Law Commons^™

No Longer Innocent Until Proven Guilty: How Ohio Violates The Fourth Amendment Through Familial Dna Searches Of Felony Arrestees, Jordan Mason

Cleveland State Law Review

In 2013, the United States Supreme Court legalized DNA collection of all felony arrestees upon arrest through its decision in Maryland v. King. Since then, the State of Ohio has broadened the use of arrestee DNA by subjecting it to familial DNA searches. Ohio’s practice of conducting familial DNA searches of arrestee DNA violates the Fourth Amendment because arrestees have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the information that is extracted from a familial DNA search and it fails both the totality of the circumstances and the special needs tests. Further, these tests go against the intention of the …

Should A Physician Apologize For A Medical Mistake? – The Controversy Over The Effectiveness Of Apology Law Statutes, Samuel D. Hodge, Jr.

Cleveland State Law Review

There are two approaches that health care providers can pursue in handling a medical error. Is it better for a physician not to admit a mistake and aggressively defend the claim or apologize and try to amicably resolve the matter? There has been a growing movement for physicians to offer words of sympathy or to apologize for a medical mistake as a way of minimizing the impact of a medical error and reducing the chances of a malpractice claim. There are a number of benefits to this approach but critics maintain that an apology is a useless gesture with an …

Copyright Statement, Cleveland State Law Review

Cleveland State Law Review

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Table Of Contents, Cleveland State Law Review

Cleveland State Law Review

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The Ambiguity And Unfairness Of Dismissing Bad Writing, Benjamin D. Raker

Cleveland State Law Review

Courts routinely choose to explicitly dismiss arguments and issues raised by parties, regardless of their merit, based on unexplained determinations that the briefing was bad. This practice, which I call abandonment by poor presentation, is sometimes justified by practicality, by pointing to federal and local rules, by waiver and forfeiture doctrines, and by the norm of party presentation. None of these justifications hold water. I contend that the real reason judges find abandonment by poor presentation is agenda control: judges rely on the practice as a means of retaining control over how they decide cases. This unexplained, poorly justified, and …

Got Bounded Rationality And Political Gridlock? There's A Loan Disclosure Hack For That, Debra Pogrund Stark, Jessica M. Choplin, Andrew Pizor

Cleveland State Law Review

For decades, Congress has primarily relied upon the use of mandatory disclosure forms to protect consumers from entering into ill-advised loans by disclosing the terms of an offered loan before the borrower enters into it. This policy is not likely to change any time soon due to congressional gridlock. Frustratingly, despite improvements, consumers still have difficulties using these forms to obtain the key information and data they need to make wise decisions. These disclosures contain a great deal of information, and assume that consumers are capable of reading, understanding, and using all of it. Contrary to this assumption, research on …

Buckeyes Against The Boycott: Why Ohio's Law Opposing Bds Is Protected Under The First Amendment, Hannah Kraus

Cleveland State Law Review

In 2016, Ohio became the fourteenth state to enact legislation denouncing the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel. Codified as § 9.76 of the Ohio Revised Code, this legislation prohibits any state agency from contracting with a company that boycotts Israel during the contractual period. While the constitutionality of § 9.76 has not been challenged, anti-BDS statutes passed by other state legislatures have faced First Amendment challenges. This Note argues that § 9.76 of the Ohio Revised Code complies with the First Amendment under the government speech doctrine. In 1991, the Supreme Court applied the government speech doctrine in …

Masthead, Cleveland State Law Review

Cleveland State Law Review

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Cleveland State Law Review

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The Right To Unmarry: A Proposal, Brian L. Frye, Maybell Romero

Cleveland State Law Review

When I say I’m in love, you better believe I’m in love, L-U-V.

[April 2, 2020] BLF: This is a marriage proposal in the form of a law review article. In this Article, I observe that Maybell Romero and I are in love. I want to marry her, and I believe she wants to marry me. At least I’ll find out pretty soon. But we cannot marry each other right now, because we are both currently married to other people. Maybell and I want to end our existing marriages, and our respective spouses have even agreed to divorce. But the …

Cover, Cleveland State Law Review

Cleveland State Law Review

No abstract provided.

Copyright Statement, Cleveland State Law Review

Cleveland State Law Review

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Private Affairs: Public Employees And The Right To Sexual Privacy, Susan A. Jacobsen

Cleveland State Law Review

Currently, the federal circuit courts split on whether public employers can discipline their employees for legal, off-duty sexual activity. The Fifth and Tenth Circuits permit discipline in these scenarios; the Ninth Circuit does not. At issue is whether certain public employees, like police officers, should be held to a higher standard because of their duty to the public or whether the Constitution entitles them to privacy rights that shield them from discipline. This Note concludes the latter and argues against punishing the legal, off-duty sexual conduct of all public employees. Because the right to sexual privacy already exists within the …

Opportunity In Ohio: Rethinking Northeast Ohio's Opportunity Zones With Local Legislation, Patrick J. Lipaj

Cleveland State Law Review

Welcome to Census Tract 1186.02! Here, in a small sliver of Cleveland’s Glenville neighborhood, tucked between Superior and Hough Avenues, you will uncover a lot. You will discover a rich history of the city’s ethnic and cultural roots. You will also find gang violence, underperforming schools, a median household income of $9,526, and a poverty rate of 66.5 percent. Something you will not find in 1186.02 is investment. Private or public, money is not flowing in to 1186.02 and it has not for a long time. The substantial toll of continuous underinvestment on the residents of this neighborhood, one of …

Failing To Keep The Cat In The Bag: A Decennial Assessment Of Federal Rule Of Evidence 502'S Impact On Forfeiture Of Legal Privilege Under Customary Waiver Doctrine, Jared S. Sunshine

Cleveland State Law Review

Federal Rule of Evidence 502—providing certain exemptions from the surrender of attorney-client and work product privilege because a confidential item was disclosed—had great expectations to live up to after its enactment in 2008, as Congress and others heralded it as a panacea to litigation’s woes in the face of bourgeoning discovery. The enacted rule was the subject of much skepticism by the academic punditocracy, however. Ten years later, this Article surveys the actual results and finds that, regrettably, pessimism has proven the better prediction. Percolation of debate over the rule’s many ambiguities and courts’ disparate approaches have not resolved initial …

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Cleveland State Law Review

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Table Of Contents, Cleveland State Law Review

Cleveland State Law Review

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Bucklew V. Precythe'S Return To The Original Meaning Of "Unusual": Prohibiting Extensive Delays On Death Row, Jacob Leon

Cleveland State Law Review

The Supreme Court, in Bucklew v. Precythe, provided an originalist interpretation of the term “unusual” in the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution. This originalist interpretation asserted that the word “unusual” proscribes punishments that have “long fallen out of use.” To support its interpretation, the Supreme Court cited John Stinneford’s well-known law review article The Original Meaning of “Unusual”: The Eighth Amendment as a Bar to Cruel Innovation. This Article, as Bucklew did, accepts Stinneford’s interpretation of the word “unusual” as correct. Under Stinneford’s interpretation, the term “unusual” is a legal term of art derived from eighteenth-century …

Copyright Statement, Cleveland State Law Review

Cleveland State Law Review

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Cleveland State Law Review

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Decoding Judicial Reasoning In China: A Comparative Empirical Analysis Of Guiding Cases, Runhua Wang

Cleveland State Law Review

The judicial system in China recently started using legal precedents—known as guiding cases—as a new legal source to eliminate adjudicative inconsistency. Guiding cases (“GCs”) present the current judicial reasoning to some extent and can be used to predict the future of judicial reasoning in China. What are GCs? What legal issues do GCs address? How do they address legal issues? How do GCs affect the legal system and adjudication in China? This Article answers these questions with empirical evidence and comparisons to judicial reasoning in the United States. It is the first empirical research providing a systematic review of all …

The Nfl Player, The Schoolchild, And The Entertainer: When The Term "Free Speech" Is Too Freely Spoken, Exactly "Who's On First?", Christian Ketter

Cleveland State Law Review

As America’s media and politicians continue to debate the free speech rights of NFL players, schoolchildren, and entertainers, the dialogue has confused many Americans as to what exactly the First Amendment protects. Chief Justice John G. Roberts ultimately assumes the role of an umpire in many of these issues, guiding the United States Supreme Court to incrementally “call balls and strikes.” In recent years, the Court has umpired employment rights and state action cases, and Roberts’s calls will likely further distance the Court that decided Morse v. Frederick from the one that decided Tinker v. Des Moines. Amid a …

Land Of The Free, If You Can Afford It: Reforming Mayor's Courts In Ohio, Lucia Lopez-Hisijos

Cleveland State Law Review

Unlike most states in America, Ohio has a unique system of punishing minor misdemeanors and ordinance violations through municipal institutions called mayor’s courts. In 2017, Ohio had 295 of these courts, and they heard nearly 300,000 cases. But these are not normal courts. Ohio’s mayor’s courts do not conduct ability to pay hearings and can jail defendants who fail to pay court fines. With the author’s original research into Ohio’s mayor’s courts, this Note argues that these institutions can function like modern-day debtor’s prisons and violate indigent defendants’ constitutional right to Due Process. Ultimately, this Note proposes a model bill …

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Cleveland State Law Review

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Table Of Contents, Cleveland State Law Review

Cleveland State Law Review

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Masterpiece Cakeshop'S Homiletics, Marc Spindelman

Cleveland State Law Review

Viewed closely and comprehensively, Masterpiece Cakeshop, far from simply being the narrow, shallow, and modest decision many have taken it to be, is a rich, multi-faceted decision that cleaves and binds the parties to the case, carefully managing conflictual crisis. Through a ruling for a faithful custom-wedding-cake baker against a state whose legal processes are held to have been marred by anti-religious bias, the Court unfolds a cross-cutting array of constitutional wins and losses for cultural conservatives and traditional moralists, on the one hand, and for lesbians and gay men and their supporters committed to civil and equal rights, …

An Open Letter To The Ohio Supreme Court: Setting A Uniform Standard On Anders Briefs, Matthew D. Fazekas

Cleveland State Law Review

Attorneys are faced with an ethical dilemma when they represent indigent defendants who wish to appeal a criminal sentence, but that appeal would be frivolous. In 1967, the United States Supreme Court, in Anders v. California, introduced a procedure protecting the rights of indigent defendants that balanced the ethical concerns of an attorney forced to file a frivolous appeal. In 2000, the Court in Smith v. Robbins held that the states can set their own procedure for the aforementioned ethical dilemma, so long as it protects the rights of indigent defendants in compliance with the Fourteenth Amendment. This has …

Is Law A Discipline? Forays Into Academic Culture, Gene R. Shreve

Cleveland State Law Review

This Article explores academic culture. It addresses the reluctance in academic circles to accord law the full stature of a discipline. It forms doubts that have been raised into a series of four criticisms. Each attacks an academic feature of law, inviting the question: Is law different from the rest of the university in a way damaging its stature as an academic discipline? The Article concludes that, upon careful examination of each criticism, none establishes a difference between law and other disciplines capable of damaging law’s stature.

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Cleveland State Law Review

No abstract provided.

Masthead, Cleveland State Law Review

Cleveland State Law Review

No abstract provided.