Articles, Essays, & Tributes
Aiming for Answers: Balancing Rights, Safety, and Justice in a Post-Bruen America
By CHAD NOWLAN. Full Text. A foreword to the symposium issue of Minnesota Law Review volume 108.
Firearms Carceralism
By JACOB D. CHARLES. Full Text. Gun violence is a pressing national concern. And it has been for decades. Throughout nearly all that time, the primary tool lawmakers have deployed to stanch the violence has been the machinery of the criminal law. Increased policing, intrusive surveillance, vigorous prosecution, and punitive penalties are showered on gun…
Firearms and the Homeowner: Defending the Castle, the Curtilage, and Beyond
By CYNTHIA LEE. Full Text. In the spring of 2023, a series of back-to-back shootings shook the nation. A Black teenager in Missouri trying to pick up his two younger siblings went to the wrong door and rang the doorbell. The homeowner came to the door with a gun and, without saying a word, fired…
Age Restrictions and the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, 1791–1868
By MEGAN WALSH AND SAUL CORNELL. Full Text. The disproportional misuse of firearms by eighteen-to-twenty-year-olds has long been a problem in America. The concerns are not novel. Nor are legislative responses to this problem a recent development in American law. These limitations are deeply rooted in American legal history. While minimum age gun laws routinely…
Scientific Context, Suicide Prevention, and the Second Amendment After Bruen
By ERIC RUBEN. Full Text. The Supreme Court declared in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen that modern gun laws must be “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation” to survive Second Amendment challenges. Scholarship has shown how this test of historical analogy presents difficulties because of how technological, legal,…
Trouble’s Bruen: The Lower Courts Respond
By BRANNON P. DENNING AND GLENN H. REYNOLDS. Full Text. New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen revolutionized the understanding of how Second Amendment cases are to be adjudicated. Rejecting the tiered-scrutiny analysis around which the lower courts had coalesced since the 2008 Heller decision, the Court instructed courts to look to history…
The Second Amendment’s Racial Justice Complexities
By DANIEL S. HARAWA. Full Text. The relationship between the Second Amendment and racial justice is complicated. That’s because the relationship between pe- nal administration and racial justice is complicated. The briefing in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen perfectly proves this point. A group of public defenders favored striking down New…
Notes
Answering 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…
The 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…
States’ 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…
Headnotes
Teaching “Is This Case Rightly Decided?”
By Steven Arrigg Koh. Full Text. “Is this case rightly decided?” From the first week of law school, every law student must grapple with this classroom question. This Essay argues that this vital question is problematically under-specified, creating imprecision in thinking about law. This Essay…
Erasing 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…
Should 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…
Private-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…
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…
American Fiction: Overturning the Doctrine of Immigration Entry Fiction as Established in Shaughnessy v. Mezei
By Dahlia Wilson. Full Text. In 1886, the Supreme Court decided a case called Yick Wo v. Hopkins, which held that any person physically within the United States’ territory would enjoy the protections of the Fourteenth Amendment, regardless of their immigration or citizenship status. In…
Bounded Entities and (Some of) Their Discontents
By Saurabh Vishnubhakat. Full Text. In his new article An Organizational Theory of International Technology Transfer, Professor Peter Lee offers two richly detailed accounts at once. One is a novel theoretical framework of “bounded entities” that generalizes both from the classic theory of the firm…
A 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…
Refining the Dangerousness Standard in Felon Disarmament
By Jamie G. McWilliam. Full Text. To some, 18 U.S.C. 922(g) is a necessary safeguard that keeps guns out of the hands of dangerous persons. To others, it strips classes of non-violent people of their natural and constitutional rights. This statute makes it a crime…
“Proven” Safety Regulations: Massachusetts 1805 Proving Law As Historical Analogue for Modern Gun Safety Laws
By Billy Clark. Full Text. Concerned by the public health threats posed by certain firearms, the Massachusetts legislature enacts a law to set safety standards for firearms in the Commonwealth. Firearm dealers across the State, including some of the leading manufacturers of the day, not…
Curbing Gun Violence Under PLCAA and Bruen: State Attorney General–Driven Solutions to the Surging Epidemic
By David Lamb. Full Text. At the same time that the deadly toll of gun violence continues to grow in the U.S., now taking nearly 50,000 lives per year, federal lawmakers and courts have increasingly constrained government authorities’ tools for fighting the epidemic. Pursuant to…
De Novo Blog
CITIES ARE TURNING ON CONVERSION THERAPY BANS
By: Melanie Griffith, Volume 104 Staff Member INTRODUCTION The tides are turning on the trend of conversion therapy bans. Conversion therapy is a controversial practice that purports to “cure” homosexual or transgender individuals by attempting to change their sexual orientation or gender identity.[1] Therapists use…
BLOCKING THE SUNSHINE: SUPREME COURT LIMITS ACCESS TO GOVERNMENT RECORDS IN FOOD MARKETING INSTITUTE V. ARGUS LEADER MEDIA
By: Chuqiao Yu, Volume 104 Staff Member Imagine you, as a taxpayer, wanted to know how your hard-earned money had been used and filed a request to a federal agency asking for some information about a commercial program it was administering. The agency declined your…
NO TOLL FOR THE TAXPAYER: FINANCIAL DISABILITY, STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS REFUND TOLLING, AND COURTS’ STRICT APPLICATION OF “AUTHORITY”
By: Casey Epstein, Volume 104 Staff Member INTRODUCTION Imagine you are poor, mentally-ill, and struggle to manage your finances. You granted your adult son durable power of attorney (“DPA”),[1] but are no longer on speaking terms with him. You work a low-wage, menial job and…
The Law Review Appears on NPR’s Planet Money
Law Review Editor Thomas Hansfield appeared on NPR‘s Planet Money podcast to discuss his Minnesota Law Review article about in-game video game purchases and whether or not they fit the legal definition of gambling. Listen to the podcast episode here.
Judicial Attire: An Alteration to “Under the Robes”
By: Erik M. Jensen* In 2009, the GreenBag, which (with justification) bills itself as An Entertaining Journal of Law, published my revealing essay on judicial attire—or, more precisely, on what is hidden by judicial attire[i]—Under the Robes: A Judicial Right to Bare Arms and Legs and . .…
Another NCAA Upset: Rethinking the Playbook for Compensating Student-Athletes
March introduced a new kind of madness into collegiate athletics this year. Just as the regular basketball season came to a close and players geared up for the annual all-around tournaments, a ruling issued from the Northern District of California that further blurred the line between amateur and professional sports.
Superbowl Dreams Crushed: But a Lawsuit Is Not the Answer
During the Saints-Rams NFC championship game in early 2019 the referees missed a pass interference call that many experts agree cost the Saints the game. Even the National Football League (NFL) acknowledges that its referees missed the penalty call. With that call, the Saints very likely would have won the game and earned a spot in Superbowl LIII because the penalty would have given the team a first down, which would have allowed them to run out the clock before attempting their game winning field goal.
Loot Box Lottery: How the Backlash Against Video Game Loot Boxes Is Affecting Game Developers, Retailers, and Consumers in the Legal Sphere
Confetti! Bright colors! Candy! Little Billy’s eyes are fixed on the screen. He just broke open a Llama Piñata in his favorite video game, Fortnite, with hopes of receiving a rare in-game item he has long desired. Alas, he sees the results and sighs in disappointment. Nothing. Just some useless items he won the day before.
Nielsen v. Preap and How the Way That We Interpret Language Can Change Lives and What Else We Should Consider During Statutory Interpretation
In 1893, Edward Bulwer-Lytton wrote that “[t]he pen is mightier than the sword.” That may be so, but more power lies with he who interprets the words than he who writes them. By using ordinary tools of statutory construction, the Supreme Court interpreted the Apprehension and Detention of Aliens Act and sealed the fate of countless aliens in the United States.
No More Surprises: Patients fight back against Surprise Medical Bills
Before his 2013 surgery for herniated disks, Peter Drier checked off all the boxes a diligent patient could: he made sure the facility was in-network, the surgeon was in-network, and he even ensured the anesthesiologist would be in-network. Nonetheless, during the surgery an out-of-network assistant surgeon—whom Drier had never met—stepped in to help.
Thirty-Five Years of Inaction: The Unfulfilled Promise of the Medicaid Equal Access Provision
By Delaram Takyar. Full Text. In 1989, Congress amended the Social Security Act to ensure that Medicaid recipients would have the same access to medical providers as people covered by private insurance and Medicare. This was meant to remedy the wide disparities in access to…