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Saint Louis University Law Journal

No abstract provided.

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Saint Louis University Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Saint Louis University Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Masthead

Saint Louis University Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Peer Review In Advanced Legal Writing Course, Patricia Montana

Saint Louis University Law Journal

This Article adds to the conversation about peer review, discussing specifically the numerous benefits peer review brings to an advanced legal writing course. The Article illustrates how to effectively integrate peer review into an advanced legal writing course. Peer reviews can support student learning and improve students’ legal analysis and writing, among other things. Thus, the Article encourages law professors to experiment with peer review exercises and incorporate them into their advanced legal writing courses.

“With Friends Like These . . . .” Doctors And Nurses Criticizing Co-Employed Colleagues. Are These Criticisms Admissible As Vicarious Opposing Party’S Statements?, Marc D. Ginsberg

Saint Louis University Law Journal

Healthcare provider incivility includes non-collegial conduct such as physicians criticizing co-employed physicians when speaking with patients. This conduct is, obviously, disruptive, and does not help to establish productive, collegial, employee relationships.

Additionally, this incivility may have evidentiary consequences in medical/hospital negligence litigation. If the healthcare providers are employed by a hospital or other healthcare organization, the criticisms of co-employed colleagues which are communicated to patients may be admissible against the employer in medical/hospital negligence litigation as vicarious opposing party’s statements. This paper explores this evidentiary curiosity.

Is It Really A Man’S World? Using Real-Life Negotiations To Reframe The Negotiation Gender Gap, Michael Conklin, Roya Choupani, Erdoğan Doğdu

Saint Louis University Law Journal

Much has been written regarding the gender negotiation gap. However, the existing literature frequently involves only hypothetical negotiations where the participants do not experience the effects of the negotiation as one would in real life. This first-of-its-kind study utilizes a dataset of over 1,000 negotiations from the television show Pawn Stars to analyze the role gender plays in negotiations. Negotiation best practices analyzed in this study include the willingness to walk away from the negotiation, use of a counteroffer, use of objective language, and the implementation of cognitive anchoring by making extreme initial offers. The results shed light on traditional …

A New Tool In Police-Civilian Mediations: Conflict Coaching And Its Potential Benefits, Beatrice Connaghan

Saint Louis University Law Journal

Communities across the country have implemented mediation programs as an alternative dispute resolution process for civilian complaints against police officers. These programs vary from state to state, but certain challenges exist in each, such as ensuring neutrality, encouraging participants to engage fully in the mediation, and navigating subconscious biases held by officers and civilians. In response to these issues, this article considers whether conflict coaching opportunities within these programs have the potential to improve their effectiveness in resolving disputes and better support mediation participants. Conflict coaching is an emerging conflict navigation tool and thus there is limited research on its …

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Saint Louis University Law Journal

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Critical Race Theory & The Gospels, Anthony Paul Farley

Saint Louis University Law Journal

Commodities can speak. They pray constantly for release. The slave is the commodity that speaks. This Essay is the slave’s prayer for release, for resurrection. The slave is imprisoned, entombed, in the commodity form, a form in which it appears as a thing that is exchangeable for other things, not an end-in-itself.

Yesterday is not gone. Emancipation has yet to take place. The conceits of the modern era are all around us written in ruin and in specters of future ruin. Critical Race Theory is a flower in the midst of ruin. Critical Race Theory is said to be radical? …

The Assault On Critical Race Theory As Pretext For Populist Backlash On Higher Education, Danielle M. Conway

Saint Louis University Law Journal

The rightwing is carrying out its most recent effort to install an authoritarian regime in America, which has been boosted by Donald Trump’s white supremacist rhetoric and actions before, during, and after his four years holding the Office of the President of the United States. Resolute in the effort to destabilize American Democracy by forcing on to the populist, among other messages, “The Big Lie,” the rightwing is committed to a coordinated strategy of attacking and delegitimizing democratic institutions for the purpose of retaining economic and political power.

The attack on Critical Race Theory (“CRT”) is one element of the …

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Saint Louis University Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Dismantling The Cage Of Binary Sports, Tracy Turner

Saint Louis University Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Covid And Consequences: How The Pandemic Changed Contract Interpretation And Litigation, Glenn Lutzky

Saint Louis University Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Textualism And The Modern Explanatory Statute, Adam Crews

Saint Louis University Law Journal

The explanatory statute is a largely forgotten legislative tool. Once common, the explanatory statute was a retrospective act that identified an ambiguity or erroneous interpretation of a prior law and then directed the legislature’s view of the correct interpretation.

Although now rare, the explanatory statute is not dead. Just a few years ago, Congress enacted an amendment to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act—a now hotly contested topic—with the hallmarks of an explanatory statute. In the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017 (“FOSTA”), Congress concluded that courts had over-extended Section 230 immunity to …

What Does The Decline In The U.S. Dollar’S Global Role Mean For Cryptocurrencies?, Carol R. Goforth

Saint Louis University Law Journal

Cryptocurrencies were at the forefront of a number of newsworthy events in 2021. One of those stories suggests that Bitcoin might be well-positioned to replace the U.S. dollar as the most popular global reserve currency. This article reviews what it means to be a reserve currency, as well as the costs and benefits for the United States to have its dollar serve as the medium of exchange for most international commercial transactions and to have it held by so many governments, central banks, and financial institutions. It then evaluates whether recent events that weaken the dollar’s influence and popularity create …

Turning Over Stones: Advocating For Stronger Reporting Requirements For Opportunity Zones, Blake Stocke

Saint Louis University Law Journal

In 2017, Congress passed Sections 1400Z-1 and 1400Z-2 into the Internal Revenue Code, effectively codifying new tax legislation dubbed ‘Opportunity Zones.’ This legislation, which received bipartisan support, was meant to provide investors with a tax break to incentivize investment in low-income communities. The Opportunity Zone program is a substantial tax expenditure for Congress, and one that proponents believe can attract investment into parts of the United States suffering from diminutive economic growth. However, critics doubt this program will benefit those living in distressed communities, and fear that Opportunity Zones will instead promote gentrification while giving wealthy investors unnecessary tax breaks. …

International Application Of Cfaa: Scraping Data Or Scraping Law?, King Fung Tsang

Saint Louis University Law Journal

Web scraping has resulted in a growing number of civil litigations internationally, including claims under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”) in the United States. With the Supreme Court’s first ever decision on the CFAA, in Van Buren v. United States, and its granting of LinkedIn’s petition for certiorari in June 2021, the CFAA is expected to attract even more interest among scholars and practitioners. However, little attention has been given to its cross-border ramifications. Cases show that U.S. courts are more than willing to apply the CFAA extraterritorially, even though their analyses are often flawed. In addition, …

Teaching Constitutional Law, Administrative Law, And Health Law As Presidential Administrations Change, Renée M. Landers

Saint Louis University Law Journal

When elections bring about changes in the political party of the president, the shifts frequently involve a change in the philosophies that inform the approach to governing. In teaching constitutional law, administrative law, and health law, this author cautions students to consider the political content of agency actions underlying the judicial opinions studied. Examining the political and discretionary judgment government officials exercise may provide an explanation for the results or an analysis when the law does not seem to account for the agency action or court decision. This Article examines the opportunities available to an incoming administration to undo the …

Change Is Nothing New Teaching Public Policy, Nicholas W. Allard

Saint Louis University Law Journal

This Article addresses the paradox that change is nothing new for those who teach aspiring lawyers how to effectively engage in the reality of the complex public policy arena. It rejects the notion that money buys results, and success is merely a matter of quick-fix influence peddling and personal relationships. Instead, to teach students how to provide public policy analysis, advice, and advocacy, teachers must help them understand and be prepared for a relentlessly dynamic, continuously evolving professional ecosystem where the very object of the work is to either advance or forestall legal change, often involving issues contested on multiple …

Breaking The Cultural Cycle Of Sexual Harassment In The Professional Sports Industry: Time To Step Up Prevention & Punishment, Lauren Sullivan

Saint Louis University Law Journal

The National Football League’s Washington Football Team, now known as the Washington Commanders, faces an abundant amount of franchise issues, but its toxic workplace environment full of sexual harassment towers above the rest. This is just the most recent example of a professional sports team mistreating its women employees. Year after year, sexual harassment allegations resurface, revealing a contemplation of whether the current “solutions” for curbing sexual harassment in the professional sports industry are effective.

Current remedies, both in a legal and societal context, have inhibited efforts by women for equal treatment from the teams who employ them. When allegations …

Where Black Lives Matter Less: Understanding The Impact Of Black Victims On Sentencing Outcomes In Texas Capital Murder Cases From 1973 To 2018, Jelani Jefferson Exum, David Niven

Saint Louis University Law Journal

The systemic disregard for Black lives in America was on full display when footage of a police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd went viral. Mr. Floyd’s resultant death set off protests declaring that Black Lives Matter throughout the nation and across the world. While national attention rightfully turned to demanding police accountability for undue violence, the prevailing conversation also incorporated at least a declared concern for addressing institutionalized racism within the criminal justice system and other American institutions. The term of the day became “antiracism.” With regard to police killings, the lesson is that police officers disproportionately …

Legislative Push Towards Supersession In Missouri: Why The State Attorney General Should Not Be Statutorily Granted Concurrent Jurisdiction With Locally Elected Prosecutors, Josef Nilhas

Saint Louis University Law Journal

There is a current trend of electing progressive or “reform-minded” prosecutors over “tough-on-crime” prosecutors in local elections across the country. Traditionally, prosecutors have possessed wide discretion over which cases to prosecute or not, and the law presumes that “prosecutors make discretionary decisions disinterestedly, unaffected by their own self-interest or the interest of others.” However, recently in Missouri, state officials have pushed for providing the state attorney general with concurrent jurisdiction over certain cases. In particular, the Missouri Senate passed a provision through an amendment to House Bill 2 (“HB2”) that would allow the State Attorney General to take over homicide …

Preservation Letters And Fourth Amendment Seizures: A Response To Professor Kerr, Michael L. Levy

Saint Louis University Law Journal

The Stored Communications Act (18 U.S.C. § 2701 et seq.) requires an Internet Service Provider to preserve the contents of a user account upon receiving a request from a government agency. The maximum period of preservation is 180 days. However, the government agency cannot get access to the copy, unless it presents proper legal process, usually a search warrant. During this time, the user has complete access to their account. In a recent article, Professor Orin Kerr has advanced a thesis that copying pursuant to the government’s preservation requests under the Stored Communications Act is a Fourth Amendment seizure. This …

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Saint Louis University Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Implications Of Legalized Marijuana On Establishing Probable Cause For A Warrantless Search, Lauren Williams, Samuel D. Hodge Jr.

Saint Louis University Law Journal

A police officer pulled over a speeding automobile. As the officer approached the vehicle, the driver lowered her window, causing the unique odor of marijuana to escape into the air.[1] This smell immediately alerted the officer to the existence of a controlled substance and established probable cause to search the operator and car.[2] Not so fast! Sniff and search is no longer an automatic justification for law enforcement to conduct a warrantless search in those jurisdictions that have legalized or decriminalized cannabis.[3]

The Supreme Court has long recognized the “automobile exception” to the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against …

Missing Link: League Punishments Of Team Executives, Michael A. Mccann

Saint Louis University Law Journal

Is it lawful for a professional sports league to punish an executive of a team when that executive isn’t employed by the league and, unlike a player, isn’t a member of a union that collectively bargains with the league?

The answer to this question has long been presumed as “yes,” despite the non-employing league lacking a contractual link to the executive—a third party—it fines, suspends, or even bans from employment with businesses owned by others.

This Article challenges that presumption. It does so by applying employment law, franchise law, and private association law to the unique relationship between sports leagues …

Missouri’S Chance At Low-Cost Renewable Energy ‘Gone With The Wind’?, Jeff Becker

Saint Louis University Law Journal

The Grain Belt Express, a proposed wind energy transmission line that will span across much of the Midwest,[1] has been stalled for the past five years due to the legal battles it has faced in Missouri[2] over whether the company can be properly granted the authority to exercise eminent domain power over landowners in the state who oppose the project.[3] This Note provides a comprehensive analysis of the issues surrounding the Grain Belt Express in Missouri in order to argue that the project is in the state’s public interest—as correctly decided by Missouri’s Public Service Commission in …

The Future Of The Ada: Understanding Title Iii’S Application To Websites, Patrick Ganninger

Saint Louis University Law Journal

In recent years, the Americans with Disabilities Act has become a significant source of confusing and controversial litigation over website accessibility. This confusion and controversy stems from the fact that the Americans with Disabilities Act and its accompanying regulations offer zero explanation as to how the Act applies to websites. Faced with a circuit split, due process concerns, and a lack of any meaningful technical guidance from administrative agencies, defendant website operators are desperate for clear guidelines for how to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Adding to this desperation is a barrage of opportunistic lawsuits, dubbed “surf-by lawsuits,” …

Table Of Contents

Saint Louis University Law Journal

No abstract provided.