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What Can State Medical Boards Do to Effectively Address Serious Ethical Violations?
Get PDFState Medical Boards (SMBs) can take severe disciplinary actions (e.g., license revocation or suspension) against physicians who commit egregious wrongdoing in order to protect the public. However, there is noteworthy variability in the extent to which SMBs impose severe disciplinary action. In this manuscript, we present and synthesize a subset of 11 recommendations based on findings from our team’s larger consensus-building project that identified a list of 56 policies and legal provisions SMBs can use to better protect patients from egregious wrongdoing by physicians
Preempting Private Prisons
Get PDFIn 2019 and 2021, respectively, California and Washington enacted laws banning the operation of private prisons within each state, including those operated by private companies in contracts with the federal government. Nevertheless, the federal government continues to contract with private prisons through Immigrations and Customs Enforcement for the detention of non-United States citizens. In 2022, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held in GEO Group, Inc. v. Newsom that federal immigration law preempted California’s private prison ban.
Preemption—when federal law supersedes state law—is a doctrinal thicket. Federal courts analyze preemption issues in multiple different ways in a particular case, often leaving unclear rules as to which mode of analysis is applicable. However, recent United States Supreme Court precedent clarified how lower courts should apply preemption doctrines.
This Note asserts that the Ninth Circuit erred in GEO Group v. Newsom. In doing so, it analyzes preemption doctrines, including intergovernmental immunity and an interpretive tool called the “presumption against preemption.” It also analyzes GEO Group’s impact on Washington’s private prison statute and how the dissent’s position in GEO Group not only applied the law correctly but resulted in a more manageable allocation of state and federal power. This Note concludes by offering solutions for Washington State to avoid preemption problems in the future
Breaking Algorithmic Immunity: Why Section 230 Immunity May Not Extend to Recommendation Algorithms
Get PDFIn the mid-1990s, internet experiences were underwhelming by today’s standards, despite the breakthrough technologies at their core. When a person logged on to the internet, they were met with a static experience. No matter who you were, where you were, or how you accessed a particular website, it rendered a consistent page. Today, internet experiences are personalized, dynamic, and vast—a far cry from the digital landscape of just a few decades ago. While today’s internet is unrecognizable compared with its early predecessors, many of its governing laws remain materially unaltered. In particular, section 230 of the Communications Act, which passed in 1996, remains a critical element of the bedrock upon which the internet has flourished.
While the words of section 230’s primary provisions remain unchanged, courts’ applications have somewhat modernized to keep pace with technology. However, recommendation algorithms pose an especially tricky challenge for section 230 analyses. Initially, courts extended section 230 immunity to internet platforms for algorithmic recommendations of third-party information, but a growing cohort of circuit judges are questioning whether that treatment stretches the statute too far. Although the United States Supreme Court had an opportunity to weigh in through Gonzalez v. Google, that case’s disposition ultimately left the issue open. This Comment dives deep into the current section 230 doctrine and examines its application to recommendation algorithms. While multiple theories have emerged that could successfully limit section 230 immunity’s reach to recommendation algorithms, each will have distinct implications for the future of consumer technology. Regardless, there are multiple strategies that can feasibly negate section 230 immunity when the defendant has used recommendation algorithms
