Law Commons^™

Tax Benefits Of Government-Owned Marijuana Stores, Benjamin Leff

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This Article is the first to address whether independent governmental affiliates that sell marijuana are exempt from federal income tax under section 115 of the Internal Revenue Code. It argues that such entities should easily pass the IRS's current interpretation of the three requirements for tax-exemption under section 115: (i) that exempt income be derived from "the exercise of any essential governmental function"; (ii) that such income "accru[e] to a State or any political subdivision thereof"; and (iii) that the income "not serve private interests[.]" In addition, this Article argues that though selling marijuana is illegal under federal law, that …

Nontechnical Disclosure, Jonas Anderson

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One of the primary goals of the patent system is the broad dissemination of technical knowledge. But, as this Article argues, there is also an underappreciated amount of nontechnical knowledge contained in a patent, information that may in certain cases be more valuable to readers than the technical disclosure contained in a patent. This Article looks at various types of nontechnical disclosure to argue that appreciating the nontechnical aspects of patent disclosure can increase our understanding of what information patents are disseminating to the general public.

Supreme Court Amicus Brief Of Law Professors In Support Of Petitioner Lee V. Tam, No. 15-1293 (Filed Nov. 16, 2016), Christine Farley, Rebecca Tushnet

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The Federal Circuit’s ruling that the § 2(a) disparagement provision is unconstitutional, if upheld, could allow for numerous provisions of the Trademark Act to be overturned, dismantling the modern trademark system. The trademark system is premised on evaluating speech and making content-based determinations. Granting a trademark registration requires content-based determinations, though not viewpoint-based, as words are evaluated independent of applicants’ individual viewpoints.In no way does the refusal to register a trademark prevent its use or diminish public debate. Rather than facilitating public debate, a trademark registration is a government-issued document that makes it easier for its owner to suppress the …

Book Review J. Shoshanna Ehrilich, Regulating Desire: From The Virtuous Maiden To The Purity Princess, Maya Manian

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In this effective and engaging book, J. Shoshanna Ehrlich uncovers the hidden agendas underlying the long history of the law's regulation of female adolescent sexuality. Ehrlich persuasively demonstrates that a multitude of laws purporting to protect public health in one form or another in fact "encode the value of female virtue into law based upon a set of assumptions about their sexuality" (3). The book spans a wide time period, moving chronologically through a series of legal reform movements targeting young women's sexuality, from the 1838 effort to criminalize seduction to the modem-day movement promoting abstinence-only sex education. Although the …

Intellectual Property And Related Rights In Climate Data, Michael Carroll

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This chapter focuses on the ways in which intellectual property law can act as a barrier to data sharing. Intellectual property laws supply exclusive rights that can enable a researcher, employer or funder to ‘own’ data; they can then bring legal claims against persons who access or reuse data without permission. Some of these rights attach automatically to data, data sets, or databases, and thus must be managed properly to enable robust data sharing in climate science. Other rights are created by contract, and the policies around such privately created rights must be understood and analyzed. This chapter briefly describes …

Thinking Outside The Jury Box: Deploying The Grand Jury In The Guilty Plea Process, Roger Fairfax

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There is near-universal agreement that the engine of the modern American criminal justice system is plea bargaining.'Given the ubiquity of plea bargaining, the Supreme Court and the rest of the legal community have begun setting their sights on how the practice might be better regulated. At the same time, many hold the view that the grand jury has outlived its usefulness in the administration of criminal justice and is a relic of a time gone by. Even before recent calls for the abolition of the grand jury in the wake of high-profile cases that seemed to cast the institution in …

President Obama's Approach To The Middle East And North Africa: Strategic Absence, Paul Williams

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Many commentators argue that the White House does not have a policy regarding the Middle East and North Africa. Based on observations of the White House's foreign policy decisions over a breadth of seven years, this article argues that The White House does have a clear policy and it is one of Strategic Absence. The term Strategic Absence is used to describe political behavior that arises from a belief that sometimes, in foreign affairs, it is better to be absent rather than present. Strategic Absence has led to a degradation of American influence in the Middle East and has contributed …

Policing Criminal Justice Data, Wayne Logan, Andrew Ferguson

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This article addresses a matter of fundamental importance to the criminal justice system: the presence of erroneous information in government databases and the limited government accountability and legal remedies for the harm that it causes individuals. While a substantial literature exists on the liberty and privacy perils of large multi-source data assemblage, often termed "big data," this article addresses the risks associated with the collection, generation and use of "small data" (i.e., individual-level, discrete data points). Because small data provides the building blocks for all data-driven systems, enhancing its quality will have a significant positive effect on the criminal justice …

Stories Of Teaching Race, Gender, And Class: A Narrative, Brenda V. Smith

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This Essay transcribes and discusses Smith's keynote speech at the New England Clinical Conference at Harvard Law School in November, 2015. Smith's speech discusses the intersection between race, gender, and class, highlighting them as sites of vulnerability through a personal storytelling lens. By sharing her individual experiences, Smith hopes to draw attention to insecurities and threats faced by many individuals who refuse to speak out.

Frontlines: Policing At The Lexus Of Race And Mental Health, Camille Nelson

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he last several years have rendered issues at the intersection of race, mental health, and policing more acute. The frequency and violent, often lethal, nature of these incidents is forcing a national conversation about matters which many people would rather cast aside as volatile, controversial, or as simply irrelevant to conversations about the justice system. It seems that neither civil rights activists engaged in the work of advancing racial equality nor disability rights activists recognize the potent combination of negative racialization and mental illness at this nexus that bring policing practices into sharp focus. As such, the compounding dynamics and …

Why The Hurry To Regulate Autonomous Weapon Systems-But Not Cyber-Weapons?, Kenneth Anderson

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No abstract provided.

Why Delaware Courts Should Abolish The Schnell Doctrine, Mary Siegel

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No abstract provided.

The Historical Realization Of The Americans With Disabilities Act On Athletes With Disabilities, Michael W. Carroll, Michael Cottingham, Don Lee, Deborah Shapiro, Brenda Pitts

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The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 has been one of the most powerful tools used by persons with disabilities in the fight for access and equality. Significant case law demonstrates the impact of the ADA on disability sport participation and access, but little is known regarding how the ADA has impacted athletes with disabilities. Thus, the purpose of this study was to gain the perspective of elite athletes with disabilities who competed before and after the ADA's enactment. Participants were interviewed, and the data were transcribed and analyzed. Findings indicated that participants generally felt physical barriers were most …

Residual Value Capture In Subsidized Housing, Brandon Weiss

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This Article argues that our primary federal subsidized housing production pro- gram, the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), will result in the unnecessary forfeit of billions of dollars of government investment and the potential displacement of tens of thousands of households beginning in 2020 when LIHTC property use restrictions start to expire. The LIHTC example is presented as a case study of an inherent dynamic of public-private partnerships namely, the potential capture by for-profit providers of "residual value." For purposes of this Article, this is value generated by a public-private transaction that is unnecessary to incentivize a private provider to …

The Feminist Case For Acknowledging Women's Acts Of Violence, Jamie Abrams

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This Article makes a feminist case for acknowledging women’s acts of violence as consistent with — not threatening to — the goals of the domestic violence movement and the feminist movement. It concludes that broadly understanding women’s use of strength, power, coercion, control, and violence, even illegitimate uses, can be framed consistent with feminist goals. Beginning this conversation is a necessary — if uncomfortable — step to give movement to the movement to end gendered violence.

The domestic violence movement historically framed its work on a gender binary of men as potential perpetrators and women as potential victims. This binary …

Should The Best Offenses Ever Be A Good Defense: The Public Authority To Use Force In Millitary Operations: Recalibrating The Use Of Force Rules In The Standing Rules Of Engagement, Gary Corn

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The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff's Standing Rules of Engagement/StandingRules for the Use of Force (SROE/SRUF)for U.S. Forces provides strategic guidance to the armed forces on the authority to use force during all military operations. The standing self-defense rules in the SROE for national, unit, and individual self-defense form the core of these use-of-force authorities. The SROE self-defense rules are incorrectly built on a unitary jus ad bellum framework, legally inapplicable below the level of national self-defense. Coupled with the pressures of sustained counter-insurgency operations, this misalignment of individual and unit self-defense authorities has led to a conflation …

Predictive Prosecution, Andrew Ferguson

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Police in major metropolitan areas now use “predictive policing” technologies to identify and deter crime. The early successes of predictive policing have led a few prosecutor’s offices to adopt quasi-“predictive prosecution” strategies. Predictive prosecution involves the identification and targeting of suspects deemed most at risk for future serious criminal activity, and then the use of that information to shape bail determinations, charging decisions, and sentencing arguments. This type of “Moneyball” prosecution has begun in New York City and Chicago, and this essay addresses the promise and peril of this new technology.This essay for the Wake Forest Law Review’s Symposium on …

Enforcement Discretion Under Attack: Implications For Fda, Lewis Grossman

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Author's Note: On June 23, as this article was going to press, the Supreme Court deadlocked 4-4 in U.S. v. Texas, thus affirming a preliminary injunction against implementation of the Obama Administration’s deferred-action program for millions of undocumented immigrants. Because the Court’s terse per curiam decision established no precedent, the questions that the case raised regarding the permissible scope of administrative enforcement discretion remain unresolved on the national level. The Supreme Court will likely consider them again—after a decision on a permanent injunction in the same case, in a similar immigration dispute, or perhaps in another field of administrative law. …

#Lawyeringpeace: The Role Of Lawyers In Peacebuilding, Paul Williams, Christin Coster

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Based on the Public International Law & Policy Group’s (“PILPG”) two decades of experience assisting countries and clients in conflict situations, it is clear there are a number of ways for lawyers and international law to promote peacebuilding. This article condenses information shared during the International Law Weekend panel, “International Law and States in Emergency: Responses and Challenges.” The focus of the presentation was how lawyers can and should make a difference in peacebuilding and post-conflict constitution drafting. The world needs more lawyers to “lawyer peace” by assisting countries and clients involved in ongoing conflicts or in peace negotiations. In …

The Fact Of The Matter, David Spratt

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No abstract provided.

Arbitrary Detention? The Immigration Detention Bed Quota, Anita Sinha

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When President Obama took office in 2009, Congress through appropriations linked the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) funding to “maintaining” 33,400 immigration detention beds a day. This provision, what this Article refers to as the bed quota, remains in effect, except now the mandate is 34,000 beds a day. Since 2009, DHS detentions of non-citizens have gone up by nearly 25 percent. To accommodate for this significant spike over a relatively short period of time, the federal government has relied considerably on private prison corporations to build and operate immigration detention facilities.

This Article takes a comprehensive look at …

Applying The Health Justice Framework To Diabetes As A Community-Managed Social Phenomenon, Lindsay Wiley

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INTRODUCTION: In East Harlem, it is possible to take any simple nexus of people -the line at an A.T.M., a portion of a postal route, the members of a church choir -and trace an invisible web of diabetes that stretches through the group and out into the neighborhood, touching nearly every life with its menace.Ten years ago, the New York Times published "Bad Blood," a series of articles examining the impact of diabetes on the residents of New York City. In the years that followed, New York pioneered a series of groundbreaking legal interventions, including implementing measures to track diabetes …

From Patient Rights To Health Justice, Lindsay Wiley

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Models emphasizing professional autonomy, patient rights, market power, and health consumerism are no longer adequate to address the increasingly social, collective nature of health law institutions, instruments, and norms. What is needed is a new model that expressly recognizes the public-alongside the patient, the provider, and the payer-as an important stakeholder and active participant in decisions about medical treatment, health care coverage, and allocation of scarce resources. In a previous article, the author looked to the environmental justice, reproductive justice, and food justice movements for inspiration in developing a "health justice" approach to eliminating social disparities in health. This Article …

Stories Of Teaching Race, Gender, And Class: A Narrative, Brenda V. Smith

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This Essay arises out of the keynote speech that I gave at the New England Clinical Conference at Harvard Law School in November 2015. The conference theme was, “Teaching Race, Gender and Class: Learning from Our Students, Communities and Each Other.” The primary planners and hosts for the conference were clinical teachers and programs in the Northeast, but participants came from around the country to talk about the importance of addressing race, gender and class in this moment of black lives mattering. They wanted to talk about the way that these issues of race, gender and class had always been …

Lawn Signs: A Fourth Amendment For Constitutional Curmudgeons, Andrew Ferguson

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What is the constitutional significance of the proverbial "keep off the grass" sign? This question — asked by curmudgeonly neighbors everywhere — has been given new currency in a recent decision by the United States Supreme Court. Indeed, Florida v. Jardines might have bestowed constitutional curmudgeons with significant new Fourth Amendment protections. By expressing expectations regarding — and control over — access to property, "the people" may be able to claim greater Fourth Amendment protections not only for their homes, but also for their persons, papers, and effects. This article launches a constitutionally grounded, but lighthearted campaign of citizen education …

Talking Foreign Policy: The Iran Nuclear Accord, Paul Williams, Milena Sterio, Avidan Cover, Mike Newton

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No abstract provided.

The Death Penalty And Mental Illness In International Human Rights Law, Richard Wilson

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Introduction: This symposium primarily focuses on the extraordinary legal and personal saga of one man, Joe Giarratano, his decades-long heroic struggle to overturn his death sentence and, ultimately, to obtain his release and exoneration. Prior to the conference, my only acquaintance with the Giarratano case was the decision in Murray v. Giarratanol-the U.S. Supreme Court decision holding that the Sixth Amendment right to appointed counsel does not extend to the post-conviction stages of death penalty litigation. The symposium provided a much broader perspective on the saga of Joe Giarratano, whose own legal skills parallel those of the many lawyers involved …

Supranationalism And Foreign Law At The Court Of Justice Of The Eu Symposium: Foreign Law In Constitutional Courts: Introduction, Fernanda Nicola

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By virtue of its peculiar position as the world’s first supranational court, the comparative legal method and the use of foreign law hold a particular significance for the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU, or “the Court”). This supranational characteristic, however, places the Court under an intense and unique set of judicial and political pressures. The Court must ensure the autonomy, exclusivity, and functioning of the EU’s legal order, while remaining sensitive to the fact that it is positioned as a central node in a network of national, international, and foreign courts that are profoundly affected by its …

Minors, Parents, And Minor Parents, Maya Manian

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As numerous scholars have noted, the law takes a strikingly incoherent approach to adolescent reproduction. States overwhelmingly allow a teenage girl to independently consent to pregnancy care and medical treatment for her child, and even to give up her child for adoption, all without notice to her parents, but require parental notice or consent for abortion. This Article argues that this oft-noted contradiction in the law on teenage reproductive decision-making is in fact not as contradictory as it first appears. A closer look at the law’s apparently conflicting approaches to teenage abortion and teenage childbirth exposes common ground that scholars …

Suffering In Silence: The Survey Of Law Student Well-Being And The Reluctance Of Law Students To Seek Help For Substance Use And Mental Health Concerns, David Jaffe, Jerome Organ, Katherine Bender

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This article reports the results of the Survey of Law Student Well-Being (SLSWB) implemented in spring 2014 at fifteen law schools around the country. The SLSWB is the fi rst multischool study in over twenty years to address law student use of alcohol and street drugs, and the fi rst-ever multischool study to explore prescription drug use and the mental health concerns and helpseeking attitudes of law students. The results of the study indicate that roughly one-quarter to one-third of respondents reported frequent binge drinking or misuse of drugs, and/or reported mental health challenges. Moreover, the results indicated that signifi …