The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law
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Veterans Treatment Courts: Broadening Eligibility for Veterans Convicted of Violent Offenses
Full text linkVeterans treatment courts (VTCs) have been gaining widespread popularity as a tool to divert justice-involved veterans from the criminal justice system. While a step in the right direction, most of these courts categorically exclude violent offenders for eligibility. Many jurisdictions conflate violent offenses with serious offenses, even when many violent offenses lack any physical harm. Additionally, prosecutors wield almost unbridled discretion in determining whether or not someone is charged with an offense considered to be violent, determining VTC eligibility even before a case reaches a sentencing hearing.
This comment argues for admitting veterans convicted of violent offenses into VTCs. This comment compares VTCs that exclude violent offenses with those that include them, and argues that a standard-based approach serves public safety and the needs of a justice-involved veteran better than a rule-based approach that categorically excludes violent offenses.
While the criminal justice system as a whole would benefit from diverting violent offenders, the veteran community has a particular need for such broadened eligibility. Most veterans incarcerated in state systems have been convicted of violent offenses, yet only a modest amount of VTC admissions represent veterans convicted of violent offenses. Additionally, even though the largest ground combat operations of the Global War on Terror have come to an end, there will continue to be justice-involved veterans who will benefit from broader eligibility for VTCs
Tackling Vulnerabilities Through Corporate Duties
Full text linkIn this article, and drawing on the work of Fineman and others, we use a vulnerability lens as a device to emphasize the protection that could be offered to vulnerable parties in corporations through directors’ duties. By situating corporations in the vulnerability paradigm, we will discuss the limitations of formal equality and clarify the role played by corporate law. The increasingly blurred distinction between private law and public law will be discussed to rationalize the protection of the vulnerable through collective responsibility. Vulnerability theory mediates conflicts between calls for “regulatory state policies” and “individual responsibility” to supervise and monitor corporate actions by improving resilience in four kinds and two stages. We observe that vulnerability is universal in corporations, but priority should be given to the vulnerable parties with the highest dependency, whose identity varies depending on both internal and external contexts. The vulnerability paradigm, assisted by Goodin’s analysis of protecting the vulnerable, lays a solid theoretical base to explain directors’ duties towards vulnerable parties, particularly those with the highest dependency, within the vulnerability matrix. These parties will periodically enjoy prioritized protection over other constituencies occupying less threatened positions
Freedom, Moral Purpose, and Self-Limitation: The Enduring Wisdom of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
No full textThe Center for Law and the Human Person at The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law (Catholic Law) hosted Professor Daniel Mahoney of Assumption University for a lecture on “Freedom, Moral Purpose, and Self-Limitation: The Enduring Wisdom of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.”
Following an opening prayer and brief introduction by Center co-director Elizabeth Kirk, Mahoney delivered remarks on Solzhenitsyn’s philosophical contributions to an audience that filled the Walter A. Slowinski Courtroom. After sharing various fascinating biographical details about Solzhenitsyn, Mahoney described Solzhenitsyn’s enduring legacy as a fearless champion for the truth and an implacable opponent of the Soviet Union’s totalitarian regime
Public Policy, Social Media, & Government Regulation
No full textPresented by the Law School’s Law and Technology Institute (LTI), the 2024 Dean William Callyhan Robinson Lecture focused on public policy, social media, and government regulation. Catholic Law professor and LTI co-director Elizabeth I. Winston welcomed attendees before yielding the floor to the evening’s featured panelists—Katie Peters ’09, Senior Vice President for Public Policy at FanDuel; Allison Lefrak, Senior Counsel for Global Privacy and Regulatory Affairs at TikTok; and Gina Woodworth, Director of Public Policy for the Americas at Snap, Inc.—who discussed not only government regulations but also policy challenges facing social media platforms in the areas of privacy, safety, and artificial intelligence. The energetic conversation was moderated by David Redl ’06, founder and CEO of Salt Point Strategies
Treating the Administrative as Law: Responding to the “Judicial Aggrandizement” Critique
Full text linkModern separation-of-powers jurisprudence—including key decisions decided during the Supreme Court’s 2023-24 term—has been critiqued on the grounds that it constitutes “judicial aggrandizement,” i.e., that it impermissibly empowers federal courts to decide separation-of-powers questions better left to Congress and the President. This “judicial aggrandizement” critique goes too far to the extent it suggests that federal courts may not play any role in enforcing the separation of powers. After all, ours is a system of a President and Congress constrained by a written Constitution—not a King in Parliament free to act outside of judicial constraint. But the “judicial aggrandizement” critique is persuasive to the extent it recognizes that federal courts must not play an exclusive role in policing the separation of powers. That is in part because, as this Essay will explain, administrative agencies can help federal courts enforce the separation of powers.
Recognizing the complementary role that agencies can play in enforcing the separation of powers may require understanding “law” in a new light. That new light—which was actually lit more than two thousand years ago—is offered by a natural law tradition. That tradition recognizes “law” as a tool for instilling in actors those characteristics (called “virtues”) that enable actors to perform their functions excellently. Thus, by treating the “administrative” (i.e., agency action) as “law” (i.e., a tool for instilling virtue), agencies can help legislators develop the virtues that those legislators need to perform their constitutional functions excellently
Dude, Where’s My Data? A Legislative Band-Aid for Data Brokers’ Bullet Hole in Consumer Privacy Protection
Full text linkThe development and proliferation of the Internet, GPS, cell phones, social media, and the associated data that support these now ubiquitous technologies have created a new ecosystem of information making up a person’s digital identity. Our digital footprints have traditionally been subject to different levels of privacy protection depending upon the kind of data at issue. Over time, court decisions have revealed tensions and a lack of consistency on the question of how the protections guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment apply to an individual’s digital footprint and their reasonable expectations of privacy over it. This Comment will examine the gaps in the current landscape of U.S. privacy protections in the absence of federally explicit legislative protections. First, it will examine current federal statutory privacy law and the piecemeal approach through which certain areas of information or categories of individuals are protected. Next, it will examine the development of the Supreme Court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence as applied to individual privacy rights. It will then analyze the gaps in privacy protection in both statutory and case law and recommend a unified federal statutory approach to ensure that currently legal uses of data do not, when aggregated, yield an impermissibly intrusive infringement of the privacy rights of U.S. citizens in violation of the spirit of the Fourth Amendment’s protections. It will recommend a legislative solution to fill those gaps, provide a clear expression of how certain kinds of data can and cannot be used, and ensure these critical protections are applied equally to all, regardless of the state in which any individual lives
Conference on Developments in the Regulation of Financial Products
No full textOn Friday, October 4, 2024, the Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law (Catholic Law) hosted its Third Annual Conference on Securities Law, the subject of which was Developments in the Regulation of Financial Products. This event was made possible through the sponsorship and support of Catholic Law’s Securities Law Program (SLP), along with co-sponsors Dechert LLP, K&L Gates LLP, and Kirkland & Ellis LLP. Coordinated by SLP Director Jack W. Murphy, the conference was held in the Walter A. Slowinski Courtroom and virtually via Zoom, welcoming guests, professionals, and members of the Catholic Law community, including faculty, staff, and students. Eligible attendees also had the opportunity to earn continuing legal education (CLE) credits
A Conversation with Justice Brett Kavanaugh at Catholic Law
No full textOn Thursday, September 26th, the Center for the Constitution and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition (CIT) hosted a conversation with Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh of the United States Supreme Court. The event, moderated by CIT Director J. Joel Alicea, and attended by faculty, students, and alumni of Catholic Law, marks the beginning of another ambitious year of CIT programming, and its first year as a permanent Center at Catholic Law.
The conversation between Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh and Prof. Joel Alicea covered everything from the jurisprudence of recent Court decisions like Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and United States v. Rahimi, to the relationship between originalism and tradition, the recent strides made by Court decisions upholding religious liberty, and what the Catholic intellectual tradition can contribute to legal education, among others