Gender-Based Religious Persecution
By Pooja R. Dadhania. Full Text. People fleeing gender-based violence in the home face an uphill battle when seeking asylum in the United States. Through the lens of public and private spheres, this Article explores the underutilized religion ground for asylum for cases involving gender-based violence in the home—i.e., the private sphere. This Article argues…
Continue ReadingCriminal Terms
By Anna Roberts. Full Text. Core terms used by criminal legal academics bolster the criminal system and ward off radical critique. They do this by conveying implicit messages of three types: that the criminal system is generally accurate, that it is necessary, and that it is well-intentioned and moving in the right direction. While recent…
Continue ReadingLocalism, Pretext, and the Color of School Dollars
By Derek W. Black. Full Text. Educational inequality is embedded in the structure of education itself. School districts, not individual schools, are the gatekeepers of educational opportunity. Racial isolation exists between school districts, not within them. Enormous funding gaps exist between neighboring school districts, sometimes in the same city, but not within them. These fault…
Continue ReadingPublic Law, Private Platforms
By Andrew Keane Woods. Full Text. Our law—both our constitutional law and much of our statutory law—has long drawn a fraught distinction between public and private domains. Indeed, debates about the public/private distinction date as far back as liberalism itself. But today’s private digital platforms strain that distinction to a new degree. Platforms have become…
Continue ReadingAmericans, Beyond States and Territories
By Tom C.W. Lin. Full Text. For over a century, the law has systemically marginalized over three million Americans living in the unincorporated Territories of the United States. The law has long defined the Territories homogenously and subserviently to States. It has segregated the rights and privileges of citizenship between those living in States and…
Continue Reading“Can You Hear Me Now?”: The Right to Counsel Prior to Execution of a Cell Phone Search Warrant
By Nathaniel Mensah. Full Text. As advances in technology allow law enforcement to gain ever more expansive surveillance powers, the criminal justice system scrambles to keep up. The Fourth Amendment has been the primary vehicle through which modern criminal procedure has adapted to new technologies. That limited approach risks undue harm to criminal defendants and…
Continue ReadingDeals in the Heartland: Renewable Energy Projects, Local Resistance, and How Law Can Help
By Christiana Ochoa, Kacey Cook, and Hanna Weil. Full Text. Rural communities in every windblown and sun-drenched region of the United States are enmeshed in legal, political, and social conflicts related to the country’s rapid transition to renewable energy. Organized local opposition has foreclosed millions of acres from renewable energy development, impeding national and state-level…
Continue ReadingThe Old Hand Problem
By Xiao Wang. Full Text. Senior status is a special form of retirement for federal judges. When a judge takes senior status, they open a vacancy on their court, yet continue to hear and decide cases. Most active judges today eventually go senior. Yet many do not do so the very moment they become eligible.…
Continue ReadingNonexclusive Functions and Separation of Powers Law
By Ilan Wurman. Full Text. The Constitution’s text, structure, and history suggest that some governmental functions strictly and exclusively appertain to a particular branch, and to the exercise of a single vested power. Many governmental functions, however, are nonexclusive: their exercise has some combination of legislative, executive, and judicial characteristics and, as a result, can…
Continue ReadingBrady Lists
By Rachel Moran. Full Text. Brady lists, named after the Supreme Court’s 1963 decision Brady v. Maryland, are lists some prosecutors maintain of law enforcement officers with histories of misconduct that could impact the officers’ credibility. The lists serve as tools for prosecutors to track officer misconduct and disclose that information to defense counsel where…
Continue Reading