The article contemplates how constitutional designers should address the problem of apex criminality, or criminal actions by those elected or appointed to high positions in a national government.
This Article accomplishes two key goals. First, it offers a novel lens through which to reconsider how best to promote meaningful choice in family form. Second, this Article draws on nonmarital parentage law, as well as the almost entirely overlooked body of what I call “interstitial marriage cases,” to demonstrate that courts are capable of applying more capacious rules that give effect to...
Forum selection clauses are ubiquitous. Historically, the judiciary was hostile to contracts limiting a plaintiff’s venue options. The tide has since turned. Today, lower courts routinely enforce such clauses. This Article challenges this reflexive response in the special context of ERISA cases.
Concerns over bot speech have led prominent figures in the world of technology to call for regulations in response to the unique threats bots pose. This work is the first to consider how efforts to regulate bots might run afoul of the First Amendment.
Nearly 90 percent of the opinions issued by the federal courts of appeal are unpublished and lack precedential effect, and where these cases lay out new legal rules, this phenomenon cannot be reconciled with the Supreme Court’s settled retroactivity jurisprudence. This article highlights this inconsistency and proposes use of the “new rule” construct as a mechanism for differentiating those...
The article focuses in on the experiences of policing faced by Somali Muslims within a larger Black Muslim community. It examines how federal “Countering Violent Extremism” program has been used against this group of Black Muslims and puts it in the broader historical context of Black Muslims in America, revealing inherent racialization of religion, and the antiblack origins of American...
This comment explores questions regarding declarations of innocence that surface in light of the Pimentel-Lopez opinion holding that the sentencing court is bound by the jury’s factual determination within the special verdict. The comment concludes that the optimal use of declarations of innocence should be limited to determination of specific offense characteristics and adjustments under the...
In response to Professor Rutschman’s questioning of the patent system’s preparedness to address the unique challenges posed by outbreak diseases like Ebola and Zika, Professor Lichtman offers a solution of his own: to recognize that, in this setting, government funding, prize systems, and other innovation-producing mechanisms should fully displace the normally attractive market-based patent...
The article addresses the role of IP in the development of vaccines for outbreak diseases like Ebola and Zika. It concludes that IP inefficiencies result in a lack of “IP preparedness” that weakens our ability to respond to outbreaks. The author proposes a new legal mechanism: a dormant license, agreed upon in the pre-outbreak period, that would become active once a public health emergency is...
The article examines crime-free housing ordinances (CHOs) as an outgrowth of the federal one-strike policy and argues that they are significantly more harmful to tenants than the one-strike policy has been. The article suggests that, before adopting or enforcing CHOs, municipalities should consider legal problems raised by CHOs in conjunction with the crime problem that they purport to address.
This Article supplements stagnating class action debates and the traditional law and economics account of class action law with behavioral psychology. It draws on a litany of behavioral tendencies, biases, and pathologies and considers their application to class action practice and Rule 23.
The article argues that the ambient focus of the Clean Air Act, which requires the monitoring and regulation of large air districts, masks pollution hotspots with poor microclimate. States and the Environmental Protection Agency may be able to address microclimate pollution using existing statutory authority by electrifying the transportation fleet, which reduces not only hotspot pollution, but...
This comment focuses on the Fourth Amendment implications of the remote use of lethal force. It examines the current constitutional standard for analyzing the reasonableness of the use of force under Graham v. Connor and discusses why it falls short in situations in which the officer has time to consider her options, as any officer engaging an individual via remotely controlled vehicle...
Social value in the drug industry comes from ensuring that consumers get the drugs they need, but also from encouraging new drug development. In the United States, where new drug development is largely in the hands of drug manufacturers, these objectives directly conflict. To achieve a suitable balance, this Comment proposes two changes to the pharmaceutical market that ensure reasonable coverage...