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Public Health Policing and The Case Against Vaccine Mandates
No full textThere can be no simple reading of a text, be it literary, philosophical or scientific, nor of the social text in the most general sense. Rather, the question must turn upon itself, no less than its putative object, as a matter of interpretation and, more important, as a matter of the forces at work in the interpretative activity under way. There is always the ascription of voice to what is otherwise silent, the attribution of a face or the placement of a mask. Le germe n’est rien, c’est le terrain qui est tout. The microbe is nothing, the soil is everything
Front Matter
No full textFront Matter includes Table of Contents for St. Thomas Law Review Volume 33, Issue 2, Spring 2021
Front Matter
No full textFront Matter includes Title Page, Masthead, advisors, and Table of Contents for St. Thomas Law Review Volume 34, Issue 1, Fall 2021
Meek Mill\u27s Trauma: Brutal Policing as an Adverse Childhood Experience
No full textMeek Mill, in his intimate autobiographical tracks of Trauma, Oodles O’Noodles Babies, and Otherside of America, describes experiencing not just several instances of childhood trauma as identified by the CDC-Kaiser Permanente study, but as a teenager, he suffered additional cruel trauma at the hands of U.S. police and a criminal justice system that wrongly imprisoned and unfairly positioned him in a revolving door between probation and prison. The data tells us that the trauma Meek experienced as a child and teenager statistically predicts a poorer life expectancy for him than those individuals that experienced no trauma or little trauma as a child and youth. Because of the anti-Black culture of policing in America, and because of the deep systemic racism that permeates the criminal justice system, simple exposure to U.S. policing and its courts should qualify as an Adverse Childhood Experience for Black and minority children—one that contributes to harmful adult outcomes, including a shortened life expectancy. Mill’s personal childhood trauma as described in his music carefully extrapolates the ways that American policing and the criminal justice system literally traumatized and endangered his young Black life, as it does so many Black children. This article begins in Section I by providing an in-depth examination of ACEs research, including how the groundbreaking original ACE study discovered the direct link between high ACE scores and poor health outcomes and the prevalence of ACEs in the Black community. It then turns, in Section II, to a brief discussion of the broad ACE category of social disadvantage, and how a child growing up in an environment built on a foundation of poverty and violence will inevitably have more trauma, more ACEs, and be harmed through his or her experience of toxic stress. Section III will provide an overview of anti-Black policing and how law enforcement, as currently constituted, traumatizes minority communities and youth. Section IV explains how criminal charging, jailing, and sentencing traditions have disproportionately targeted Black men, contributing to the trauma that their children and families experience with the loss of a loved one to death or incarceration. The article next argues that minority youth exposure to U.S. law enforcement agents and the justice system at large functions as an ACE for youth of color in a way that is simply not present for non-minority youth and, as such, should be added to the list of ACEs that are formally recognized by public health officials. Finally, the article concludes with how Meek Mill himself is seeking to reform a system rife with debilitating trauma. Throughout each section, Meek Mill, and the raw lyrics from some of his most personal tracks, will serve as an illustration, and example, of how social disadvantage, police misconduct and brutality, and the American criminal justice system at large, cause harmful and lifelong trauma for Black Americans
Media Paratext and Constitutional Interpretation
No full textIn the fields of media studies and fan studies, the concept of paratext is an analytical paradigm for understanding how audiences consume and interpret media texts, such as a novel or movie. Amid today\u27s media-rich society, it is all but impossible to encounter a media text in isolation. Rather, we also invariably interact with a wide variety of associated paratexts, from official materials like trailers or marketing to unofficial materials like reviews or fan reactions, which play a role in shaping our interpretation of the core media text. This concept of media paratext provides a compelling analogy for constitutional interpretation. We likewise do not interpret the U.S. Constitution in isolation, but always in association with related texts that inform our understanding of its meaning, such as legal precedent, historical materials, and scholarly work in relevant disciplines. Moreover, in both instances the determination of the meaning of the core text readily can be a contestable and contested endeavor. Ultimately, the comparison between constitutional interpretation and media paratext refutes the proffered objective of originalism by demonstrating the impossibility of any aspiration to sever the interpretation of an iconic text from the full range of paratextual materials that inform our understanding of it
Rebooting Internet Immunity
No full textWe do everything online. We shop, plan travel, invest, socialize, and even hold garage sales. Even though we may not care whether a company operates online or in the physical world—the distinction has important consequences for the companies themselves. Online and offline entities are governed by different rules. Under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, online entities—but not physical-world entities—are immune from lawsuits related to content authored by their users or customers. As a result, online entities have been able to avoid claims for harms caused by their negligence and defective product designs simply because they operate online. The reason for the disparate treatment is the internet’s dramatic evolution over the last two decades. The internet of 1996 served as an information repository and communications channel and was well governed by Section 230, which treats internet entities as another form of mass media. Because Facebook, Twitter, and other online companies could not possibly review the mass of content that flows through their systems, Section 230 immunizes them from claims related to user content. But content distribution is not the internet’s only function, and it is even less so now than it was in 1996. The internet also operates as a platform for the delivery of real-world goods and services and requires a correspondingly diverse immunity doctrine. This Article proposes refining online immunity by limiting it to claims that threaten to impose a content-moderation burden on internet defendants. Where a claim is preventable other than by content moderation—for example, by redesigning an app or website—a plaintiff could freely seek relief, just as in the physical world. This approach empowers courts to identify culpable actors in the virtual world and treat like conduct alike wherever it occurs
Future Disabilities and Employment Discrimination Law
No full textThis Article will first discuss the purpose of the ADA, the importance of the 2008 ADA Amendments, and how recent decisions will once again deny protections to individuals who are “regarded as” disabled. Part II describes the evolution of disability law in the form of the Rehabilitation Act, the ADA (Title I – Employment), and its amendments. Part III analyzes the “regarded as” prong of the ADA, the Sutton case which narrowly construed the protections afforded by the ADA, how the Sutton decision negatively impacted individuals discriminated against on the basis of a “disability,” and how the 2008 ADA amendments reversed these decisions to broaden the scope of the ADA and reinstate its purpose. This section also discusses the impacts Shell and STME will have on individuals seeking protection under the “regarded as” prong. Part IV proposes amending the ADA to reaffirm the broad scope of the ADA by including protection of future disabilities and creating an affirmative action program to increase the employment rates for Americans living with disabilities. Part V concludes by demonstrating how this solution is consistent with the ADA’s purpose
Let\u27s Make Some Scents of our Fourth Amendment Rights: The Discriminatory Truths Behind Using The Mere Smell of Burnt Marijuana as Probable Cause to Search A Vehicle
No full textThis Comment addresses the negative effects that have resulted and will continue to result if police officers are encouraged by jurisprudence to conduct a warrantless search of an entire vehicle based on the smell of burnt marijuana. Warrantless searches of an entire vehicle based merely on the smell of burnt marijuana grant officers unlimited power that will likely result in police misconduct, an increase in racially profiled traffic stops, and a distrust between police officers and the Black community amid the nationwide outrage over the death of George Floyd. Part II of this Comment discusses the history of the Fourth Amendment. In particular, it will discuss the vehicle exception to the search warrant requirement. Part II will also review the current circuit split among the federal courts regarding whether the smell of burnt marijuana constitutes probable cause to conduct a warrantless search of an entire vehicle. Part III examines the prevalence of discriminatory traffic stops and the shortcomings of the plain smell doctrine. Finally, Part IV offers a judicial and legislative solution to the circuit split. The Supreme Court should grant certiorari and hold that the smell of burnt marijuana, alone, emanating from a vehicle does not establish probable cause to conduct a warrantless search of an entire vehicle because it violates the Fourth Amendment and is the type of warrantless search that the Framers of the Constitution intended to avoid. The states can also address the issue by enacting laws that reduce traffic stops and limit the actions an officer can take during a traffic stop. Under these judicial and legislative changes, police officers will be made aware that they may not use the smell of burnt marijuana as a justification for conducting warrantless searches
States and Laws, Jews and Palestinians: Yadgar\u27s Traditionist Alternative. A Reflection on Yadgar, Israel\u27s Jewish Identity Crisis (Cambridge, 2020)
No full textThis essay reviews Israel\u27s Jewish Identity Crisis: State and Politics in the Middle East, published last year by Yaacov Yadgar (Stanley Lewis Professor of Israel Studies at the University of Oxford School of Global and Area Studies). His book connects Israel\u27s sometimes arcane internal identity debates to core issues in the Israel/Palestine conflict, a connection largely unexamined prior to this book