By: Ellison Snider, Volume 106 Staff Member Last month, Frances Haugen, former product manager at Facebook, testified to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation about the company’s one-way mirror on its users.[1] After leaking private internal Facebook documents to the Wall Street Journal, Haugen showed the public that Facebook knows a lot about…

By: Kimberly Ortleb, Volume 106 Staff Member On October 6, 2021, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for United States v. Zubaydah,[1] which presents the question of how far state secrets privilege extends. Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn (“Zubaydah”) was disappeared and tortured as a part of the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation” program in 2002.[2] From December…

By: Haley Wallace, Volume 106 Staff Member The Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA)[1] was enacted to severely punish society’s worst criminal offenders.[2] Congress passed the ACCA in 1984 specifically to target the “most dangerous, frequent, and hardened offenders,”[3] and to “incapacitate the armed career criminal for the rest of the normal time span of his…

By: Dylan Saul, Volume 106 Staff Member The murder of George Floyd, at the hands of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, sparked a nation-wide reckoning with racism and police brutality that might not have happened had seventeen-year-old Darnella Frazier not recorded the murder on her smartphone.[1] The increasing public focus on police brutality[2] has contributed…

By Hannah Wiles, Volume 105 Staffer On January 19, 2021, the Supreme Court heard arguments in BP PLC v. Mayor and City of Baltimore,[1] one of several “climate change” lawsuits currently being brought by cities, counties, and states against the fossil fuel industry.[2] While the cases have garnered attention for their potential to impose liability…

By: Keenan Roarty, Volume 105 Staff Member   Third-degree depraved-mind murder has never had so much attention in Minnesota as it does now. In two recent, high-profile police brutality cases, Derek Chauvin and Mohamed Noor were both convicted of third-degree depraved-mind murder.[1] But under the unique quirks of Minnesota precedent, there is a meaningful chance…

By: Youngjin Jang, Volume 105 Staff Member The hateful killings of six women of Asian descent in Georgia on March 17th have left the Asian American and Pacific Islander (“AAPI”) community in fear.[1] Although discrimination against Asians has always existed throughout American history,[2] the U.S. has been witnessing a surge of harassment and violence against…

By: Patrick Riley Murray, Volume 105 Staff Member The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) processes more than 250 million business and individual tax returns each year.[1] The vast majority of these returns are correctly filed and end in either additional tax paid or a refund.[2] When a taxpayer files a return with incorrect information, the IRS…

By: Emily Buchholz, Billy Bigham & Maci Burke Cooperatives have long been popular in Minnesota, due in part to the state’s sizeable agriculture industry and Scandinavian population.[1] In fact, Minnesota is home to the top two revenue-producing agriculture cooperatives in the United States: CHS Inc. and Land O’Lakes, Inc.[2] While these top revenue-producing agriculture cooperatives…

By Avery Katz, Vol. 105 Staff Member With the COVID-19 vaccine becoming more readily accessible, it is critical that society’s most vulnerable populations are accounted for as the world moves towards normalcy. The prison population must not be ignored. Despite holding some of the most vulnerable populations, the health and safety of people in prisons…