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
Can President Trump Be Sued for Defamation Because of His Personal Tweets?
CAN PRESIDENT TRUMP BE SUED FOR DEFAMATION BECAUSE OF HIS PERSONAL TWEETS? By: Alex Walsdorf, Volume 101 Staff Member If you happen to visit President Trump’s private Twitter page,[1] you will notice his affinity for tweeting. Some of his tweets, at least on their face,…
Hiring Shouldn’t Give License for Firing
HIRING SHOULDN’T GIVE LICENSE FOR FIRING: AFFORDING THE SAME ACTOR INFERENCE APPROPRIATE WEIGHT By: Bailey Drexler, Volume 101 Staff Member In 1991 the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals articulated what would come to be known as the “same actor inference” in the context of employment…
See You in Court
SEE YOU IN COURT: ANALYZING JUDGE GORSUCH’S VIEWS ON THE SEPARATION OF POWERS By: Nathan Rice, Volume 101 Staff Member Judge Neil M. Gorsuch has been cast into a political warzone since his nomination on January 31 to fill the late Antonin Scalia’s now long-vacant…
Comparing and Contrasting the Legal Challenges to President Trump’s Travel Ban
COMPARING AND CONTRASTING THE LEGAL CHALLENGES TO PRESIDENT TRUMP’S TRAVEL BAN By: Richard Canada, Volume 101 Staff Member In the whirlwind first month of Donald Trump’s tenure as President, perhaps no issue has been as controversial or received as much attention as the Executive Order…
Legal Analysis of Trump Executive Order on Refugees
LEGAL ANALYSIS OF TRUMP EXECUTIVE ORDER ON REFUGEES By: Stephen Meili, Clinical Professor in Law, University of Minnesota Law School† On January 27, 2017, President Trump issued an Executive Order (“Order”) curtailing entry to the U.S. by immigrants, non-immigrants and refugees in three significant ways:…
Defying Conservationist Ethics
DEFYING CONSERVATIONIST ETHICS: A LOOK AT PRESIDENT TRUMP’S ENERGY PLAN By Karrah Johnston, Volume 101 Staff Member Over the course of his presidential campaign, President Donald Trump routinely championed former President Theodore Roosevelt’s conservation legacy. Trump continually asserted that he would follow in the “great…
Microsoft Corp. v. United States
MICROSOFT CORP. V. UNITED STATES: SHOULD CONGRESS REVISE THE STORED COMMUNICATIONS ACT? By: Adam Frudden, Volume 101 Staff Member On July 14, 2016, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued its ruling in the case of Microsoft Corp. v. United States.[1] The long-awaited…
The Presidential Clemency Power and Chelsea Manning
THE PRESIDENTIAL CLEMENCY POWER AND CHELSEA MANNING: AN ORIGINALIST PERSPECTIVE By: Caitlin Opperman, Volume 101 Staff Member On his last day in office, President Obama commuted the sentences of 330 people serving time for drug offenses, bringing the total number of commutations issued throughout his…
Unprecedented
UNPRECEDENTED: PRESIDENT TRUMP’S DIVIDED LOYALTIES By: Emily Atmore, Volume 101 Staff Member Donald Trump’s prominence as an international businessman has raised widespread concerns about conflicts of interest in his newest venture: as President of the United States.[1] Legal experts have relied on a little known…
Reading the Tea Leaves of Pretextual Protectionism
READING THE TEA LEAVES OF PRETEXTUAL PROTECTIONISM: THE FUTURE OF THE U.S.-CUBA RELATIONSHIP By: Charles Barrera Moore, Volume 101 Lead Online Editor In the wake of the death of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, both President Obama and President Trump acknowledged that the United States is…
