Exploring New Approaches to Unsettled Legal Questions

Author: Ryan Knox Page 1 of 2

Innocent Until My Attorney Says So: The Sixth Amendment and Admissions of Guilt in Capital Cases

by Rona Li*

In a cap­i­tal case, can a defense attor­ney, against his client’s express objec­tions, con­cede his client’s guilt to the jury? In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Rona Li (’19) dis­cuss­es the tri­al strat­e­gy of a defense attor­ney con­ced­ing guilt to avoid a death sen­tence and the con­flict with his client’s Sixth Amend­ment right to con­duct his own defense. Ulti­mate­ly, this Con­tri­bu­tion argues that when a defense attor­ney admits his client’s guilt to the jury over his client’s unequiv­o­cal objec­tion, he vio­lates the defendant’s Sixth Amend­ment right to make fun­da­men­tal deci­sions about his case, and fur­ther, that his actions con­sti­tute inef­fec­tive assis­tance of counsel.

Cars in Castles: The Fourth Amendment’s Automobile Exception and the Curtilage of the Home

by Kristin Mul­vey*

When an auto­mo­bile is parked in a dri­ve­way in the cur­tilage of the home, does the auto­mo­bile excep­tion to the Fourth Amend­ment still apply? In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Kristin Mul­vey (’19) argues that the auto­mo­bile excep­tion to the Fourth Amend­ment should not apply when the vehi­cle is in the cur­tilage of the home. Fur­ther, this Con­tri­bu­tion demon­strates that the under­ly­ing jus­ti­fi­ca­tions for the auto­mo­bile excep­tion do not sup­port a war­rant­less search of an auto­mo­bile parked in a driveway.

Arrests and the Americans with Disabilities Act: Towards a Unitary Reasonableness Standard

by Conor Gaffney*

How should police offi­cers take into account the dif­fer­ent needs of a per­son with dis­abil­i­ties dur­ing an arrest? In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Conor Gaffney (’18) exam­ines the role of the Amer­i­cans with Dis­abil­i­ties Act in gov­ern­ing arrests and inves­ti­ga­tions by police of per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties. Ulti­mate­ly, this Con­tri­bu­tion argues that the ADA’s rea­son­able accom­mo­da­tion require­ment mod­i­fies what search­es and seizures of indi­vid­u­als with dis­abil­i­ties are con­sid­ered rea­son­able under the Fourth Amendment.

Disclosure Duties as Public Policy?: Setting Aside Arbitration Decisions Under New York State Law

by John Muller*

In 2008, fed­er­al tri­al and appel­late courts found against the NFL Play­ers Asso­ci­a­tion on the appeal of an arbitrator’s deci­sion on the grounds that the league and pol­i­cy admin­is­tra­tors had breached their fidu­cia­ry duties to play­ers. The tri­al court held that the steroid policy’s strict lia­bil­i­ty regime pre­clud­ed any breach of fidu­cia­ry duties, and the Eighth Cir­cuit found on appeal that plain­tiffs had failed to offer author­i­ty under New York law for a pub­lic pol­i­cy encour­ag­ing the per­for­mance of fidu­cia­ry duties. Did the NFL case get it right? In this Con­tri­bu­tion, John Muller (’19) argues that to pre­serve New York’s pub­lic pol­i­cy, courts should set aside the result of arbi­tra­tion under a col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ment on state com­mon law grounds in these breach of fidu­cia­ry duty cases.

Always a Monopoly, Never a Monopolist: Why Antitrust is the Wrong Regulatory Scheme for Protecting Competition in Technical Standards

by Ran­di Brown*

When patent hold­ers gain stan­dard-essen­tial sta­tus, should antitrust law treat the monop­oly con­ferred on them like every oth­er monop­oly? In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Ran­di Brown (’19) argues that the best approach to such monop­o­lies is not to expose them to antitrust scruti­ny, but instead to allow con­tract and patent reme­dies to main­tain the ben­e­fits to com­pe­ti­tion and inno­va­tion afford­ed by standardization.

License Denied: Some State Occupational Licensing Laws Might be Unconstitutional Under the Equal Protection Clause

by Maya Dana­her*

Are state occu­pa­tion­al licens­ing laws that pro­hib­it cer­tain peo­ple con­vict­ed of crimes from receiv­ing Emer­gency Med­ical Tech­ni­cian (EMT) licens­es uncon­sti­tu­tion­al under the Equal Pro­tec­tion Clause of the Four­teenth Amend­ment? In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Maya Dana­her (’18) dis­cuss­es the con­sti­tu­tion­al issues aris­ing from state licens­ing laws that with­hold EMT licen­sure from peo­ple con­vict­ed of crimes. Ulti­mate­ly, this Con­tri­bu­tion argues that the Equal Pro­tec­tion Clause pro­hibits such state laws.

Dead on Deferral?: Whether to Prosecute Companies That Fail to Comply with DPAs

by Brit­tney Nagle*

What actions should pros­e­cu­tors and reg­u­la­tors take fol­low­ing a finan­cial insti­tu­tion’s fail­ure to meet the terms of a Deferred Pros­e­cu­tion Agree­ment? In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Brit­tney Nagle (’18) ana­lyzes the options and reme­dies that U.S. pros­e­cu­tors and reg­u­la­tors can pur­sue to pro­mote account­abil­i­ty in the finan­cial sec­tor. This Con­tri­bu­tion ulti­mate­ly argues that they should pur­sue a com­bi­na­tion of crim­i­nal charges against the insti­tu­tions and actions to dis­gorge top exec­u­tives of bonus­es and oth­er dis­cre­tionary income.

Sustaining Academic Freedom: The Need to Redefine the Threshold Question in First Amendment Claims Brought by Public University Professors

by Emi­ly Sev­er­al*

Can a pub­lic uni­ver­si­ty ter­mi­nate a pro­fes­sor for speech made relat­ed to the uni­ver­si­ty? In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Emi­ly Sev­er­al (’18) ana­lyzes the scope of pub­lic employ­ees’ First Amend­ment rights with regard to speech made in their per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al capac­i­ties. This Con­tri­bu­tion ulti­mate­ly argues that the Supreme Court should estab­lish an excep­tion to the thresh­old require­ment set in Garcetti v. Cebal­los in order to pre­serve aca­d­e­m­ic free­dom on pub­lic uni­ver­si­ty campuses.

Don’t Depart From Deterrence: The Exclusionary Rule And Warrants Based On Tainted Evidence

by Savan­nah Ash­by*

Should the Fourth Amend­ment exclu­sion­ary rule apply when an offi­cer acts in good faith in the exe­cu­tion of a war­rant based on taint­ed evi­dence? In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Savan­nah Ash­by (’18) dis­cuss­es the dif­fer­ing ways in which Courts of Appeals have applied the good faith excep­tion to the exclu­sion­ary rule in sit­u­a­tions where the war­rant is based on taint­ed evi­dence. Ulti­mate­ly, this Con­tri­bu­tion argues that the good faith excep­tion to the exclu­sion­ary rule should not apply to evi­dence obtained in exe­cu­tion of a war­rant based on taint­ed evi­dence as it more con­sis­tent with the goal of the exclu­sion­ary rule: deter­ring offi­cers from com­mit­ting Fourth Amend­ment violations.

The Element in the Room: Requiring Probable Cause of Every Element of a Crime

by Kim­ber­ly La Fronz*

When con­duct­ing a war­rant­less search or seizure, must a police offi­cer have prob­a­ble cause for all ele­ments of the crime, includ­ing mens rea? In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Kim­ber­ly La Fronz (’18) dis­cuss­es what the cir­cuits include in their total­i­ty of the cir­cum­stances analy­sis to deter­mine prob­a­ble cause. This Con­tri­bu­tion argues that in order to effect a war­rant­less arrest a police offi­cer must have prob­a­ble cause with respect to every ele­ment of the crime in order to effect a war­rant­less arrest and must not ignore exon­er­at­ing evi­dence in their total­i­ty of the cir­cum­stances analysis.

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