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Death After Dobbs: Addressing the Viability of Capital Punishment for Abortion
Get PDFPre-Dobbs legislative efforts and states’ reactions in the immediate aftermath of Dobbs indicate the post-Dobbs reality that deeply conservative states will seek to criminalize abortion and impose extremely harsh sentences for such crimes, up to and including death. This Article addresses that reality. Initially, this Article illustrates that abortion and capital punishment are like opposite sides of the same coin, and it is a handful of states leading the counter majoritarian efforts on both topics. After outlining the position of each state in the nation that retains capital punishment on capital sentencing and abortion, the Article identifies the most extreme states on both issues, referenced as “Punitive States.”
Then, addressing the post-Dobbs reality that Punitive States could attempt to punish abortion by death, this Article shows that the current capital sentencing framework used across the country is incompatible with abortion offenses. The aggravating factors and mitigating circumstances, if applied to abortion offenses, would not serve their constitutional purposes. Therefore, this Article argues, capital sentences imposed under the current framework for abortion offenses would stand in violation of the Sixth and Eighth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Further, this Article argues that attempts to write abortion-specific capital sentencing procedures would prove to be acts in futility. Thus, the Article ultimately concludes that death is not a viable punishment for abortion
An Immodest Proposal: AI, LLMs, and the Case for a Standalone Legal Research Requirement
Get PDFThe legal research course is over a century old. As a law school subject, it predates many doctrinal courses, as well as the advent of clinical legal education. It is several decades older than its sister subject, legal writing. In spite of its age and obvious importance, the place of the legal research course in the law school curriculum remains contested. While some law faculties recognize the value of legal research instruction and require a standalone legal research course in the first year, the vast majority combine it with legal writing (often over the objections of legal writing instructors and law librarians alike) and/or periodically offer it as an upper-level elective under the misleading title “advanced legal research” (misleading because it is typically the law student’s introduction to the formal study of legal research).
In recent months, amidst the hype surrounding LLM-based chatbots like ChatGPT and their legal counterparts, such as CoCounsel and Harvey, there has been much speculation about a future in which so-called “AI-powered” law practice technologies ‘do your legal research and writing for you.’ But what if these new technologies actually make legal research more, not less, important. While AI products will soon generate passable legal documents, the Rules of Professional Conduct will continue to require that a human attorney take responsibility for the resulting documents, and these human attorneys will still need to do legal research to (re)familiarize themselves with the legal issues contained in these documents in order to competently file, execute, or advocate for the adoption of the arguments contained in them, as well as to break with the AI system when it fails to properly serve their clients. If this is the case, the legal research course, which already encompasses legal information literacy, technology evaluation, and prompt construction, will inevitably become a core part of the law school curriculum.
Can the advent of LLM-based tools be used to reimagine the legal research course and its place in the law school curriculum? This panel of legal research instructors and law librarians will explore this distinct possibility, mapping a new legal research curriculum in which we teach LLM-based tools rather than fear them, and the critical evaluation of legal information, including legal technologies, is front and center. Panelists will discuss curricular changes that incorporate instruction in the informed use of LLM-based tools, envisioning them as a high-tech template or latter-day form that invigorates legal research, in order to better prepare law students to work with these tools throughout their careers
SPAC Mergers, IPOs, and the PSLRA\u27s Safe Harbor: Unpacking Claims of Regulatory Arbitrage
Get PDFCommunications in connection with an initial public offering (IPO) are excluded from the safe harbor for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PSLRA). Unsurprisingly, IPO issuers do not share projections publicly—the liability risk is too great. By contrast, communications in connection with a merger are not excluded from the safe harbor, and special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) routinely share their merger targets’ projections publicly. Does the divergent application of the PSLRA’s safe harbor in traditional IPOs and SPAC mergers create an opportunity for “regulatory arbitrage” and, if so, what should be done about it? This Article offers a framework for evaluating these timely questions and for evaluating claims of regulatory arbitrage more broadly. The analysis brings into sharp focus the contestable policy choices that undergird the IPO exclusion to the PSLRA’s safe harbor
Answering the Political Question: Demonstrating an Intent-Based Framework for Partisan Gerrymandering
Get PDFPartisan gerrymandering is widely recognized as a threat to the foundations of our democracy. Political parties with control over their state legislatures routinely leverage the redistricting process to entrench themselves in power—suppressing political adversaries, chilling public participation, and polarizing the electorate. Nevertheless, despite a persistent recognition that partisan gerrymandering is incompatible with basic democratic principles, the Supreme Court struggled to develop a stable and consistent doctrinal approach to this issue, even as reliable standards emerged to adjudicate malapportionment and racial gerrymandering claims. Recently, in Rucho v. Common Cause, the Court abandoned the search entirely, holding that partisan gerrymandering is a nonjusticiable political question, grounded in impossible quantifications of fairness that leave it too amorphous for the federal courts to review.
This Article challenges the Supreme Court’s political question holding, diagnoses the breakdown of federal partisan gerrymandering doctrine, and argues in favor of an intent-based framework. Part I invokes Professor John Hart Ely’s theory of representation-reinforcing review to argue that the political question doctrine is an exploration of political discretion, and that courts have authority to overturn laws that restrict the democratic process. Part II asserts that the Supreme Court’s decision to frame partisan gerrymandering doctrine around a map’s impact on future elections, rather than the predominant intent of the mapmakers, was the source of its inability to develop manageable standards and the genesis of the doctrine’s collapse. Part III provides a unique, comprehensive synthesis of leading state and federal gerrymandering cases under the rubric of predominant legislative intent. The result is a manageable, proof-of-concept standard for partisan gerrymandering that guards against the worst distortions of the democratic process, while preserving the separation of powers and addressing the prudential concerns that hindered the evolution of this doctrine
Russia Says West Acting Like \u27Bandits\u27 for Wanting to Use Its Frozen Assets to Fund Ukraine War
Get PDFFor more than a year, an estimated 200 billion dollars in support for Ukraine. But more than 13 months into the war, concerns are growing about sustaining that level of support. Tax payers in the West, already burdened by rising inflation, have been pressuring lawmakers for relief. One US senator is working on a new bill that would allow President Joe Biden to seize Russian central bank assets and make them available to Ukraine. But would that open up more legal and political problems and what precedent would it set
Unauthorized Disclosure of Tax Return Information: When Is the United States Liable for Actions of the IRS?
Get PDFThe June 2021 ProPublica report “The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax” revealed tax return data of many of the wealthiest people in America. However, the tax information about these individuals is not public information. As part of the Tax Reform Act of 1976, Congress removed tax returns and return information from the realm of public documents and protected them under federal law. Congress also provided criminal and civil sanctions for the unauthorized disclosure of tax returns and return information. Over forty-five years later, there have been hundreds of cases adjudicated, but only a small number have resulted in damage awards to taxpayers.
This Article revisits Karnes and Lirely’s 1993 article “Striking Back at the IRS: Using Internal Revenue Code Provisions to Redress Unauthorized Disclosures of Tax Returns or Return Information” and extends the research of cases to the present. This Article will provide a historical perspective of section 7431 and review modifications to section 6103 since 1993. Next, section 7431 actions are examined, with specific attention paid to cases involving the good faith defense, statutory damage awards, court costs and attorney fees, and interpretations of unauthorized disclosures. Finally, a critical examination of whether sections 6103 and 7431 have been effective is offered, as are suggestions to improve their effectiveness to protect taxpayer information
The First Byte Rule: A Proposal for Liability of Artificial Intelligences
Get PDFArtificial Intelligences (AIs) are a relatively new addition to human civilization. From delivery robots to board game champions, researchers and businesses have found a variety of ways to apply this new technology. As it continues to grow and become more prevalent, though, so do its interactions with society at large. This will create benefits for people, through cheaper or better products and services. It also has the possibility to create harm. AIs are not perfect, and as the range of AI uses grows, so will the range of potential harms. A mistake from an AI customer service bot could fraudulently mislead a consumer. A mistake from an AI self-driving car could result in death. This Note will explore the similarities between AIs and another non-human intelligence that supports humans, animals, and particularly dogs. Given the rationale supporting animal liability laws, this Note will argue that the same set of rules should apply to AIs as well. This application of rules will increase efficiency by giving businesses using AIs foreseeability for potential liability they face. It will also help courts by having an established body of precedent prepared for this new area of oncoming disputes
Constitutional Court of Kosovo in Pristina, Kosovo
No full textCasandra Oldfield will intern in the Chambers of the President of the Constitutional Court of Kosovo. The Court reviews and rules on the interpretation of issues relating to Kosovo’s Constitution. Casandra will perform comparative constitutional analysis in furtherance of the Court’s compliance with domestic and international legal norms