The cascading cost of solar photovoltaic technologies over the past five years presents a ripe opportunity to change the way people think about solar energy, and the nascent community solar model offers the vehicle for such change. Community solar offers any electricity ratepayer the opportunity to purchase a small portion—as little as one panel—of an offsite, local solar array in exchange for...
Restoration Remedies for Remaining Residents
The foreclosure crisis left its mark on neighborhoods in countless ways. Remaining residents, those who continue to live in neighborhoods with many foreclosures, suffer unique harms because of adjacent foreclosed homes: depressed property values, higher crime, safety hazards, and reduced city services. In the current aftermath, attention has focused on preventing additional foreclosures and...
The Fifth Amendment, Encryption, and the Forgotten State Interest
This Essay considers how the Fifth Amendment’s Self-Incrimination Clause applies to encrypted data and computer passwords. In particular, it focus-es on one aspect of the Fifth Amendment that has been largely ignored: its aim to achieve a fair balance between the state’s interest and the individual’s. This aim has often guided courts in defining the Self-Incrimination Clause’s scope, and it...
Football and the Infield Fly Rule
In a previous article, I defended baseball’s infield fly rule, the special rule long beloved by legal scholars, in terms of equitable balance in distribution of costs and benefits between competing teams. This essay applies those cost-benefit and equity insights to football. It explores several plays from recent Super Bowls, the cost-benefit balance on those plays, and the appropriate role in...
Negotiating Nonproliferation: International Law and Delegation in the Iranian Nuclear Crisis
The Iranian nuclear crisis reflects international worries about Iran’s intentions in developing a nuclear energy program with potential military applications. This Article suggests that strengthening existing international institutions to more effectively provide ongoing verification of the civilian character of the Iranian program offers a diplomatic avenue of resolving this crisis. The...
Detention Without End?: Reexamining the Indefinite Confinement of Terrorism Suspects Through the Lens of Criminal Sentencing
While there has been a great deal of focus on who may be detained in the armed conflict with al-Qaeda and associated forces (the so-called war on terror), there has been relatively little consideration of how long the government may hold individuals. The Article provides a new approach to this issue. It argues that review of long-term terrorism detentions should be addressed not merely through...
California’s Unloaded Open Carry Bans: A Constitutional and Risky, but Perhaps Necessary, Gun Control Strategy
California recently passed bans on openly carrying an unloaded gun in public, but these bans may ironically result in increased concealed carrying of loaded guns in public. Before the recent string of mass shootings in Arizona, Colorado, and Connecticut, and before the U.S. Senate’s failed effort to pass gun control legislation, California strengthened its already strict gun control framework by...
Transparently Opaque: Understanding the Lack of Transparency in Insurance Consumer Protection
Consumer protection in most domains of financial regulation centers on transparency. Broadly construed, transparency involves making relevant information available to consumers as well as others who might act on their behalf, such as academics, journalists, newspapers, consumer organizations, or other market watchdogs. By contrast, command-and-control regulation that affirmatively limits...