Articles, Essays, & Tributes
Diversity Messaging After Affirmative Action
By NANCY LEONG. Full Text. Appendix here. Many colleges and universities communicate publicly that they value racial diversity—a practice this Article will call diversity messaging. Yet growing hostility to race-consciousness by courts, legislators, and other public figures has made diversity messaging increasingly fraught. This Article examines empirically whether law schools changed their diversity messaging following…
Investor Justice
By NICOLE IANNARONE. Full Text. There is a systemic flaw in the investor protection landscape. Unrepresented investors face off against well-resourced repeat- player firms that almost always have lawyers. While consumers face similar challenges in civil courts, in forced securities arbitration, the decisionmaker may not have a law degree, is prohibited from conducting any outside…
Unpunishment Purposes
By MEREDITH ESSER. Full Text. Sentencing scholarship often begins by exploring the traditional purposes of punishment: deterrence, retribution, incapacitation, and rehabilitation. However, little scholarship exists addressing how these four punishment purposes apply in the post- sentencing or second-look contexts. Further, abstract theories of sentencing can often seem sterile and disconnected from the realities of how…
Debt, Work, and the State
By KATE ELENGOLD. Full Text. In every state and the District of Columbia, an individual who owes a debt to the state can lose their license to work. Without the ability to make a living, it is much harder to pay off debt. Although using occupational license restrictions as a debt collection tool appears nonsensical,…
Law for the Rich
By ALEX RASKOLNIKOV. Full Text. With top incomes and wealth reaching historic highs, scholars and politicians have proposed new taxes and novel legal rules aimed at reversing the emergence of the new Gilded Age. Yet while new taxes target the rich directly by imposing greater burdens only on those with incomes or wealth above multi-million-dollar…
Notes
Definite Convictions: United States v. Alt and the Seventh Circuit’s Prohibition on Defining “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt”
By SAMUEL BUISMAN. Full Text. The Seventh Circuit prohibits judges and attorneys from defining “beyond a reasonable doubt” to jurors. While United States v. Alt crystalized this prohibition in early 2023, the circuit has effectively banned definition of the phrase for much longer. Yet, a growing consensus of psychological research into the standard reveals that…
As Punishment for Arrests: Involuntary Servitude Under the Housekeeping Exception to the Thirteenth Amendment
By ELISSA BOWLING. Full Text. The Thirteenth Amendment reads: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Yet, in contemporary American jails and prisons, pretrial detainees have been forced to perform…
May Contain Peanuts, Eggs, and a “Natural” Solution: How to Challenge Food Manufacturers’ Harmful Use of Precautionary Allergen Labels
By JJ MARK. Full Text. Food allergies are one of the most pressing health issues of our time. Around thirty-three million Americans currently have food allergies, thirteen million of which are severe or life-threatening. These numbers continue to increase at alarming rates, with an estimated one in thirteen children being diagnosed with food allergies every…
Headnotes
Defining Common and Individual Issues in Class Actions: What a Reasonable Jury Could Do
Defining Common and Individual Issues in Class Actions: What a Reasonable Jury Could Do By Aaron D. Van Oort and John L. Rockenbach Full essay here. The distinction between common and individual issues is the single most important concept in the modern class action, and…
The Supreme Court’s Opinion in SEC v. Jarkesy Has the Potential To Be Extremely Destructive
The Supreme Court’s Opinion in SEC v. Jarkesy Has the Potential To Be Extremely Destructive By Richard J. Pierce, Jr. Full essay here. In this essay, Professor Pierce describes the legal framework within which the Supreme Court decided whether an agency could adjudicate a class…
Substance over Symbolism: Do We Need Benefit Corporation Laws?
BY CHENG-CHI (KIRIN) CHANG. Full essay here. Benefit corporation laws have gained traction as mechanisms to integrate societal and environmental objectives into business operations, yet they are arguably superfluous within the existing legal framework. The prevailing belief that corporations must prioritize shareholder wealth above all…
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…
