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The Chemical Straightjacket: Institutional Over-Use of Psychotropic Drugs on Children in Lieu of Therapeutic Community Mental Health Services
No full textThis Article argues that the abysmal state of children’s mental health in America is in part due to an overreliance on and over prescription of psychotropic drugs inside psychiatric residential institutions in lieu of community based mental health services. This overreliance on residential institutions and psychotropic drugs has allowed a new form of chemical restraint to flourish—the chemical straitjacket. This Article uses the medication lists of twelve children in seven different North Carolina psychiatric residential treatment facilities to demonstrate how the chemical straitjacket operates: the prescription of drugs not approved for pediatric populations, counter to evidence-based practices for particular diagnoses, and in combination with a multitude of other drugs for non-therapeutic purposes. This Article then discusses how these chemical straitjackets are caused by state oversight failures and continued state commitments to institutionalization. Ultimately, this Article argues that the chemical straitjacket and its cause, institutionalization, are a breach of children’s rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act and proposes policy and legal solutions to help control these concerning practices
A Bloody Mess: Why Blood Plasma Donation Centers Are Not Public Accommodations Subject to Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act
No full textUnconcerned and Undertrained: The Indiana Jail Death Epidemic and the Need for Expanded Jail Officer Training
Full text linkOn October 4, 2018, Jerod Draper lost his life after two hours of torture by Harrison County jail officers. While in custody of the jail and suffering from an overdose, Jerod Draper was placed in a restraint chair for two hours and tased seven times in fifteen minutes. Jerod Draper’s story is one of the many stories demonstrating how a jail death epidemic is occurring throughout Indiana. In this Note, I discuss the history of incarceration in the United States, the statutes under which families of jail death victims can sue, and Indiana’s jail death problem. I then highlight Indiana’s problematic jail officer training requirements, as well as the composition of the Indiana Law Enforcement Training Board, the entity responsible for designing and implementing jail officer training. I also present an analysis of various states’ statutory training requirements for jail officers and correctional officers. Lastly, in an effort to combat the Indiana jail epidemic, I propose two changes. First, I propose changes to Indiana’s statutory training requirements for jail officers that would require continuing education and require jail officers to complete at least part of their training before beginning in their roles. Second, I propose the addition of new voices to the Indiana Law Enforcement Training Board, specifically the voices of medical professionals and former inmates
Under the Radar: The Hidden Harms of Patent Practices in Defense Contracting
Full text link28 U.S.C. § 1498 allows the federal government and its contractors to use patented technologies without prior authorization, with the government assuming liability for infringement. While originally intended to facilitate procurement, its modern application has weakened patent protections, allowing contractors to incorporate patented innovations with minimal legal or financial consequences. This system disincentivizes private-sector investment in military technology, distorts competition, and increases procurement inefficiencies, ultimately placing the burden of infringement on taxpayers. The resulting imbalance not only stifles innovation but also entrenches reliance on a small group of dominant defense contractors, reducing technological diversity and slowing progress. Addressing these shortcomings requires structural reforms, including stronger licensing requirements, reallocation of infringement liability, and mechanisms to ensure good-faith licensing negotiations. Without intervention, Section 1498 will continue to undermine both technological advancement and the long-term efficiency of U.S. defense procurement
Design Patent Law\u27s Three Little Words
Full text linkU.S. design patent law protects the visual characteristics of articles of manufacture. For many years, major manufacturers of athletic footwear have protected their visually iconic designs with design patents, fueling a global market valued at nearly $100 billion. Today, however, shoe design has arrived in the digital universe. Digital sneakers such as Gucci’s Virtual 25 and Nike’s “Our Force Ones” can be “worn” only in virtual worlds but have substantial real world economic value. Yet U.S. design patent law makes it difficult—some would say impossible—to protect those designs, on the ground that they do not satisfy the statutory requirement for a design for an “article of manufacture.” On that reasoning, a visually innovative athletic shoe would be eligible for design patent protection, while its visually identical digital counterpart would be ineligible, and the same would be true of a vast array of other valuable digital designs. This Essay examines critically the role of the article of manufacture requirement in contemporary and future design patent law, challenging whether the prevailing approach to that requirement in current Federal Circuit law and PTO practice is suitable for emergent areas of design endeavors such as designs for elements of digital environments, designs rendered for virtual and augmented reality, and designs for holographic projections
Generative AI\u27s Copyright Enigma: A Comparative Study of Fair Use and Fair Dealing
Full text linkAt the dawn of this decade, generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) models were at the apogee of modern science and technology. Their emergence introduced the world to a new paradigm of creativity and innovation, where machines can synthesize art, literature, and design with unprecedented sophistication, blurring the boundaries between human ingenuity and algorithmic computation. These models have the capacity to regenerate Oscar Wilde with the depiction of Ansel Adams, rewrite Harry Potter with William Shakespear’s proverbial tongue, and redesign St. Peter’s Basilica with Gothic arches, Seljuk carved stones, and an Antoni Gaudi roof architecture, relocated in the heart of New York City with the facile of a prompt. Despite this novelty, the copyright industry was perturbed by what they considered a twofold threat to their livelihood. On the one hand, authors feared their works were being exploited, likely reproduced, without adequate remuneration. On the other hand, they feared these models were ominously generating new works, possibly derivative works, that directly compete with the very works that were used in the model’s formation. The matter is currently being adjudicated in courts across the globe.
This article examines whether fair use can protect AI companies from copyright liability for both the training process, which allegedly relies on the process of feeding AI datasets (foundation models) predominantly with copyrighted material scraped off the internet for purposes of machine learning; and the outputs that directly compete with the sampled material exploited during the training process. Although several scholars have begun to articulate their own thesis vis-à-vis its legality domestically, this article compares and anticipates how the judiciary in the United States will address these issues as opposed to courts in fair dealing jurisdictions across the globe. The article will expose how the dichotomy between the fair use doctrine and the fair dealing clause imperatively affects the progression of these types of technologies, concluding that fair use is more conductive to development than its foreign counterparts
On Software Bugs and Legal Bugs: Product Liability in the Age of Code
Full text linkDespite software’s ubiquity in modern life, its classification within product liability law remains unsettled. Is software a product, a service, a good, a component, a medium, a force, or something else altogether? Under the Restatement (Third) of Torts, a product is defined as a “tangible personal property distributed commercially for use or consumption.” But has this definition been embraced by states? And how has it been applied in the courts, since its adoption some twenty-six years ago?
Through a fifty-state survey and the canvassing of all relevant case law, this Essay reveals widespread doctrinal inconsistencies within the common law. Some states adopt restrictive definitions of “product” tied to tangibility, while others take broader approaches or leave the term undefined, creating uncertainty in software-related claims. Judicial decisions further complicate this landscape, with courts diverging on whether software qualifies as a product, particularly in cases involving embedded or cloud-based solutions like software-as-a-service.
This Essay contrasts U.S. law with the 2024 European Union Product Liability Directive, which redefines software and artificial intelligence as products, establishing a forward-looking framework that imposes strict liability for software defects. This stark divergence exposes the United States’ failure to modernize its legal frameworks, forcing courts to rely on outdated definitions that inadequately address the risks posed by emerging technologies. By lagging behind Europe, the United States cedes its historic role as a pioneer in tort law, creating a regulatory vacuum that prioritizes developer interests over consumer safety and undermines global trust in its ability to regulate the digital economy effectively
Honoring our 2025 Pro Bono Award Recipients
No full textThe Indiana University Maurer School of Law celebrated its 2025 Pro Bono Award winners this week, honoring students, faculty, and community members who have demonstrated exceptional dedication to serving others through legal advocacy and volunteer work.
The student awards recognized the individuals in each class who logged the highest number of pro bono hours during the past academic year. This year’s honorees were: Laura Stancato ’26, of Fishers, Indiana, who was honored for her leadership with the Protective Order Project and the Civil Protective Order Clinic. “This work uncovered a passion for helping others, particularly survivors of sexual and domestic violence,” Stancato said. Anekah Fish ’27, of Valparaiso, Indiana, who volunteered with POP, the Incarcerated Individuals Legal Assistance Project, and the LGBTQ+ Project. “Pro bono work is both a refreshing break from the demands of law school and a reminder of the tangible benefits of legal work,” she said. Alina Isaeva ’26, an advanced standing JD student originally from Russia, who was recognized for her dedication to humanitarian immigration law. “The law is most meaningful when it protects the vulnerable and gives voice to those who have been silenced,” she shared
Discord and the Pentagon\u27s Watchdog: Countering Extremism in the U.S. Military
Full text linkIn his 2022 book, Ward Farnsworth crafts a metaphor from the lead-pipe theory for the fall of Rome to consider how rage and misinformation traveling through today’s technology-enabled pipes are poisoning our civic engagement and threatening our governmental structures: “We have built networks for the delivery of information––the internet, and especially social media. These networks too, are a marvel. But they also carry a kind of poison with them. The mind fed from those sources learns to subsist happily on quick reactions, easy certainties, one-liners, and rage.”1 This Article carries the metaphor into a new context and considers what should be done when the poison being transported through the digital pipes is directed at members of the U.S. military. While extremism in the U.S. military is not a new threat, the events of January 6, 2021, brought the threat into much sharper focus. It exposed three preexisting trends, each sitting in plain sight but not yet woven together. These trends include a growing acceptance of extremist views and ideologies in U.S. military and veteran communities, an increase in violent extremist acts committed by individuals with military backgrounds, and the enhanced use of digital platforms by extremist groups to target their messaging to and strengthen their recruitment of individuals with military experience. To return to the metaphor, the extremist poison is teeming through the pipes at an alarming rate, and the number of pipes has increased to include social media platforms, encrypted chat tools, gaming platforms, podcasts, and music streaming apps, including YouTube, Discord, Gab, Telegram, and WhatsApp, among many others. In offering these observations, the author is mindful of not overstating the threat and takes seriously warnings as to the adverse consequences that follow from hyperbole and exaggeration. Indeed, a fundamental difficulty is the lack of understanding as to scope and scale of the extremism threat in the U.S. military. This Article attempts to draw the contours of that threat, exposes the structural and legal obstacles that make countering extremism in the military such a fraught exercise, and identifies actors, tools, and mechanisms—beyond the conventional options––able to overcome these long-standing structural and institutional obstacles