State and Local Government Law Commons^™

In The Shadows Of Sunlight: The Effects Of Transparency On State Political Campaigns, Abby K. Wood, Douglas M. Spencer

Publications

In recent years, the courts have invalidated a variety of campaign finance laws while simultaneously upholding disclosure requirements. Courts view disclosure as a less-restrictive means to root out corruption while critics claim that disclosure chills speech and deters political participation. Using individual-level contribution data from state elections between 2000 and 2008, we find that the speech-chilling effects of disclosure are negligible. On average, less than one donor per candidate is likely to stop contributing when the public visibility of campaign contributions increases. Moreover, we do not observe heterogeneous effects for small donors or ideological outliers despite an assumption in First …

The Energy Prosumer, Sharon B. Jacobs

Publications

Decentralization is becoming a dominant trend in many industries, and the electricity industry is no exception. Increasing numbers of energy consumers generate their own electricity and/or provide essential grid services such as storage, efficiency, and demand response. This Article offers a positive account of the emergence of these new energy actors, which it calls "energy prosumers. " It then frames several doctrinal and procedural puzzles that prosumers create, including jurisdictional puzzles, distributional concerns, and democratic challenges. Ultimately, it concludes that prosumers can be a positive disruptive force in the electricity industry if courts and regulators can manage these challenges effectively. …

Trust In Immigration Enforcement: State Noncooperation And Sanctuary Cities After Secure Communities, Ming H. Chen

Publications

The conventional wisdom, backed by legitimacy research, is that most people obey most of the laws, most of the time. This turns out to not be the case in a study of state-local participation in immigration law enforcement. Two enforcement programs involving the use of immigration detainers, a vehicle by which the federal government (through ICE) requests that local law enforcement agencies (LEAs) detain immigrants beyond their scheduled release upon suspicion that they are removable, demonstrate the breakdown of conventional wisdom. In the five years following initiation of the Secure Communities program, a significant and growing number of states and …

Roe As We Know It, Cary Franklin

Michigan Law Review

The petitioners in last year’s historic same-sex marriage case cited most of the Supreme Court’s canonical substantive due process precedents. They argued that the right of same-sex couples to marry, like the right to use birth control and the right to guide the upbringing of one’s children, was among the liberties protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court in Obergefell v. Hodges agreed, citing many of the same cases. Not once, however, did the petitioners or the majority in Obergefell cite the Court’s most famous substantive due process decision. It was the dissenters in Obergefell who invoked Roe v. Wade.

The Texas Lawyer's Creed: Exploring Its Origin And Impact Over The Last Quarter Century, Alicia M. Grant

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

This Comment examines different practical applications of the Creed and addresses the courts’ use of the Creed as a guide for desired ethical conduct. Additionally, this Comment includes an appendix of cases in which courts have cited the Creed and incorporates a survey of prominent individuals in the legal profession, including individuals who were instrumental in drafting or adopting the Creed.

Part III provides a historical background, detailing the increased incivility within the legal profession and the need for the profession to confront internally the incivility. Understanding the environment that gave birth to the Creed and the profession’s drive to …

Use Of Expunged Records In Attorney-Disciplinary Proceedings, Roland D. Ramos

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

The Texas Supreme Court’s decision in In re State Bar of Texas should be modified. In In re State Bar of Texas, the Court allowed the use of a criminal defendant’s expunged records in a subsequent disciplinary proceeding against his attorney. Allowing the use of expunged records for any purpose violates Texas law. For example, under the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, it is an offense to knowingly release or use expunged records for any reason, unless a court’s final expunction order permits the expunged records to be retained for future use or if a defendant waives his or …

Realigning The Governmental/Proprietary Distinction In Municipal Law, Hugh D. Spitzer

Articles

Lawyers and judges who deal with municipal law are perpetually puzzled by the distinction between “governmental” and “proprietary” powers of local governments. The distinction is murky, inconsistent between jurisdictions, inconsistent within jurisdictions, and of limited use in predicting how courts will rule. Critics have launched convincing attacks on the division of municipal powers into these two categories. Most articles have focused on problems with the distinction in specific areas of municipal law. In contrast, this article provides a comprehensive analysis of the governmental/proprietary distinction in seven specific doctrinal areas: legislative grants of municipal authority, government contracts, torts, eminent domain, adverse …

Maryland's Family Divisions Are A Model For Change, Barbara A. Babb, Gloria Danziger, Michele H. Hong-Polansky

All Faculty Scholarship

In fiscal year 2014, 43 percent of all cases filed in Maryland’s trial court of general jurisdiction (the circuit court) were family law cases (Court Operations Department, 2014: CC-5). Historically, Maryland courts, like many states’ family justice systems, lacked a uniform structure to consolidate family law issues for an individual family. As a result, families often faced multiple hearings before different judges in different courtrooms to address a variety of issues, such as divorce, domestic violence, delinquency, and child abuse/neglect. This system created tremendous hardship for families (particularly low-income families, many of whom were self-represented litigants) and resulted in fragmented …

X-Factoring: Why The Texas Supreme Court Should Revisit Its Examination Of Paid Or Incurred Medical Expenses, Zachary J. Lee

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming.

Ford V. State: Texas Forces A Resolution In The Cell Site Location Information Debate., Brandon J. Grable

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract Forthcoming.

Use It Or Lose It: Grappling With Classification Of Post-Petition Sale Proceeds Under Chapter Seven Bankruptcy For Consumer Debtors In The Lone Star State., Danielle Nicole Rushing

St. Mary's Law Journal

Texas affords consumer debtors some of the most generous state bankruptcy exemptions in the United States. This includes the homestead exemption, which permits consumer debtors to exempt a homestead of unlimited value from forced sale, subject to certain enumerated exceptions. Bankruptcy courts throughout the state are grappling with how to characterize proceeds from the sale of an exempted homestead once a consumer debtor files a Chapter Seven bankruptcy petition. Specifically, courts consider whether a debtor may personally retain funds from the sale of a homestead or whether a Chapter Seven Trustee should receive the sale proceeds on behalf of the …

Filming The Police: An Interference Or A Public Service, Aracely Rodman

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming.

Making Juvenile Justice More Humane And Effective, Julie Ellen Mcconnell

Law Faculty Publications

Long commutes, high costs and too much time away from family are among the most common frustration for workers in Virginia. But while those annoyances may be tolerable when it comes to our daily commutes, they have become an unfortunate feature of Virginia’s youth justice system, which confines hundreds of youth in large institutions far from their homes.

When young people have regular visits with their family and other members of the community, they have a much higher chance of being rehabilitated and successfully returning to those communities. Currently, many incarcerated youth in Virginia are held far from their families, …

The Motor City Needs Oil (On Canvas): An Argument In Support Of Detroit's "Grand Bargain", Jonathan A. Weeks

Georgia Law Review

Now the largest municipality in the history of the United States to go bankrupt, Detroit very nearly lost its famous art collection to its creditors. To protect its collection, Detroit proposed what is now often referred to as the "grand bargain," which involved creating a corporation that paid $816 million for the entire art collection provided that the amount paid was earmarked for pension holders in Detroit. The deal resulted in realizing two goals: keeping the art collection in Detroit and protecting pensioners who faced a huge loss in the wake of the bankruptcy. Critics of the grand bargain claim …

The Preliminary Injunction Standard In Diversity: A Typical Unguided Erie Choice, David E. Shipley

Georgia Law Review

The standard for granting preliminary injunctions in some states is not the same as the preliminary injunction standard that is followed in the federal district courts in the federal circuit where the state is located. For example, the interlocutory injunction standard in Georgia's superior courts is not as demanding as the preliminary injunction standard in Georgia's federal courts. Although state and federal courts in Georgia consider four similar factors in deciding whether to grant or deny provisional injunctive relief, a balancing or sliding scale approach can be used in Georgia's courts; the moving party need not prove all four of …

The Discretionary Death Penalty For Drug Couriers In Singapore: Four Challenges, Siyuan Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In 2012, Singapore amended its Misuse of Drugs to give courts hearing capital drug trafficking cases the discretion to replace the default death penalty with life imprisonment and caning, provided that the accused person can show that he was merely a drug courier and the prosecution certifies that he had substantively assisted the authorities in disrupting drug trafficking activities. The Singapore High Court and Court of Appeal have since made important pronouncements on the 2012 amendments, but several challenges remain: first, whether the privilege against self-incrimination has been further eroded; secondly, whether an accused person can invoke the statutory relief …

Legislative Atrophy, Jesse Panuccio

FIU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Officiating Removal, Leah Litman

Articles

For the last several years, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has quietly attempted to curtail capital defendants' representation in state postconviction proceedings. In 2011, various justices on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court began to call for federally funded community defender organizations to stop representing capital defendants in state postconviction proceedings. The justices argued, among other things, that the organizations' representation of capital defendants constituted impermissible federal interference with state governmental processes and burdened state judicial resources. The court also alleged the community defender organizations were in violation of federal statutes, which only authorized the organizations to assist state prisoners in federal, but …

Written Testimony On Correctional Oversight Of The Nys Doccs, Michael B. Mushlin

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

I am testifying today on behalf of both myself and my co-chair Michele Deitch, who has submitted written testimony for your consideration. My comments here reflect both the key points in her testimony as well as some of my own thoughts about the importance of external oversight and comments about the critical role played by the Correctional Association of New York, the failure of the State Commission on Correction to provide meaningful regulation of New York’s prisons, and the need to improve access by the media to the public and to the state’s prisons.

Local Government Law, Ken E. Jarrard

Mercer Law Review

No abstract provided.