Law Commons^™

Process As Suffering: How U.S. Immigration Court Process And Culture Prevent Substantive Justice, Christopher Levesque, Kimberly Horner, Linus Chan

Articles

In this article, we argue that there is a form of double punishment unique to the immigration court system that attorneys and their noncitizen clients must navigate throughout changing political contexts. The first form of punishment is the court process during removal proceedings, and the second form of punishment is removal from the United States. Our interviews with removal defense attorneys in the U.S. Upper Midwest illustrate how these punishments intersect with one another and push attorneys to adopt strategies that may not lead to winning a case, but intend to protect their clients by losing as slowly as possible. …

Doing Injustice: Exchanging One “Arbitrary, Cruel, And Reckless” Sentencing System For Another, Michael Tonry

Articles

Marvin Frankel’s characterization of American sentencing in Criminal Sentences: Law Without Order remarkably successfully distilled ideas that were in the air and emerging. His main proposals—a sentencing commission, sentencing rules, requirements that judges explain their decisions, and meaningful appellate sentence review—would in a better America go a long way toward establishing the kind of rational, humane, and just process he imagined. Despite some early, partial successes, however, Frankel’s proposals remain largely untested. In retrospect, he underestimated, misunderstood, or chose to ignore formidable political impediments to serious sentencing reform in late twentieth century America. He also largely ignored two intractable problems, …

The Blue Family Constitution, June Carbone

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Partial Success Of Judge Frankel’S Sentencing Commission, Fifty Years On, Richard Frase

Articles

Judge Marvin Frankel’s writings in the early 1970s inspired the creation of sentencing guidelines commissions and guidelines rules in twenty-two state and federal jurisdictions. By the late 1970s Frankel’s tentative proposals had been substantially filled out by other writers and reformers; the two most common guidelines models were adopted by Minnesota (1980) and Pennsylvania (1982). The federal guidelines (1987) have been justly criticized, but most state guidelines have been accepted by judges and other practitioners and observers. This sentencing reform model has also been endorsed by the American Bar Association and the American Law Institute. This essay tells the story …

Appointed Or Elected: How Justices On Elected State Supreme Courts Are Actually Selected, Herbert M. Kritzer

Articles

During at least part of the post–World War II period, the constitutions of thirty-six states called for the popular election of the judges of the states’ highest courts. In practice, only slightly more than half of those judges (excluding strictly interim appointees) initially obtained their positions by election. This article examines the likelihood of initial election in actual practice, how it has varied over time, and various factors that might be related to election versus appointment (e.g., type of election, mandatory retirement). It concludes that state norms play a substantial role in determining patterns of actual selection.

How Privilege Undermines Cybersecurity, Daniel Schwarcz

Articles

In recent years, cyberattacks have cost firms countless billions of dollars, undermined consumer privacy, distorted world geopolitics, and even resulted in death and bodily harm. Rapidly accelerating cyberattacks have not, however, been bad news for many lawyers. On the contrary, lawyers that specialize in coordinating all elements of victims’ incident-response efforts are increasingly in demand. Lawyers’ dominant role in cyber-incident response is driven in part by their purported capacity to ensure that information produced during the breach response process remains confidential, particularly in any subsequent lawsuit. By interposing themselves between their clients and any third party consultants involved in incident …

Antidiscrimination Efforts And The Repressive Weight Of Culture, Matthew Bodie

Articles

No abstract provided.

Liability Or No Liability? Promoting Safety By Shifting Accident Losses Onto Third Parties, Francesco Parisi

Articles

In a recent article, Guerra et al. considered the problem of liability for accidents caused by the activity of robots, proposing a novel liability regime, which they referred to as ‘manufacturer’s residual liability.’ Under this regime, injurers (robot operators) and victims are liable for accidents due to their negligence (hence, they are incentivised to act diligently), and third-party robot manufacturers bear all remaining accident losses, even when the accident is not caused by a defect or malfunction of the robot. In this article, I explore the possibility of extending this framework of liability to other tort scenarios. I refer to …

Deepfake 2024: Will Citizens United And Artificial Intelligence Together Destroy Representative Democracy?, Richard Painter

Articles

Deepfakes – computer generated counterfeit videos and audios of people saying and doing things they never said or did – are proliferating on social media and increasingly will be used to target candidates in elections. Citizens United v. FEC, and cases decided in its aftermath, have opened the floodgates of dark money funded electioneering communications, and some of this money will be spent on deepfakes made and disseminated by persons unknown. Some deepfakes may originate outside the United States, as they become a new instrument for foreign interference in U.S. elections.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has been asked by …

Shadow Amendments, William J. Aceves

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court’s jurisprudence surrounding the Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”) reflects the phenomenon of shadow amendments, an inevitable outcome of statutory construction. These judicial interpretations altered the ATS and narrowed its reach. Through repeated shadow amendments, the Court has moved the ATS far beyond its original thirty-three word configuration and understanding. These shadow amendments reflect an aggressive form of statutory construction, an ironic description for a Court that has long championed deference to Congress and fealty to legislative text. This dynamic is evident in Nestlé USA, Inc. v. Doe, the Court’s most recent ATS decision. But shadow amendments are …

State Responsibility For Forced Migration, Pooja R. Dadhania

Faculty Scholarship

International refugee law does not hold states accountable for the forced migration they cause. Using the international law doctrine of state responsibility, this Article aims to shift the discourse on migration policy towards a state accountability approach that considers the role states play in causing forced migration. This Article uses state responsibility to explore the obligations of a state after it commits a violation of international law that results in forced migration. The general principle undergirding state responsibility is that a state should provide full reparation for harms caused by its violation of an international obligation. Applying state responsibility to …

His Ship Has Sailed—Expelling Columbus From Cultural Heritage Law, Emily T. Behzadi

Faculty Scholarship

Latin America is a region rich with cultural heritage that existed for centuries before its antiquities were looted, trafficked, and sold on the international market. The language used to classify these objects of cultural heritage has been a tool of oppression and erasure. In reference to those objects of historical importance, auction houses, dealers, museums, and even looters themselves consistently use the term “Pre-Columbian.” “Pre-Columbian,” which means “before Columbus,” defines the historical period prior to the establishment of the Spanish culture in the national territories of Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean islands. In fact, this definition is …

Intellectual Property Piracy In The Time Of The Metaverse, James M. Cooper

Faculty Scholarship

The article explores ways in which companies, innovators, artists, and cultural workers can best protect their IP rights in the metaverse. Focusing on IP piracy and counterfeiting, long-time problems in both the real world and online, the article addresses the threats that these illicit activities pose to legitimate commerce, government tax revenues, public safety, and national security. It examines the implications that the metaverse poses for businesses going forward with respect to brand management and revenue source protection and details the manners in which IP rights can be best protected in the metaverse. It concludes with a review of the …

Real Estate Trends: Title And Blockchain Technology, Laura M. Padilla

Faculty Scholarship

This article discusses how blockchain technology could revolutionize real property title record-keeping, or not. It begins with a brief history of property transfers and title registry in the United States, followed by a basic overview of blockchain technology. Then it outlines how title is typically recorded today, including the role of traditional grantor-grantee indexes, plus less common tract indexes. It describes common title problems, often caused by human error, and exacerbated by an outdated system, together with an explanation of how blockchain and even tract indexes could eliminate or mitigate many title problems and simplify an antiquated system. The article …

The Case Against Regional Transmission Monopolies, Kristen Van De Biezendos

Faculty Scholarship

Over the next decade, the United States will need to build significant regional transmission infrastructure to achieve the country’s goal of net-zero power by 2035. However, there is a significant barrier: the transmission system is almost entirely owned by private monopolies. As a result, the grid has grown not to serve the public interest but in accordance with the economic priorities of these monopolies, which are not incentivized to innovate, find efficiencies, or lower costs. Past attempts to encourage competitive bidding for regional transmission projects have been stymied by laws intended to protect the monopolies, including the right of first …

The Purloined Debtor: Edgar Allan Poe’S Bankruptcy In Law And Letters, Erin L. Sheley, Zvi Rosen

Faculty Scholarship

This Article represents the first interdisciplinary case study of Edgar Allan Poe’s bankruptcy as an inflection point in the legal and cultural history of debt. Although Poe hardly leaps to mind for portrayals of legal procedure, much of his oeuvre reveals a terror of legal process as an interstitial principle. The anxiety around identity in Poe’s work reveals an ongoing struggle between an individual subject and two opposing yet equally degenerate legal statuses: possession and indebtedness. This opposition renders a distinct form of legal process legible in these texts: the then emerging law of bankruptcy. Poe declared bankruptcy at a …

The Unnatural Disaster Of Insurance, Underinsurance, And Natural Disasters, Kenneth S. Klein

Faculty Scholarship

This article presents a novel data set describing the frequency of materially inadequate homeowner insurance in the event of a total loss. For decades, after a natural disaster, large percentages of homeowners who have lost their homes report suffering a second devastating loss — that, entirely to their surprise, they are vastly underinsured. These reports provocatively suggest that a large majority of all insured homes in the United States — not just homes destroyed by a natural disaster—might be profoundly, unknowingly, and unintentionally underinsured. Insurance companies reject this possibility. Insurers posit that underinsurance is rare, that other than after natural …

Corporate Compliance’S Achilles Heel, Miriam H. Baer

Faculty Scholarship

In the two decades that have elapsed since the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, corporate compliance has solidified into an essential, universally respected corporate governance function. And yet, its future may be compromised by a development that compliance scholars have yet to address, namely the political polarization of our society. As the workplace becomes more politically polarized, and government enforcement institutions either become or simply appear more politicized, compliance programs are apt to encounter difficulties in ensuring adequate flows of information and prompt detection and redress of wrongdoing. With Sarbanes-Oxley in its rearview mirror, this article -- written for a …

The Political Economy Of Due Diligence Legislation, Peter Draper, Andreas Freytag, Naoise Mcdonagh, Matthias Menter

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The policy challenge. Citizens and politicians in Western democracies have increasingly become aware of the importance of human rights, civil liberties, social rights, and sustainability issues as well as the different adherence to basic rights (such as equal treatment) all over the world. This trend has recently materialized in laws in the United States (US), Europe, Australia, and elsewhere. To varying extents, these oblige domestic businesses to comply with, and enforce, Western values and standards along their international supply chains. This values-based due diligence legislation has caused ongoing controversies over compliance costs, impacts on foreign relations – particularly with developing …

The Paradox Of Juridical Secularism: An Illustration Through The Cases Of Sabarimala And Hijab, Sukriti .

National Law School Journal

Secularism in India was imagined in cognisance of religion's entrenchment in the public life of the country as well as in people’s identities. This form of secularism was made possible within the Constitution of India through a broad framing of religious freedoms that was limited by statist concerns such as public order, morality, and health. In the face of rising majoritarianism, secular values are under serious challenge, impacting the right to religious freedom and expression. In the face of this challenge, this article assesses the judiciary’s engagement with religion on issues of discrimination against women. The article contends that the …

Editorial

National Law School Journal

This editorial contextualises the articles in Issue 17(2), which treat matters of public discourse primarily through the lens of public law.

How “Open” Are Australian Museums? A Review Through The Lens Of Copyright Governance, Paul L. Arthur, Lydia Hearn, Isabel Smith, Nikos Koutras

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Museums are increasingly employing innovative digital techniques to curate, link, and market collections, enabling new kinds of public engagement to better connect with popular culture. By embracing contemporary modes of delivery to open access to their collections, museums are signalling a drive toward greater democratisation of knowledge and information through increased interaction and accessibility. Yet with this has come a series of copyright and legal complexities. This paper reviews current copyright barriers for museums in Australia and examines how international examples offer potential models and ways forward. The authors conclude that recent copyright modernisation reviews offer the museum sector an …

Gender Dynamics In The Management Care Of Internally Displaced Persons: The Boko Haram Insurgency, Evelyn Kikelomo Ikuenobe Otaigbe

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The Boko Haram asymmetric insurgency and warfare have decimated the Northeastern region of Nigeria and its neighboring environs of Chad, Niger, and Benin. The purpose of this study was to explore the peculiar socioethnic and cultural challenges encountered by female victims of Boko Haram terrorism at internally displaced persons camps in Abuja, Nigeria, including challenges in functioning, relocating, and acclimating back into society. A phenomenological approach was applied to understand participants’ lived experiences. Data collection occurred through interviews and observation. Data analysis involved the synthesis of narratives, and generation of themes. Among the emergent themes were poor feeding; lack of …

Gender Dynamics In The Management Care Of Internally Displaced Persons: The Boko Haram Insurgency, Evelyn Kikelomo Ikuenobe Otaigbe

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The Boko Haram asymmetric insurgency and warfare have decimated the Northeastern region of Nigeria and its neighboring environs of Chad, Niger, and Benin. The purpose of this study was to explore the peculiar socioethnic and cultural challenges encountered by female victims of Boko Haram terrorism at internally displaced persons camps in Abuja, Nigeria, including challenges in functioning, relocating, and acclimating back into society. A phenomenological approach was applied to understand participants’ lived experiences. Data collection occurred through interviews and observation. Data analysis involved the synthesis of narratives, and generation of themes. Among the emergent themes were poor feeding; lack of …

Gang Diversion Programs In The Success Of Reducing Youth Gang Membership, Francis Songtiib Laari

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The rate of youth involvement in gang membership and crime has become a problem in Fairfax County, Virginia. It has increased violent crimes, drug trade, and incarceration rates for youths and decreased child school graduation rates. Youth gang membership is a significant public issue with broad mental and psychological implications for the child, family, and community because of the potential to commit a crime. Early exposure to gangs and violent neighborhoods can profoundly and negatively impact the residents. Researchers have explored why many children join gangs, but none have examined gang diversion programs' success in reducing youth gang membership. In …

The Court’S Morality Play: The Punishment Lens, Sex, And Abortion, June Carbone, Naomi Cahn

Articles

This Article uncovers the hidden framework for the Supreme Court’s approach to public values, a framework that has shaped—and will continue to shape—the abortion debate. The Court has historically used a “punishment lens” to allow the evolution of moral expression in the public square, without enmeshing the Court itself in the underlying values debate. The punishment lens allows a court to redirect attention by focusing on the penalty rather than the potentially inflammatory subject for which the penalty is being imposed, regardless of whether the subject is contraception, abortion, Medicaid expansion, or pretrial detention.

This Article is unique in discussing …

An Empirical Constitutional Crisis: When Magistrate Judges Exercise De Facto Article Iii Power, Edward Adams

Articles

Magistrate judges within the United States district court system have historically been viewed as a means to alleviate the large caseloads faced by district court judges. Magistrate judges issue Reports and Recommendations (R&Rs), wherein they detail the underlying facts, analyze relevant legal issues, and outline a proposed order for district court judges to follow. While district court judges may reject or modify R&Rs submitted to them, district court judges overwhelmingly adopt R&Rs, even after a purportedly de novo determination. In doing so, this Article posits that constitutionally-appointed district court judges are abrogating their Article III constitutionally required role to magistrate …

Debt Textualism And Creditor-On-Creditor Violence: A Modest Plea To Keep The Faith, Eric L. Talley, Sneha Pandya

Faculty Scholarship

In this article, we argue that debt textualism played a key role in laying the groundwork for our present malaise by encouraging contracts to become increasingly bloated, complex, and rigid up to the point of buckling completely. The dense contractual landscape wrought by debt textualism, when freshly populated with a calculating coterie of financial mercenaries, has transformed corporate lending markets into an elaborate and costly contest of Hunger Games-worthy contractual “gotcha” where (a) lenders scour loan agreements for unappreciated loopholes to undercut borrowers; (b) borrowers do the same in an attempt to counteract lenders; and (c) permutated coalitions from …

Ignorance Of The Rules Of Omission: An Essay On Privilege Law, Rebecca Wexler

Faculty Scholarship

Evidentiary privileges--that is, rules that empower people to withhold evidence from legal proceedings-are one thread in a mesh of secrecy powers that control the flow of information in society. They are part and parcel of the laws, rules, norms, and practicalities that determine who can conceal and who can compel, that allocate power based on access to knowledge and its opposite. Despite the significance of privileges and of the harms that they produce, our understanding of this body of law has profound gaps.5 The questions posed above turn out to be more challenging than they might at first appear. Notwithstanding …

Private Enforcement In The States, Diego A. Zambrano, Neel Guha, Austin Peters, Jeffrey Xia

Faculty Scholarship

Scholarship on U.S. litigation and civil procedure has scarcely studied the role of private enforcement in the states. Over the past two decades, scholars have established that, almost uniquely in the world, the U.S. often relies on private parties rather than administrative agencies to enforce important statutory provisions. Take your pick of any area in American governance, and you will find private rights of action: environmental law, civil rights, employment discrimination, antitrust, consumer protection, business competition, securities fraud, and so on. In each of these areas, Congress has deliberately empowered private plaintiffs instead of, or in addition to, government agencies. …