State and Local Government Law Commons^™

Duress In Immigration Law, Elizabeth A. Keyes

Seattle University Law Review

The doctrine of duress is common to other bodies of law, but the application of the duress doctrine is both unclear and highly unstable in immigration law. Outside of immigration law, a person who commits a criminal act out of well-placed fear of terrible consequences is different than a person who willingly commits a crime, but American immigration law does not recognize this difference. The lack of clarity leads to certain absurd results and demands reimagining, redefinition, and an unequivocal statement of the significance of duress in ascertaining culpability. While there are inevitably some difficult lines to be drawn in …

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

Seattle University Law Review

Introductory Remarks.

Closing Remarks, Dontay Proctor-Mills

Seattle University Law Review

Closing Remarks.

Rock And Hard Place Arguments, Jareb Gleckel, Grace Brosofsky

Seattle University Law Review

This Article explores what we coin “rock and hard place” (RHP) arguments in the law, and it aims to motivate mission-driven plaintiffs to seek out such arguments in their cases. The RHP argument structure helps plaintiffs win cases even when the court views that outcome as unfavorable.

We begin by dissecting RHP dilemmas that have long existed in the American legal system. As Part I reveals, prosecutors and law enforcement officials have often taken advantage of RHP dilemmas and used them as a tool to persuade criminal defendants to forfeit their constitutional rights, confess, or give up the chance to …

Neither Safe, Nor Legal, Nor Rare: The D.C. Circuit’S Use Of The Doctrine Of Ratification To Shield Agency Action From Appointments Clause Challenges, Damien M. Schiff

Seattle University Law Review

Key to the constitutional design of the federal government is the separation of powers. An important support for that separation is the Appointments Clause, which governs how officers of the United States are installed in their positions. Although the separation of powers generally, and the Appointments Clause specifically, support democratically accountable government, they also protect individual citizens against abusive government power. But without a judicial remedy, such protection is ineffectual—a mere parchment barrier.

Such has become the fate of the Appointments Clause in the D.C. Circuit, thanks to that court’s adoption—and zealous employment—of the rule that agency action, otherwise unconstitutional …

American Edibles: How Cannabis Regulatory Policy Rehashes Prohibitionist Fears And What To Do About It, Connor Burns, Jay Wexler

Seattle University Law Review

Why can’t we buy a cannabis muffin with our morning coffee? For much of the past century, the answer was simple: cannabis was illegal. Now, however, with more and more states legalizing cannabis for adult use, the answer is far less clear. Even in those states that have legalized cannabis, the simple action of buying and eating edibles at the same location has somehow remained a pipe dream despite consumer demand. Digging a little deeper, we can see how contemporary alarmism—by rehashing the same prohibitionist rhetoric demonizing cannabis for over eighty years—has once again arisen with a new target: cannabis-infused …

The Role For Local Government In Promoting Environmental Policy, And How Louisville Is Mirroring National Trends, Cassie Chambers Armstrong

Kentucky Journal of Equine, Agriculture, & Natural Resources Law

No abstract provided.

State Competition For Corporate Headquarters And Corporate Law: An Empirical Anaylsis, Jens Dammann

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Removing Police From Schools Using State Law Heightened Scrutiny, Christina Payne-Tsoupros

Journal Articles

This Article argues that school police, often called school resource officers, interfere with the state law right to education and proposes using the constitutional right to education under state law as a mechanism to remove police from schools. Disparities in school discipline for Black and brown children are well-known. After discussing the legal structures of school policing, this Article uses the Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit) theoretical framework developed by Subini Annamma, David Connor, and Beth Ferri to explain why police are unacceptable in schools. Operating under the premise that school police are unacceptable, this Article then analyzes mechanisms to …

The Role Of Trust Law Principles In Defining Public Trust Duties For Natural Resources, John C. Dernbach

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Public trusts for natural resources incorporate both limits and duties on governments in their stewardship of those natural resources. They exist in every state in the United States—in constitutional provisions, statutes, and in common law. Yet the law recognizing public trusts for natural resources may contain only the most basic provisions—often just a sentence or two. The purpose and terms of these public trusts certainly answer some questions about the limits and duties of trustees, but they do not answer all questions. When questions arise that the body of law creating or recognizing a public trust for natural resources does …

Sovereign Immunity And Interstate Government Tort, Louise Weinberg

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This paper argues that the Supreme Court made a serious mistake last term, when, in a case of interstate government tort, it tore up useful options that should be available to each state for the rare cases in which they would be of service. In seeking to insulate a state from liability when its employee intrudes on a sister state’s territory and causes injury there, the Court stripped every state of power, in cases of interstate government tort, to try injuries occurring on its own territory to its own residents—an unprecedented disregard of a state’s acknowledged traditional interests. Indeed, the …

A Fresh Start: The Evolving Use Of Juvenile Records In College Admissions, Eve Rips

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Questions about criminal and juvenile records in the college application process are common and frequently fail to account for the unique characteristics of juvenile justice systems. The ways in which colleges and universities ask about juvenile records often encourage applicants to disclose information in spite of statutory protections. These questions fly in the face of the public policy underlying a range of legal safeguards that are intended to help individuals with records from juvenile systems in moving forward and receiving a second chance.

In recent years, a series of legislative and institutional changes have begun to restrict how colleges and …

Unintended Legislative Inertia, Mirit Eyal-Cohen

Georgia Law Review

Institutional and political forces create strong inertial
pressures that make updating legislation a difficult task. As a
result, laws often stagnate, leading to the continued existence of
obsolete rules and policies that serve long-forgotten purposes.
Recognizing this inertial power, legislatures over the last few
decades have increasingly relied on a perceived solution—
temporary legislation. In theory, this measure avoids inertia by
requiring legislators to choose to extend a law deliberately.
This Article argues that temporary legislation is a double-
edged sword. While some temporary laws ultimately expire,
many perpetuate through cycles of extension and
reauthorization. Temporary legislation often creates its …

Looking Toward Restorative Justice For Redlined Communities Displaced By Eco-Gentrification, Helen H. Kang

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

MJEAL chose to publish Helen Kang’s piece, Looking Toward Restorative Justice for Redlined Communities Displaced by Eco-Gentrification, because it offers a unique analytic approach for analyzing the roots of environmental racism and the appropriate tools to help rectify it. She offers an argument for why restorative justice needs to be the framework and explains how we can accomplish this in the context of a whole government solution. MJEAL is excited to offer what will be an influential approach for environmental restorative justice to the broader activist and academic community.

Annual Statistical Report Of The Tennessee Judiciary 2020-2021, Tennessee. Administrative Office Of The Courts.

Annual Statistical Reports

No abstract provided.

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 …

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.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents.

Police Use Of Force Laws In Texas, Gerald S. Reamey

Faculty Articles

At the heart of calls for police reform lie use of force laws. While policing agencies adopt and enforce their own policies regarding when and how force may be used by officers of those agencies, state laws rarely define the uniform limits under which officers operate. Policing in the United States is highly fractured; of the hundreds of law enforcement agencies operating, most are autonomous, and they determine the policies under which they operate, including those for use of force. They also decide whether and how to investigate violations of internal policies, as well as the punishment that will be …

The Zoning Straitjacket: The Freezing Of American Neighborhoods Of Single-Family Houses, Robert Ellickson

Indiana Law Journal

Municipal zoning practices profoundly shape urban life in the United States. In regions such as Silicon Valley, regulatory barriers to residential construction have helped raise house prices to roughly ten times the national median. These astronomic prices have prompted some households to move to places, such as Texas, where housing is far cheaper. I have been engaged in an empirical study of zoning practices in Silicon Valley, Greater New Haven, and Greater Austin. This Article presents one of my central findings, induced from those metropolitan areas and elsewhere: local zoning politics typically freezes land uses in an established neighborhood of …

Tort Immunity In The Pandemic, Betsy J. Grey, Samantha Orwoll

Indiana Law Journal

The Covid-19 pandemic set off a public health emergency that quickly brought doctors and other health care providers to the front line, while shuttering businesses throughout the United States. In response to the emergency, the federal and state governments rapidly created broad protections from tort liability for health care providers. To encourage businesses to reopen, some states have also provided liability protection for businesses from personal injury suits brought by patrons and employees. Congress is considering similar protections for businesses as it contemplates further aid packages. Some industries, like nursing homes and universities, are lobbying for specific immunity. This Essay …

Bankruptcy, Honorable Harlin D. Hale, Grayson W. Williams

SMU Annual Texas Survey

This article is a survey of relevant developments in bankruptcy law from December 1, 2019, through November 30, 2020. The article focuses on law likely to be influential to Texas practitioners.

Franchise Law, Deborah S. Coldwell, Sally L. Dahlstrom, Taylor Rex Robertson, Wes Dutton, Samuel Mallick

SMU Annual Texas Survey

This article is a survey of the relevant developments in franchise law from December 1, 2019, through November 30, 2020. The article focuses on law likely to be influential to Texas practitioners.

Professional Liability, Chelsea Glover, Sven Stricker, Stephanie Assi

SMU Annual Texas Survey

This article is a survey of the relevant developments in professional liability law from December 1, 2019, through November 30, 2020. The article focuses on law likely to be influential to Texas practitioners.

Real Property, J. Richard White, Amanda Grainger

SMU Annual Texas Survey

This article is a survey of the relevant developments in real property law from December 1, 2019, through November 30, 2020. The article focuses on law likely to be influential to Texas practitioners.

Partnership Law, Troy Christensen, Jeff Dorrill, Matthew Schindel, Mary Claire Cranford, Christopher Neal

SMU Annual Texas Survey

This article is a survey of the relevant developments in partnership law from December 1, 2019, through November 30, 2020. The article focuses on law likely to be influential to Texas practitioners.

Survey Of Recent Mandamus Decisions Of The Texas Supreme Court, Honorable Douglas S. Lang

SMU Annual Texas Survey

This article is a survey of the relevant developments in Texas’s mandamus jurisprudence from December 1, 2019, through November 30, 2020. The article focuses on law likely to be influential to Texas practitioners.

Securities Regulation, Bill Banowsky, Jessica Magee

SMU Annual Texas Survey

This article is a survey of the relevant developments in securities regulation law from December 1, 2019, through November 30, 2020. The article focuses on law likely to be influential to Texas practitioners.

Wills & Trusts, Gerry W. Beyer

SMU Annual Texas Survey

This article is a survey of the relevant developments in law of wills and trusts from December 1, 2019, through November 30, 2020. The article focuses on law likely to be influential to Texas practitioners.

The Nil Game Plan: How The Florida Legislature Can Become Student-Athletes' "Ambassador Of Quan", Alexa Rae Martinez

St. Thomas Law Review

The movie Jerry Maguire follows a successful sports agent who questions the morals of his work, which leads to him being stripped of his contribution at his firm and being left with one client. Throughout the movie, Maguire struggles to build his clientele while pursuing the best interests of his only client, Rod Tidwell. Somewhere along the way, Tidwell uses the word “Quan” and leaves Maguire perplexed; “Quan? That’s your word?” Tidwell replies: “Yeah, that’s my word. You know some dudes might have the coin. But they’ll never have the Quan.” “Wha…what is that?” Maguire asks, still clearly confused. Tidwell …