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
Losing Bigly
LOSING BIGLY: HOW THE ACLU’S COMPLAINT FORCED THE U.S. GOVERNMENT TO RELEASE ROSA MARIA By: David Racine, Volume 102 Staff Member On October 25, 2017, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detained Rosa Maria Hernandez, a ten-year-old child with cerebral palsy who was recovering from…
Silent and Ambiguous
SILENT AND AMBIGUOUS: THE SUPREME COURT DODGES CHEVRON AND LENITY IN ESQUIVEL-QUINTANA V. SESSIONS By: David Hahn, Volume 102 Staff Member[1] Twenty-year-old Juan Esquivel-Quintana—a lawful permanent resident from Mexico—had consensual sex with his sixteen-year-old girlfriend.[2] This violated California’s statutory rape statute,[3] and he pled no…
Big Brother DHS
BIG BROTHER[1] DHS: IMMIGRANT SOCIAL MEDIA DATA COLLECTION AND THE CONSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGES IT FACES By: Paul Baxter, Volume 102 Staff Member With the advent and growth of social media, more and more of us put aspects of our lives online for all to see.[2] Many…
Carpenter, Your iPhone, and the Fourth Amendment
CARPENTER, YOUR iPHONE, AND THE FOURTH AMENDMENT By: Peter Estall, Volume 102 Staff Member A man robs a string of electronics stores. While investigating the robberies, the government arrests several suspects, one of whom confesses to the robberies.[1] The robber gives his cellphone number to…
Prison for the Innocent
PRISON FOR THE INNOCENT: THE ‘NEWLY DISCOVERED EVIDENCE’ STANDARD THROUGH THE LENS OF NASH V. RUSSELL By: Alexa Ely, Volume 102 Staff Member Since 1989, there have been over 2,120 exonerations with nearly 18,450 years lost in prison by innocent men and women in the…
“Transgender Need Not Apply”
‘TRANSGENDER NEED NOT APPLY’[1]: HOW THE SESSIONS MEMO THREATENS ESSENTIAL WORKPLACE PROTECTIONS FOR TRANSGENDER INDIVIDUALS By: Libby Bulinski, Volume 102 Staff Member On October 4th, 2017, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a memorandum stating that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act does…
Scandal in the NCAA
SCANDAL IN THE NCAA: A FIDUCIARY TALE By: Andrew Escher, Volume 102 Staff Member Common wisdom holds that sports bring people together. In circumstances as varied as a Texas high school at a Friday night football game or an entire country during the Olympics, athletics…
Investigating Juror Misconduct in Minnesota
INVESTIGATING JUROR MISCONDUCT IN MINNESOTA By: Melanie Johnson, Volume 102 Staff Member In the American criminal justice system, jurors are expected to be unbiased. [1] It’s an issue most often litigated pre-trial during the jury selection process as counsel for the defendant and state grapple…
Started from the Bottom
STARTED FROM THE BOTTOM: WHAT DRAKE’S FAIR USE WIN MEANS TO THE FUTURE OF MUSIC SAMPLING By: Veena Tripathi, Volume 102 Staff Member True, just like it’s probably easier to snap a picture with that camera [looks at camera] than it is to actually paint…
Your Car Is Watching You
YOUR CAR IS WATCHING YOU: SHOULD THE POLICE NEED A WARRANT TO FIND OUT WHAT IT KNOWS? By: Clayton Carlson, Volume 102 Staff Member Out of all the things that people own that could be spying on them, they seldom suspect their cars. If you…
