Law and Society Commons^™

Who Regulates Abortion Now?, Nathan G. Cortez, Joanna L. Grossman

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Contrary to both conventional wisdom and recent Supreme Court pronouncements, abortion is not simply a matter of state oversight. For a quarter century now, the federal government has been intimately involved in “regulating” abortion through the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval and continued oversight over mifepristone and other abortion medications. This Article considers the extent to which federal abortion law both coexists and conflicts with state law, as it does with most areas of medicine. We evaluate which body of law is better able at achieving the goals of modern medicine that is evidence-based, ethical, consistent, and individualized.

Why Domestic Violence Offenders Don't Give Up Their Guns, Natalie Nanasi

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Perpetrators of intimate partner violence are barred by federal law and many states' laws from possessing firearms. While such prohibitions enjoy popular support, they are sporadically and inconsistently enforced, placing the lives of survivors at risk when offenders do not voluntarily comply. Many experts, including this author, have offered legal and policy solutions to increase the likelihood that perpetrators of domestic violence will either willingly relinquish their guns or otherwise be dispossessed of them. But these proposals may have been premature.

This Article is the first to take a step back and inquire why offenders do not surrender their firearms …

Who Decides: The Role Of Parental Rights In Abortion And Gender-Affirming-Care Decisions For Minors, Joanna L. Grossman

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The American legal system presumes that children’s interests are best protected by their parents and, secondarily, by the state’s parens patriae authority. Yet this structure falters when parental authority and state power are infused with political and ideological agendas. This Essay examines how these dynamics have distorted decision-making authority in two contexts—minors’ access to abortion and gender-affirming medical care—and allowed children’s welfare and autonomy to be sacrificed to partisan aims. The law is inconsistent on the role of parental rights—typically empowering parents to grant or withhold consent to a minor’s abortion but categorically stripping them of the power to consent …

Rethinking Juror Impartiality, Anna Offit

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Jury impartiality in the contemporary court often justifies the perpetuation

of exclusionary selection practices that make juries more—not less—biased.

This Article calls for a rethinking of this important but flawed concept. Constitutional

interpretations and conceptions of “impartiality” frame it as a transient

orientation toward particular evidence or parties. Yet, during voir dire, the prevailing

conception of jury impartiality is that it is an immutable character trait

that must be discovered—if not created—by professional legal actors. What voir

dire creates is not an impartial jury, but precisely the opposite: a venire shaped

by the strategic biases of lawyers.

This Article offers …

The Impact Of Covid-19 Pandemic Demands On By-Law Officer Wellness And Work, Harveen Randhawa

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This research sheds light on how the rapid demand to enforce transitioning pandemic-related (and reopening) mandates impacts the wellness of bylaw officers in the context of resource strain. Ontario bylaw officers are at the forefront of the province’s response, enforcing lockdown rules to ensure community safety. This research is imperative in understanding how bylaw officers maintain their roles in municipal enforcement, while enforcing rapidly shifting COVID-19 regulations and moving forward into a post-lockdown climate. The research focuses on identifying and understanding the demands and resources that currently typify bylaw officers working in Southern Ontario. It further examines how the COVID-19 …

Perceptions And Treatment Decisions For A Drug Offender Based On Social Class, Cocaine Type, Personal Characteristics, And Compassionate Love: A Vignette Study, Yasmin A. Odeh

Theses and Dissertations

Problem: The shift from a focus on rehabilitation to the more punitive, “tough on crime” approach to illegal behavior in the U.S. has been enacted in no small way by policies connected to the use and abuse of drugs. The disparities between crack and powder cocaine—two chemically similar substances—have headlined this shift (Vagins and McCurdy 2006). However, research is scarce on laypeople’s approval of deterrence approaches for drug offenses, including as a function of types (e.g., powder vs. cocaine possession). This study examined people’s perceptions of prosecutorial decisions for drug offenders—whether they are punished, rehabilitated, or both—and whether people perceived …

Addressing Witness Coaching By Cross-Examination, Gregory C. Sisk

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

In preparing a witness, may a lawyer script the testimony by taking the witness through repeated rehearsals to fabricate a narrative in the form directed by the lawyer and to use words that the lawyer suggests are more favorable for the represented party? Suppose the lawyer believes a suggestion to the witness regarding the specific substance or word choice of testimony does not introduce a falsehood but rather produces a more favorable spin on the witness narrative. May the lawyer justify that shaping of testimonial content as legitimate zealous representation of a client?

Given that any such suggestion by the …

Our Ai, Ourselves: Illuminating The Human Fears Animating Early Regulatory Responses To The Use Of Generative Ai In The Practice Of Law, Margaret Raymond

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Generative artificial intelligence is changing the way lawyers work, and with those changes have come questions and concerns about how it should be regulated. Those questions and concerns, particularly on the individual level, are driven by fears about the implications of the use of generative AI. This Article identifies and explores the fears that drive these regulatory responses: fear of exposing judicial fallibility, anxiety over AI replacing human lawyers, and concerns about missing out on AI’s potential benefits. Ultimately, effective regulation of the use of generative AI in legal practice needs to be attentive to the fears and hopes surrounding …

Trading Places: An Education For Legal Employers: A View From The Perspective Of A New Generation Of Legal Talent, Michele N. Struffolino

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Most lawyers remember the stress associated with walking into their first job interview. The goal being to get the interviewer to “pick me.” Today, legal employers need to be prepared to be more of the interviewee than the interviewer in the hiring process. Over the past few decades, much focus has been on identifying the skills essential to success in the legal profession—mainly those skills and traits legal employers view as important when hiring new associates. These findings led to changes in legal education in order to prepare law students for entering the employment market and successfully securing a position. …

Artificial Intelligence In Texas: Navigating The Risks, Benefits, And Uncharged Boundaries Of An Emerging Technology, Jordanna Tobias

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

No abstract provided.

Uncharitable Think Tanks, Faith Stevelman

FIU Law Review

As people debate whether the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 is good policy, what’s being overlooked is that it’s likely unlawful as the work product of a charitable think tank. (Think tanks nearly always are qualified as charities under the tax code.) To reinforce think tanks’ educational mission, tax law sets rigorous content requirements for their materials. It also bans them from campaigning, sharply limits their lobbying, and prohibits their benefiting private parties. The doctrines are intended to keep think tanks charity-worthy educators, but they have not succeeded.

Ironically, the failure reflects other features of tax law that incentivize using think …

Pave Outer Space And Put Up A Parking Lot: Lagrange Points Should Be The Common Heritage Of Mankind, David A. Koplow

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Outer space offers a vast array of opportunities, with different locations or regions available for exploitation by diverse users for a growing variety of satellite functions. But not all sectors of space are equally valuable for all applications, and the most desirable venues can become crowded, affording a premium for those who gain access first and impeding the development of a fair and efficient all-inclusive international legal regime.

This article focuses on Lagrange points, a finite series of special locations in space where the gravitational forces from a pair of large celestial bodies interact in unusual ways. These points afford …

Just Research And Citation, Amanda Levendowski

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Contemporary research and citation practices are often unjust. Data cartels like Westlaw and Lexis have parent companies that prioritize profits in ways that threaten immigrants. Even before the Dobbs decision, search engines could be deployed to weaponize data against pregnant people seeking reproductive care. Women and people of color have been legal scholars for more than a century but, as many scholars have observed, colleagues consistently under-cite, mis-cite or appropriate those scholars’ work with minimal recourse. Citation materials are often inaccessible to disabled people, poor people, or the public due to poor design, paywalls, or unpreserved content that falls prey …

Medicare Drug Price Negotiations: A Blueprint For Ethical Pricing Across The Healthcare System, Jacqueline Fox

FIU Law Review

In a healthcare system with scarce resources, profit that exceeds the value of what is being paid for cries out for justifications. The Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program, created by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, is a new program that allows Medicare to begin negotiating with drug companies to determine the maximum fair price for a small set of drugs. This Article argues that the methods for conducting these negotiations represent a significant step forward in a dramatic and important reordering of how we view the healthcare financing system, allowing us to consider rational, coherent concepts of value without …

Lessons For The Trump Administration From The Biden U.S. National Strategy To Counter Antisemitism, Lili Levi

FIU Law Review

In May 2023, the Biden Administration issued the first-ever U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism with a goal of hindering further normalization of antisemitism by increasing public awareness of antisemitism and highlighting positive Jewish contributions to America. Recent events, however, particularly the social and political upheaval over protests of the war in Gaza, have led to public contestation over Israel, increased instances of antisemitism, and the partisan politicization of Jewish issues. All this has raised questions about whether the National Strategy's assumptions about public attitudes, the viability of antisemitism awareness initiatives, and the possibility of whole-of-society agreement on countering antisemitism …

The Legitimacy Of Israel: A Sociological Perspective, Luis Fleischman

FIU Law Review

The article focuses on the foundations of Israel’s legitimacy. It explores the issue of Israel’s legitimacy from the viewpoint of the sociology of law and the sociology of politics. It aims to provide perspective and nuance to some highly problematic and inherently anti-Zionist arguments raised by the Palestinian narrative and academic paradigms, such as "settler colonialism" and reductionist manichean theories of conflict.

"Replace The Jew"--The Visible Invisibility Of American Antisemitism And Spoken Beliefs, Kerri Stone

FIU Law Review

This is an essay that attempts to provide a contemporary take on antisemitism from the perspective of a professor of employment discrimination.

Exploring The Intersectionality Of Antisemitism And The Law: A Case Study Of The Crown Heights Riots And Aftermath, Stephen Sussman, Carole Huberman

FIU Law Review

Antisemitism does not exist in isolation; it often intersects with other forms of discrimination and prejudice. Examining these intersections is crucial to understanding the broader dynamics of discrimination and developing effective strategies. Antisemitism and racism often intersect in complex ways. Historical examples include the portrayal of Jews as racially inferior or “other” during periods of heightened racial tension. This intersection has implications for policies related to hate crimes, racial profiling, and equal protection under the law. This research examines the complex interplay between antisemitism and the legal system, using the Crown Heights Riots of 1991 as a focal point. The …

Prurient Interests: The Law Of Sexual Desire, Lawrence M. Friedman

FIU Law Review

A recent book by George Fisher tries to explain the history of drug and alcohol laws in terms of social and legal norms against whatever can rob people of rational thinking; this article extends the analysis to laws about sexual behavior in the last two centuries, their rise and fall.

Unvaccinated By Doubt: How Covid-19 Governance Sparked A Measles Revival, Ellen Black

FIU Law Review

A measles outbreak occurred in the United States this year, with measle cases reaching the highest levels in over two decades, even though the disease had been declared eliminated in 2000. In large part, this measles resurgence can be traced to unvaccinated individuals who have chosen to disregard public health officials' vaccination guidance. Clearly, the public has lost trust in their governmental public health officials. As the next disease outbreak looms, the need for restoration of trust becomes imperative.

This article demonstrates how the government's actions during COVID-19 further led to this lack of trust, by providing conflicting guidance as …