Law Commons^™

3d Printing And Healthcare: Will Laws, Lawyers, And Companies Stand In The Way Of Patient Care?, Evan R. Youngstrom

Evan R. Youngstrom

Today, our society is on a precipice of significant advancement in healthcare because 3D printing will usher in the next generation of medicine. The next generation will be driven by customization, which will allow doctors to replace limbs and individualize drugs. However, the next generation will be without large pharmaceutical companies and their justifications for strong intellectual property rights. However, the current patent system (which is underpinned by a social tradeoff made from property incentives) is not flexible enough to cope with 3D printing’s rapid development. Very soon, the social tradeoff will no longer benefit society, so it must be …

What Should Law Enforcement Role Be In Addressing Quality Of Life Issues Associated With Section 8 Housing?, D'Andre D. Lampkin

D'Andre Devon Lampkin

The purpose of this research project is to discuss the challenges law enforcement face when attempting to address quality of life issues for residents residing in and around Section 8 federal housing. The paper introduces readers to the purpose of Section 8 housing, the process in which residents choose subsidized housing, and the legal challenges presented when law enforcement agencies are assisting city government to address quality of life issues. For purposes of this research project, studies were sampled to illustrate where law enforcement participation worked and where law enforcement participation leads to unintended legal ramifications.

Roe V. Wade: The Case That Changed Democracy, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

No abstract provided.

Gandhi’S Prophecy: Corporate Violence And A Mindful Law For Bhopal, Nehal A. Patel

Nehal A. Patel

AbstractOver thirty years have passed since the Bhopal chemical disaster began,and in that time scholars of corporate social responsibility (CSR) havediscussed and debated several frameworks for improving corporate responseto social and environmental problems. However, CSR discourse rarelydelves into the fundamental architecture of legal thought that oftenbuttresses corporate dominance in the global economy. Moreover, CSRdiscourse does little to challenge the ontological and epistemologicalassumptions that form the foundation for modern economics and the role ofcorporations in the world.I explore methods of transforming CSR by employing the thought ofMohandas Gandhi. I pay particular attention to Gandhi’s critique ofindustrialization and principle of swadeshi (self-sufficiency) …

The Interstate Commerce Of Abortion: A Constitutional Argument For The Federal Invalidation Of Restrictive State Abortion Laws, Kaiya Amelia Lyons

Kaiya Amelia Lyons

No abstract provided.

Inherent Racial Biases Woven Into America’S Criminal Justice Institutions: A Reexamination Of To Kill A Mockingbird, Joshua B. Lanphear

Joshua B. Lanphear

This is article considers the concept of inherent racial biases woven into America’s criminal justice institutions as reflected in Harper Lee’s novels To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set A Watchman. Mockingbird—published in 1960, but set in the 1930s, in the fictitious racist-south of Maycomb, Alabama—portrays this concept through the trial of Tom Robinson, a sympathetic African American accused of raping the white Mayella Ewell. Key representatives of Maycomb’s institutions—Officer Heck Tate, Judge John Taylor, Mr. Gilmer, Atticus Finch, and Tom’s jury—perpetuate these inherent racial biases throughout Tom’s experience with the criminal justice system until he is ultimately killed under …

The New Affirmative Action After Fisher V. University Of Texas: Defining Educational Diversity Through The Sixth Amendment's Cross-Section Requirement, Adam Lamparello, Cynthia Swann

Adam Lamparello

Skin color and diversity are not synonymous, and race provides no basis upon which to stereotype individuals or groups, regardless of whether the reasons are malevolent or benign.

Affirmative action policies in higher education should focus on the things that individuals have overcome, not the traits that individuals—and groups—cannot change. Currently, the opposite is true, as such policies typically equate racial diversity with educational diversity, thereby precluding consideration of factors such as family and personal background, life experience, and the overcoming of adversity that would result in true educational diversity. This is not to say that race is irrelevant, …

Health Care And The Balance Billing Problem: The Solution Is The Common Law Of Contracts And Strengthening The Free Market For Health Care., George A. Nation Iii

George A Nation III

A large and growing group of insured patients is being unfairly burdened by hospitals’ exorbitant chargemaster prices. The burden is brought to bear on these patients through a process known as balance billing. For a variety of reasons hospital networks are becoming narrower as hospital systems contract with fewer insurers, and as a result, more and more patients are receiving balance bills. The practice of balance billing puts upward pressure on health care prices in general. That is, this practice leads to higher prices across the board for the uninsured, the out-of-network insured and even the in-network insured. This article …

Military Professionals As Guardians Of The Republic: The Hidden Promise Of Huntington’S The Soldier And The State, Robert E. Atkinson Jr.

Robert E. Atkinson Jr.

This paper is the first step in developing a neo-classical theory of the military officer corps as a functionalist profession. It unpacks the central paradox of Samuel P. Huntington’s The Soldier and the State: Why does an account that begins with a call for a highly professionalized officer corps to obey the orders of any legally legitimate civilian regime end with the promise that humanity can achieve both security and redemption if all the nations of the world adopt core military values? How can “militarize the military,” Huntington’s solution to the classical question of civilian/ military relations – Plato’s …

Stemming The Hobby Lobby Tidal Wave: Why Rfra Challenges To Obama's Executive Order Prohibiting Federal Contractors From Discriminating Against Lgbt Employees Will Not Succeed, Kayla Higgins

Kayla Higgins

On July 21, 2014 President Obama released Executive Order 13672, which expressly aimed to provide for a uniform policy for the Federal Government to prohibit discrimination and take further steps to promote economy and efficiency in Federal Government procurement by prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Some commentators believe that the order “could be the next battleground” for the competing views of religious leaders and liberals when it comes to how to weigh religious liberty against other priorities. However, there are two main reasons why the most recent executive order should not crumble under the Hobby Lobby …

Dealing With Dangerous Women: Sexual Assault Under Cover Of National Security Laws In India, Surabhi Chopra Prof.

Surabhi Chopra Prof.

DEALING WITH DANGEROUS WOMEN: SEXUAL ASSAULT UNDER COVER OF NATIONAL SECURITY LAWS IN INDIA

This article examines violence against women suspected of being security threats in India’s internal conflict zones, one of the very few scholarly works to do so.

I focus on two cases in particular. In 2004, Thangjam Manorama was arrested by paramilitaries on suspicion of belonging to a violent separatist group, and found raped and murdered several hours later. I look at her family’s attempts to hold the armed forces accountable for her death. I also look at the ongoing criminal prosecution of Soni Sori, an indigenous …

A Constitutinal Analysis Of The Ncaa’S New Autonomous Governance Model And Its Effects On Student Athletes, Non-Athletes, And Professors – Is The Termination Of Uab’S Football Program Just The Beginning Of Things To Come?, Tyler N. Wilson

Tyler N Wilson

No abstract provided.

Implementing The Lessons From Wrongful Convictions: An Empirical Analysis Of Eyewitness Identification Reform Strategies, Keith A. Findley

Keith A Findley

Learning about the flaws in the criminal justice system that have produced wrongful convictions has progressed at a dramatic pace since the first innocent individuals were exonerated by postconviction DNA testing in 1989. Application of that knowledge to improving the criminal justice system, however, has lagged far behind the growth in knowledge. Likewise, while considerable scholarship has been devoted to identifying the factors that produce wrongful convictions, very little scholarly attention has been devoted to the processes through which knowledge about causes is translated into reforms.

Using eyewitness misidentification—one of the leading contributors to wrongful convictions and the most thoroughly …

Obergefell V. Hodges: How The Supreme Court Should Have Ruled, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

In Obergefell, et al. v. Hodges, Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion legalizing same-sex marriage was based on “the mystical aphorisms of a fortune cookie,” and “indefensible as a matter of constitutional law.” Kennedy’s opinion was comprised largely of philosophical ramblings about liberty that have neither a constitutional foundation nor any conceptual limitation. The fictional opinion below arrives at the same conclusion, but the reasoning is based on equal protection rather than due process principles. The majority opinion holds that same-sex marriage bans violate the Equal Protection Clause because they: (1) discriminate on the basis of gender; (2) promote gender-based stereotypes; and …

"Should I Stay Or Should I Go Now": Analyzing The Federal Prosecution Of Aliens Who Attempt To Stop Living Unlawfully In The United States, Sergio Garcia

Sergio Garcia

Abstract: Title 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a) makes it a crime for a previously deported alien to be “found in” the United States without the Attorney General’s consent. There is, however, a conflict among the circuits over whether an illegal alien is “found in” the United States for purposes of § 1326 when he voluntarily travels to a port of entry and is detained there by immigration authorities while he is seeking to leave the country. The circuit courts bordering Mexico and Canada disagree on this issue as a matter of law, as well as a matter of Congressional intent. This …

Dangerous Tongues: Storytelling In Congressional Testimony, Clare Keefe Coleman

Clare Keefe Coleman

The important and dangerous use of storytelling in making legislation has been largely ignored by legal academics. Although notable scholars, including Justice Scalia and Cass Sunstein, have written extensively about the use of legislative history in statutory interpretation, and much has been written about the use of storytelling in advocacy, the important role that stories play in making legislation has been overlooked by the legal academy, outside of a few articles relating to criminal statutes. The Congressional Record on a recent farm bill is full of stories told by special interests that draw on metaphors, archetypes, and myths. Snow White’s …

“To Promote The General Welfare” Addressing Political Corruption In America, Bruce M. Owen

Bruce Owen

Systemic (but lawful) political corruption reduces well-being and equity in America. Madisonian democracy is no longer capable of containing such corruption. Proposals currently on the table to stem corruption are unlikely to be effective and tend to undermine basic rights. This essay describes a new approach—regulating the output of corrupted legislative and administrative processes, rather than the inputs. Providing for substantive ex post review of direct and delegated legislation would be far more protective of the “general welfare” of the People than other reforms, while no more or less difficult to implement. Supporting an umpire proposal may be a dominant …

Conflicted Counselors: Retaliation Protections For Attorney-Whistleblowers In An Inconsistent Regulatory Regime, Jennifer M. Pacella

Jennifer M. Pacella, Esq.

Attorneys, especially in-house counsel, are subject to retaliation by employers in much the same way as traditional whistleblowers, often experiencing retaliation and loss of livelihood for reporting instances of wrongdoing about their clients. Although attorney-whistleblowing undoubtedly invokes ethical concerns, attorneys who “appear and practice” before the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) are required by federal law to act as internal whistleblowers under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (“SOX”) and report evidence of material violations of the law within the organizations that they represent. An attorney’s failure to comply with these obligations will result in SEC-imposed civil penalties and disciplinary action. Recent federal …

Legal Thinking, The Adversarial Process And Exonerating Innocent Defendants: A Socio-Legal View Of The Wrongful Conviction Process., Gary J. Kowaluk

Gary J Kowaluk

Little is as frustrating as advocating the release of an innocent defendant who has been wrongfully convicted. Surprisingly, most of the wrongfully convicted fail to overturn their cases through the courts, and rely on government officials and prosecutor’s to find other ways to release them from custody. Too often the wrongful conviction process leaves lawyers and judges arguing to legally support injustices in the face of a practical common sense indicating a defendant’s innocence. This paper is an attempt to understand the tendency of legal professionals to argue against remedying a wrongful conviction in favor of the continued social injustice …

The Customary Practice Of Gerawee In Afghanistan: A Case For Transitioning To Real Equity-Based Finance, Haroun Rahimi

Haroun Rahimi

The customary practice of Gerawee, in principle, refers to a specific form of synthetic loan. It is a pledge-lease transaction that enables owners of immovable properties to obtain financing based on the market value of those properties in exchange for either paying regular payments in form of rent or transferring the right to lease those properties to a financer. The practice has been developed to help debtors and creditors avoid the prohibition of interest bearing loans under Shari’ah. Despite the efforts of some Muslim jurists to justify the practice under Shari’ah, it is widely criticized. In particular, Afghan muftis …

The Power Of The Body: Analyzing The Corporeal Logic Of Law And Social Change In The Arab Spring, Zeina Jallad, Zeina Jallad

Zeina Jallad

The Power of the Body:

Analyzing the Logic of Law and Social Change in the Arab Spring

Abstract:

Under conditions of extreme social and political injustice - when human rights are under the most threat - rational arguments rooted in the language of human rights are often unlikely to spur reform or to ensure government adherence to citizens’ rights. When those entrusted with securing human dignity, rights, and freedoms fail to do so, and when other actors—such as human rights activists, international institutions, and social movements—fail to engage the levers of power to eliminate injustice, then oppressed and even quotidian …

Hmda, Housing Segregation, And Racial Disparities In Mortgage Lending, Charles M. Lamb Ph.D.

Charles M Lamb Ph.D.

No abstract provided.

Separate And Unequal?: The Problematic Segregation Of Special Populations In Charter Schools Relative To Traditional Public Schools, Julian Vasquez Heilig

Julian Vasquez Heilig

The extent to which special student populations (ELL, Special Education and Economically Disadvantaged) gain access to charter schools is understudied. In this article we compare the enrollment of high-need special populations in charter schools with non-charter public schools at the state, district, and local levels. State-level dissimilarity analyses show only modest disparities in segregation and access of high-need students within the Texas charter system compared to traditional public schools. However, local-level descriptive and geospatial analyses of charters in a large metropolitan area shows that there are large disparities in the enrollment of high-need students relative to traditional public schools nearby. …

Limiting Leukophobia: Looking Beyond Lockup. Debunking The Strategy Of Turning White Collars Orange, Jared J. Hight

Jared J Hight

The legal and political landscape of the past 30 years has resulted in the abandonment of the utilitarian principle of parsimony as applied to white collar criminals. In response to preceding decades of minor punishments meted out for serious white collar crimes, the Federal Sentencing Commission abandoned the typical past practices of sentencing judges and instead formulated Guidelines that are wildly excessive and no longer balance the need for community safety with the need for that same community to remain economically efficient. The guiding principles of deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitation have been deemphasized in a new model that focuses primarily …

Justice Kennedy's Decision In Obergefell: A Sad Day For The Judiciary, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

Same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marriage under the Equal Protection Clause, not under Justice Kennedy’s self-serving and ever-changing definition of liberty. The long-term impact of Kennedy’s decision will be to the Court’s institutional legitimacy. Chief Justice Roberts emphasized that the legitimacy of this Court ultimately rests “upon the respect accorded to its judgments,” which is based on the perception—and reality—that we exercise humility and restraint in deciding cases according to the Constitution and law.” Justice Kennedy’s decision eschewed these values, giving the Court the power to discover “new dimensions of freedom,” and to ensure that all citizens, through …

The Federal Restore Act And Its Impact On The Gulf States Following The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Sara Mammarella

Sara Mammarella

On April 20, 2010, what has been described as “the worst oil spill in U.S. history,” the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, occurred off the Louisiana coast, affecting a five-state area in the Gulf region (Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas), dumping an estimated 4.9 billion barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The harms that occurred were widespread and devastating: eleven people were killed, 1,000 miles of coastline was degraded, ocean life and beaches were destroyed, and the local economy of the region was adversely impacted, especially fishing and tourism industries. In response, Congress passed the federal RESTORE …

From Reynolds To Lawrence To Brown V. Buhman: Antipolygamy Statutes Sliding On The Slippery Slope Of Same-Sex Marriage, Stephen L. Baskind

Stephen L Baskind

In 2003 in Lawrence v. Texas (striking Texas’ sodomy law), Justice Scalia predicted in his dissent the end of all morals legislation. If Justice Scalia is correct most, if not all, morals-based legislation may fall. For example, in recent years state laws prohibiting same-sex marriage have fallen to constitutional challenges. Ten years after Lawrence in 2013, a Utah Federal District Court in Brown v. Buhman, though feeling constrained by the 1878 Reynolds case (which rejected a First Amendment challenge to an antipolygamy law), nevertheless at the request of a polygamous family concluded that the cohabitation prong of Utah’s anti-bigamy …

Stop Blaming The Prosecutors: The Real Causes Of Wrongful Convictions And Rightful Exonerations, And What Should Be Done To Fix Them, Adam Lamparello, Charles E. Maclean, James J. Berles

Adam Lamparello

Wrongfully convicted and rightfully exonerated criminal defendants spent, on average, ten years in prison before exoneration, and the ramifications to the defendants, the criminal justice system, and society are immeasurable.Prosecutorial misconduct, however, is not the primary cause of wrongful convictions. To begin with, although more than twenty million new adult criminal cases are opened in state and federal courts each year throughout the United States, there have been only 1,281 total exonerations over the last twenty-five years. In only six percent of those cases was prosecutorial misconduct the predominant factor resulting in those wrongful convictions. Of course, although prosecutorial misconduct …

Fundamental Unenumerated Rights Under The Ninth Amendment And Privileges Or Immunities Clause, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

The failure to link the Ninth Amendment and Privileges or Immunities Clause for the purpose of creating unenumerated fundamental rights has been a persistent but rarely discussed aspect of the Court’s jurisprudence. That should change. There need not be an ongoing tension between the Court’s counter-majoritarian role and the authority of states to govern through the democratic process. If the Constitution’s text gives the Court a solid foundation upon which to recognize new rights and thereby create a more just society, then the exercise of that power is fundamentally democratic. The Ninth Amendment and Privileges or Immunities Clause provides that …

Person, State Or Not: The Place Of Business Corporations In Our Constitutional Order, Daniel J.H. Greenwood

Daniel J.H. Greenwood

Business corporations are critical institutions in our democratic republican market-based economic order. The United States Constitution, however, is completely silent as to their status in our system. The Supreme Court has filled this silence by repeatedly granting corporations rights against the citizenry and its elected representatives.

Instead, we ought to view business corporations, like municipal corporations, as governance structures created by We the People to promote our general Welfare. On this social contract view, corporations should have the constitutional rights specified in the text: none. Instead, we should be debating which rights of citizens against governmental agencies should also apply …