Law Commons^™

Reflections On The Christchurch Massacre: Incorporating A Critique Of Islamophobia And Twail, Cyra Akila Choudhury

Faculty Publications

On March 15, 2019 in Christchurch, New Zealand, a white supremacist entered a mosque full of worshippers and gunned down over 50 people. He was welcomed into the house of worship as Muslim immigrants and converts were about to start their Friday prayers. News of the attack spread quickly across the globe. Social media news feeds and online sources provided near-instantaneous updates. There were calls to prioritize the lives and stories of the victims and survivors. Although there were calls not to glorify or even humanize the shooter, people understandably professed interest in his writings and his motivation. Once it …

The Private Insurance Market: Not Very Big And Not Insuring Much, Either, Jacqueline R. Fox

Faculty Publications

Creating a single national health insurance pool is not likely to destabilize the economy by supplanting the private health insurance industry. This industry insures a relatively small percentage of the population and holds very little of the risk such insurance implies. In effect, insurance companies function as middlemen, bundling risk packages to distribute to other, larger companies and so serve a limited purpose. Were insurers to handle claims for a national pool as they do for the Medicare program, any destabilization to the economy more broadly would be further minimized.

Plea Agreements As Constitutional Contracts, Colin Miller

Faculty Publications

In his dissenting opinion in Ricketts v. Adamson, Justice Brennan proposed the idea of plea agreements as constitutional contracts and lamented the fact that the Supreme Court had yet to set up rules of construction for resolving plea deal disputes. Since Adamson, courts have given lip service to Justice Brennan’s dissent and applied his reasoning in piecemeal fashion. No court or scholar, however, has attempted to define the extent to which a plea agreement is a constitutional contract or develop rules of construction to apply in plea deal disputes. This gap is concerning given that ninety-five percent of criminal cases …

#I U: Considering The Context Of Online Threats, Lyrissa Lidsky

Faculty Publications

The United States Supreme Court has failed to grapple with the unique interpretive difficulties presented by social media threats cases. Social media make hateful and threatening speech more common but also magnify the potential for a speaker's innocent words to be misunderstood People speak differently on different social media platforms, and architecturalf eatures ofplatforms, such as character limits, affect the meaning of speech. The same is true of other contextual clues unique to social media, such as gifs, hashtags, and emojis. Only by understanding social media contexts can legal decision-makers avoid overcriminalization of speech protected by the First Amendment. This …

Halted Innovation: The Expansion Of Federal Jurisdiction Over Medicine And The Human Body, Myrisha S. Lewis

Faculty Publications

Modern medical innovations are blurring the line between medical practice and medical devices and drugs. Historically, many techniques have been developed in medicine, without any interference from the federal government, as medical practice is (and has historically been) an area of state jurisdiction. Over the past two decades, however, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been exerting jurisdiction over the human body and the practice of medicine by targeting new medical techniques for oversight and subjecting the continued use of those treatments to onerous and legally questionable regulatory requirements that hinder the use of those treatments in practice. …

President Trump, The New Chicago School And The Future Of Environmental Law And Scholarship, Sarah B. Schindler

Faculty Publications

Recent presidents including Bill Clinton, G. W. Bush, and Barack Obama have refined how environmental law has been enacted and carried out. Under President Trump, the scope of public environmental law will most certainly narrow. It seems likely that the future of environmental law will depend not upon traditional federal command-and-control legislation or executive branch maneuvering, but instead upon activating environmentalism through expanded substantive areas and innovative regulatory techniques that fall outside the existing, traditional norms of environmental law and legal scholarship. This chapter is an attempt to acknowledge this monumental change, recognizing that these barriers to traditional environmental regulation …

A Prudential Take On A Prudential Takings Doctrine, Katherine Mims Crocker

Faculty Publications

The Supreme Court is set to decide a case requesting reconsideration of a doctrine that has long bedeviled constitutional litigants and commentators. The case is Knick v. Township of Scott, and the doctrine is the "ripeness" rule from Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank that plaint~ffs seeking to raise takings claims under the Fifth Amendment must pursue state-created remedies first- the so-called "compensation prong" (as distinguished from a separate "takings prong"). This Essay argues that to put the compensation prong in the best light possible, the Court should view the requirement as a "prudential" rule rather than (as …

Keeping Up With New Legal Titles: The Legal Research Manual With Video Modules, 2nd Ed., Christine Iaconeta Dulac

Faculty Publications

The Legal Research Survival Manual with Video Modules, by Robert Berring and Michael Levy, is an eighty-seven-page book written in a conversational, informal tone, packed with all the information new legal researchers need to survive their early days in the law library. The book's intended audience are novice legal researchers, in particular first-year law students. The authors have filled the pages with sage advice but left out material novices are not likely to encounter during the first year of law school. The authors, with the help of two additional experts, have added twelve online videos readers can access for expanded …

One Judge's "Ten Tips For Effective Brief Writing" (Part Ii), Douglas E. Abrams

Faculty Publications

Chief United States Bankruptcy Judge Terrence L. Michael (N.D.OKLA.) has written "Ten Tips for Effective Brief Writing" and posted them on the court's website. In the Journal's September-October issue, part 1 of this article began by discussing Tip #9 ("leave the venom at home"). That part proceeded to discuss Tips 1-4.

This final part discusses the remaining Tips. All 10 thoughtful Tips warrant careful consideration from advocates who prepare submissions for trial courts or appellate courts.

Bar Bytes: Books Help Lawyers Learn Technology, Eve Ross

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Arming Public Protests, Timothy Zick

Faculty Publications

Public protests have become armed events, with protesters and counter-protesters openly carrying firearms—generally pursuant to state law. Many view the presence of firearms at protest events as wholly incompatible with the exercise of First Amendment free speech and assembly rights. Although the Supreme Court has yet to decide whether there is a Second Amendment right to openly carry firearms in public, all but a small handful of states in the United States provide some legal protection for open carry. Taking the law as it currently stands, this Article provides a comprehensive assessment of the options available to officials who seek …

The Right To Counsel In Criminal Cases: Still A National Crisis?, Mary Sue Backus, Paul Marcus

Faculty Publications

In 1963, Gideon v. Wainwright dramatically changed the landscape of criminal justice with its mandate that poor criminal defendants be entitled to legal representation funded by the government. As scholars and practitioners have noted repeatedly over more than fifty years, states have generally failed to provide the equal access Gideon promised. This Article revisits the questions raised by the authors over a decade ago when they asserted that a genuine national crisis exists regarding the right to counsel in criminal cases for poor people. Sadly, despite a few isolated instances where litigation has sparked some progress, the issues remain the …

Prosecutorial Dismissals As Teachable Moments (And Databases) For The Police, Adam M. Gershowitz

Faculty Publications

The criminal justice process typically begins when the police make a warrantless arrest. Although police usually do a good job of bringing in the “right” cases, they do make mistakes. Officers sometimes arrest suspects even though there is no evidence to prove an essential element of the crime. Police also conduct unlawful searches and interrogations. And officers make arrests in marginal cases—schoolyard fights are a good example—in which prosecutors do not think a criminal conviction is appropriate. Accordingly, prosecutors regularly dismiss cases after police have made warrantless arrests and suspects have sat in jail for days, or even weeks. In …

Challenging Calls For Civility, Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt

Faculty Publications

In conjunction with her article "When Free Speech Disrupts Diversity Initiatives: What We Value and What We Do Not," Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt writes about civility codes and free speech for Academe Blog.

Kennedy's Last Term: A Report On The 2017-2018 Supreme Court, Marc O. Degirolami, Kevin C. Walsh

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Twenty-eighteen brought the end of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s tenure on the Supreme Court. We are now entering a period of uncertainty about American constitutional law. Will we remain on the trajectory of the last half-century? Or will the Court move in a different direction?

The character of the Supreme Court in closely divided cases is often a function of the median justice. The new median justice will be Chief Justice John Roberts if Kennedy’s replacement is a conservative likely to vote most often with Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Samuel Alito. This will mark a new phase of …

Infringement, Unbound, Sarah R. Wasserman Rajec

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Are Beach Boundaries Enforceable? Real-Time Locational Uncertainty And The Right To Exclude, Josh Eagle

Faculty Publications

Over the past few decades, landowners have tried to use the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments to fully privatize the upper, dry-sand part of the beach. If these efforts were to succeed, there would be a host of negative consequences, and not just for surfers. In most of the states in which beaches are economically important, including California, Florida, New Jersey and Texas, privatized dry sand would mean little to no public access at times when the public, wet-sand part of the beach is submerged, that is, in the hours immediately before and after high tides. Decreased beach use would …

The New Gospel Of Wealth: On Social Impact Bonds And The Privatization Of Public Good, Etienne C. Toussaint

Faculty Publications

Since Andrew Carnegie penned his famous Gospel of Wealth in 1889, corporate philanthropists have championed considerable public good around the world, investing in a wide range of social programs addressing a diversity of public issues, from poverty to healthcare to criminal justice. Nevertheless, the problem of “the Rich and the Poor,” as termed by Andrew Carnegie in his famous essay, remains unsolved. Socially conscious investors have recently called for America to reimagine a new “gospel of wealth”, one that not only grapples with the what of social injustice, but also explores the how and the why of systemic social and …

Delineating Victims From Perpetrators: Prosecuting Self-Produced Child Pornography In Youth Criminal Justice Systems, Bryce Westlake

Faculty Publications

Video recording technology advancements and accessibility has been paralleled by a growth in self-produced child pornography (SPCP). Although social and judicial attention has been given to instances of teenage sexting, Internet-based forms of SPCP, such as webcam/website sex tourism, have almost been ignored. While some of the proposed legislation reform has referenced video-based SPCP, the majority has focused on SPCP distributed through cellular phones; excluding that which is manifested online or through entrepreneurial efforts. The purpose of this article is to introduce non-sexting SPCP, using the case study of Justin Berry (in the United States), and to propose a broad …

Paper Promises For Drug Innovation, Erika Lietzan

Faculty Publications

Innovation does not stop when a new medicine is launched. Development of new uses for already approved drugs, in particular, can make profound contributions to the public health. Whether a new use is suspected during the initial premarket trials, identified through focused research after approval, or discovered serendipitously by physicians treating patients, however, it requires extensive clinical testing before it can be approved by FDA. This testing takes time and money — three to five years on average, and as much as $300 million. This Article considers the incentives that federal law offers to companies to make this investment: patent …

When Courts Should Ignore Statutory Text, Jesse M. Cross

Faculty Publications

Statutory interpreters often rely upon a fundamental assumption: namely, that every word of a statute is meant to be read — and given legal force — by the courts. This assumption unites both textualists and intentionalists, and it has been invoked by Justices as diverse as Chief Justice Marshall, Justice Stevens, and Justice Scalia — the last of whom called it a “cardinal rule of statutory interpretation.” It underpins at least nine separate canons of statutory interpretation, and it even shapes how courts interpret legislative documents beyond statutes. It is difficult to imagine a more central assumption in statutory interpretation. …

Text Mining Analysis Of Acquisition Reforms And Expert Views, Amanda L. Mcgowin, Jonathan D. Ritschel, R. David Fass, Bradley C. Boehmke

Faculty Publications

Legislation, in the form of acquisition reforms, is historically enacted to address perceived cost, schedule, and performance problems in the defense acquisition system. Text mining is utilized to examine five major reforms and a compendium of views from 32 acquisition experts to identify commonalities and disconnects.

Too Ill To Be Killed: Mental And Physical Competency To Be Executed Pursuant To The Death Penalty, Linda A. Malone

Faculty Publications

Mentally ill individuals are being housed in prisons and jails throughout the country. Due to decreased funding and overpopulation of correctional facilities, individuals with pre-existing illnesses, as well as others who develop illnesses, are in severe need of mental health services and punished for their ailments through the use of solitary confinement, long prison sentences, and lack of care. The stress created by such conditions is amplified for mentally ill prisoners who are awaiting execution or the dismissal of their death row sentences. These individuals must show that they are competent to stand trial, exhibit the mental state required for …

Statutory Interpretation And The Rest Of The Iceberg: Divergences Between The Lower Federal Courts And The Supreme Court, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl

Faculty Publications

This Article examines the methods of statutory interpretation used by the lower federal courts, especially the federal district courts, and compares those methods to the practices of the U.S. Supreme Court. This novel research reveals both similarities across courts and some striking differences. The research shows that some interpretive tools are highly overrepresented in the Supreme Court’s decisions, while other tools are much more prevalent in the lower courts. Differences in prevalence persist even after accounting for the selection effect that stems from the Supreme Court’s discretionary docket. Another finding—based on a study of 40 years of cases from all …

Supreme Court Norms Of Impersonality, Allison Orr Larsen

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Content Of Consumer Law Classes Iii, Jeff Sovern

Faculty Publications

This paper reports on a 2018 survey of law professors teaching consumer protection, and follows up on similar 2010 and 2008 surveys, which appeared in Jeff Sovern, The Content of Consumer Law Classes II, 14 J. Consumer & Commercial L. 16 (No. 1 2010), at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1657624 and Jeff Sovern, The Content of Consumer Law Classes, 12 J. Consumer & Commercial L. 48 (No. 1 2008), at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1139894, respectively. As reported in previous surveys, professors teaching consumer law report considerable variation in coverage. Professors want to cover relatively current subjects within their courses, such as FinTech, credit invisibles, and mortgage …

Contumacious Responses To Firearms Legislation (Leosa) Balancing Federalism Concerns, Royce De R. Barondes

Faculty Publications

The Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act (LEOSA) is one of the handful of federal statutes that preempt state firearms regulation. It allows covered individuals (certain current and retired qualified law enforcement personnel) to possess firearms notwithstanding assorted state restrictions-to protect themselves and to supplement local law enforcement efforts.

The act reflects a careful legislative balancing of federalism concerns. Although it relies on states and localities to issue the authorizing credentials, it does not mandate states create a licensing regime out of whole cloth. The act ultimately presents issues requiring a nuanced assessment of the doctrine proscribing federal commandeering of the …

Automatic Authorization Of Frisks In Terry Stops For Suspicion Of Firearms Possession, Royce De R. Barondes

Faculty Publications

The recognition in Heller of an individual right to bear arms has required courts to grapple with the interaction between exercise of this right in public and Terry stops. Core questions are (i) whether reasonable suspicion a person is armed is by itself sufficient to initiate a Terry stop and (ii), if so, whether such a stop inherently authorizes an accompanying frisk. The former issue is examined in a separate forthcoming article, Royce de R. Barondes, Conditioning Exercise of Firearms Rights on Unlimited Terry Stops, 54 Idaho L. Rev. 297.

This article focuses on the second issue. Most fundamentally, insofar …

Calm Down About Common Ownership, Thom Lambert, Michael E. Sykuta

Faculty Publications

Proponents of additional antitrust intervention to police common ownership simply have not made their case. Their theory as to why current levels of intra-industry diversification would cause consumer harm is implausible and the empirical evidence they say demonstrates such harm is both scant and methodologically suspect. The policy solutions they have proposed for dealing with the purported problem would radically rework an industry that has provided substantial benefits to investors, raising the costs of portfolio diversification and enhancing agency costs at public companies. Courts and antitrust enforcers should reject their calls for additional antitrust intervention to police common ownership.

A New Market-Based Approach To Securities Law, Kevin S. Haeberle

Faculty Publications

Modern securities regulation has three main areas, each of which is plagued by a core problem. Mandatory disclosure law leaves society with suboptimal disclosure, as the government calls for too little of some information (for example, management analysis of company prospects) and too much of other information (for example, data about trivial executive perks). Securities fraud law (specifically, its central fraud-on-the-market theory of reliance) yields damages at odds with any reasonable theory of compensation and deterrence. And insider trading law fails to achieve its ends because incentives to police illegal trading and tipping by executives are currently weak.

In this …