Articles, Essays, & Tributes
Bankruptcy as a National Security Risk
By JASON JIA-XI WU. Full Text. Defense contractors lie at the heart of the U.S. national security regime. Each year, over half of the federal defense budget is allocated to contracts outsourcing military operations, projects, and services to private companies. However, defense outsourcing carries a ticking time bomb: mounting private debt. Today, the defense industry…
The Innocence Trap
By CAITLIN GLASS & JULIAN GREEN. Full Text. What makes a conviction wrongful? Developments in DNA science have led to a wave of exonerations over the past thirty years, revealing sources of error in the criminal legal process. Innocence organizations proliferated to represent people whose convictions could be overturned by newly discovered evidence. This is…
Regulatory History and Judicial Review
By TODD PHILLIPS & ANTHONY MOFFA. Full Text. The Administrative Procedure Act (APA) requires federal agencies to simply “incorporate in the rules adopted a concise general statement of their basis and purpose” after they receive comments from the public, and the Supreme Court ruled in Overton Park that courts are to adjudicate whether rules are…
The Crisis in U.S. Cancer Care: Law, Markets, and Privatization
By DANIEL G. AARON. Full Text. Cancer is surging among youth and young adults in the United States, yet, instead of public regulation addressing its root causes, we have outsourced the management of cancer to the private sector. A suite of laws, embodying faith that corporations will cure cancer, has subsidized the cancer biomedical enterprise…
The Poly Problem in Zoning: Redefining “Family” for a Changing Society
By ARIC SHORT & TANYA PIERCE. Full Text. Single-family zoning has long dictated not only where people may live but also with whom. Although extensively critiqued for perpetuating racial and economic exclusion, these laws also privilege relationships defined by blood, marriage, or adoption and marginalize nontraditional families. This Article focuses on a particularly overlooked group:…
Notes
Waging the Battle for Society’s Soul: The Constitutionality of Juvenile Transfer Legislation in the Wake of Jones v. Mississippi
By LOGAN KNUTSON. Full Text. Trying juvenile defendants as adults is a cruel, yet enduring practice in U.S. criminal law. If convicted, these youthful offenders face brutal conditions in adult prison and a lifelong stigma. Although these devastating consequences of conviction are readily apparent, juvenile transfer is insidious even absent a prison sentence or criminal…
The Skidmore Compromise: Interpreting Skidmore as a Tiebreaker to Preserve Judicial Wisdom in the Era of Loper Bright
By MITCHELL ZAIC. Full Text. ‘Law must be stable, and yet it cannot stand still.’ Here is the great antinomy confronting us at every turn. Rest and motion, unrelieved and unchecked, are equally destructive. The law, like human kind, if life is to continue, must find some path of compromise. – Judge Cardozo In the…
Headnotes
Volume 110: Fall Issue
Exceptional Cases
By EMILY CAUBLE. Full Text.
Machine Gun Funk: The Unusual Analysis of “Dangerous and Unusual”
By GREGORY S. PARKS & VIVIAN BOLEN. Full Text.
Nipping it in the Bud: The Promise and Perils of Tort Litigation in Addressing the Health Harms of High-THC Products
By REBEKAH NINAN. Full Text.
Volume 108: Symposium Supplement
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
Creating the Final Frontier
CREATING THE FINAL FRONTIER: NAVIGATING PROPERTY RIGHTS AMONG THE STARS By: Karthik Raman, Volume 103 Staff Member Introduction It has been more than fifty years since the beginning of the Space Race. The Soviet Union was fresh from victoriously launching the first person into space,…
Cy Pres-ing for Funding
Cy Pres-ing for Funding: How Frank v. Gaos May Affect the Funding of Minnesota’s Legal Services By: Lucas Curtis, Volume 103 Staff Member Legal Aid organizations provide free, essential legal services to low-income clients;[1] however, free services come at a price. Due to diminished resources and a high…
Scoot Back
SCOOT BACK: ADDRESSING THE CHALLENGES POSED BY THE SUDDEN EMERGENCE OF THE E-SCOOTER INDUSTRY By: Alec Minea, Volume 103 Staff Member The scooter, the trendiest[1] and least efficient[2] transportation method of the early 2000s, experienced a glorious, evolutionary resurgence in 2018. Seemingly overnight, cities across the United…
Another ACA Lawsuit
ANOTHER ACA LAWSUIT: PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS, THE DOJ, AND SEVERABILITY IN TEXAS V. U.S. By: Noah Steimel, Volume 103 Staff Member I. INTRODUCTION On June 7, 2018, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a brief arguing that the courts should strike down the Affordable Care Act (ACA)’s…
Sticks And Stones And Permanent Muzzles
STICKS AND STONES AND PERMANENT MUZZLES: THE FIRST AMENDMENT AND THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF PERMANENT INJUNCTIONS ON FUTURE SPEECH AFTER DEFAMATION TRIALS By: Connor Shaull, Volume 103 Staff Member A second chance is vital, especially regarding what we say. Indeed, an apology has followed some of…
Matchmaking Mishaps
MATCHMAKING MISHAPS: NCAA AMATEURISM AND COLLEGIATE ESPORTS By: Michael Arin,† Volume 103 Staff Member On August 15, 2017, ESPN announced that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (“NCAA”) is formally investigating its role in the collegiate esports[1] domain.[2] By late November 2017, the NCAA contracted with…
To Have and To Hold Regardless of Consent?
TO HAVE AND TO HOLD REGARDLESS OF CONSENT?: WHY THE MODEL PENAL CODE’S SEXUAL ASSAULT PROVISIONS SHOULD NOT INCLUDE AN AFFIRMATIVE DEFENSE FOR SPOUSES AND INTIMATE PARTNERS By: Grace Quintana, Volume 102 Staff Member The fight for the right to control the terms of marital…
Bush v. Gore
BUSH V. GORE: CAN THE SUPREME COURT’S MOST POLITICAL CASE PREVENT RUSSIAN HACKING OF VOTING MACHINES? By: Jakob Brecheisen, Volume 102 Staff Member Bush v. Gore[1] is nothing short of notorious.[2] Despite Justice Antonin Scalia admonishing Americans to “get over it,”[3] many continue to believe…
The Gymnasts’ Army in the Age of Viral Media
THE GYMNASTS’ ARMY IN THE AGE OF VIRAL MEDIA: VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENTS’ CULTURE-SHIFTING POTENTIAL By: Julia Wolfe, Volume 102 Staff Member “I thought that training for the Olympics would be the hardest thing that I would ever have to do. But, in fact, the hardest…
CFPB’s Independent Director
THE CFPB’S INDEPENDENT DIRECTOR STRUCTURE SURVIVES—FOR NOW By: Nick Kaylor, Volume 102 Staff Member The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) received a small victory on January 31, 2018, when an en banc panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals upheld 7-3 the agency’s single director…