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
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
Minnesota Supreme Court Elections
MINNESOTA SUPREME COURT ELECTIONS: CONSIDERING CONCERNS AND CRITICISMS By: Sara Lewenstein, Volume 101 Staff Member On, Tuesday, August 9, 2016, 173,884 voters turned out for primary elections in Minnesota.[1] In some districts, the only item on the ballot was a statewide election for a seat…
It Takes Turner
IT TAKES TURNER: HOW STORIES SHAPE US By: Maisie Baldwin, Volume 101 Staff Member Anyone who’s been on any form of social media since early 2015 has likely read Brock Turner’s name. His name has come up in a variety of contexts: evidence of the…
Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt
WHOLE WOMAN’S HEALTH V. HELLERSTEDT: A REAFFIRMATION OF REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS By: Payton George, Volume 101 Staff Member On June 27, 2016, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in the case of Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt.[1] In an opinion heralded by pro-choice supporters,[2] Justice Breyer,…
Does Mother Nature Get a Vote?
DOES MOTHER NATURE GET A VOTE? OUR NEXT PRESIDENT COULD IMPACT AMERICA’S INVOLVEMENT IN THE PARIS AGREEMENT ON CLIMATE CHANGE By: Taylor Mayhall, Volume 101 Staff Member Last December, representatives from 195 countries assembled in Paris to converse about a subject which they all felt…
Dan’s Flaw
DAN’S [F]LAW: STATUTORY FAILURE TO ENFORCE ETHICAL BEHAVIOR IN CLINICAL DRUG TRIALS By: Noah Lewellen,* Volume 99 Articles Submission Editor I. INTRODUCTION Paul, a sophomore at the University of Minnesota, bursts into a lecture hall, loudly claims to see monsters sitting in the seats, and…
Case Comment: Bhogaita v. Altamonte
EVERY DOG CAN HAVE HIS DAY IN COURT: THE USE OF ANIMALS AS DEMONSTRATIVE EXHIBITS By: Kyle R. Kroll, Volume 100 Online Managing Editor In Bhogaita v. Altamonte, the Eleventh Circuit recently decided whether to allow a dog in the courtroom as a demonstrative exhibit.[1]…
Revisiting Water Bankruptcy
REVISITING WATER BANKRUPTCY IN CALIFORNIA’S FOURTH YEAR OF DROUGHT By Olivia Moe, Volume 100Managing Editor This spring, as “extreme” to “exceptional” drought stretched across most of California—indicating that a four-year streak of drought was not about to resolve itself[1]—Governor Jerry Brown issued an unprecedented order…
Defying Auer Deference
DEFYING AUER DEFERENCE: SKIDMORE AS A SOLUTION TO CONSERVATIVE CONCERNS IN PEREZ v. MORTGAGE BANKERS ASSOCIATION By: Nicholas R. Bednar, Volume 100 Lead Articles Editor* On March 9, 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down its decision in Perez v. Mortgage Bankers…
Patent Reform Primer
WHAT’S UNDER THE BRIDGE? A PATENT REFORM PRIMER By Ann E. Motl, Volume 99 Online Managing Editor Just a few years after passing the most sweeping changes in patent law since 1952, Congress is considering patent reform again.[1] Whereas the America Invents Act of 2011…
Rumble v. Fairview Health
RUMBLE V. FAIRVIEW HEALTH SERVICES: FEDERAL JUDGE HOLDS THAT THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT’S FRANKENSTEIN CIVIL RIGHTS PROVISION PROTECTS TRANSGENDER INDIVIDUALS By: Leah Tabbert, Volume 99 Staff Member The federal judiciary has spent years teasing apart and examining the many provisions of the Patient Protection and…
