Legal History Commons^™

On Time, (In)Equality, And Death, Fred O. Smith Jr.

Michigan Law Review

In recent years, American institutions have inadvertently encountered the bodies of former slaves with increasing frequency. Pledges of respect are common features of these discoveries, accompanied by cultural debates about what “respect” means. Often embedded in these debates is an intuition that there is something special about respecting the dead bodies, burial sites, and images of victims of mass, systemic horrors. This Article employs legal doctrine, philosophical insights, and American history to both interrogate and anchor this intuition.

Law can inform these debates because we regularly turn to legal settings to resolve disputes about the dead. Yet the passage of …

Victim Impact: The Manson Murders And The Rise Of The Victims’ Rights Movement, Merrill W. Steeg

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind: Analyzing Inhumane Practices In Mississippi’S Correctional Institutions Due To Overcrowding, Understaffing, And Diminished Funding, Ariel A. Williams

Honors Theses

The purpose of this research is to examine the political, social, and economic factors which have led to inhumane conditions in Mississippi’s correctional facilities. Several methods were employed, including a comparison of the historical and current methods of funding, staffing, and rehabilitating prisoners based on literature reviews. State-sponsored reports from various departments and the legislature were analyzed to provide insight into budgetary restrictions and political will to allocate funds. Statistical surveys and data were reviewed to determine how overcrowding and understaffing negatively affect administrative capacity and prisoners’ mental and physical well-being. Ultimately, it may be concluded that Mississippi has high …

The Error Of The Paquete Habana: U.S. Naval Forces In The Safe Harbor Of Commander-In-Chief Discretion And The Law Of War, T. Nelson Collier

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming.

History, Norms And Conflicting Loyalties In The Office Of Attorney General, Nancy Virginia Baker

Mercer Law Review

A sincere thank you to Patrick Longan and Mercer Law Review for organizing this timely and important symposium on ethics and professionalism in the Office of the U.S. Attorney General. It is such a fascinating office to study, at the nexus of law and politics.

I was a college undergraduate during Watergate, when I first became aware there was an office of attorney general. In graduate school, my interest in it piqued when Edwin Meese was nominated by Ronald Reagan. From then on, I have focused my research on the U.S. Attorney General, especially the duality inherent in the office. …

Texas: A Weak Governor State, Or Is It?, Ron Beal

St. Mary's Law Journal

The current Texas Constitution was adopted in 1876 and was written after the Civil War and the Reconstruction Period when Federal troops occupied the State. The general perception is that the Federal troops used the Governor, in essence, to impose a form of dictatorship over the people. It was clearly the intent of the new constitution’s framers to create a very weak governor form of government in order to spread its powers to many independently elected officials. It provided that the state officers who were appointed by the Governor and approved by the Senate were semi-independent from the Governor by …

Ethics In An Echo Chamber: Legal Ethics & The Peremptory Challenge, Kayley A. Viteo

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Abstract forthcoming.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Big Pharma, Big Problems: Covid-19 Heightens Patent-Antitrust Tension Caused By Reverse Payments, Hannah M. Lasting

Seattle University Law Review

In the wake of COVID-19, pharmaceutical companies rushed to produce vaccinations and continue to work on developing treatments, while the tension caused by reverse payments intensifies between patent and antitrust law. Lawmakers must address this tension, and the current pandemic should serve as a catalyst to prompt reform at the legislative level. By amending the Hatch-Waxman Act, lawmakers can ease the increasing strain between patent and antitrust policy concerns. In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court attempted to resolve this tension in its landmark decision, F.T.C. v. Actavis, but the tension remains as lower courts struggle to produce a uniform standard …

No, The Firing Squad Is Not Better Than Lethal Injection: A Response To Stephanie Moran’S A Modest Proposal, Michael Conklin

Seattle University Law Review

In the article A Modest Proposal: The Federal Government Should Use Firing Squads to Execute Federal Death Row Inmates, Stephanie Moran argues that the firing squad is the only execution method that meets the requirements of the Eighth Amendment. In order to make her case, Moran unjustifiably overstates the negative aspects of lethal injection while understating the negative aspects of firing squads. The entire piece is predicated upon assumptions that are not only unsupported by the evidence but often directly refuted by the evidence. This Essay critically analyzes Moran’s claims regarding the alleged advantages of the firing squad over …

The Virginia Company To Chick-Fil-A: Christian Business In America, 1600–2000, Joseph P. Slaughter

Seattle University Law Review

The Supreme Court’s 2014 decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. is one of its most controversial in recent history. Burwell’s narrow 5–4 ruling states that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 applies to closely held, for-profit corporations seeking religious exemptions to the Affordable Care Act. As a result, the Burwell decision thrust Hobby Lobby, the national craft chain established by the conservative evangelical Green family of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, onto the national stage. Firms like Hobby Lobby and Chick-fil-A, however, reject the conventional wisdom Justice Ginsburg explained in Burwell and instead embrace an approach to business with …

Marissa Jackson Sow’S “Whiteness As Contract”, Marissa Jackson Sow

Seattle University Law Review

Marissa Jackson Sow’s “Whiteness as Contract.”

Closing Remarks, Dontay Proctor-Mills

Seattle University Law Review

Closing Remarks.

Foreword, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Foreword.

Introductory Remarks, Michael Rogers, Hannah Hamley, Rayshaun D. Williams

Seattle University Law Review

Introductory Remarks.

The Deans' Roundtable, Dean Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Dean Danielle Conway, Dean Tamara Lawson, Dean Mario Barnes, Dean L. Song Richardson

Seattle University Law Review

The Deans' Roundtable.

Testing Privilege: Coaching Bar Takers Towards "Minimum Competency" During The 2020 Pandemic, Afton Cavanaugh

Faculty Articles

The year 2020 was challenging for the bar exam. The longstanding argument that the bar exam is not a fair measure of the minimum competence of someone to practice law was cast into harsh relief and the truth-that the bar exam tests the privilege of its examinees-became startlingly apparent. Not only did 2020 kick off with a devastating global pandemic, but we also saw the rage against systemic racial injustice reach a boiling point just as we were charged with staying in our homes to avoid contracting COVID-19. With a pandemic raging, overt White supremacy on the rise, and racial …

Neither “Post-War” Nor Post-Pregnancy Paranoia: How America’S War On Drugs Continues To Perpetuate Disparate Incarceration Outcomes For Pregnant, Substance-Involved Offenders, Becca S. Zimmerman

Pitzer Senior Theses

This thesis investigates the unique interactions between pregnancy, substance involvement, and race as they relate to the War on Drugs and the hyper-incarceration of women. Using ordinary least square regression analyses and data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates, I examine if (and how) pregnancy status, drug use, race, and their interactions influence two length of incarceration outcomes: sentence length and amount of time spent in jail between arrest and imprisonment. The results collectively indicate that pregnancy decreases length of incarceration outcomes for those offenders who are not substance-involved but not evenhandedly -- benefitting white …

Complicity And Lesser Evils: A Tale Of Two Lawyers, David Luban

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Government lawyers and other public officials sometimes face an excruciating moral dilemma: to stay on the job or to quit, when the government is one they find morally abhorrent. Staying may make them complicit in evil policies; it also runs the danger of inuring them to wrongdoing, just as their presence on the job helps inure others. At the same time, staying may be their only opportunity to mitigate those policies – to make evils into lesser evils – and to uphold the rule of law when it is under assault. This Article explores that dilemma in a stark form: …

Don't Change The Subject: How State Election Laws Can Nullify Ballot Questions, Cole Gordner

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Procedural election laws regulate the conduct of state elections and provide for greater transparency and fairness in statewide ballots. These laws ensure that the public votes separately on incongruous bills and protects the electorate from uncertainties contained in omnibus packages. As demonstrated by a slew of recent court cases, however, interest groups that are opposed to the objective of a ballot question are utilizing these election laws with greater frequency either to prevent a state electorate from voting on an initiative or to overturn a ballot question that was already decided in the initiative’s favor. This practice is subverting the …