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Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Understanding Urban Renewal: History Forgotten, Daniel R. Mandelker

Scholarship@WashULaw

Urban renewal is an important feature of urban life, but judicial, statutory, and constitutional backlash followed a U.S. Supreme Court decision that held constitutional the use of eminent domain to acquire land for redevelopment in an urban renewal project. Urban renewal got its start in the federal urban renewal program, which influenced state legislation but had a weak planning requirement and did not include blight as a requirement for urban renewal. This weakness was a factor in the problems that occurred in urban renewal and that created the backlash to the Supreme Court decision.

Recommendations To Increase The Resilience Of Wastewater Treatment In Coastal Virginia, Grace D. Molino, Forrest M. Via

Virginia Coastal Policy Center

This white paper discusses the problem of septic failures in Virginia, as infrastructure ages and previously installed systems can no longer function. Section II.A. discusses the feasibility of regulatory and other measures that the Virginia state and local governments can implement to incentivize the identification, maintenance and repair of septic systems. Among these measures is a point-of-sale inspection requirement, which would require real property sellers to have their septic system inspected upon sale. Additionally, this white paper addresses several alternative options to conventional onsite septic systems, including public information campaigns to inform septic system owners of maintenance and repair techniques; …

Frenemy Federalism, Scott Bloomberg

University of Richmond Law Review

Federalism scholars have long been fascinated by the unique relationship between the federal government and states that have legalized marijuana. And with good reason. For the past fifty years, Congress has classified marijuana as a Schedule I drug under the federal Controlled Substances Act (“CSA”), deeming the drug to have a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use. Congress’s aim in establishing Schedule I of the CSA was to “eliminate the market in Schedule I substances.” Thus, possessing, distributing, and manufacturing marijuana are federally illegal. Congress’s objective notwithstanding, over two-thirds of the states (and territories) have legalized marijuana …

Underprosecution Too, Michal Buchhandler-Raphael

University of Richmond Law Review

This Article makes two main contributions to existing literature. First, it asserts that in deciding whether to pursue sexual assault charges, prosecutors should not rely on the convictability standard. Assessing evidentiary sufficiency in sexual assault cases through the lens of a hypothetical jury is misguided because it incorporates a myriad of jurors’ extralegal considerations of victims’ behaviors, consisting of racialized, gendered, class, status and other prejudices and biases against victims.35 Declining to prosecute sexual assault based on the convictability standard not only perpetuates unwarranted misconceptions about certain victims, but also reinforces their marginalization by exacerbating the legal system’s unequal and …

Out Of Sight And Out Of Mind: Criminal Laws Disguised Moral Culpability Requirement, Andrew Ingram

University of Richmond Law Review

Last spring, the Supreme Court of the United States made a little-remarked constitutional ruling in Kahler v. Kansas. Upon casual inspection, Kahler looks like a doctrinal dead-end. The petitioner asked the Supreme Court to recognize a due process right for mentally ill defendants to raise the M’Naghten right-and-wrong test of insanity, and the Court said, “No.” The petitioner’s failure notwithstanding, Kahler is not a barren vine. On the contrary, it is heavy-laden with new doctrinal insights for criminal law scholars.

The case deserves a thorough look—not for what it can teach us about constitutional contentions that the Court has …

The Pain Of Paying Taxes, Gary M. Lucas Jr.

University of Richmond Law Review

With a few caveats, standard economic models assume that, from society’s perspective, the payment of a tax constitutes a costless transfer from the taxpayer to the government. The financial loss to the taxpayer is exactly offset by the financial gain to the government, which can use the resulting tax revenue for the benefit of its citizens. In other words, paying taxes forces taxpayers to forgo private consumption, but the resulting loss in utility can be counterbalanced by an increase in utility from government spending. In fact, if the government spends wisely on beneficial public goods that are undersupplied by private …

Unservice: Reconceptualizing The Utility Duty To Serve In Light Of Climate Change, Heather Payne

University of Richmond Law Review

Many facets of utility monopoly regulation are approaching a minimum of eight decades as part of our legal landscape. A bedrock principle of state utility regulation is the duty to serve, which demands that utilities provide nondiscriminatory service to all those within their geographic territory for the specific service for which they have been granted a monopoly. Within its exclusive territory, a utility is required “to serve all present and reasonably to be anticipated future users.” Each state has adopted some form of this for its regulated monopolies, although formulations differ. This Article argues that in light of climate change …

Law, Religion, And The Covid Crisis, Mark L. Movsesian

Faculty Publications

This essay explores judicial responses to legal restrictions on worship during the COVID-19 pandemic and draws two lessons, one comparative and one relating specifically to U.S. law. As a comparative matter, courts across the globe have approached the problem in essentially the same way, through intuition and balancing. This has been the case regardless of what formal test applies, the proportionality test outside the United States, which expressly calls for judges to weigh the relative costs and benefits of a restriction, or the Employment Division v. Smith test inside the United States, which rejects judicial line-drawing and balancing in favor …

Interest-Based Incorporation: Statutory Realism Exploring Federalism, Delegation, And Democratic Design, Sheldon Evans

Faculty Publications

Statutory interpretation is a unique legal field that appreciates fiction as much as fact. For years, judges and scholars have acknowledged that canons of interpretation are often based on erudite assumptions of how Congress drafts federal statutes. But a recent surge in legal realism has shown just how erroneous many of these assumptions are. Scholars have created a robust study of congressional practices that challenge many formalist canons of interpretation that are divorced from how Congress thinks about, drafts, and enacts federal statutes. This conversation, however, has yet to confront statutory incorporation, which describes when Congress incorporates state law into …

Platforms As Blackacres, Thomas E. Kadri

Articles

While writing this Article, I interviewed a journalist who writes stories about harmful technologies. To do this work, he gathers information from websites to reveal trends that online platforms would prefer to hide. His team has exposed how Facebook threatens people's privacy and safety, how Amazon hides cheaper deals from consumers, and how Google diverts political speech from our inboxes. You'd think the journalist might want credit for telling these important stories, but he instead insisted on anonymity when we talked because his lawyer was worried he'd be confessing to breaking the law-to committing the crime and tort of cyber-trespass. …

Requiring Majority Winners For Congressional Elections: Harnessing Federalism To Combat Extremism, Edward B. Foley

Lewis & Clark Law Review

Congress should enact a law requiring a candidate for a seat in Congress to receive a majority of votes in order to win the election. Congress should let states determine what particular procedure to use to determine whether a candidate wins a majority, as there are significantly different methods of identifying a majority winner. While this simple piece of legislation might seem inconsequential—many Americans assume, erroneously, that elections already require majority winners—it in fact would cause states to undertake a form of experimentation in the details of electoral system design that would have the effect of counteracting the threat that …

Undue Deference To States In The 2020 Election Litigation, Joshua A. Douglas

Lewis & Clark Law Review

This Article provides the first comprehensive analysis of the numerous election law cases that the Supreme Court and the federal appellate courts decided in the lead up to the 2020 election. The picture is bleak. Instead of protecting the constitutional right to vote, the Supreme Court and lower federal appeals courts unduly deferred to state legislatures in how to run the election, with little concern for the difficulties voters faced during a pandemic. If the courts do not alter their jurisprudence, then the only solution may be robust federal legislation or a constitutional amendment that enshrines the right to vote …

Criminal Disenfranchisement In State Constitutions: A Marker Of Exclusion, Punitiveness, And Fragile Citizenship, Nora V. Demleitner

Lewis & Clark Law Review

Many states prominently include criminal disenfranchisement provisions in their constitutions, which powerfully, and more permanently than state laws, convey the states’ values. These provisions also underscore the ease with which the protected status of citizenship, most pronounced in the right to vote, can be lost. Using the debate in Virginia over how to change the state’s constitution to limit disenfranchisement as a starting point, this Article highlights the need for inclusive voting provisions in state constitutions to reflect a broad conception of citizenship rights and the expansion of the franchise over the last century. Reform demands must be seen in …

One Step Further For Protection: Why Oregon Should Adopt Additional Requirements For The Appointment Of Counsel To Youths Accused Of Crime, Ivy-Rose Kramer

Lewis & Clark Law Review

Current procedures for interrogating and investigating youths accused of crime do not provide sufficient protection for youths and their rights. Oregon should follow the example of other states that have adopted greater protections for youths—beyond what the Constitution currently requires. Specifically, Oregon should enact legislation that would provide counsel to youths who are (1) detained and being investigated based on probable cause of criminal activity; (2) undergoing custodial interrogation; and (3) in possession of property law enforcement wishes to search. This consultation with counsel should not be waivable. Such a law would counteract the harmful effects of disparate treatment and …

The Wild West Of Data Privacy: Why Rhode Island Needs To Enact Comprehensive Legislation To Protect Consumers’ Data, Candace Quinn

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Kumble V. Voccola, 253 A.3d 1248 (R.I. 2021), Aryamen Andrew Omshehe

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Belmore V. Petterutti, 253 A.3d 864 (R.I. 2021), Whitney A. Saunders

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Changemakers: Master Of Studies In Law: 'Law Isn't A Foreign Language Anymore', Roger Williams University School O Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Changemakers: Master Of Studies In Law: 'Radical Imagination, Radical Listening', Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Traumatic Justice, Teri Dobbins Baxter

University of Richmond Law Review

In the recent past, allegations of police misconduct have periodically led to widespread community protests, but usually only when the incident is sufficiently high-profile and the harm is severe, such as when a police officer beats or kills an unarmed Black person. More often the spotlight and outrage have faded quickly, as victims were discredited and no charges were brought, or no convictions obtained. But citizens have increasingly harnessed the power of cell phone videos and social media to bring attention to acts of racial violence and hold accountable those who are responsible, particularly in cases of alleged police misconduct. …

Confronting The Local Land Checkerboard, Daniel B. Rosenbaum

University of Richmond Law Review

Fractured public land is hidden in plain sight. In communities across the country, a patchwork assortment of local governments share splintered ownership over surplus public properties, which can be found scattered in residential neighborhoods and alongside highways, in the shadows of development projects and in the scars of urban renewal. The ripple effect of this fragmentation extends across the spectrum of local governance. It creates needless costs and bureaucratic headaches at a time of acute fiscal distress for cities and counties. It contributes to an inequitable imbalance of local power between formal and informal landowners in a community. And curiously, …

Applying Products Liability Law To Facebook’S Platform And Algorithms: Addiction, Radicalization, And Real-World Harm, Grant W. Shea

University of Richmond Law Review

Facebook has become central to the lives of millions of Americans. As of 2021, 69% of U.S. adults use Facebook. Among those U.S. adults who use Facebook, roughly 70% visit Facebook at least once a day. Moreover, as of 2020, 36% of U.S. adults receive their news through Facebook. That means roughly 60 million U.S. adults receive their news through Facebook each day. Facebook’s impact on American society cannot be overstated when viewed through such a lens. Thus, it is important to ensure Facebook responsibly designs its products: its platform and its algorithms.

America's Lawyerless Courts: Legal Scholars Work To Recommend Large-Scale Changes In Lawyerless Civil Courts, Anna E. Carpenter, Colleen F. Shanahan, Jessica K. Steinberg, Alyx Mark

Faculty Scholarship

At approximately 9:00 on most weekday mornings, thousands of state civil courts open their doors and begin hearing cases. These cases involve hundreds of thousands of people acrossthe country. State civil courts are the core of America's civil justice system, whether measured by a raw number of cases or courts'impact on ordinary people's lives. These courts handle 98% of all civil matters filed each year – around 20 million cases.

Many people are pulled into civil court because they cannot pay their rent or debts. Many more come to court for help with intimate and family relationships, including those seeking …

Solving The Procedural Puzzles Of The Texas Heartbeat Act And Its Imitators: The Limits And Opportunities Of Offensive Litigation, Howard M. Wasserman, Charles W. Rhodes

American University Law Review

The Texas Heartbeat Act, enacted in 2021 as Senate Bill 8 (S.B. 8), prohibits abortions following detection of a fetal heartbeat, a constitutionally invalid ban under current Supreme Court precedent. But the method of enforcement in the Texas law is unique—it prohibits enforcement by government officials in favor of private civil actions brought by “any person,” regardless of injury. Texas sought to burden reproductive-health providers and rights advocates with costly litigation and potentially crippling liability.

In a series of articles, we explore how S.B. 8's reliance on exclusive private enforcement at the expense of public enforcement creates procedural and jurisdictional …

Front Matter

SMU Annual Texas Survey

No abstract provided.

Bankruptcy, Harlin D. Hale, Grayson Williams

SMU Annual Texas Survey

No abstract provided.

Civil Procedure: Pre-Trial & Trial, Amanda Sotak, Don Colleluori, Andrew C. Whitaker

SMU Annual Texas Survey

No abstract provided.

Annual Review Of Texas Law: Commercial Law, Sally Mcdonald Henry

SMU Annual Texas Survey

No abstract provided.