Judges Commons^™

Keynote Address: The Movement To Protect Kids From Addictive Technologies, Gaia Bernstein

Seattle University Law Review

In this keynote address, I describe my personal journey starting with a school outreach program I created in 2017 to address technology overuse among kids. While I initially advocated for self-help methods, I grew to recognize that the tech industry bore responsibility. This realization led me to write Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies, which focused on collective action to pressure the tech industry to redesign its addictive products.

I then describe the movement to control addictive technologies and protect kids, which has gained momentum since the end of the pandemic. This movement combines grassroots parent activism with legal-political action. …

Moral Panic Or Public Health Crisis? Lessons From Drugs And Gambling For “Addictive” Design, Matthew B. Lawrence, Haomin (Kevin) Yan

Seattle University Law Review

Alcohol, automobiles, guns, lottery, loot boxes, meat, music, opioid painkillers, processed foods, prop bets, slot machines, television, tobacco, violent video games. Over the last century each of these has been subject to concerns—some might even say “moral panics”—from parents and policymakers about avoidable harms to kids and adults. In some cases we look back with the benefit of hindsight and dismiss those concerns as naïve or moralistic. In others we look back at them as justified or as having come too late to check an expanding industry before it did unfathomable harm while growing so powerful that it became all …

Responding To Digital Addiction, Ned Snow

Seattle University Law Review

In Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies, Professor Gaia Bernstein calls our attention to the growing problem of digital addiction. Digital addiction may sound like something out of a science-fiction novel or something that does not raise the same sort of real-life practical concerns as are present in a physical health crisis or an economic decline. But as Bernstein presents the evidence, we learn that the consequences of digital addiction can be just as harmful as a serious disease or a financial depression. Cognitive development disorders, anxiety, emotional depression, social isolation, and other mental health ills can be debilitating—as much …

The Ai Doppelgänger Dilemma: Cloned Voices In The Music Industry, Elizabeth Shields

Seattle University Law Review

With the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI), there has been an influx of “voice clones”—deep-learning algorithms that create synthetic speech to realistically mimic human voices. Celebrities and, in particular, music artists, have been subjected to the proliferation of AI voice clones on social media platforms like TikTok and streaming platforms such as Spotify. Despite music utilizing AI voice clones having amassed much popularity, this technology can be harmful and highly invasive to musicians whose livelihoods often depend on their distinct voices. While legal scholars have attempted to articulate various rights that could protect a person’s voice, individuals are largely …

Let The Sunshine In: Crafting Constitutional Transparency Regulations For Content Moderation, Caitlin Ring Carlson

Seattle University Law Review

In response to public concern about the impact of social media, legislators in some U.S. states have developed laws to regulate the process of content moderation. Many include mandatory transparency and disclosure requirements, some of which courts have already deemed an unconstitutional infringement on social media platforms’ right to free expression. This article explores the parameters for crafting constitutional social media transparency regulations using existing U.S. media policy and insights from recent legal challenges. The resulting analysis identifies content neutral transparency requirements that mandate the disclosure of purely factual, non-controversial information as those most likely to withstand judicial scrutiny. Specifically, …

This Is Not A Game: The Addictive Allure Of Digital Companions, Nizan Geslevich Packin, Karni Chagal-Feferkorn

Seattle University Law Review

Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents have become an inescapable part of modern childhood, reshaping education, leisure activities, entertainment, and social interaction. From AI-powered tutors that adapt to individual learning styles to emotionally responsive chatbots that simulate human companionship, these systems promise unprecedented personalization, cognitive stimulation, and social support. However, these benefits mask significant risks that remain unregulated and inadequately addressed.

Although adults are also susceptible to forming deep emotional bonds with AI companions—often trusting them as if they possessed genuine understanding and empathy—children are particularly vulnerable. Their misplaced trust can more severely distort social development, weaken critical thinking, and foster unhealthy …

Detention Of Foreign Seafarers And Vessels: Pollution Prevention Or Piracy?, Edward Maccoll, Marshall Tinkle

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

The purpose of this Article is to interrogate the legal basis for holding foreign crewmembers against their will in connection with APPS prosecutions. Part I examines the underlying justification for prosecuting foreign vessel owners for foreign conduct under APPS. It first discusses the international anti-pollution regimen from which APPS emerged. Next, the Article explores the handful of cases in which APPS prosecutions have been challenged and for the most part sustained, and then offers a critique of the rationale for such prosecutions. Part II explores the lawfulness of the techniques to detain foreign crewmembers and press those crewmembers into the …

Statutes And Special Interests, Kirsten Matoy Carlson

Northwestern University Law Review

Who really decides what statutes say? Most Americans think that special interests play an outsized role in our lawmaking processes. Yet empirical studies have produced little evidence that special interests get everything, or even most of, what they ask for from Congress. This Article takes an innovative new approach to tackling the difficult question of how advocates influence legislation. It presents the first comprehensive empirical study of how advocates influence the law through amendments in the legislative process. The Article analyzes an original dataset of 2,137 witnesses and their testimony at referral hearings on 108 Indian-related bills in the 97th …

Legislative Reforms To End Lawfare By State And Local Prosecutors, Elizabeth Beske

Legislative Testimony & Comments

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government will hold a hearing on Tuesday, March 4, 2025, at 2:00 p.m. ET. The hearing, "Legislative Reforms to End Lawfare by State and Local Prosecutors," will examine the use of lawfare tactics by the Biden-Harris Administration to weaponize the rule of law against political opponents. It will further highlight legislative reforms to end politically motivated state and local prosecutions.

National Origin Bias And U.S. Public Opinion On Supreme Court Nominees: Evidence From A Conjoint Experiment, Christopher P. Dinkel, Andrew Ifedapo Thompson, Marc C. Mcallister

Pace Law Review

As the ultimate arbiter of the interpretation of federal law and the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. Supreme Court has a significant impact on businesses and individuals across an increasingly diverse country. Although the vast majority of the Justices who have served on the Court have been white males, recent Presidents have appointed nominees who have brought greater racial and gender diversity to the Court. Despite these efforts, however, not a single U.S. Supreme Court Justice in the past six decades has been born abroad, even though Americans who were born outside the United States constitute nearly a tenth of the …

The Forgotten Fundamental Right To Free Movement, Noah Smith-Drelich

Northwestern University Law Review

There is a powerful fundamental right hiding in plain sight: the fundamental right to free movement. This right goes beyond the consistently acknowledged—though infrequently applied—fundamental right to interstate travel. The true scope of the Constitution’s protection of movement through substantive due process safeguards local, interstate, and international travel. Though overlooked today, the fundamental right to free movement has deep roots in history and tradition, and in the decisions of numerous state and federal courts, including the Supreme Court.

This Article is the first to examine freedom of movement using the history and tradition test for unenumerated fundamental rights. This Article …

Peeping Town: Drone Surveillance And The Exclusionary Rule In Long Lake Township V. Maxon, Stuart Massa

Northwestern University Law Review

For years, legal commentators have pondered the effect of the Fourth Amendment on drones, but purely as an academic exercise. No court had ever considered drone surveillance under the Fourth Amendment––until now. In Long Lake Township v. Maxon, a northern Michigan township flew a drone over a local resident’s home to gather photographic evidence of an alleged zoning violation. Relying on that evidence, the township sued to enforce its zoning ordinance. The resident moved to suppress the evidence, arguing that the drone’s warrantless surveillance violated the Fourth Amendment. The case made it all the way up to the Michigan …

Book Review The Making Of A Justice: Reflections On My First 94 Years By John Paul Stevens, Stephen Wermiel

Book Reviews

The autobiography of Justice John Paul Stevens, published just a few months before he died, is an enticing travelogue for Supreme Court nerds. Other travelers may want to pick a different landscape.

In The Making of a Justice: Reflections on My First 94 Years, Stevens who died in July 2019, at age 99, spent 130 pages on his life before he joined the Supreme Court and then 394 pages describing the decisions during his thirty-four year as a Justice. Stevens was an agile writer and did as good a job as anyone can of making the narrative accessible, but it …

Through A Glass Darkly: How Securities Disclosures Give A Distorted View Of The Economy, Gerald F. Davis

Seattle University Law Review

Our understanding of the American economy often relies on stylized facts derived from mandatory disclosures by listed corporations. Data vendors like Standard & Poor’s vacuum up 10Ks and proxy statements into databases, and scholars distill these into tentative maps. This may have been adequate for a postwar economy centered on asset-heavy manufacturers, but it is increasingly out of step with an information-based economy. Companies listed on the stock market are fewer in number and less representative than they were, light in tangible assets and people, and heavy on IP. Basic facts such as what industry they are in are increasingly …

Substituting One Judge For Another: The Lax Standard Of Review In Involuntary Commitment, Caitlin Riordan

Marquette Law Review

Wisconsin involuntarily commits individuals at a rate nearly five times the national average, stripping them of core constitutional rights—including liberty, the ability to refuse treatment, and firearm possession. Yet, when these life-altering orders are appealed, they are almost always reviewed by a single appellate judge. This Comment argues that such a limited review undermines the constitutional weight of involuntary commitments, which closely mirror criminal convictions in the scope of rights deprived. Tracing the historical development of Wisconsin’s civil commitment statutes, this Comment demonstrates how commitments implicate both substantive and procedural due process concerns. It then compares Wisconsin’s one-judge review framework …

The Ideational Dimension Of Judicial Power, Allen C. Sumrall

Marquette Law Review

The judiciary dominates contemporary American politics. In the United States, courts have overcome their humble origins to act as central figures in nearly every major policy dispute and separation of powers dispute. To explain this development, scholars have documented the increase in the federal judiciary’s institutional capacity and resources. Most accounts of the judiciary’s changing role in American constitutional politics focus on the courts’ expanded jurisdiction, the statutes that channel judicial review, the courts’ material resources, or changes to how politicians harness or respond to the judiciary. But focusing on these more formal institutional changes only gets us so far. …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Corporate Scenarios: Drawing Lessons From History, Madison Condon

Seattle University Law Review

As corporations are increasingly pressed to reveal information about their exposure to climate-related risks, they are often asked to undertake and disclose the outcome of “scenario analysis.” In this exercise, corporations, including financial institutions, examine how their business would fare under different pathways the future may take. One oft-used scenario, for example, is the International Energy Agency’s “Net-Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Energy Sector.” This Essay presents a history of the use of scenarios as a corporate planning tool, particularly in the oil industry, arguing that it is key for understanding our present moment and the role of …

Shareholder Expression In A Time Of Heightened Political Tension, Aaron A. Dhir

Seattle University Law Review

In this article, I provide context for my forthcoming research project on shareholder proposals and racial equity audits. Since the murder of George Floyd in May of 2020, progressive shareholder actors have increasingly used the proposal mechanism to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice-related goals. These proposals have frequently gone beyond requesting the usual corporate fare of diversity trainings, intersectionality workshops, affinity groups, etc. Instead, a more ambitious type of proposal asks corporate America to conduct racial equity audits, defined as “an independent, objective and holistic analysis of a company’s policies, practices, products, services and efforts to combat systemic racism …

Corporate Governance Speech, Sarah C. Haan

Seattle University Law Review

The State has always regulated the intra-firm communications that make corporate governance possible, most commonly by mandating disclosures of information by a corporation to its shareholders. Some such laws are labeled “securities regulation,” but securities regulation is a broad category that extends to speech by actors who are outside the corporate enterprise as well. Also, the conventional securities regulation category does not capture all such laws; other examples, including informationforcing mandates, can be found in state corporate law. This Article uses the term “corporate governance speech” to describe the communications among shareholders, directors, and officers through which corporate governance is …

Dark Accounting Matter, Colleen Honigsberg

Seattle University Law Review

Physicists calculate that approximately 85% of the matter in the universe is composed of “dark matter” that “does not absorb, reflect, or emit electromagnetic radiation and is therefore difficult to detect.” The S&P 500 currently trades at a price-to-book value of 4.2, suggesting that book value accounts for less than 20% of the S&P 500’s market value. The remaining 80% appears nowhere in these firms’ balance sheets—it is invisible to contemporary accounting techniques and constitutes “dark accounting matter.”

Some “dark accounting matter” is composed of factors commonly described as components of “ESG.” Human capital, for example, is an intangible asset …

The Employees’ Dilemma: Balancing Internal Reporting, Whistleblowing, And Insider Trading Risks, Geeyoung Min

Seattle University Law Review

The Essay examines how recent developments in insider trading regulations and whistleblower reward programs can lead to unintended and counterproductive results of discouraging employees from using internal reporting channels within corporate compliance programs. While the presence of a robust and well-functioning corporate compliance program is a critical factor both in mitigating the level of public enforcement actions against companies and in protecting corporate managers from liability in private litigation, these programs often provide little incentive for employees to report potential misconduct internally.

Corporate compliance programs are designed to promote the upward information flow within the company, which is essential for …

How The Antidiscrimination Law Of Commercial Transactions Really Works, Helen Norton

Seattle University Law Review

A variety of businesses now cite 303 Creative when seeking First Amendment protection for their refusal to serve certain customers based on those customers’ protected class status. How this litigation will play out remains to be seen. But future courts need not, and should not, repeat the 303 Creative Court’s misunderstanding of how the antidiscrimination law of commercial transactions actually works.

Part I of this Essay explains the Court’s longstanding understanding of the antidiscrimination law of commercial transactions, and then describes the Court’s failure to engage with this precedent in 303 Creative. Part II then identifies the 303 Creative decision’s …

Military Service Academies: The Final Battleground For Affirmative Action, Krista Trefen

American University Law Review

The future of affirmative action in the United States military service academies faces critical uncertainty following the Supreme Court's decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, which ended race-conscious admissions practices in higher education. Although the Court explicitly excluded the service academies from its holding, reserving space for race-conscious practices tied to national security-the Naval Academy, Military Academy, and Air Force Academy have recently indicated they will discontinue the use of affirmative action in response to changes in Department of Defense policy.

This Comment examines the historical and statutory foundations of the military …

Green Dividends: A Case Study In Green Dividends And The Conditions For Private Ordering Solutions, Anne M. Tucker

Seattle University Law Review

This Essay introduces a novel private ordering solution to facilitate corporate investments in pro-social and environmental initiatives: Green dividends. Green dividends are an optional increase in shareholder dividends that are returned to the company to be reinvested in environmental initiatives or kept by a shareholder.

Green dividends pose an alternative to the current gridlocked debate that corporations can’t, won’t, shouldn’t, and shouldn’t even try to act in pro-social or environmental ways. Turning the common refrains on their head converts each narrative into an element for a successful private ordering solution: authority, accountability, shareholder buy-in, and government- backed enforcement. With Green …

Does Climate Disclosure Work To Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions? Emerging Evidence Suggests Cautious Optimism, Cynthia A. Williams

Seattle University Law Review

Significant regulatory resources have been spent developing global, voluntary climate and sustainability disclosure standards, such as the TCFD, TNRD, and ISSB’s Sustainability and Climate Disclosure standards, or domestically required disclosures, such as in the EU and in the U.S. Thus, it is important to evaluate whether this disclosure, particularly voluntary, qualitative disclosure, will have the power to shift the allocation of capital, will have a significant effect on the management of climate risk within firms, and ultimately will reduce climate change risk and biodiversity loss.

In this Article, several interrelated questions will be discussed. First, what does the empirical evidence …

Life, The Universe, And The Judicial Power, Gary Lawson

UF Law Faculty Publications

In figuring out the role of the federal courts in the constitutional structure, the obvious place to start is with the Constitution. But what does the Constitution tell us about the federal courts and the judicial power vested in them?

Surprisingly little—perhaps even shockingly little—when one reflects on it. The “judicial Power” is one of the three governmental powers regarded by the founding generation as having “an unalterable foundation in nature.” The Constitution, however, does not define that power, instead taking for granted that everyone will simply know what “judicial Power” involves. History has proven that assumption to be false. …

The Elected Judge, Matthew Dale Kim

UF Law Faculty Publications

Many legal scholars and jurists oppose electing judges. Their core criticism against judicial elections is that elected judges are incentivized to avoid issuing unpopular, countermajoritarian decisions in constitutional law cases and thus fail to safeguard minority rights against abuses of the majority. Scholars have described this problem as the elected judges’ “majoritarian difficulty.” Numerous empirical studies suggest that elected judges do, in fact, fear electoral backlash and allow majoritarian demands to affect their decision-making.

This Article asks whether such fears are warranted. Elected judges should not allow majoritarian pressures to affect their decision-making unless the American public is aware of …

Judge–Scholar Collaboration And The Second Amendment, Andrew Willinger, Eric Ruben

Faculty Scholarship

Legal scholarship is overly abstract and theoretical, making it unhelpful to judges and lawyers. That, at least, is the classic critique from the bench. When it comes to the Second Amendment, however, a different pattern has emerged: judges consistently cite law review articles and look to the academy for guidance. Most recently, in United States v. Rahimi, some Justices went further, implicitly inviting more scholarly work to help the Court answer open questions raised by its novel methodological approach to the Second Amendment. This Article explores this aberrant trend.

We raise several explanations for the distinctive scholarly role in …

War Courts: Fdr, National Security, And The War On Terrorism, Harvey Gee

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No abstract provided.