Legal Studies Commons^™

“I Have A Voice”: Bridging The Communication And Sensemaking Gap Between Restorative Justice Practice And Program Implementation, Stefan Cocorelis

Dissertations

Restorative justice (RJ), a philosophy, practice, and movement inspired by local, largely Indigenous traditions, has increasingly been introduced in modern criminal justice systems as an alternative process to more comprehensively address harmful incidents, heal harms, and meet victim’s needs. While RJ implementation growth is encouraging for its advocates, there remain significant questions around formalized RJ practice. Specifically, little is known about the decision-making process in implementing and administering RJ programming within criminal justice. This dissertation aimed to contribute to the understanding of RJ practice and implementation efforts within criminal justice systems by putting emphasis on practitioners already working directly in …

Is Health Deserved? Personal Autonomy, Framing, Ethical Intimidation, And The Politicization Of Healthcare In The United States V. Japan, Ava C. Azucenas

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Is health deserved? Is your health owed to you? What does this mean, and whose responsibility is it? I argue that American culture’s use of  personal autonomy, “framing”, and ethical intimidation has stunted the improvement of both political and legal structures. This is evident in the politicization of the ‘for-profit’ healthcare system in the United States. American policymakers frequently weaponize moral foundations in order to coerce voters into supporting or opposing certain healthcare policies derived from the principle that some people are more "deserving" of health than others. This calculated “framing” of health concepts has deeply politicized such an ethical …

The Supreme Court And Climate Law: A Qualitative Analysis, Tanner Blackington

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper seeks to explore the Supreme Court’s understanding of climate justice and its evolution over time. I begin with an explanation of the context on climate law, climate change, and the Supreme Court as an institution. I situate the study in the literature on judicial restraint, institutional barriers, and the powers of the Supreme Court as focal points. Then, drawing on a sample of 20 Supreme Court opinions issued between 2007 and 2025, I offer an empirical analysis which reveals the Supreme Court’s feelings of confinement within the boundaries of federalism and balancing power with the Legislative and Executive …

Immigrant Surveillance In San Diego During A Fascist Era, Jennifer L. Torres Leon

McNair Summer Research Program

The following qualitative study examines a new increase of technological surveillance used on immigrants by San Diego’s local law enforcement. Drawing from in-depth interviews of the San Diego Privacy Advisory Board and Trust SD, insights of technological related violations are sanctioned by the San Diego Police Department. This is done through ambiguous language regarding “criminal investigations” and lack of definitive use policy, despite several memorandums and recommendations by the SD Privacy Advisory Board. Present findings reveal a duality of immigrant surveillance instigating hyper-visible tracking and broadcasting an image of their criminality. This study contributes to scholarship or crimmigration and urban …

The Crucial Role Of Grassroots Social Organizations In Advancing Immigrant Legal Protections And Reshaping Immigration Policy, Isabella Reynolds

McNair Summer Research Program

This research project examines how grassroots social organizations contribute to the advancement of immigrant legal protections and shape immigration policy, with a particular focus on formerly incarcerated migrants in California. I focus on case studies and the personal experiences of organizers from Homies Unidos, Border Angels, and other organizations that operate near the San Diego–Tijuana border region. The study illustrates how these groups provide essential services, mental health support, and community-based initiatives for vulnerable and formerly incarcerated immigrants. By conducting oral histories and ethnography as methods for preserving emotional labor and shared memory, this research challenges prevailing narratives that criminalize …

Compilation Of Mentoring Programs In San Diego And Imperial Counties, Nohelia Ramos, Caitlyn Lauchner, Andrew Blum

Kroc IPJ Research and Resources

This document compiles information on mentoring programs in San Diego and Imperial Counties. The goal is to provide a clear picture what mentoring programs are being implemented and to give basic information about those programs as of June 2021.

The purpose of the document is three-fold. First, as a deliverable under the Project Safe Neighborhoods initiative (PSN), it is designed to provide basic information to the US Attorney’s Office and others involved in the PSN on the range of mentoring programs that exist. Mentoring programs have proven to be an effective program strategy for producing a range of positive youth …

Christians And Pagans In The Sacred Nation, Christopher J. Eberle

San Diego Law Review

Christopher J. Eberle’s contribution to the 2019 Editors’ Symposium: Pagans and Christians in the City.

Pagans, Christians, And Student Protesters, Stanley Fish

San Diego Law Review

Stanley Fish’s contribution to the 2019 Editors’ Symposium: Pagans and Christians in the City.

This Isn’T About You: A Comment On Smith’S Pagans And Christians In The City, Andrew Koppelman

San Diego Law Review

Andrew Koppelman’s contribution to the 2019 Editors’ Symposium: Pagans and Christians in the City.

Jews, Not Pagans, Richard Schragger, Micah Schwartzman

San Diego Law Review

Richard Schragger & Micah Schwartzman’s contribution to the 2019 Editors’ Symposium: Pagans and Christians in the City.

Prosecuting The Executive, Tiffany R. Murphy

San Diego Law Review

A special counsel is appointed to investigate and potentially prosecute any criminal activity involving those in the Executive Branch. When an attorney general makes such a decision, the individual should consider not only the scope of the appointment but whether the special counsel will protect the fundamental rules of law upon which the Constitution rests; no one person is above the law. Recent history illustrates the abuses of the special prosecutor’s role where it was used as a political weapon or for low level officials. Instead, a special counsel should be used only when the crisis is severe enough that …

The Case For Varying Standards Of Proof, Gustavo Ribeiro

San Diego Law Review

This Article defends a system with a greater variation in the number of standards of proof than we currently have as both normatively and descriptively valuable. Standards of proof are mechanisms for allocating the risk of factual error between parties. For example, the heightened “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard in criminal cases reflects an aspiration for a legal system erring more in favor of mistaken acquittals than mistaken convictions. Surprisingly, we then assign the same standard to very different cases under the justification that we accept, or should accept, the same error-distribution for those cases. This Article argues that, however …

Mafia And Globalization: The Consequences Of Economic Integration Without Legal Symmetry, Benjamin White

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This project will examine the relationship between mafia and globalization through the lenses of two case studies, focusing on the Calabrian criminal organization known as ‘Ndrangheta. The first case study revolves around the Port of Gioia Tauro, which serves as the drug trafficking hub of ‘Ndrangheta and is emblematic of the overall trends in global commercial traffic and security deficits. The purpose of this case study is to demonstrate how ‘Ndrangheta exploits the advanced economic integration that began in the 1990s and continues to exist in the gap between frantic commercial activity and limited government oversight. This case study begins …

The Punishment Should Fit The Crime—Not The Prior Convictions Of The Person That Committed The Crime: An Argument For Less Impact Being Accorded To Previous Convictions, Mirko Bagaric

San Diego Law Review

The seriousness of the offense is the main consideration that should determine the severity of criminal punishment. This cardinal sentencing principle is undermined by the reality that often the criminal history of the offender is the most decisive sentencing consideration. Recidivists are frequently sent to imprisonment for long periods for crimes, which, when committed by first-time offenders, are dealt with by a bond, probation, or a fine. This makes sentencing more about an individual’s profile than the harm caused by the offender and has contributed to a large increase in prison numbers. Intuitively, it feels right to punish repeat offenders …

Should Public Law Accommodate The Claims Of Conscience?, William A. Galston

San Diego Law Review

In the end, it seems to me, the matter boils down to a single issue. Many individuals consider themselves bound by two sources of authority, public law and conscience, whose demands do not always coincide. Is the state prepared to take cognizance of this fact, and if so, how should it respond? Unlike other regimes, liberal democracies should not find these questions unduly challenging. To be a liberal state is to recognize limits on the legitimate scope of public authority; to be a liberal democracy is to recognize limits on the authority of the people and on the writ of …

False Speech: Quagmire?, Christopher P. Guzelian

San Diego Law Review

Recently decided cases in several Federal Courts of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court show that First Amendment false speech case law is contradictory and unpredictable. This Article gives examples and concludes that legal liability for false speech will continue to be arbitrary and even susceptible to intentionally unjust decisionmaking if judges and juries individually and collectively disregard or downplay the necessity of an honest search for truth under the guise of tolerance and evenhandedness. If Americans wish to avoid an anything-goes “quagmire” about truth, they must—despite inevitable resistance in a civilization increasingly rife with skeptics—undergo transformations of their …

National Geographics: Toward A “Federalism Function” Of American Tort Law, Riaz Tejani

San Diego Law Review

This Article will situate the federalism function among existing scholarly frameworks and assess the “contoured” approach to federal and state power balancing across the existing subject matter of torts. Part II will assess conflicting characterizations of tort law as on one hand “private” and on the other “public” law. Part III will define and explain competing functions of tort law with an eye to whether federalism fits the common criteria of these coexisting objectives, goals, purposes, and methods for adjudication. In Part IV, the Article will explore historical and contemporary roles of federalism to understand why this process becomes so …

A Modern King Solomon’S Dilemma: Why State Legislatures Should Give Courts The Discretion To Find That A Child Has More Than Two Legal Parents, Ann E. Kinsey

San Diego Law Review

This Comment reviews the current state of parental rights and proposes statutory clarifications that would provide courts with the power to find that a child has more than two legal parents. Part II provides background information on the decline of the traditional family. The Part reviews how the law of parentage has progressed over time and provides an overview of the laws of several states and Canada that provide rights to, and impose duties on, a third parent. Part III discusses California Senate Bill 1476, which, had Governor Jerry Brown signed it into law in 2012, would have given California …

Overseas Lawful Permanent Resident Terrorists: The Novel Approach For Revoking Their Lpr Status, Daniel Pines

San Diego Law Review

This Article seeks to break the silence by examining the issue of overseas LPRs and offering a mechanism by which the U.S. government could take affirmative action to file cases in immigration courts to strip out-of-status LPR terrorists of their LPR status. As the United States legally can, and routinely does, revoke the LPR status of out-of-status LPRs who appear at U.S. borders, the United States could also take away such status for those who have resorted to terror, without having to wait—perhaps in vain—for them to appear on the United States’ doorstep. The purpose of granting an individual LPR …

Holmes, Cardozo, And The Legal Realists: Early Incarnations Of Legal Pragmatism And Enterprise Liability, Edmund Ursin

San Diego Law Review

The theory of enterprise liability is associated with the tort lawmaking of the liberal California Supreme Court of the 1960s and 1970s. Legal pragmatism, in turn, is associated with the conservative jurist Richard Posner. This Article explains that early incarnations of each can be found in the works of four giants in American law: Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Judge—later Justice—Benjamin Cardozo, and the Legal Realists Leon Green and Karl Llewellyn. As will be seen, these scholars and judges shared a common view of the lawmaking role of courts. Stated simply, this shared view was that judges are lawmakers and policy …

“Unmistakably Clear” Coercion: Finding A Balance Between Judicial Review Of The Spending Power And Optimal Federalism, Dale B. Thompson

San Diego Law Review

This Article proposes a new tier of scrutiny, “unmistakably clear,” for conducting judicial review of congressional authority under the Spending Clause. Under this standard, a condition would be unconstitutional only if it is unmistakably clear that it is coercive. In order to develop this proposal, this Article traces the debate over the spending power from the Federalist Papers up through the decision in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, finding strong arguments for granting significant deference to Congress’s Spending Clause authority. Careful analysis of the opinions in the case yields not only the name for the new standard of …

Reasonable Persons, Reasonable Circumstances, Christopher Jackson

San Diego Law Review

The reasonable person test is a common thread that runs through the fabric of Anglo-American law. It has become such a common trope in legal discourse that it scarcely receives much attention in its own right. This Article analyzes one facet of the test that will yield significant benefits in understanding the subject as a whole: how we ought to go about determining which circumstances are relevant to the reasonable person inquiry. The Article will argue that the circumstances that ought to be part of the test will vary based on one’s underlying theoretical commitments: the reasonable person test is …

Is Freedom Of Expression A Universal Right?, Larry Alexander

San Diego Law Review

The title of my Essay asks a question. If one were to go by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights —or by John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice and other quotidian works of liberal political and moral philosophy—the answer to the question is a resounding “yes.” Indeed, in the constellation of cherished liberal rights, freedom of expression is surely one of the brightest, if not the brightest, of its stars.

The Role Of The Federal Judge In The Constitutional Structure: An Originalist Perspective, Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain

San Diego Law Review

Join me now in examining some of the structural features of our Constitution. And let’s do so by focusing upon cases that have come before my court—the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the second highest federal court in the land, inferior only to the Supreme Court of the United States. My goal is to present, in modest outline, an originalist perspective on the federal judge’s role, particularly my role as a circuit judge, in the constitutional order.

Joyless Life And Lifeless Joy: The Recovery Of Hedonic Damages By Plaintiffs In A Persistent Vegetative State, Alexandra Preece

San Diego Law Review

This Comment focuses on the potential injustice to patients in a persistent vegetative state and the proper manner in which to handle these cases. Based on tort principles underlying the justification for the award of damages to plaintiffs, including deterrence and compensation, plaintiffs in a persistent vegetative state should be entitled to damages for loss of enjoyment of life. To allow for these awards, courts must separate loss of enjoyment of life from pain and suffering, thereby allowing vegetative plaintiffs who cannot prove that they are in pain to recover hedonic damages from their wrongdoers. Part II discusses the effects …

Hedge Fund Manager Registration Under The Dodd-Frank Act, Wulf A. Kaal

San Diego Law Review

Part I of this Article introduces the issue of hedge fund registration and the tension between regulators and the hedge fund industry regarding the appropriate level of regulatory oversight. After a short introduction of historical attempts to register hedge fund managers, Part II describes the legal requirements in the Dodd-Frank Act pertaining to hedge fund managers. Over fifty years of low-level regulatory oversight for the hedge fund industry came to an end with the enactment of the Dodd-Frank Act. Part III outlines the methodological approach of the survey study. It introduces the survey instrument, data sources, sampling, coding, and coding …

The Spatial: A Forgotten Dimension Of Property, Paul Babie

San Diego Law Review

This Article explores, such a spatial turn in the case of property theory requires further elaboration and exploration. First, analytically, the spatial turn can be used to reassemble what we already know about property to recognize expressly the spatial dimension of property, thus revealing what has always been there but which has rarely been named and discussed: property emerges from, exists in, and is replicated through space. Second, and equally important, normatively, revealing the spatial dimension adds context to the social understanding of property and thereby allows us to see and encourage further exploration of the role of property as …

A Class Act? Social Class Affirmative Action And Higher Education, Maimon Schwarzschild

San Diego Law Review

Comparing class preferences with racial preferences helps to point up some of the reasons for the allure of class preferences but also points up some of the problems. A crucial consideration is the question of who is to receive class preference. For example, what about immigrants and their children? In general, social class is difficult to define, and this very difficulty would confer great discretion and power on faculties and academic administrators who undertake to bestow class preferences: discretion that would be open to abuse for political, ideological, and other ends. Finally, there is the question of whether preferential treatment …

Rights Come With Responsibilities: Personal Jurisdiction In The Age Of Corporate Personhood, Roger M. Michalski

San Diego Law Review

This Article aims to reconnect corporate rights and obligations. It argues that courts must consider the availability and exercise of corporate rights when determining whether the corporation is amenable to suit in the forum. To make this novel argument, this Article begins by documenting the rise of corporate personhood, recently culminating in Citizens United v. FEC. Part II shows how the evolution of corporations now allows for the treatment of corporations as entities that can have political rights and political obligations. Part III argues that personal jurisdiction doctrine and scholarship has not acknowledged the rise of corporate personhood. Consequently, it …

Left To Their Own (Security) Devices: The Need For The California Legislature To Define Deeds Of Trust And Update California Civil Code Section 2932.5 In Accordance With The Modern Lien Theory, Joahua Norton

San Diego Law Review

This Comment introduces how deeds of trust were developed to allow the lender to avoid the judicial process by engaging in a nonjudicial foreclosure. This Part also explains that the confusion in the courts arose because deeds of trust are not defined in the statutes that govern them. Part III describes the early understanding of deeds of trust in California common law under the title theory and how California courts have increasingly rejected the title theory in favor of the lien theory. Part IV introduces the rise of a private alternative to public recording of assignments of deeds of trust …