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Fifth Decanal Lecture: Five Years After Ferguson: Lessons Learned and Mistakes Made
No full textDean Nancy Staudt, of the Washington University-St. Louis School of Law, presented the Fifth Decanal Lecture: Five Years After Ferguson: Lessons Learned and Mistakes Made. This work examines how, located just 12 miles from Ferguson, Missouri, Washington University has learned many important lessons over the last 5 years. With social change, social justice, and community partnerships now playing an important role in the revised academic mission, many are calling the institution: Washington University FOR St. Louis rather than, simply, Washington University IN St. Louis.https://ecollections.law.fiu.edu/faculty-workshops/1048/thumbnail.jp
FIU Law Class of 2019
No full texthttps://ecollections.law.fiu.edu/graduate_composite_boards/1016/thumbnail.jp
The Supreme Court, Florida Land Claims, and Spanish Colonial Law
No full textAfter Florida became a U.S. territory in 1821, Congress established commissions to determine private land ownership in the territory. A series of federal laws on this subject followed until the mid-nineteenth century. Commissioners and the decisions of territorial courts, such as the Superior Court of East Florida, determined many claims. Some large claims were appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States where Spanish colonial law, more properly derecho indiano as used in this Chapter, was employed to decide questions of title to land. With the bulk of these appeals in the 1830s and 1840s, the Supreme Court was the final arbiter in approximately sixty cases of titles to land in Florida. The stakes were high. Disputed grants often exceeded 10,000 acres and some claims exceeded one million acres. The largest successful claim was for 1,200,000 acres, approximately the size of the state of Rhode Island. Two larger claims for 1,850,000 and 12,000,000 acres were denied. The Supreme Court confirmed grants totaling nearly two million acres. These cases have received very sparse or no treatment in the standard histories of the Court during this period.
This study focuses on the way the Supreme Court dealt with these cases with special attention to its use of derecho indiano, an early. and unusual example of the Court\u27s necessary use of foreign law. It examines the Court\u27s sources, skill, limitations, and biases when addressing complex issues of land title under a foreign legal system. Some lawyers developed a level of expertise in these matters and were consulted in such cases. Although focusing on the Supreme Court, this contribution notes that the records of lower courts and claims commissions are promising and neglected sources for studying the development of comparative law and legal methodologies in U.S. tribunals.
Part II of this Chapter describes the applicable treaty provision, the commissions established by statute, and the Supreme Court\u27s jurisdiction in these cases. Part III analyzes the cases determined by the Supreme Court, and Part IV delves into the Court\u27s use of derecho indiano to decide claims to land.https://ecollections.law.fiu.edu/faculty_books/1260/thumbnail.jp
Half-Baked: The Science and Politics of Legal Pot
Get PDFWeed, herb, grass, bud, ganja, Mary Jane, hash oil, sinsemilla, budder, and shatter. Marijuana – whether viewed as a medicine or intoxicant – is fast becoming a part of everyday life, with the CDC reporting 7,000 new users every day and the American market projected to grow to $20 billion by 2020. Based on early campaign rhetoric, by that same year the U.S. could have a pro-marijuana president.Despite its growing acceptance and popularity, marijuana remains illegal under federal law. Like heroin, LSD, and ecstasy, marijuana is a DEA Schedule I drug reflecting a Congressional determination that marijuana is both overly addictive and medically useless.So what is the truth about pot? The current massive pro-marijuana momentum and increased use, obscures the fact that we still know almost nothing about marijuana’s treatment and palliative potential. Marijuana’s main psychoactive chemical is THC; but it also contains over 500 other chemicals with unknown physiological and psychological effects that vary based on dosage and consumption method. Medical marijuana may be legal in 32 states and supported by 84% of Americans, but federal constraints shield marijuana from basic scientific inquiry. This means that lawmakers and voters are enthusiastically supporting greater access to a drug without demanding critical scientific data. For policymaking purposes, this data should include marijuana’s short and long-term brain effects, possible lung and cardiac implications, chemical interactions with alcohol and other drugs, addiction risks, pregnancy and breast-feeding concerns, and the effects of secondhand smoke.This Article treats marijuana as a significant contemporary science and law problem. It focuses on the fundamental question of regulating a substance that has not been adequately researched. The Article examines the extant scientific data, deficiencies, and inconsistencies and explains why legislators should not rely on copycat laws governing alcohol or prescription narcotics. It also explores how marijuana’s hybrid federal (illegality)/state (legality) raises compelling theoretical and practical Constitutional questions of preemption, the anti-commandeering rule, and congressional spending power. Marijuana legalization has, thus far, been treated as a niche academic concern. This approach is short-sighted and narrowminded. Marijuana regulation implicates the reach of national drug policy, the depth of state sovereignty, and the shared obligation to ensure the health and safety of our citizenry
