Touro College: Digital Commons @ Touro Law Center
Not a member yet
3484 research outputs found
Sort by
SLAPPS Across America
Get PDFThe Supreme Court’s landmark decision in New York Times v. Sullivan was meant to protect our fundamental right to free speech from defamation lawsuits. However, Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, known as SLAPPS, continue to chill free speech through weak but expensive to defend defamation lawsuits. In response to SLAPPs many states have passed anti-SLAPP statutes that are meant to identify SLAPPs, quickly dismiss SLAPPS, and punish plaintiffs who bring SLAPPs. A difficult issue for federal courts throughout the country is whether these state anti-SLAPP statutes should apply in federal courts. This Note examines the Supreme Court opinions in Shady Grove Orthopedic Associates, P.A. v. Allstate Insurance Co., as well as various lower court opinions, and concludes that state anti-SLAPP statutes should not apply in federal court until Congress creates a federal anti-SLAPP statute
Yes, “Stealthing” Is Sexual Assault… And We Need to Address It
Get PDFNonconsensual condom removal, more popularly known as “stealthing,” exposes victims to potential physical risks such as pregnancy and disease and, as victims make clear, feelings of violation and shame. Such condom removal changes sex from consensual sex into nonconsensual sex. There are currently no laws criminalizing stealthing in the United States. This Note considers possible criminal and civil remedies victims may seek in a court of law. Conditional consent, initial consent to sexual activity that is contingent upon intercourse with a condom and may be revoked once that condom is removed, is a key factor in stealthing cases. Ultimately, this Note recommends current sex crime laws in the United States be amended to include stealthing, and states prosecute perpetrators of stealthing as sexual assaulters, rather than as rapists
A Merritt-orious Path for Lawyer Licensing
Get PDFMore than two decades ago, Professor Deborah Merritt turned her attention to responding to the then-proliferating efforts to raise state passing scores for the bar examination. Writing with Lowell Hargens and Barbara Reskin, two professors of sociology, Professor Merritt challenged the methodology of the studies that purported to show the need to “raise the bar.” In the process, she presciently raised broader concerns about the validity of the bar exam to assess lawyer competence and the impact of the bar exam on the diversity of the legal profession. In the years since, Professor Merritt has continued to critique the bar exam, and her work has laid a foundation for the work of many others— including the authors of this piece—challenging the validity and adequacy of the current lawyer licensing system.The reach of Professor Merritt’s work far exceeds the impact of her academic scholarship. She is as concerned with practice as with theory, and her empirical work and her involvement with those advocating for change have been instrumental in both leading and encouraging others on a similar journey. We, like others, have been inspired by her to continue our work to reform the lawyer licensing process. In this Essay, we discuss and expand on Professor Merritt’s groundbreaking work re-envisioning the bar exam and developing more effective alternative licensing methods
Bringing Judaism Downtown: A Smart Growth Policy for Orthodox Jews
Get PDFUntil the late 20th century, the most rigorously traditional Jews, haredi Jews (often referred to as “ultra-Orthodox”) tended to congregate in New York City. But as New York became more expensive and haredi population grew due to high birth rates, some haredi Jews (known collectively as “haredim”) moved to small towns and outer suburbs in search of cheaper land, sometimes creating towns dominated by haredim such as Kiryas Joel, New York and Lakewood, New Jersey. As haredi populations have continued to grow, their households now seek undeveloped land outside these enclaves. But as haredim move deeper into the countryside, zoning conflicts have multiplied; residents of nearby rural and suburban towns often do not want haredi settlements nearby, and seek to use zoning and other forms of land use regulation to keep them out. Although some of these anti-haredi policies are unconstitutional, the need to litigate over them nevertheless wastes time and money. Nevertheless, haredi communities have an incentive to avoid conflicts with non-haredi suburbs, because even successful litigation is costly, time-consuming, and may lead to avoidable ill-will with residents of those communities. My article suggests that haredi communities can avoid such conflicts through a “smart growth” strategy: towns such as Lakewood can zone for more dense housing in the centers of their towns, thus reducing the need for expansion into other towns. A smart growth policy would also benefit haredim in a variety of less-political ways. First, where commercial development is scattered widely across the landscape, people may need to own a car to access shops and jobs in other neighborhoods –a significant hardship for lower-income haredi households. Second, smart growth reduces costs for school busing. If haredim lived in more compact communities, more students would live within walking distance to their schools, and thus communal busing costs would be lower. Third, more compact development, by reducing auto traffic, reduces the environmental harms from constant vehicle travel. Numerous studies have found that high levels of automobile traffic contribute to localized air pollution, which in turn increases heart disease, asthma, and similar problems- not just in major cities, but even in areas with low levels of overall pollution. Finally, a reduction in auto traffic is likely to lead to fewer injuries from car crashes
Racial Bias Still Exists in Criminal Justice System? A Review of Recent Empirical Research
Get PDFThe debate on whether racial bias is still embedded in the criminal justice (CJ) system today has reached its plateau. One recent article in the Washington Post has claimed an overwhelming evidence of racial bias in the CJ system. Whereas some scholars argue that racial disparity is an epitome of real crime rates, others indicate that implicit and/or explicit racial bias against Blacks held by law enforcement agents persists in the system. This review considers both supporting arguments and relevant counterarguments. After evaluating empirical and rigorous research during the past five years, the review maintains that racial bias still exists in the system. Implicit and/or explicit racial bias indeed influence law enforcement agents’ legal decisions and practice. Implicit bias has more detrimental consequences than the explicit one, mainly because it operates unconsciously within almost everyone, including police, prosecutors, judges, prison staff, and parole officers. Even well-intentioned law enforcement agents are not immune from the impact of implicit bias on their decision making. Implicit racial bias may further exacerbate the Black-White racial disparity in the system, as well as in the society
