Law Commons^™

Policy Comparison Of Lead Hunting Ammunition Bans And Voluntary Nonlead Programs For California Condors, Robin M. Rotman, John H. Schulz, Samantha Totoni, Sonja A. Wilhelm Stanis, Christine Jie Li, Mark Morgan, Damon M. Hall, Elisabeth B. Webb

Faculty Publications

The endangered California condor (Gymnogyps californianus) is negatively affected by lead poisoning from spent lead‐based hunting ammunition. Because lead poisoning is the primary mortality factor affecting condors, the California Fish and Game Commission banned lead hunting ammunition during 2008 in the southern California condor range followed by a statewide ban implemented in 2019. In contrast, the Arizona Game and Fish Department instituted an outreach and awareness program encouraging voluntary use of nonlead hunting ammunition in the northern portion of the state during 2005 and a similar program was launched in Utah during 2012. The juxtaposition of policy tools provided a …

Proposition 22: A Vote On Gig Worker Status In California, Miriam A. Cherry

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In the shadow of the 2020 United States Presidential election, an important vote was also taking place about the employment status of gig workers. In 2019, the California Legislature had enacted AB5, a bill that expanded the definition of “employees” to include workers in the on-demand economy. In response, gig platforms like Uber, Lyft, and Postmates backed a direct ballot initiative, California’s Proposition 22, which asked voters to undo the work of the Legislature. Gig workers would be reclassified as independent contractors, but they would also receive certain benefits, including, among others, the ability to sue for discrimination under …

Legal Deserts: A Multi-State Perspective On Rural Access To Justice (Forthcoming), Danielle M. Conway

Faculty Publications

Rural America faces an increasingly dire access to justice crisis, which serves to exacerbate the already disproportionate share of social problems afflicting rural areas. One critical aspect of that crisis is the dearth of information and research regarding the extent of the problem and its impacts. This article begins to address that gap by providing surveys of rural access to justice in six geographically, demographically, and economically varied states: California, Georgia, Maine, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. In addition to providing insights about the distinct rural challenges confronting each of these states, the legal resources available, and existing policy responses, …

“A False Idea Of Economy”: Costs, Counties, And The Origins Of The California Correctional System, W. David Ball

Faculty Publications

Realignment in California comes at a time when the state’s prison system is expensive and overcrowded; the response has been to reevaluate and reconfigure the way counties use state prisons. Based on an original historical analysis of state archival records from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as a well as a review of secondary historical accounts of California’s prison system, I show that similar problems and policies were present at the state’s founding: issues of expense, overcrowding, and the county-state relationship help to explain the origins, size, and shape of the California prison system. California’s lack of money …

Criminal Justice In Indian Country, M. Alexander Pearl

Faculty Publications

This Article examines the role played by different enacted legislation on California’s Indian tribes criminal justice system. For centuries, tribal governments were the only entities with criminal jurisdiction in Indian Country. In 1883, the Supreme Court in Ex parte Kan-Gi-Shun-Ka (Ex parte Crow Dog) confirmed that a crime committed by an Indian against another Indian did not give rise to federal jurisdiction. In response, Congress passed the Major Crimes Act, granting federal authorities the power to investigate, enforce, and prosecute certain crimes occurring in Indian Country. The federal statutes creating federal jurisdiction did not preclude tribal jurisdiction, but states …

On Business Torts And The First Amendment, Richard J. Peltz-Steele

Faculty Publications

A gaping question in free speech law surrounds the application of the First Amendment defense in business torts. The pervasiveness of communication technologies, the flourishing of privacy law, and the mere passage of time have precipitated an escalation in tort cases in which communication, and what the defendant may allege is free speech, lies at the heart of the matter.

Normative Elements Of Parole Risk, W. David Ball

Faculty Publications

Parole boards evaluate the public safety risk posed by parole-eligible prisoners to determine whether they should be released. In this Essay, I argue that this process, at least as it operates in California, is fundamentally flawed because it asks the wrong question. Rather than ask whether an inmate poses any public safety risk, parole board officials should instead ask whether this risk is worth taking.

One way to answer this question would be to make our calculations more inclusive of all the costs and benefits of release and comparing them with the costs and benefits of retention. Elementary as this …

Perry V. Schwarzenegger: Is Traditional Marriage Unconstitutional?, George W. Dent

Faculty Publications

This is a brief defense of the constitutionality of California's Proposition 8, which limits marriage for purposes of California law to a relationship between one man and one woman.

Criminal Justice Information Sharing: A Legal Primer For Criminal Practitioners In California, W. David Ball, Robert Weisberg

Faculty Publications

California criminal justice agencies need access to data in order to provide security, health care treatment, and appropriate programming, as well as to coordinate these activities with other agencies. By the same token, outside agencies—whether criminal, social service, or non-governmental—could often do their jobs more effectively with access to information generated or retained within particular criminal justice agencies. Criminal justice realignment under AB 109 has only heightened the need for inter-agency data sharing and cooperation, yet there continue to be misunderstandings about the legal framework surrounding information exchange.

This Article aims to provide a basic, practical background on the legal …

Financing The Next Silicon Valley, Darian M. Ibrahim

Faculty Publications

Silicon Valley’s success has led other regions to attempt their own high-tech transformations, yet most imitators have failed. Entrepreneurs may be in short supply in these “non-tech” regions, but some non-tech regions are home to high-quality entrepreneurs who relocate to Silicon Valley due to a lack of local financing for their start-ups. Non-tech regions must provide local finance to prevent entrepreneurial relocation and reap spillover benefits for their communities. This Article compares three possible sources of entrepreneurial finance—private venture capital, state-sponsored venture capital, and angel investor groups—and finds that angel groups have distinct advantages when it comes to funding innovation …

Heinous, Atrocious, And Cruel: Apprendi, Indeterminate Sentencing, And The Meaning Of Punishment, W. David Ball

Faculty Publications

Under Apprendi v. New Jersey, any fact that increases an offender's maximum punishment must be found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. The Apprendi literature has focused on the allocation of power between judge and jury, ignoring entirely the role of the parole board in indeterminate sentences-that is, sentences which terminate in discretionary parole release. In an indeterminate sentence, a judge makes a pronouncement about the length of the prescriptive sentence to be imposed, but the parole board decides the actual sentence that is, in fact, imposed.

In this Article, I explore the Apprendi ramifications of indeterminate sentencing. In …

I'Ll Huff And I'Ll Puff - But Then You'll Blow My Case Away: Dealing With Dismissed And Bad-Faith Defendants Under California's Anti-Slapp Statute, Jeremiah A. Ho

Faculty Publications

This Article will demonstrate that, despite efforts to recognize SLAPPs and to safeguard our legal process from abuses, SLAPP suits and their underlying interference with the legitimate exercise of the right to petition can often engender new ways of creeping back onto the legal stage to wreak havoc on the private citizen - that the devious, shape-shifting Big Bad Wolf of First Amendment rights can return to reprise its role as the subversive villain and to trot unsuspecting litigants out to slaughter. After an introduction into the general world of SLAPPs and the specific history behind California's section 425.16, this …

Death Penalty Appeals And Habeas Proceedings: The California Experience, Gerald F. Uelmen

Faculty Publications

Despite spending more than any other state on its implementation and administration, California today is saddled with a death penalty law that can be described only as completely dysfunctional. We have the longest death row in America, with approximately 670 inmates awaiting execution. Typically, the lapse of time between sentence and execution is twenty-five years, twice the national average, and is growing wider each year. One hundred nineteen inmates have spent more than twenty years on California's death row. Most of them will certainly die before they are ever executed. Since restoration of the death penalty in 1978, the leading …

But Can It Be Fixed? A Look At Constitutional Challenges To Lethal Injection Executions, Ellen Kreitzberg, David Richter

Faculty Publications

This article argues that California's Procedure 770 as currently implemented is unconstitutional. Judge Fogel, after an exhaustive review of evidence from all parties,agrees. Although Judge Fogel believes that the lethal injection system, while broken "can be fixed," we argue that lethal injection, as a method of execution, is always unconstitutional because the procedures employed in its administration can never ensure against unnecessary risk of pain to the inmate. We also argue that the California legislature must step in to publicly review lethal injection executions and to investigate the conduct of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) in the …

Nursing Home Residents And The New California Health Care Decisions Law, David M. English, Rebecca C. Morgan

Faculty Publications

This article explores issues involving advance directives made by nursing home residents, both prior to and during their stay in a facility, including the frequency of making directives, the reasons why residents fail to make directives, and the reasons why facilities often fail to honor them. Specifically, this article examines these issues in light of the 1999 California Health Care Decisions Law, effective July 1, 2000, and focuses on how this new statute can be used to empower nursing home residents, and adults more generally, to take control of decisions regarding their own health care.

California Death Penalty Laws And The California Supreme Court: A Ten Year Perspective, Gerald F. Uelmen

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Nature Of The California Grand Jury: An Evaluation, Mary Emery, Aidan Gough

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Institute Of Contemporary Law: The California Superior Court System, Mary Emery, Nicholas Livak, Leon Panetta

Faculty Publications

The Institute of Contemporary Law, having recently completed an investigation and analysis of the California grand jury, now turns its efforts to the area of the superior court system in California. Hoping to correlate the work of students, lawyers and judges in this area, the following article attempts a broad review of the function and operation of the superior court in California. The history of the court, its rules and operation, its jurisdiction and its various departments are the topics covered by the discussion below. The presentation here offered is mainly expository and informational, and, it is hoped, will provide …

California Conflict Of Laws In Regard To Contracts, Joseph M. Cormack

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Conflict Of Laws In Regard To Contracts In Field Code States Other Than California, Joseph M. Cormack

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Applications Of The Distinction Between Mortgages And Trust Deeds In California, Joseph M. Cormack, James B. Irsfeld Jr.

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.