Abstract This Comment analyzes class actions brought against the Los Angeles Police Department to examine how effective class actions are as a tool for reforming police practices, and how they can be improved. To determine the effectiveness of class actions, I compare the remedies obtained in class actions to the claims brought in later cases with similar facts; specifically, I focus on whether...
Voter Identification and the Forgotten Civil Rights Amendment: Why the Court Should Revive the Twenty-Fourth Amendment
Abstract Since Reconstruction, states have passed laws to limit the power of those traditionally not permitted to vote (i.e. not white men). These barriers on the right to vote include, inter alia, the payment of poll taxes, which were often required months in advance of an election. In 1964, prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, three-quarters of the States...
Abortion Regulation as Compelled Speech
This Article outlines a novel First Amendment compelled speech claim against a growing body of abortion restrictions, including fetal demise and burial laws, premised on a state interest in “expressing respect for potential life.” It weaves Fourteenth Amendment limitations together with developments set out last year in NIFLA v. Becerra to demonstrate that the Court’s expanding First Amendment...
Decarbonization in Democracy
Abstract Conventional wisdom holds that democracy is structurally ill equipped to confront climate change. As the story goes, because each of us tends to dismiss consequences that befall people in other places and in future times, the people cannot be trusted to craft adequate decarbonization policies designed to reduce present-day, domestic carbon emissions. Accordingly, U.S. climate change...
Derivable Works
From sequels and spin-offs to physical merchandise, copyright and trademark law together give a creative work’s owner exclusive control over a range of derivative products. This Article argues that, under the right conditions, that control can tilt artistic investment away from standalone works and toward the ones that are most likely to generate future derivatives. It explores this phenomenon...
Big Data Prosecution and Brady
As helpful as new forms of centralized data collection might be for investigators, there remains a critical open issue: the systems were not designed to identify the exculpatory and impeaching material prosecutors are required to disclose under Brady v. Maryland. This Article is the first to examine the design flaw at the core of the intelligence-driven prosecution model – a flaw that creates a...
#MeToo's Unseen Frontier: Law Enforcement Sexual Misconduct and the Fourth Amendment Response
Abstract If a police officer pulls a person over for running a stop sign, the Fourth Amendment clearly applies. But if he sexually assaults a person in her home, in a noninvestigative setting, it generally does not. A substantive due process test—whether the officer’s conduct “shocks the conscience”—controls instead. This means more constitutional protection for officers and less for victims...
Love in the Time of Cholera
Abstract A famous novel by Gabriel García Márquez describes a love story among three actors that took place in a city in Colombia during the time of cholera. The interpersonal dynamics that unfold in this work by a Nobel Prize-winning writer offer insight into events taking place today. We show how the urge to romanticize emotions during a time of great social stress, as well as the desire to...