Note: Treating Adults Like Children: Re-Sentencing Adult Juvenile Lifers After Miller v. Alabama
By Brianna H. Boone. Full text here. Miller v. Alabama continued the trend in Supreme Court cases finding that juvenile criminal offenders are less culpable than adult offenders, by holding that states cannot sentence juvenile offenders to mandatory life without parole. The Court held that it is cruel and unusual punishment to sentence a juvenile to…
Continue ReadingNote: When Volunteers Become Employees: Using a Threshold-Remuneration Test Informed by the Fair Labor Standards Act To Distinguish Employees from Volunteers
By Emily Bodtke. Full text here. Despite the recognized importance of determining who is an “employee” for purposes of legal coverage, the concept remains unsettled. The confusion over how to define “employee” is now spreading to upset the boundary between employees and volunteers. As voluntarily unpaid workers increasingly bring lawsuits alleging discrimination under federal statutes, a…
Continue ReadingNote: Fine-Tuning the Tax Whistleblower Statute: Why Qui-tam Is Not a Solution
By Sung Woo “Matt” Hu. Full text here. Under the Internal Revenue Code, tax whistleblowers can be rewarded up to thirty percent of the collected proceeds when the IRS successfully collects delinquent amounts from tax evaders based on the information provided by those whistleblowers. However, whistleblowers are left with no remedy if the IRS decides not…
Continue ReadingNote: Treating the Disease or Punishing the Criminal? Effectively Using Drug Court Sanctions To Treat Substance Use Disorder and Decrease Criminal Conduct
By Caitlinrose Fisher. Full text here. Drug courts have been on the rise for the past few decades, providing an alternative criminal supervision system for individuals struggling with addiction and drug dependence. Drug courts provide an intensive supervision model by responding swiftly to probation violations with a series of graduated sanctions. Assuming that drug courts are…
Continue ReadingNote: Your Local Solar Panel Store: Developing State Laws To Encourage Third-Party Power Purchase Agreements and Distributed Generation
By Sam D. Bolstad. Full text here. Solar panels’ high upfront capital costs are the primary hurdle to widespread installation by homeowners and towns. Solar panel companies are addressing this challenge through third-party power purchase agreements (PPAs), wherein a company pays for these costs when it installs the solar panels on-site at the customer’s location.…
Continue ReadingNote: A Manageable Solution with Meaningful Results: Illuminating IRS Enforcement of § 501(c)(3)’s Prohibition on Political Intervention
By Julia D. Zwak. Full text here.
Continue ReadingNote: The Separate Spheres Ideology: An Improved Empirical and Litigation Approach to Family Responsibilities Discrimination
By Andrea L. Miller. Full text here.
Continue ReadingNote: Suppressing Evidence in Immigration Proceedings: The Need for a Lenient Egregiousness Standard and Rebellious Lawyering
By Mikaela A. Devine. Full text here.
Continue ReadingNote: Maneuvering the Headwinds Facing Offshore Wind Development in the Great Lakes: Amending the Coastal Zone Management Act
By Sarah Schenck. Full text here. The first United States offshore wind turbine was launched in 2013 off of the coast of Maine. Offshore wind development in the Great Lakes, however, will differ in key ways from development in non-Great Lakes coastal waters. Planning for development in the Great Lakes now would allow government agencies…
Continue ReadingNote: Legislating Corporate Social Responsibility: Expanding Social Disclosure Through the Resource Extraction Disclosure Rule
By Thea Reilkoff. Full text here. The United States has led a growing international effort to increase corporate transparency in the commercial development of natural resources. In 2010, Congress enacted the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Section 1504 of this Act requires resource extraction companies to publically disclose, through the Securities and Exchange…
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