Courts Commons^™

Brief Of Professor Derek T. Muller As Amicus Curiae In Support Of Petition For Certiorari, Michael Francisco, Michael Brody, Derek T. Muller

Court Briefs

No. 22-1033
Eugene Mazo v. New Jersey Secretary of State

On Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit

From the Summary of Argument

This Court has expressly held that the Anderson-Burdick balancing test for evaluating certain kinds of election laws does not extend to cases of pure political speech. McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, 514 U.S. 334, 344 (1995). Laws restricting political speech are subject to strict scrutiny. Nevertheless, lower courts—including the Third Circuit in this case— continue to defy this Court’s guidance.

This case presents an important opportunity to …

Same Old Story, New Solution: Force Majeure Deficiencies In The Wake Of Covid-19 And An Unorthodox Approach To Drafting It, Steven H. Dovi

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

On January 20, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the first laboratory-confirmed case of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) on American soil.[1] On March 8, 2021—more than a year later—the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York decided Gap v. Ponte Gadea New York.[2] It ruled, inter alia, that the COVID-19 pandemic, in keeping with the relevant provision’s narrow tailoring, did not amount to a force majeure event and a defense to breach.[3] While seemingly one of the first decisions of its kind in the Southern District, this Note argues that the holding …

Mental Distress Among Adults With Serious Mental Illness In A Criminal Legal Setting: A Secondary Data Analysis Of The Mcarthur Mental Health Court Study Data, Violette Cloud

Psychology ETDs

Chronic criminal legal system (CLS) involvement among individuals with serious mental illness (SMI) is of growing concern. Mental health courts (MHCs) are a known diversion strategy currently used by the CLS to address this problem. MHCs are seen as an effective method for linking individuals with SMI to needed treatment, removing them from a detention setting, and subsequently reducing recidivism. However, less is known about the impact of MHC enrollment on mental health related outcomes (mental distress). Using the McArthur Mental Health Court Study data, this study aimed to inspect the impact of MHC participation, legal coercion, and treatment motivation …

Appellant's Opening Brief, Zack Greenamyre, W. Gerald Weber, John A. Meiser, Meredith Holland Kessler

Court Briefs

No. 23-10332
Rev. Stephen Jarrard v. Sheriff of Polk County

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia No. 4:20-cv-00002-MLB

From the Summary of the Argument

This is an unusual appeal. Sheriff Johnny Moats and Chief Jailer Al Sharp all but admitted that they retaliated against Jarrard and barred him from Polk County Jail’s volunteer ministry program because they disagree with his religious belief that baptism is required for salvation. Indeed, Moats told Jarrard in writing that Jarrard’s beliefs are “contrary to the teaching of the Bible” and that he would not be allowed to …

Bureaucratic Overreach And The Role Of The Courts In Protecting Representative Democracy, Katie Cassady

Helm's School of Government Conference - 2021-2024

Although only four departments at the United States’ founding, the American bureaucracy has expanded to address nearly every issue of public life. While these agencies are ostensibly under congressional oversight through monetary allowance and the supervision of the President as part of the executive branch, they consistently usurp their discretionary authority and bypass the Founders’ design of legislative power vested solely in a bicameral legislature.

The Supreme Court holds an indispensable role in mitigating the overreach of bureaucratic agencies. However, despite their obligation to protect the rights of the American people, the courts’ inability to hold bureaucrats accountable has diluted …

Examining The Effects Of Student Loan Forgiveness And The Christian Perspective, Sarah Rogers

Helm's School of Government Conference - 2021-2024

On August 24, 2022, President Joe Biden announced his plan for federal student loan forgiveness. The program allows individuals who make less than $125,000 a year and families under $250,000 relieve up to $10,000 of their loan debt. Those who fall under the Pell Grant program are able to relieve up to $20,000 of their debt. The reactions to this “revolutionary” program were mixed. Typically, those who the program would directly affect were very enthusiastic about this idea while those, most notably Republicans, were less than thrilled. While the idea is good in theory, the execution of debt forgiveness will …

Using Odr Platforms To Level The Playing Field: Improving Pro Se Litigation Through Odr Design, J.J. Prescott

Law & Economics Working Papers

In a few short years, court-connected ODR has shown itself capable of dramatically improving access to justice by reducing or eliminating barriers rooted in the simple fact that courts have traditionally offered dispute resolution services only during certain hours, only in particular physical places, and primarily through traditional face-to-face proceedings. Given the monopoly that courthouses have long had on resolving many legal issues, too many Americans have discovered their rights are simply too difficult or costly to exercise. As court-connected ODR systems spread, offering new types of dispute resolution services everywhere and often at any time, people will soon find …

Conviction On Interpretation, Advocate Adaptability, And The Future Of Emojis And Emoticons As Evidence, Samantha Lyons

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

The dawning of the digital age introduced new and unique interpretive quandaries for judges and litigators alike. These quandaries include (but are not limited to) misinterpretation of pictorial slang as used in instant messaging, new or collateral meanings invented by phrases paired with specific emoticons or emojis, and the existence of emojis alone as communicative accessories.

This Note analyzes how lawyers and judges have essential free reign to treat emojis as they see fit: a prosecutor can argue, even in good faith, that the inclusion of an emoji depicting an open flame means the sender knew the heroin he sold …

Peran Notaris Pada Pembuatan Akta Jaminan Fidusia Dengan Objek Jaminan Berupa Hak Cipta, Abiandri Fikri Akbar

Indonesian Notary

Undang Undang Nomor 28 Tahun 2014 Tentang Hak Cipta mengatur bahwa Hak Cipta sebagai benda bergerak tidak berwujud dapat dijadikan sebagai objek jaminan fidusia. Pada Undang-Undang Nomor 42 Tahun 1999 tentang Jaminan Fidusia diatur bahwa pembebanan benda jaminan fidusia harus dibuat dengan akta notaris dengan setidak-tidaknya memuat nilai benda yang menjadi objek jaminan fidusia.. Hal tersebut menimbulkan permasalahan terutama mengenai mekanisme penilaian dan pemuatan hak cipta sebagai jaminan karena sifatnya yang merupakan benda bergerak tidak berwujud sehingga sulit untuk dinilai. Penelitian ini dilakukan secara yuridis-normatif dengan melakukan lapangan wawancara terhadap pihak yang berkaitan dengan pembuatan akta jaminan fidusia. Tujuan dari …

Konsep Dan Bentuk Perlindungan Hak Penguasaan Atas Tanah Masyarakat Hukum Adat Di Indonesia (Studi Kasus Putusan Pengadilan Negeri Balige No. 42/Pdt.Plw/2016/Pn Blg), Ernila Erfa

Indonesian Notary

Tanah Ulayat merupakan tanah yang dikuasai secara bersama oleh warga masyarakat hukum adat, di mana pengaturan pengelolaannya dilakukan oleh pemimpin adat (Kepala Adat) dan pemanfaatannya diperuntukan baik bagi warga masyarakat hukum adat yang bersangkutan maupun orang luar. Untuk dapat menyatakan bahwa suatu hak ulayat di suatu tempat tertentu masih eksis, ada tiga unsur pokok yang harus dipenuhi yaitu unsur masyarakat, unsur wilayah dan unsur hubungan antara masyarakat hukum adat dengan wilayahnya. Terdapat dua permasalahan dalam penelitian ini yakni pembuktian atas pemilikan tanah adat berdasarkan UUPA dan pertimbangan hakim pada Putusan Pengadilan Negeri No. 42/Pdt.Plw/2016/Pn Blg serta konsep dan bentuk perlindungan …

Vol. 6, Issue 1 Table Of Contents

SAIPAR Case Review

No abstract provided.

Death By Detox: Substance Withdrawal, A Possible Death Row For Individuals In Custody, Dorothea R. Carleton

Journal of Law and Health

Suffering through substance withdrawal is a major problem for the majority of individuals in custody, yet there are no guidelines or standards to ensure their safety. Instead, individuals in custody are having their Constitutional rights violated and many die at the hands of the justice system. When their families seek accountability for the lack of adequate care provided by correctional facilities and employees, families are faced with a lack of consistency from one circuit to the next for knowing as to the correct standard to have a successful claim. Strain v. Regalado was a chance for the Supreme Court to …

Face Off: Overcoming The Fifth Amendment Conflict Between Cybersecurity And Self-Incrimination, Zachary E. Jacobson

Journal of Law and Health

The Founders included the privilege against self-incrimination in the Constitution to protect individual privacy and ensure a fair judicial process. Courts have failed U.S. citizens by neglecting to protect them from compelled unlocking of biometrically encrypted devices. This inaction has created a loophole that contradicts the framework of the privilege against self-incrimination. To correct this mistake courts should reconsider the trend they have set for the Constitution and the Fifth Amendment and consider adopting a forward-thinking cybersecurity lens to conclude that biometric authentication is testimonial. Courts should consider that biometric encryption is akin to a compelled password entry for the …

The Impact Of The Justice & Treatment Industry Upon My Father—A Researched Auto-Ethnography, Megan Bruce

Whittier Scholars Program

In this researched memoir, I will be writing about my childhood growing up with my father being incarcerated and a drug addict. I’m writing about my story to let everyone know it isn’t easy but you can get through it and there are a lot more children and families that go through this too. I’m also going to bring in my dad’s perspective a little bit while throwing in research on the recovery process and the stages, the brain, and the justice system. I chose to write about my experience and emotional struggles to show readers that addiction and the …

Judicial Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion: How Do Diverse Judges Affect Sentencing Guidelines In The State Of Minnesota, Morgan Bausman

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Equal representation within the judicial system is very important. The state of Minnesota has four-hundred-forty-one judges, all different. When the legal system was created, the stereotypical judge was a white male. The legal system that represents the country should grow and diversify along with society. The issue of diversified judicial representation, with a focus on the race and gender of such judges, is a contentious debate across the country. Prior research has studied judges at the federal level and showed that diversity matters, but there have been no studies done at the state level, specifically in Minnesota. I gather data …

Editorial Note, O'Brien Kaaba, Kafumu Kalyalya

SAIPAR Case Review

No abstract provided.

Editorial Board

SAIPAR Case Review

No abstract provided.

Catalyst Pharms., Inc. V. Becerra: When The Food And Drug Administration Repeatedly Ignores The Plain Language Of The Orphan Drug Act (Oda), Yifan Wang

Journal of Law and Health

In Catalyst Pharms., Inc. v. Becerra, the court held that the scope of orphan drug exclusivity applies to the disease or conditions for which the drug is designated because the plain language of the 21 U.S.C. § 360cc(a) is clear. The decision is in contrast to the practice of the FDA to narrowly construe the exclusivity to apply only to the uses or indications for which the drug is approved. The court correctly reached its holding using a plain language approach and rejected the FDA’s argument based on legislative history and purpose. The FDA has repeatedly ignored courts interpretations …

Acknowledgements, Matthew L. Brock

University of Richmond Law Review

Each year, in a tradition dating back twenty-three years to Volume 33, the Editor-in-Chief of the University of Richmond Law Review authors acknowledgements to be included in their volume’s final publication. In keeping with tradition, I offer below my gratitude to those who have contributed to this publication and to the overall success of the Law Review, and reflect upon the fifty-seventh volume of our journal.

White-Collar Courts, Merritt E. Mcalister

Vanderbilt Law Review

Article III courts are white-collar courts. They are, scholars have said, "special." They sit atop the judicial hierarchy, and they are the courts of the one percent. We inculcate that sense of specialness in a variety of ways: federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction; they are the subject of a (perhaps overrated) class in law school; we privilege clerkships with federal judges more than with state-court judges; and we focus more scholarly attention on federal courts than state courts. They are, in short, the courts of the elite- jurisdictionally, doctrinally, and socially. Perhaps the singular importance of federal courts …

Use Of Natural Language Processing (Nlp) In Civil Case Management: A Report On Three Proof Of Concept Projects, Paula Hannaford-Agor, Jannet Okazaki

Faculty Publications

In 2016, the Conference of Chief Justices (CCJ) and the Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA) endorsed recommendations to leverage technology to improve civil case management. In particular, Natural Language Processing (NLP) and related tools could be used to support two areas of civil case processing: sorting cases at filing based on the anticipated level of judicial involvement in case management, and confirming that essential procedural requirements have been satisfied before entering final judgments in cases.

To explore the feasibility of NLP to support court operations in these two areas, the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) designed three distinct …

Faux Advocacy In Amicus Practice, James G. Dwyer

Pepperdine Law Review

Amicus brief filing has reached “avalanche” volume. Supreme Court Justices and lower court judges look to these briefs particularly for non-case-specific factual information––“legislative facts”—relevant to a case. This Article calls attention to a recurrent yet unrecognized problem with amicus filings offering up legislative facts in the many cases centrally involving the most vulnerable members of society—namely, non-autonomous persons, including both adults incapacitated by mental illness, intellectual disability, or other condition, and children. Some amici present themselves as advocates for such persons but use the amicus platform to serve other constituencies and causes, making false or misleading factual presentations about the …

Unopposed Brief Amicus Curiae Of Clear, The Jewish Coalition For Religious Liberty, And The Sikh Coalition In Support Of Appellant, Stephanie Hall Barclay, Francesca Matozzo

Court Briefs

No. 23-131
Franklin Loving v. Robert Morton

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 3:20-cv-11135

From the Summary of Argument

The Second Circuit should re-examine its precedent to allow for monetary damages for individual-capacity suits under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) for three reasons. First, RLUIPA’s text follows the same approach as 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and should be interpreted to afford the same types of broad remedies. Before Employment Division of Oregon v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990), reduced the availability of free exercise claims, free …

Declaration Of Catherine Smith: Navahine V. Dept. Of Transportation, State Of Hawai’I, Catherine Smith

Scholarly Articles

I submit this expert declaration in support of the children’s motion to maintain their September 2023 trial date so they can have their urgent constitutional rights case involving a life-sustaining climate system accorded the legal prioritization it deserves. Each day that passes without redress not only means an infringement on children’s rights but also impacts their health, safety, well-being, and the cultural lifeways and traditions of Native Hawaiian children. These harms are cumulative and compounding for the duration of the plaintiffs’ childhoods as they mature into adults. And many of the plaintiffs’ climate change-induced injuries are irreversible.

Amicus Curiae, Stephanie Barclay, Nicole Garnett, Diane Desierto, Richard Garnett, John Meiser, Jorge Barrera-Rojas

Court Briefs

No. T9117732
Sandoval v. Universidad Nacional de Colombia

This Amicus Brief is presented to this Honorable Constitutional Court by the undersigned so that the considerations and arguments contained therein are helpful in the just resolution of the conflict submitted to your knowledge and that, for purposes of clarity, are structured as follows:
(These statements are followed by the Table of Contents)

From the Argument

Non-discrimination on religious grounds in education is expressly prohibited in international human rights treaties, whether regional or universal. Moreover, many of them are ratified by Colombia and therefore impose international obligations of direct and immediate effect, …

Law School News: Joyce And Bill Cummings Of Cummings Foundation To Deliver Keynote Address At Rwu Commencement 4-20-2023, Jill Rodrigues

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Biden, Bennet, And Bipartisan Federal Judicial Selection, Carl Tobias

University of Colorado Law Review Forum

No abstract provided.

Dignity And The Promise Of Conscience, Duane Rudolph

Cleveland State Law Review

This Article focuses on the relationship between three specific invocations of dignity in American law, whose emphases are different. The first appeared in the late eighteenth century and is concerned with the dignity of a state or sovereign. The second made its appearance at the beginning of the nineteenth century and is devoted to the dignity of the court. The third is concerned with the dignity of the human person. International instruments and foreign constitutions evoked dignity in this sense in the 1930s and 1940s. In the United States, the Restatement of Torts, First evoked this sense of the term …

Let The Right Ones In: The Supreme Court's Changing Approach To Justiciability, Richard L. Heppner

Law Faculty Publications

The power of federal courts to act is circumscribed not only by the limits of subject matter jurisdiction, but also by various justiciability doctrines. Article III of the Constitution vests the judicial power of the United States in the Supreme Court and such inferior courts as Congress creates. That power is limited to deciding cases and controversies. It does not permit federal courts to provide advisory opinions when there is not a real dispute between the parties. Based on that constitutional limit, and related prudential concerns, the Court has developed a variety of justiciability requirements limiting which cases can be …

Brief Of Law Professors As Amici Curiae In Support Of Plaintiff-Appellee, Evan J. Criddle

Briefs

No abstract provided.