Twins at Bat(son), Strikes Are Out: Minnesota’s Opportunity to Restore Batson v. Kentucky by Eliminating Peremptory Strikes
By Samuel Buisman. Full Text. While the Supreme Court’s decision in Batson v. Kentucky is widely hailed by scholars and jurists alike as a triumph of American egalitarianism, time and trial have unmasked its protections as a paper tiger. Despite its purported protections against racially and sexually discriminatory peremptory juror strikes, the Court’s abysmal standard…
Continue ReadingPrivate-Law Attorneys General
By Molly Shaffer Van Houweling. Full Text. The Constitution empowers Congress to “promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.” The founding-era Congress quickly exercised this power by enacting copyright and patent laws that track the constitutional…
Continue ReadingShould Courts Make It Personal? Virtue-Dependent Doctrine and the Law of Executive Power
By Michael Coenen. Full Text. With The Virtuous Executive, Professor Alan Rozenshtein has given us an impressive and wide-ranging analysis of the relevance of Presidential character to the law of executive power. The article’s central claim is straightforward: The Constitution reflects a “commitment to proper presidential character,” and scholars of and participants within the U.S.…
Continue ReadingErasing Racial Harms in CFPB v. Community Financial Services Association
By Callan Showers. Full Text. Professor Allan Freeman’s “perpetrator perspective” explains the normative American legal framework that casts racism as an intentional deviation from an otherwise neutral system. Freeman describes the perpetrator perspective as a negative, remedial dimension casting discrimination as an isolated action by a perpetrator onto a victim. By conflating the concept of…
Continue ReadingA Great American Gun Myth: Race and the Naming of the “Saturday Night Special”
By Jennifer L. Behrens and Joseph Blocher. Full Text. At a time when Second Amendment doctrine has taken a strongly historical turn and gun rights advocates have increasingly argued that gun regulation itself is historically racist, it is especially important that historical claims about race and guns be taken seriously and vetted appropriately. In this…
Continue ReadingStates’ Obligation to Provide for Trans Youth: How Medicaid Requires (Most) States to Provide Access to Puberty Blockers
By GRACE WORCESTER. Full Text. Over the last few years, many states have endeavored to strip minor access to gender-affirming healthcare, and these efforts have seen considerable success. By the end of 2023, twenty-two states had enacted legislation that limits youth access to gender- affirming healthcare. In line with these efforts, many states have created…
Continue ReadingThe Mississippi River Basin Compact: A New Governance Structure to Save the Mississippi River
By JOHN STACK. Full Text. The Mississippi River is one of the most significant and yet one of the most imperiled water bodies in the United States. It faces a myriad of problems, from rampant pollution, widespread flooding, wildlife habitat loss, and considerable droughts. Indeed, this is a critical time for the Mississippi River. Fall…
Continue ReadingAnswering the Call: How Reconfiguration of the Nation’s Mental Health Crisis Call Line Can Facilitate Reimagination of Community Well-Being and Public Safety
By LUCY CHIN. Full Text. When the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline went live in Summer 2022, communities across the country began to confront the question of how this new, expanded behavioral health resource would integrate into the country’s preexisting, emergency response systems. The program seemed to promise the solution to an increasingly visible problem—as…
Continue ReadingPolice-Made Law
By BRENNER M. FISSELL. Full Text. This Article presents evidence that police are writing laws that they enforce. This newly discovered phenomenon compounds the existing understanding of police “making” law through the exercise of discretion. They make law in a far more direct way, functioning as quasi-legislators at the local level—identifying a social problem, drafting…
Continue ReadingReproductive Objectification
By MEGHAN M. BOONE and BENJAMIN J. MCMICHAEL. Full Text. The American system of rights is individualized—premised on the concept of singular, physically separate, and autonomous people. The rise of the fetal personhood movement complicates this basic understanding. If rights attach to singular, autonomous people, and fetuses are legally people, then the body of a…
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