A machine gun overpowers a nine-year-old girl, erratically spraying bullets and accidentally killing her instructor; a perturbed mother slays her son and then takes her own life; a convicted felon circumvents federal prohibitions to access a firearm to commit suicide; and, perhaps most notably, Navy SEAL war veteran Chris Kyle, focus of the movie American Sniper, is murdered while attempting to...
Can a Tailor Mend the Analytical Hole? A Framework for Understanding Corporate Constitutional Rights
The Supreme Court’s decisions relating to corporate constitutional rights are a conceptual quagmire. While the Court has grappled with the proper scope of corporate rights for more than two centuries, it has failed to articulate a consistent approach to determine which rights corporations should receive and how those rights should be delineated. As a result, the Court has issued a long line of...
Exiting Solitary Confinement: A Survey of State Correctional Policies
Given the emerging consensus that solitary is a weapon used with distressing frequency in U.S. prisons, researchers and practitioners must seriously consider existing tools that allow prisoners to contest their confinement. Thus, although most states now have policies and procedures detailing how prisoners are assigned to solitary, this Comment analyzes policies on the opposite end of the...
Celebration of the Life of Professor Skye Donald
On October 23, 2016, the UCLA School of Law hosted a memorial to celebrate the life of Professor Skye Donald, whose battle with cancer ended on October 16, 2016. Family, friends, colleagues, and students gathered to remember Professor Donald for the joy she brought to the world, and the lasting impression she will continue to have on our lives. UCLA Law Review Discourse is honored to offer a...
Unlawful Assembly as Social Control
Public protests from Occupy to Ferguson have highlighted anew the offense of unlawful assembly. This Article advances the simple but important thesis that contemporary understandings of unlawful assembly cede too much discretion to law enforcement by neglecting earlier statutory and common law elements that once constrained liability. Current laws also ignore important First Amendment norms...
The Free Exercise of Religious Identity
In recent years, a particular strain of argument has arisen in response to decisions by courts or the government to extend certain rights to others. Grounded in religious freedom, these arguments suggest that individuals have a right to operate businesses or conduct their professional roles in a manner that conforms to their religious identity. For example, as courts and legislatures have...
Reassessing the Distinction Between Corporate and Securities Law
Public companies in the United States must comply with both federal securities law and state corporate law. This division of labor is premised on the assumption that there is a meaningful distinction between securities and corporate law. The most common view is that securities law is characterized by its use of disclosure, while corporate law sets forth substantive requirements. Critics respond...
Obergefell v. Hodges: Kinship Formation, Interest Convergence, and the Future of LGBTQ Rights
This Comment seeks to reframe Obergefell v. Hodges as a product of kinship formation and interest convergence. Obergefell v. Hodges is not merely a case about LGBTQ and marriage equality, or the moral triumph of oppressed sexual minorities over the majority. It is through marriage that unrelated people come together and form a legal relationship that surpasses any other in terms of state...