Law Commons^™

Breathing Room For The Right Of Assembly, Tabatha Abu El-Haj

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

This Article explores the legal and political fault lines that the wave of protests highlighting police violence and systemic racism in the summer of 2020 reveal. It focuses in depth on Detroit, Michigan, as a window into the ways that the First Amendment, as currently construed, under-protects those seeking political change and racial reckoning by demonstrating in the streets.

#Blacklivesmatter: From Protest To Policy, Jamillah Bowman Williams, Naomi Mezey, Lisa Singh

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

We find that the protests of 2020 did indeed begin a paradigm shift in the social awareness of racialized police violence, and this important and significant social change has in turn already inspired political change and some degree of legal and policy change. However, the movement remains in a precarious position and it is uncertain how enduring these changes will be. While many state legislators and local officials have responded to the protests with policy reforms, policy action at the federal level is mostly stalled. In addition, it is unclear whether the state and local policy changes will lead to …

"Hey, Hey! Ho, Ho! These Mass Arrests Have Got To Go!": The Expressive Fourth Amendment Argument, Karen J. Pita Loor

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

The racial justice protests ignited by the murder of George Floyd in May 2020 constitute the largest protest movement in the United States. Estimates suggest that between fifteen and twenty-six million people protested across the country during the summer of 2020 alone. Not only were the number of protestors staggering, but so were the number of arrests. Within one week of when the video of George Floyd’s murder went viral, police arrested ten thousand people demanding justice on American streets, with police often arresting activists en masse. This Essay explores mass arrests and how they square with Fourth Amendment …

Alternative Solutions For Government Intervention In Climate Crisis Markets: Price Gouging And The Pandemic Egg Market Case Study, S. Byron Frazelle

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.

The incredible, edible egg.

Fires in California, hurricanes along the Gulf, a worldwide pandemic—it is evident that the year 2020 was defined by great crises, most of which were direct results of or exacerbated by climate change. The effects of these crises on broader American society, in particular that of the COVID-19 pandemic, are just beginning to be realized. Nearly every aspect of American life has been impacted by the pandemic and …

Southern Harm: Analyzing The Criminal Enforcement Of Environmental Law In The Southern United States, 1983-2019, Joshua Ozymy, Melissa L. Jarrell

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

When violations of environmental laws involve significant harm or culpable conduct, the application of criminal enforcement tools is required. Yet, our understanding of how environmental laws have been criminally enforced historically in the Southern United States remains poor. Our goal is to analyze historical charging and sentencing patterns and show the broader themes that emerge in environmental crime prosecutions over time in the region. Through content analysis of all 2,588 criminal prosecutions resulting from U.S. EPA criminal investigations, 1983–2019, we select all 799 prosecutions occurring in the Southern United States. Results show that 44% of prosecutions focus on water pollution, …

Enhancing The Weather: Governance Of Weather Modification Activities Of The United States, Manon Simon

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

In the context of climate change, weather modification by cloud seeding, and in particular, precipitation enhancement techniques, has gained a renewed attention from governments. In the United States, several states run weather modification programs to secure freshwater resources and increase both crop and hydroelectricity production. Weather modification techniques were developed post–World War II, and so were the legal arrangements that govern them. Since then, weather modification law has undergone little to no reform. California and Texas are two active users of cloud-seeding technologies but employ very different governance frameworks. This Article assesses the effectiveness of weather modification governance in these …

"Very Complex Questions": Zoos, Animals, And The Law, Dana Mirsky

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

In Sulawesi, Indonesia—forty-five thousand years ago, an artist painted what is now the world’s oldest known cave painting—a life-size image of a wild pig. Forty thousand years later, the elite of Hierakonpolis, Egypt, housed elephants, hippos, and baboons in the world’s oldest known zoo. Today, individuals keep exotic fish, reptiles, and birds as pets while zoos and aquariums display some of the largest and rarest animals on the planet. The human fascination with wild animals is clearly not a new phenomenon, but how and why we keep wild animals have evolved over time. Zoos in particular have changed dramatically just …

Why The Congressional Review Act Should Be Repealed, Alex Lipow

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

The Congressional Review Act (“CRA”) is a procedure that allows the political branches to quickly repeal certain regulations promulgated by administrative agencies without going through the arduous rule-making process traditionally required. Although it had been successfully used only once before 2017, President Trump and Republicans in Congress used the CRA to repeal sixteen regulations in 2017 and 2018 while President Biden and Democrats in Congress used the CRA three times in 2021. Because the CRA has been used rarely, and its central provisions are barely adjudicated in the judiciary, there are interesting legal questions about how expansively the law may …

Monopolizing Sports Data, Marc Edelman, John T. Holden

William & Mary Law Review

With legal sports betting viewed as a panacea for state budget woes across the United States, the underlying data that fuels the sports betting industry has emerged as an especially valuable asset. In the hopes of capitalizing on state laws that have now legalized sports betting, United States professional sports leagues have attempted to gain exclusive ownership rights over valuable sports betting data by asking legislators to mandate that bookmakers exclusively use data sold through the league. In addition, some sports leagues have imposed policies mandating that teams bundle together their collected data for purposes of selling it exclusively through …

Manufacturing Sovereign State Mootness, Daniel Bruce

William & Mary Law Review

The idea that public defendants should receive any special treatment in the mootness context has been subject to intense criticism among commentators. Most notably, in the lead-up to the New York Rifle decision, Joseph Davis and Nicholas Reaves—two prominent First Amendment litigators from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty—urged the Supreme Court to take the opportunity to correct the lower courts’ practice of blessing government abuse of the voluntary cessation doctrine. Indeed, the Supreme Court has never adopted a presumption in favor of government defendants such as the one applied by the Seventh Circuit in Killeen, and it failed to …

Absurd Overlap: Snap Removal And The Rule Of Unanimity, Travis Temple

William & Mary Law Review

Snap removal employs “a literalist approach” to the statute governing the procedural mechanism for removing cases from state court to federal court. In a typical removal scenario, defendants sued in state court would have the option to be heard in federal court instead, given that certain conditions are satisfied. [S]nap removal essentially allows the defendants to forego a condition that would bar removal if they can file before the plaintiff formally notifies them of the lawsuit. This practice of removing a case before being served with formal process—essentially an act of gamesmanship of the civil procedure system—has gained appellate support …

Toward A Virginia Ocean Plan: Lessons And Recommendations From Other States, Nathaniel Dominy, Luke Foley

Virginia Coastal Policy Center

Virginia’s ocean waters feature vast natural resources, and are used by its residents, visitors, and the military for recreation, commerce, and national security. New and intensified uses, such as offshore energy production, aquaculture, and increased shipping could impact Virginia’s ocean resources. To ensure the continued protection of these resources, while allowing them to be used sustainably, the Commonwealth is developing its first ocean management plan. Because several state agencies currently manage Virginia’s territorial sea waters, a coordinated and proactive approach is needed to effectively develop this plan. Developing a Virginia Ocean Plan can help protect the Commonwealth’s ocean resources and …

Foreword, A. Benjamin Spencer

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Reform, Retrench, Repeat: The Campaign Against Critical Race Theory, Through The Lens Of Critical Race Theory, Vivian E. Hamilton

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

The protest movement ignited by the 2020 murder of George Floyd was of a scale unprecedented in U.S. history. The movement raised the nation’s consciousness of racial injustices and spurred promises—and the beginnings—of justice-oriented reform. Reform and racial progress, however, have rarely been linear over the course of U.S. history. Instead, they typically engender resistance and retrenchment. The response to the current justice movement is no exception. One manifestation of the retrenchment has been a rush by states to enact legislation curtailing race-related education in government workplaces and in public schools, colleges, and universities.

These legislative measures purport to prevent …

"The" Rule: Modernizing The Potent, But Overlooked, Rule Of Witness Sequestration, Daniel J. Capra, Liesa L. Richter

William & Mary Law Review

Starting with its illustration in the Apocrypha and continuing into the modern day both in courtrooms and in ubiquitous criminal procedurals, one evidence rule has proven so powerful that it has become known as “THE” Rule of Evidence. The rule of witness sequestration demands that multiple witnesses to the same events be examined separately from one another to prevent them from, consciously or subconsciously, tailoring their testimony to ensure that it remains consistent. Witness sequestration is conceptually simplistic and famously mighty. Yet, this bedrock protection against inaccurate trial testimony is imperiled by conflicting interpretations of Federal Rule of Evidence 615, …

Congressional Oversight Of Modern Warfare: History, Pathologies, And Proposals For Reform, Oona A. Hathaway, Tobias Kuehne, Randi Michel, Nicole Ng

William & Mary Law Review

Despite significant developments in the nature of twenty-first century warfare, Congress continues to employ a twentieth century oversight structure. Modern warfare tactics, including cyber operations, drone strikes, and special operations, do not neatly fall into congressional committee jurisdictions. Counterterrorism and cyber operations, which are inherently multi-jurisdictional and highly classified, illustrate the problem. In both contexts, over the past several years Congress has addressed oversight shortcomings by strengthening its reporting requirements, developing relatively robust oversight regimes. But in solving one problem, Congress has created another: deeply entrenched information silos that inhibit the sharing of information about modern warfare across committees. This …

Race-Based Remedies In Criminal Law, Ion Meyn

William & Mary Law Review

This Article evaluates the constitutional feasibility of using race-based remedies to address racial disparities in the criminal system. Compared to white communities, communities of color are over-policed and over-incarcerated. Criminal system stakeholders recognize that these conditions undermine perceptions of legitimacy critical to ensuring public safety. As jurisdictions assiduously attempt race-neutral fixes, they also acknowledge the shortcomings of such interventions. Nevertheless, jurisdictions dismiss the feasibility of deploying more effective race-conscious strategies due to the shadow of a constitutional challenge. The apprehension is understandable. Debates around affirmative action in higher education and government contracting reveal fierce hostility toward race-based remedies.

This Article, …

The Brief (Edition #11, September 2021), William & Mary Law School

The Brief

No abstract provided.

Civil Liberties, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

Election Law Beyond 2020, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

Business & Statutory Interpretation Cases, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

2021-2022 Supreme Court Preview: Digital Notebook (Cover Page), Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

The 2021 Term And Stare Decisis, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

Moot Court: New York State Rifle & Pistol Association V. Bruen, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

Granted Cases, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

Criminal Law Docket, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

2021-2022 Supreme Court Preview: Schedule Of Events, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

Challenges Under The Religion Clauses, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

2021-2022 Supreme Court Preview: Panelist Biographies, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court's Reticent Qualified Immunity Retreat, Katherine Mims Crocker

Faculty Publications

The recent outcry against qualified immunity, a doctrine that disallows damages actions against government officials for a wide swath of constitutional claims, has been deafening. But when the Supreme Court in November 2020 and February 2021 invalidated grants of qualified immunity based on reasoning at the heart of the doctrine for the first time since John Roberts became Chief Justice, the response was muted. With initial evaluations and competing understandings coming from legal commentators in the months since, this Essay explores what these cases appear to say about qualified immunity for today and tomorrow.

The Essay traces idealistic, pessimistic, and …