Disaster Law Commons^™

American Punishment And Pandemic, Danielle C. Jefferis

Faculty Scholarship

Many of the sites of the worst outbreaks of the disease caused by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) are America’s prisons and jails. As of March 2021, the virus has infected hundreds of thousands of incarcerated people and well over two thousand have died as a result contracting the disease caused by the virus. Prisons and jails have been on perpetual lockdowns since the onset of the pandemic, with family visits suspended and some facilities resorting to solitary confinement to mitigate the virus’s spread, thereby exacerbating the punitiveness and harmfulness of incarceration. With the majority of the 2.3 million people incarcerated …

The Coronavirus Pandemic Shutdown And Distributive Justice: Why Courts Should Refocus The Fifth Amendment Takings Analysis, Timothy M. Harris

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

The 2020 Coronavirus Pandemic and the ensuing shutdown of private businesses—to promote the public’ s health and safety— demonstrated the wide reach of state and local governments’ police power. Many businesses closed and many went bankrupt as various government programs failed to keep their enterprises afloat.

These businesses were shut down to further the national interest in stemming a global pandemic. This is an archetypal example of regulating for the public health—preventing a direct threat that sickened hundreds of thousands of Americans. But some businesses were disproportionately hit while others flourished. Many who bore the brunt of these regulations sued, …