Law Commons^™

Virtual Trials: Necessity, Invention, And The Evolution Of The Courtroom, Susan A. Bandes, Neal Feigenson

Buffalo Law Review

Faith in the legitimating power of the live hearing or trial performed at the place of justice is at least as old as the Iliad. In public courtrooms, litigants appear together, evidence is presented, and decisions are openly and formally pronounced. The bedrock belief in the importance of the courtroom is rooted in common law, constitutional guarantees, and venerated tradition, as well as in folk knowledge. Courtrooms are widely believed to imbue adjudication with “a mystique of authenticity and legitimacy.” The COVID-19 pandemic, however, by compelling legal systems throughout the world to turn from physical courtrooms to virtual ones, disrupts …

The Life And Death Of Confederate Monuments, Jessica Owley, Jess Phelps

Buffalo Law Review

Confederate monuments have again received increased attention in the aftermath of George Floyd’s tragic death in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25, 2020. Momentum and shifting public opinion are working toward the removal of these problematic monuments across the country. This Article seeks to provide insight for monument-removal advocates: specifically focusing on the legal issues associated with the “death” or removal of these monuments, how property law shapes and defines these efforts, and briefly examining what happens to these statues after removal. Our exploration of Confederate monuments reveals that some removal efforts occur outside of legally created processes. Both public and …

On Justice: An Origin Story, Stephen Paskey

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Police Body Cameras: Go Big Or Go Home?, Ronald J. Coleman

Buffalo Law Review

Police body-worn cameras have proliferated since the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, and the recent George Floyd-related protests seem set to continue or even accelerate that trend. Indeed, in her recent Nieves v. Bartlett dissent, Justice Sotomayor took time to note that many departments equip their police officers with body cameras. Body camera advocates have touted the cameras’ benefits, such as decreasing misconduct, reducing complaints, and improving accountability. At the same time, serious concerns have been raised regarding the impact of these cameras on privacy, public resources, and fairness. Despite the increased interest in body cameras, important empirical …

Court-Packing Time? Supreme Court Legitimacy And Positivity Theory, Stephen M. Feldman

Buffalo Law Review

Many progressives have decided they need to change the Supreme Court to break the conservative justices’ lock on judicial power. Yet those same progressives disagree about the best way to change the Court. This Essay begins by comparing straight-forward court-packing—adding justices to shift the partisan balance on the Court—to other possible Court changes, such as court-curbing measures that would reduce the Court’s power. Court-packing has multiple advantages over these other possibilities, not the least of which is that even the current Roberts Court would almost certainly hold court-packing, unlike other potential changes, to be constitutional. Even so, some progressives view …

An Approach To Improving Judicial Review Of The Apa’S “Good Cause” Exception To Notice-And-Comment Rulemaking, Kevin Hartnett Jr.

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Does The Ftc Have Blood On Its Hands? An Analysis Of Ftc Overreach And Abuse Of Power After Liu, Angel Reyes, Benjamin Hunter

Buffalo Law Review

Recent cases have called the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC”) enforcement methods into question. After a circuit split developed in the wake of the Seventh Circuit’s decision in Federal Trade Commission v. Credit Bureau Center, L.L.C., the Supreme Court responded by granting certiorari and consolidating the case with AMG Capital Management, L.L.C. v. Federal Trade Commission. The issue in these cases is whether Section 13(b) of the FTC Act authorizes the FTC to bypass the due process safeguards mandated by Congress in Sections 5 and 19 of the FTC Act and, in doing so, to conduct warrantless searches and seizures, unilaterally …

The Gun Subsidy, Christian Turner, Justin C. Van Orsdol

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Comment: Loosening The Grasp Of Restriction By Allowing Multiple Claims In Design Patents, Samuel E. Kielar

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Respondeat Superior Vicarious Liability For Clergy Sexual Abuse: Four Approaches, Patrick Hornbeck

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Lies, Gaslighting And Propaganda, G. Alex Sinha

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Access To Literacy Under The United States Constitution, Christine M. Naassana

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

"The Angels That Surrounded My Cradle": The History, Evolution, And Application Of The Insanity Defense, Eugene M. Fahey, Laura Groschadl, Brianna Weaver

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rules, Standards, And Such, Kevin M. Clermont

Buffalo Law Review

This Article aims to create a complete typology of the forms of decisional law. Distinguishing “rules” from “standards” is the most commonly attempted jurisprudential line, roughly drawn between nonvague and vague. But no agreement exists on the dimension along which the rule/standard terminology lies, or on where the dividing line on the continuum lies. Thus, classifying in terms of vagueness is itself vague. Ultimately it does not aid legal actors in formulating or applying the law. The classification works best as an evocative image.

A clearer distinction would be useful in formulating and applying the law. For the law-applier, it …

The “Pink Ghettos” Of Public Interest Law: An Open Secret, Sandra Simkins

Buffalo Law Review

There is a downside to public interest law careers and law school pro bono work for women. Law schools cue women to enter and remain at lower rungs of the profession by normalizing women in “caregiving” roles and locking predominantly female clinicians who do public interest work into a lower level status. The ABA contributes to this structural devaluation by ignoring female public interest lawyers. When combined with the culture of public interest organizations, these factors contribute to women’s stagnant progress in the legal profession.

This Article is the first to address this issue comprehensively. It describes the challenges women …

Law Is What The Judge Had For Breakfast: A Brief History Of An Unpalatable Idea, Dan Priel

Buffalo Law Review

According to a familiar adage the legal realists equated law with what the judge had for breakfast. As this is sometimes used to ridicule the realists, prominent defenders of legal realism have countered that none of the realists ever entertained any such idea. In this Essay I show that this is inaccurate. References to this idea are found in the work of Karl Llewellyn and Jerome Frank, as well as in the works of their contemporaries, both friends and foes. However, the Essay also shows that the idea is improperly attributed to the legal realists, as there are many references …

Somebody Call My Doctor: Repeal Of The Treating Physician Rule In Social Security Disability Adjudication, Charles Terranova

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Unclear Hostility: Supreme Court Discussions Of “Hostility To Religion” From Barnette To American Legion, Mark Satta

Buffalo Law Review

Appeals to “hostility to religion” have been a regular part of the Supreme Court’s First Amendment jurisprudence for the last eighty years, but in all that time the Court has never provided a clear explanation of what constitutes “hostility to religion.” This lack of explanation has recently become increasingly troubling given the significant role that the concept of “hostility to religion” has played in several high-profile Supreme Court decisions within the last two years, including Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado, Trump v. Hawaii, and American Legion v. American Humanist Association. In this paper, I provide a thorough and detailed history of …

The Law And Political Economy Of A Student Debt Jubilee, Luke Herrine

Buffalo Law Review

The notion of a student debt jubilee has begun its march from the margin of policy debates to the center, yet scholarly debate on the value of canceling student debt is negligible. This article attempts to jump start such debate in part by presenting a novel policy proposal for implementing a jubilee. In addition to reviewing the history of student debt and the arguments for canceling much or all of it, it presents a detailed legal argument that canceling public student debt (which accounts for 95% of student debt outstanding) could be undertaken by the Executive Branch without further legislation. …

Data Management Law For The 2020s: The Lost Origins And The New Needs, Przemysław Pałka

Buffalo Law Review

In the data analytics society, each individual’s disclosure of personal information imposes costs on others. This disclosure enables companies, deploying novel forms of data analytics, to infer new knowledge about other people and to use this knowledge to engage in potentially harmful activities. These harms go beyond privacy and include difficult to detect price discrimination, preference manipulation, and even social exclusion. Currently existing, individual-focused, data protection regimes leave law unable to account for these social costs or to manage them.

This Article suggests a way out, by proposing to re-conceptualize the problem of social costs of data analytics through the …

International Trade Law Post Neoliberalism, Yong-Shik Lee

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

[Auto-Reply] I’M Driving—I’Ll Get Back To You Later: Why New York Should Recognize Texters As Co-Creators Of Risk, Courtney A. Way

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Morrison V. National Australia Bank And The Growth Of The Global Securities Class Action Under The Dutch Wcam, Steven Mcnamara

Buffalo Law Review

In 2010 the U.S. Supreme Court fundamentally reset the jurisdictional sweep of U.S. securities law in Morrison v. National Australia Bank. No longer could foreign plaintiffs access the U.S. courts if a defendant engaged in conduct in the U.S. affecting securities prices outside the U.S., or conduct outside the U.S. had a significant effect on securities prices inside the U.S. Under Morrison’s new “transactional test” only purchasers of securities on a U.S. exchange or in a U.S. transaction would be able to bring securities fraud claim under Section 10(b). The Morrison decision therefore greatly heightens the importance of alternative non-U.S. …

Reimagining The Death Penalty: Targeting Christians, Conservatives, Spearit

Buffalo Law Review

This Article is an interdisciplinary response to an entrenched legal and cultural problem. It incorporates legal analysis, religious study and the anthropological notion of “culture work” to consider death penalty abolitionism and prospects for abolishing the death penalty in the United States. The Article argues that abolitionists must reimagine their audiences and repackage their message for broader social consumption, particularly for Christian and conservative audiences. Even though abolitionists are characterized by some as “bleeding heart” liberals, this is not an accurate portrayal of how the death penalty maps across the political spectrum. Abolitionists must learn that conservatives are potential allies …

Progressive Punitivism: Notes On The Use Of Punitive Social Control To Advance Social Justice Ends, Hadar Aviram

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Blights Out And Property Rights In New Orleans Post-Katrina, Yxta Maya Murray

Buffalo Law Review

In 2018’s Saint Bernard Parish Government v. United States, Federal Appeals Judge Timothy Dyk reversed a lower court decision finding that the federal government had violated the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause rights cherished by home-owning New Orleanians. The lower court maintained that such taking occurred via the Army Corps of Engineers’ building, maintaining, and failing to maintain the seventy-six mile long navigational channel known as the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet (MRGO), which increased the surge storms of Hurricane Katrina. Though MRGO helped turn Katrina into a superstorm that devastated thousands of properties, Judge Dyk determined that the lower court’s takings analysis …

Retrievable Images On Social Media Platforms: A Call For A New Privacy Tort, Zahra Takhshid

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Benefit Or Burden?: Brackeen V. Zinke And The Constitutionality Of The Indian Child Welfare Act, Katie L. Gojevic

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.