the California Legislature attempted to give teeth to the idea, successfully spearheading an amendment to the California Constitution approved by voters in 2016. But despite its efforts to “drain the swamp,” the Legislature gave itself a powerful tool, the authority to suspend or expel legislators without pay, that presents more problems than solutions. This article explores the implications of that amendment, including the extent to which it, as codified, comports with procedural due …

A Product Of Childhood: Accounting For Age In The Miranda Analysis, Ariana Rodriguez

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

One of the most polarizing areas of constitutional criminal procedure is that relating to police interrogations and confessions. While the Fifth Amendment guarantees a number of protections from self-incrimination and the inherently coercive nature of criminal investigation, these Constitutional promises are more likely to go unfulfilled when the accused is a child. This Article thoroughly examines the current law’s use of the “totality of the circumstances” test in deciding whether a valid Miranda waiver occurred or whether a juvenile has been taken into custody and, more importantly, explores why this current test remains an inadequate solution for protecting children’s Miranda …

Muddying The Water: Tiered Water Rates After San Juan Capistrano, Travis Kaya

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

In the face of chronic drought, water utilities across California have turned to tiered water rates to promote conservation and curb consumer demand. However, recent legal challenges have called the constitutionality of tiered- rate schemes into question, threatening to deprive utilities of a critical conservation tool.

A patchwork of recent court decisions—the landmark Capistrano Taxpayers Association v. City of San Juan Capistrano most notable among them—have exposed an unresolved conflict between the California Constitution’s water rights and taxation provisions. Namely, how does Proposition 218’s restrictions on assessments for “property related services” apply to tiered water rates set by public water …

Delusive Exactness In California: Redefining The Claim, Kami Laberge

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

My view of primary right may differ from yours, and we have no common ground, only the statement of our opposing views.

Gun Rights Or Gun Control? How California's Waiting Period Law Can Pave The Way To Increased Regulation, Natasha Tran

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

In Defense Of California's Mandatory Child Vaccination Law: California Courts Should Not Depart From Established Precedent, Stephanie Awanyai

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

In the wake of the 2015 measles outbreak in California, California Senate Bill 277 (S.B. 277) was enacted. S.B. 277 repeals the personal belief exemption to California’s immunization requirement for children in public and private educational or child care facilities in the State. While S.B. 277 was enacted to prevent the spread of contagious diseases through mandatory vaccinations of school-aged children, there are objections to this approach. Parents who oppose S.B. 277 contend that S.B. 277 violates their federal and state constitutional rights to make medical decisions on behalf of their child, and infringes on their child’s fundamental state interest …

Identity Crisis: The Misclassification Of California Uber Drivers, Benjamin Powell

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

The Uber ridesharing service is synonymous with the rise of mobile application-based services. This business model has spurred a number of novel legal questions, particularly surrounding the proper identification of Uber drivers. Are they employees, guaranteed the ample protections and workers' rights under California law? Or independent contractors, less subject to employer control, but without the same protections the State provides to employees? With the proliferation of these types of services, answering this question is of critical importance, both to current Uber drivers as well as the countless others who will enter this rapidly-developing field in the coming years. This …

Public Access Vs. Private Property: The Struggle Of Coastal Landowners To Keep The Public Off Their Land, James D. Donahue

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Falcon Cannot Hear The Falconer: How California's Initiative Process Is Creating An Untenable Constitution, Rudy Klapper

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

Californians have always cherished the idea that ultimate political power lies in the people, an idea best represented by the state’s hugely influential initiative process. Today, however, that initiative power threatens to spiral out of control, thanks in large part to the California Supreme Court’s inability to construe appropriate limits on it. This has created an unbalanced government where the rights of minorities are easily circumscribed and the financial and political infrastructure of the state is in danger of buckling under the combined weight of dozens of initiatives. This Article argues that the judiciary’s haphazard interpretation of various rules and …

Remodeling Federal Medical Malpractice Act: A Possible Improvement To The Affordable Care Act, Nancy Kubasek, Tiffany Durham

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

During the debates about healthcare reform, the Congressional Budget Office found that federal medical liability reform could drastically reduce federal budget deficits, yet political and legal scholars could not reach agreement about the best way for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) to provide such reform. Instead, provisions were made to fund state level demonstration projects. The law that is considered one of the most successful models to date of conventional tort reform is the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act of California. This Article exams that legislation and discusses how we might use what can be learned from …

Fixing Hollingsworth: Standing In Initiative Cases, Karl Manheim, John S. Caragozian, Donald Warner

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

In Hollingsworth v. Perry, the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal filed by the “Official Proponents” of California’s Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California. Chief Justice Roberts’ majority opinion held that initiative sponsors lack Article III standing to defend their ballot measures even when state officials refuse to defend against constitutional challenges. As a result, Hollingsworth provides state officers with the ability to overrule laws that were intended to bypass the government establishment—in effect, an “executive veto” of popularly-enacted initiatives.

The Article examines this new “executive veto” in depth. It places Hollingsworth in context, discussing the initiative process …

A Hole In The Plastic Bag: Identifying And Closing The Loophole In The California Environmental Quality Act, Scott Menger

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.