Law and Society Commons^™

Iowa Land And Landowners: Fear Or Opportunity, Neil D. Hamilton

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Our relation to the land changed as modern agriculture changed. Today many issues involving the land seem to focus on fear and conflict, revealing a fragility of agriculture surprising for how it confounds the expected image of strength and stability. In many ways, our fragile relation to the land contrasts to the optimism of the relation in the past, in the years of settlement and expansion. Part of the change reflects the adverse impacts of modern agriculture catching up with us, and part stems from a society more willing to focus on issues of equity, inclusion, and inequality. The good …

A Comparison Of Gender-Based Violence Laws In Canada: A Report For The National Action Plan On Gender-Based Violence Working Group On Responsive Legal And Justice Systems, Jennifer Koshan, Janet Mosher, Wanda Wiegers

Commissioned Reports, Studies and Public Policy Documents

This report undertakes a comparison of laws related to gender-based violence across Canada with a view to identifying promising practices. We use the definition of gender-based violence from the United Nations as our frame, analyzing laws relating to “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual, or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.” While the UN definition includes both intimate partner violence and sexual violence, our focus is largely on violence in the …

Intersectionality And Accessibility To Social Services, Nora Khuder

Thinking Matters Symposium

In times of a crisis the intersectionality of sex, class, and ability creates a vulnerable population. Many available “resources'' are exhausted, due to high demand. Intersectionality signifies the impact of multiple intersecting identities in society as a direct correlation to the specific and unique barriers of marginalized groups. Resources are currently limited due to the lack of representative data. Although many studies have been conducted, many researchers have failed to capture the need of social services in rural areas.

Deepfakes: A New Content Category For A Digital Age, Anna Pesetski

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Technology has advanced rapidly in recent years, greatly benefitting society. One such benefit is people’s ability to have quick and easy access to information through news and social media. A recent concern, however, is that manipulated media, otherwise known as “deepfakes,” are being released and passed off as truth. These videos are crafted with technology that allows the creator to carefully change details of the video’s subject to make him appear to do or say things that he never did. Deepfakes are often depictions of political candidates or leaders and have the potential to influence voter choice, thereby altering the …

Who Will Save The Redheads? Towards An Anti-Bully Theory Of Judicial Review And Protection Of Democracy, Yaniv Roznai

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Democracy is in crisis throughout the world. And courts play a key role within this process as a main target of populist leaders and in light of their ability to hinder administrative, legal, and constitutional changes. Focusing on the ability of courts to block constitutional changes, this Article analyzes the main tensions situated at the heart of democratic erosion processes around the world: the conflict between substantive and formal notions of democracy; a conflict between believers and nonbelievers that courts can save democracy; and the tension between strategic and legal considerations courts consider when they face pressure from political branches. …

Deodand, Brian L. Frye

Seattle University Law Review Online

Deodands are a delightful example of a common law doctrine that caused something to happen: the Crown was enabled to tax tortfeasors. But not in a way anyone expected at the time or anyone understands today. Look on their logic and despair. You’ll never figure it out, no matter how hard you try. And that’s what makes them so lyrical. The concept of the deodand is beautiful even though we can’t understand it. Or rather, it’s beautiful because we can’t understand it. If we understood deodands, surely they would be as prosaic as life insurance and conceptual art.

In 1964, …

Death-By-Incarceration In Illinois, Joseph Dole

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

Criminal Advisory Juries: A Sensible Compromise For Jury Sentencing Advocates, Kurt A. Holtzman

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch recently noted that “juries in our constitutional order exercise supervisory authority over the judicial function by limiting the judge’s power to punish.” Yet in the majority of jurisdictions, contemporary judge-only sentencing practices neuter juries of their supervisory authority by divorcing punishment from guilt decisions. Moreover, without a chance to voice public disapproval at sentencing, juries are muted in their ability to express tailored, moral condemnation for distinct criminal acts. Although the modern aversion to jury sentencing is neither historically nor empirically justified, jury sentencing opponents are rightly cautious of abdicating sentencing power to laypeople. Nevertheless, …

Trade War, Ppe, And Race, Ernesto A. Hernandez-Lopez

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

Tariffs on Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), such as face masks and gloves, weaken the American response to COVID. The United States has exacerbated PPE shortages with Section 301 tariffs on these goods, part of a trade war with China. This has a disparate impact felt by minority communities because of a series of health inequity harms. COVID’s racial disparity appears in virus exposure, virus susceptibility, and COVID treatments. This Article makes legal, policy, and race-and-health arguments. Congress has delegated to the United States Trade Representative expansive authority to increase tariffs. This has made PPE supplies casualties of the trade war. …

Abandoning The Subjective And Objective Components Of A Well-Founded Fear Of Persecution, Grace Kim

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

Current asylum law requires that asylum seekers prove that they have a “well-founded fear of persecution.” However, a “well-founded fear”—the evidentiary standard in asylum cases—has remained ambiguous and difficult to apply in asylum cases. In Cardoza-Fonseca, the Supreme Court held that an asylum seeker can establish a well-founded fear with less than a 50% probability of future persecution. Although the Supreme Court sought to clarify the meaning of a well-founded fear, the decision has complicated the evidentiary standard by implying that it consists of two parts: the subjective component and objective component. The “subjective” component—the asylum seekers’ subjective fear …

Pandemic Emotions: The Good, The Bad, And The Unconscious —Implications For Public Health, Financial Economics, Law, And Leadership, Peter H. Huang

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

Pandemics lead to emotions that can be good, bad, and unconscious. This Article offers an interdisciplinary analysis of how emotions during pandemics affect people’s responses to pandemics, public health, financial economics, law, and leadership. Pandemics are heart-breaking health crises. Crises produce emotions that impact decision-making. This Article analyzes how fear and anger over COVID-19 fueled anti-Asian and anti-Asian American hatred and racism. COVID-19 caused massive tragic economic, emotional, mental, physical, and psychological suffering. These difficulties are interconnected and lead to vicious cycles. Fear distorts people’s decision readiness, deliberation, information acquisition, risk perception, and thinking. Distortions affect people’s financial, health, and …

Third-Party Standing And Abortion Providers: The Hidden Dangers Of June Medical Services, Elika Nassirinia

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

Standing is a long held, judicially-created doctrine intended to establish the proper role of courts by identifying who may bring a case in federal court. While standing usually requires that a party asserts his or her own rights, the Supreme Court has created certain exceptions that allow litigants to bring suit on behalf of third parties when they suffer a concrete injury, they have a “close relation” to the third party, and there are obstacles to the third party's ability to protect his or her own interests. June Medical Services, heard by the Supreme Court on June 29, 2020, …

Title Ix Administers A Booster Shot: The Effect Of Private Donations On Title Ix, Charlotte Franklin

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX) prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded education programs or activities. Since its enactment, Title IX has dramatically increased interscholastic and intercollegiate athletic opportunities for women and girls. Despite indisputable progress since Title IX’s enactment, particularly for female athletes, many high schools and universities still fail to offer equal athletic opportunities for members of both sexes. Inadequate educational resources for high school and university athletic department administrators leads to a misunderstanding of Title IX’s requirements. This misunderstanding results in institutional misconduct and non-compliance with Title IX. In …

Reconceptualizing Cannabis, Julia Peoples

Honors Theses

Inflammatory rhetoric and increasingly punitive drug policies dominated marijuana politics in the past. Today, as 36 have legalized cannabis in some form and 17 states have legalized recreational marijuana, the federal government continues to perpetuate policies of the past. The following analysis investigates rhetoric and policies that led to the War on Drugs as well as their outcomes, the dramatic shift in public opinion as states began to legalize marijuana, and the successes and failures of state cannabis programs to identify gaps within the MORE Act, the ideal policy, and politically viable incremental change. State programs are incapable of …

17th Annual Diversity Symposium 04-08-2021, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

The Martin Institute: Prints, Spring 2021, Stonehill College: The Martin Institute For Law And Society

The Martin Institute: Prints

No abstract provided.

A Literary Analysis Of The Origin Of Human Embryonic Stem Cells, Its Advancements, Philosophical, Ethical, Sociocultural, And Political Aspects; An Investigation Of The Underlying Attributes That Affect One’S Views On Hesc Research To Resolve Turkey And Brazil’S Hesc Policy, Religious, And Cultural Conflicts, Haleema Shamsuddin

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) are cells derived from 5-day human embryos and are self-renewing cell lines that change into any type of cell in the body, a trait called pluripotency. hESCs have almost unlimited clinical and medical research potential. Despite the great therapeutic promise of hESC research, it comes with a controversial ethical debate due to its involvement with the destruction of the human embryo. The central argument revolves around the question of whether or not these human embryos should be ascribed equal moral status to fully developed humans. This thesis aims to analyze the origin and advancements of …

Technological Tethereds: Potential Impact Of Untrustworthy Artificial Intelligence In Criminal Justice Risk Assessment Instruments, Sonia M. Gipson Rankin

Faculty Scholarship

Issues of racial inequality and violence are front and center in today’s society, as are issues surrounding artificial intelligence (AI). This Article, written by a law professor who is also a computer scientist, takes a deep dive into understanding how and why hacked and rogue AI creates unlawful and unfair outcomes, particularly for persons of color.

Black Americans are disproportionally featured in criminal justice, and their stories are obfuscated. The seemingly endless back-to-back murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, and heartbreakingly countless others have finally shaken the United States from its slumbering journey towards intentional criminal justice …

Failing To Protect The Vulnerable: The Dangers Of Institutional Complicity And Enablers, Amos N. Guiora

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Criminal liability has typically been reserved for those who have both actus reus and mens rea. Omission liability is infrequent in modern criminal codes. Despite wide public support for aiding those in peril, Western democracies have historically refused to impose any penalty upon those who fail to aid someone in danger.

However recent high profile abuse scandals—including those of the USA gymnastics team, University of Michigan and the Catholic Church have caused scholars and policymakers to rethink these assumptions. In recent years, some jurisdictions have slowly come to criminalize those who witness another in peril and fail to provide aid. …

Unrules, Gabriel Scheffler, Cary Coglianese, Daniel E. Walters

Articles

At the center of contemporary debates over public law lies administrative agencies' discretion to impose rules. Yet for every one of these rules, there are also unrules nearby. Often overlooked and sometimes barely visible, unrules are the decisions that regulators make to lift or limit the scope of a regulatory obligation through, for instance, waivers, exemptions, or exceptions. In some cases, unrules enable regulators to reduce burdens on regulated entities or to conserve valuable government resources in ways that make law more efficient. However, too much discretion to create unrules can facilitate undue business influence over the law, weaken regulatory …

How The Supreme Court Can Improve Educational Opportunities For African American And Hispanic Students By Ruling Against Harvard College’S Use Of Race Data, Genevieve Kelly

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat

Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard has not only exposed ways in which Harvard College’s admissions office unfairly assesses Asian American applicants, but it has also revealed that Harvard’s fixation on race per se can disadvantage the very African American and Hispanic students best positioned to bring instructive and underrepresented perspectives to the college. The facts show that Harvard’s “tips” and “one-pager” system values African American and Hispanic students for their ability to boost Harvard’s racial profile more than for their actual experiences confronting racial discrimination. This Comment explains how, by ruling against Harvard (and without overruling Grutter or Fisher …

How Can I Tell If My Algorithm Was Reasonable?, Karni A. Chagal-Feferkorn

Michigan Technology Law Review

Self-learning algorithms are gradually dominating more and more aspects of our lives. They do so by performing tasks and reaching decisions that were once reserved exclusively for human beings. And not only that—in certain contexts, their decision-making performance is shown to be superior to that of humans. However, as superior as they may be, self-learning algorithms (also referred to as artificial intelligence (AI) systems, “smart robots,” or “autonomous machines”) can still cause damage.

When determining the liability of a human tortfeasor causing damage, the applicable legal framework is generally that of negligence. To be found negligent, the tortfeasor must have …

The Right To An Artificial Reality? Freedom Of Thought And The Fiction Of Philip K. Dick, Marc Jonathan Blitz

Michigan Technology Law Review

In Anarchy, State, and Utopia, the philosopher Robert Nozick describes what he calls an “Experience Machine.” In essence, it produces a form of virtual reality (VR). People can use it to immerse themselves in a custom-designed dream: They have the experience of climbing a mountain, reading a book, or conversing with a friend when they are actually lying isolated in a tank with electrodes feeding perceptions into their brain. Nozick describes the Experience Machine as part of a philosophical thought experiment—one designed to show that a valuable life consists of more than mental states, like those we receive in …

The Privacy Cost Of Currency, Karin Thrasher

Michigan Journal of International Law

Banknotes, or cash, can be used continuously by any person for nearly every transaction and provide anonymity for the parties. However, as digitization increases, the role and form of money is changing. In response to pressure produced by the increase in new forms of money and the potential for a cashless society, states are exploring potential substitutes to cash. Governments have begun to investigate the intersection of digitization and fiat currency: Central Bank Digital Currencies (“CBDC”).

States have begun researching and developing CBDCs to serve in lieu of cash. Central banks are analyzing the potential for a CBDC that could …

Book Review Of Law In The Time Of Covid-19, Jessie Wallace Burchfield

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Increasing Substantive Fairness And Mitigating Social Costs In Eviction Proceedings: Instituting A Civil Right To Counsel For Indigent Tenants In Pennsylvania, Robin M. White

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The U.S. Constitution provides criminal defendants the right to a court-appointed attorney but gives no similar protection to civil litigants. Although federal law does not supply any categorical rights to counsel for civil litigants, all 50 states have instituted the right in at least one category of civil law that substantially impacts individuals’ rights. Since 2017, several U.S. cities have enacted such a right for tenants facing eviction. In so doing, these cities responded to American families’ increasing rent burden, the recent publication of nationwide eviction data, the sociological research concerning the impact of eviction, and the lack of procedural …

Ai And Legal Scholarship : Reflections On Evolution And Influences, Jonathon W. Penney

Articles & Book Chapters

Leading Legal Disruption: Artificial Intelligence and a Toolkit for Lawyers and the Law is designed to challenge lawyers with the practical implications that emerging technologies will have on delivering legal services and thinking about legal issues to navigate their digital transformation. By inviting thought leaders across the world and in different disciplines, ranging from privacy, contract law, and torts to governance and policy, this book goes beyond abstract and general philosophical observations on matters that concern practitioners. This practical approach has generated a wide range of global perspectives, which are refreshingly novel and timely for what are increasingly global issues. …

Ezra, Rehnquist, And St. Mary’S University, Lance Kimbro

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming.

Not My Problem? Landlord Liability For Tenant-On-Tenant Harassment, Aric Short

Faculty Scholarship

Tenant-on-tenant harassment because of a victim’s race, gender, or other protected status, is a severe and increasingly widespread problem often targeting vulnerable tenants. The creation of a hostile housing environment violates the federal Fair Housing Act (FHA), and victims may recover from their abusers, whether they are landlords or fellow tenants. But plaintiffs in two recent FHA lawsuits sought recovery from their landlords for something different: their landlords’ failure to intervene in and stop harassment committed by other tenants. These suits raise novel and important questions about the scope of the FHA, but the two courts disagreed about how the …

Unrules, Cary Coglianese, Gabriel Scheffler, Daniel E. Walters

Faculty Scholarship

At the center of contemporary debates over public law lies administrative agencies’ discretion to impose rules. Yet for every one of these rules, there are also unrules nearby. Often overlooked and sometimes barely visible, unrules are the decisions that regulators make to lift or limit the scope of a regulatory obligation through, for instance, waivers, exemptions, or exceptions. In some cases, unrules enable regulators to reduce burdens on regulated entities or to conserve valuable government resources in ways that make law more efficient. However, too much discretion to create unrules can facilitate undue business influence over the law, weaken regulatory …