By: Nick Grossardt, Volume 107 Staff Member At the end of January 2023, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (BATFE) promulgated a final rule outlining a series of factoring criteria for regulating firearms with affixed “stabilizing braces.”[1] Various models of these braces had been evaluated by the BATFE’s Firearms and Ammunition Technology Division…

By: Abby Ward, Volume 107 Staff Member The racially discriminatory impact from the War on Drugs is clear,[1] and while marijuana legalization is one step in addressing the inequities of America’s criminal justice system, the work does not end there. States should also enact broader expungement reforms. This 2023 session, Minnesota is likely going to…

By: Maxwell H. Terry, Volume 107 Staff Member While the technical subject matter of a patent can grow inordinately complex, the predominant theory underlying patent law is relatively straightforward. In exchange for the right to exclude others from making, using, or selling the invention claimed by a patent, the inventor must disclose the invention to…

By: Amy Cohen, Volume 107 Staff Member In what seems like a never-ending string of catastrophic rulings implicating our nation’s future and individual rights,[1] about ten months ago the Supreme Court laid down a major decision altering the availability of remedies for civil rights claimants that has largely gone unnoticed by the public. When petitioner…

By: Earl Lin, Volume 107 Staff Member It is a well-known phenomenon that lawyers often communicate in their own “peculiar language . . . characterized by antique jargon, pomposity, affected displays of precision, ponderous abstractions, and hocus-pocus incantations.”[1] Indeed, lawyers are so notorious for their clumsy writing that a whole cottage industry of gag gifts…

By: Grace Worcester, Volume 107 Staff Member The Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County v. Talevski,[1] a case with the potential to strip over eighty million Americans[2] of the ability to seek recourse in the federal courts for state civil rights violations. Talevski originated when the family…

By: Kyra Honkanen, Volume 107 Staff Member I. BACKGROUND Making headlines across the country, Southwest Airlines, the largest domestic airline in the U.S.,[1] canceled over 15,000 of its flights leaving more than one million people[2] stranded or left to find alternative transportation during the peak of holiday travel in December 2022.[3] A blast of severe…

By: E. Isabel Park, Volume 107 Staff Member After the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in In re Grand Jury[1] on January 9, 2023, all that remained was for the Court to decide the case.[2] Instead, two weeks later, the Court dismissed the case as “improvidently granted.” This left unresolved a three-way circuit split on…

By: Marina Berardino, Volume 107 Staff Member Despite it being well known that an individual’s race impacts his or her perceptions of and experiences with the police,[1] U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence remains unclear on the role of race in Fourth Amendment seizure inquiries. Fourth Amendment case law is riddled with confusion, oftentimes through the Supreme…

By: Randa Larsen, Volume 107 Staff Member On November 2, 2021, Maine voters did something no other state in the United States has done—they approved an amendment that sets out a constitutional right to food.[1] This Amendment did not come out of thin air. Before the approval, Maine had a food sovereignty law that advocated…