Current Print Edition
Elena Smalline
J.D., Cornell Law School, 2023; B.S. (Business Management and Psychological Sciences), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 2020.
What does it mean for one to be insane enough to not be held responsible for a criminal act one committed? The answer to this question varies across differing eras, cultures, countries, and laws. If one were to ask English legal-scholar Sir Matthew Hale, he would assert that to be insane enough to not be…
Alison Draikiwicz
J.D., Cornell Law School, 2023; B.A., Wellesley College, 2018.
In recent years, judges and commentators have sounded the alarm on litigators’ increasingly extensive research into jurors’ and venirepersons’ online presences. Despite critics’ ethical and practical concerns, the age of “voir google” continues to thrive and evolve. In this Note, I seek to contextualize the era of online investigations within the broader era of American…
John J. Martin
Research Assistant Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law.
Under U.S. campaign finance jurisprudence, electoral candidates have the right to self-fund their campaigns without limitation. The majority of self-funded candidates do so by issuing personal loans—i.e., personal money given to their campaign with the expectation of having it paid back. Many such candidates rely on outside contributions to help repay these personal loans, leaving…
Eric S. Fish
Acting Professor of Law, University of California at Davis.
Nearly four million people are under criminal supervision in the United States. Most are on probation or parole. They can be sent to prison if a judge concludes that they violated the terms of their supervision. When that happens, there is no right to a jury trial. The violation only needs to be proven to…
Neal Devins & David E. Lewis
Sandra Day O’Connor Professor of Law and Professor of Government, College of William and Mary & Rebecca Webb Wilson University Distinguished Professor, Vanderbilt University.
Republicans and Democrats are fighting the wrong fight over independent agencies. Republicans are wrong to see independent agencies as anathema to hierarchical presidential control of the administrative state. Democrats are likewise wrong to reflexively defend independent agency expertise and influence. Supreme Court Justices also need to break free from this trap; the ongoing struggle over…
Current Online Edition
Maryam Jamshidi
Associate Professor of Law at the University of Colorado Law School.
In their article, Vigilante Federalism, Jon Michaels and David Noll sound the alarm about the rising trend of “vigilante federalism” across various states. As Michaels and Noll describe this phenomenon, Republican-led jurisdictions have been passing private enforcement laws empowering private actors to bring civil suits targeting certain activities and communities, including abortion, LGBTQI persons, and…
Zachary D. Clopton
Professor of Law, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law.
Procedure is power, to be sure, but we should not let a lawyerly interest in procedural design distract from substantive justice. Vigilante Federalism makes an invaluable contribution by showing how a particular procedural form has been used to undermine substantive justice. The authors deserve enormous credit for documenting, publicizing, and criticizing what they call “private…
Charles W. “Rocky” Rhodes & Howard M. Wasserman
Professor of Law and Charles Weigel II Research Professor of State and Federal Constitutional Law, South Texas College of Law Houston & Professor of Law, FIU College of Law.
Jon Michaels’ and David Noll’s Vigilante Federalism decries the explosion of a specific class of state law—prohibiting locally unpopular, although perhaps constitutionally protected, conduct using private civil litigation as the exclusive or primary enforcement mechanism. The trend begins with the Texas Heartbeat Act in 2021 (commonly referred to as “S.B. 8”), which prohibited abortions (prior…
Talia Fisher
Anny and Paul Yanowicz Professor of Human Rights, Tel Aviv University Faculty of Law and visiting fellow at Harvard Law School’s Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy (2023).
This Essay addresses the most fundamental jurisprudential question underlying the institution of evidence law: it explores the justifications for subjecting legal fact‑finding to the regulation of evidence rules. This issue has been at the center of evidence law scholarship since the days of Bentham’s Rationale of Judicial Evidence, which advocated a naturalistic approach to legal…
Brian Galle
Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Imagine that we had to fight and adapt to the COVID-19 epidemic using only vintage 1970s technology. No mRNA vaccines; no designer anti-viral drugs. Want to work from home? Try that on a dial-up modem that transmits about 800 bits of information per second (today’s high-speed internet is literally one hundred million times faster). Nevertheless,…
Josh A. Roth
J.D. Candidate, Cornell Law School, 2024.
The asylum system in the United States is a melting pot of political discourse, international relations, and novel questions of law. Among other legal requirements, an asylee bears the burden of showing (1) they were persecuted or have a well-founded fear of future persecution and (2) that the persecution was committed by the government or…
Brian Callaci & Sandeep Vaheesan
Chief economist, Open Markets Institute & Legal director, Open Markets Institute
Can parties control independent trading partners through contract? Antitrust law in the United States has confronted this question since its inception. From the 1940s through the 1970s, the Supreme Court generally held that corporations could not control the business decisions of distributors and suppliers using contracts, or vertical restraints in the parlance of antitrust. For…
Jennifer Aronsohn
Law clerk to Justice Clint Bolick, Arizona Supreme Court. J.D., Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, 2021.
Zoning has captured the nation’s attention in recent years: community activism has led cities and states to revisit their zoning codes as a means to increase access to affordable housing. The primary focus has been on single family zoning and its exclusionary effect in reinforcing segregation. However, within some municipalities’ zoning code is a less…
Jill Goldenziel
Professor, National Defense University-College of Information and Cyberspace. Ph.D., A.M., Government, Harvard; J.D. NYU Law; A.B. Princeton
Unlike zombies, Ukraine’s lawfare strategy is very much alive. Ukraine’s lawsuits harm Russia’s reputation in the international community and give states legal ammunition to sanction Russia. Lawfare between Russia and Ukraine will change the future of international law and armed conflict. To explain how and why, this paper proceeds in four parts. Part I briefly…
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