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
READY FOR LANDING: AFTER CONCLUDING “PILOT PROGRAM,” MINNESOTA’S ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY BOARD DELIBERATES LONG AWAITED ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW CLIMATE CONSIDERATION REQUIREMENTS
By: Giuseppe Tumminello, Volume 107 Staff Member On October 19, 2022, the Minnesota Environmental Quality Board (EQB) hosted a public Environmental Review Implementation Subcommittee (ERIS) meeting. The ERIS reviewed the results from a Pilot Program it organized in order to incorporate climate change considerations on…
LEGAL LIMBO: THE STATE OF ABORTION CARE FOR MINORS IN MINNESOTA AFTER DOE v. STATE OF MINNESOTA
By: Mary Fleming, Volume 107 Staff Member Even before Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization brought abortion to center stage at the U.S. Supreme Court, Minnesota abortion law was being litigated in state court.[1] In May of 2019, two advocacy organizations, the Lawyering Project and…
HOW COMPELLING DOES COMPELLING HAVE TO BE?: A MISSED OPPORTUNITY TO REFRAME A COMPELLING GOVERNMENTAL INTEREST IN AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IN THE STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS CASES
By: Chad Nowlan, Volume 107 Staff Member This fall the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases brought by Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), a self-described “nonprofit membership group of . . . students, parents, and others who believe that racial classifications and preferences…
THE ONUS OF TRANSPARENCY: STATE OF WASHINGTON v. META PLATFORMS, INC. ILLUSTRATES THE FIGHT OVER REASONABLE CAMPAIGN FINANCE DISCLOSURE LAW AND FIRST AMENDMENT PROTECTED SPEECH VIOLATIONS
By: Lindsay Maher, Volume 107 Staff Member Campaign finance disclosure laws are being questioned and limited in states across the country. In many states, legislatures have passed laws to prevent future requests for disclosure to non-profit organizations that donate to political candidates or parties.[1] In…
MIXED MESSAGING: PREVIEWING 303 CREATIVE AND ITS PLACE IN CURRENT FREE SPEECH JURISPRUDENCE
By: Samuel E. Ferguson, Volume 107 Staff Member This term, the Supreme Court of the United States will decide 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis.[1] The Court will decide whether a Colorado public accommodation law violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment by compelling…
UN(PrEP)ARED: HOW BRAIDWOOD v. BECERRA COULD LEAVE PUBLIC HEALTH OFFICIALS SCRAMBLING
By: Tyler Blackmon, Volume 107 Staff Member On September 7, 2022, a federal district court granted summary judgment to an employer who refused to cover an anti-HIV, pre-exposure prophylaxis drug (PrEP) because doing so would make that employer “complicit in facilitating homosexual behavior.”[1] The judge,…
NO REASSURANCE FROM INSURANCE: INSURANCE COMPANIES ARE TRYING TO AVOID BIPA LITIGATION BY USING ROBUST EXCLUSION CLAUSES AND COURTS ARE UNIMPRESSED
By: Katherine Vu, Volume 107 Staff Member Insurance companies are the new plaintiffs taking center stage in recent litigation under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).[1] Enacted in 2008, BIPA aims to protect individuals by regulating the collection and dissemination of their biometric data…
HARD LUXURY: MATERIAL ADVERSE EFFECT IN THE LVMH AND TIFFANY MERGER
By: Rachel Wynn, Business Law Clinic Student Director & Emily Buchholz, Executive Director of the Corporate Institute Since the COVID-19 pandemic, material adverse effect claims have increased in Delaware courts. A material adverse effect (“MAE”) is a change in circumstances that is reasonably expected to…
STEALING FROM YOUR STUDENTS: THE HIDDEN KEY IN THE HIGHER EDUCATION ACT TO HOLD LEADERS OF FOR-PROFIT COLLEGES PERSONALLY LIABLE FOR FRAUD
By: Kylee Evans, Volume 106 Staff Member Student debt in the United States has hit a historic high.[1] The estimated total student loan debt as of March 2022 is $1.749 trillion.[2] Of that, the federal government owns about $1.61 trillion.[3] Legal scholars have long compared…
MEANINGFUL BUT NOT PERFECT REVIEW: IMPLIED PRECLUSION OF FEDERAL JURISDICTION AND AXON ENTERPRISE, INC. V. FTC
By: Jason Gutierrez, Vol. 106 Staff Member I. BACKGROUND, DOCTRINE, AND AXON’S ARGUMENT May a party arguing that the structure of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) violates the constitution bypass the FTC’s administrative review process and bring suit in federal court? Last summer, Axon Enterprise,…
