Jeffery Lamar Williams, better known as Young Thug, is the latest high-profile rapper to have his rap “lyrics” potentially entered into evidence as part of a criminal trial. Young Thug …
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Why U.S. States Need Their Own Cannabis Industry Banks
The legal cannabis trade is the fastest growing industry in the United States. In 2019, about 48.2 million Americans used the drug at least once. As such, it is easy …
Lessons Learned in Prison
One way that I have tried to stay fresh as a teacher through the decades is to periodically force myself outside of my teaching comfort zone by trying something completely…
Stalwarts of Stare Decisis: Lessons From Early Supreme Court Reporters for the Digital Age
Introduction As a young nation, the United States maintained a common law legal system transplanted from England.[2] Common law legal systems are defined by stare decisis, meaning “to stand by things decided.”[3] In other words, judges are expected to apply prior rulings to like cases in like manner. This ensures “the evenhanded, predictable, and consistent…
The Controlled Substances Act: An International Private Delegation That Goes Too Far
Introduction Under current Supreme Court precedent, Congress can delegate regulatory authority to federal agencies so long as it supplies an intelligible principle to guide and restrict their actions. Congress may also permit private entities to assist agency decision-making so long as the agency retains ultimate authority to accept, reject, or modify the private actor’s recommendations…
Registered for Life: Addressing the Removal Issue within Missouri’s Sex Offender Registration Act
Introduction Based on plain text, Missouri’s Sex Offender Registration Act (SORA) appears to permit sex offenders to petition for removal from the state’s sex offender registry.[2] But, in practice, the statute’s removal provision is useless for almost all Missouri offenders.[3] A 2018 amendment to Missouri’s SORA was intended to replace the statute’s lifetime registration requirement…
The War Chest Problem: Why Transferring Unspent Campaign Funds Violates The First Amendment
In an ideal world, political candidates would raise the exact amount of funds they would need to mount a winning campaign in the current election and spend every penny. Campaign finance jurisprudence implicitly assumes that candidates will do just that. In reality, incumbents raise funds even when they have no serious opponents and no real…
A Deficit of Deserts: The Case for a Pandemic Excess Profits Tax
The global COVID-19 pandemic caused, inter alia, the economic balance in the United States to tilt wildly. In earlier decades, such extreme social and economic upheaval led Congress to pass a special tax on those who benefitted from the crisis, known as an excess profits tax. This paper analyzes the relevant tax policy considerations of…
Fair Housing, Unfair Housing
ABSTRACT The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, promulgated under the Obama administration and swiftly repealed under the Trump administration, was the most significant fair housing effort in decades. But for all its ambitions, the rule had a fundamental weakness. It was (intentionally) focused on process and not able to support prescriptive, readily-enforceable mandates to improve…
Plagiarism Pedagogy: Why Teaching Plagiarism Should be a Fundamental Part of Legal Education
As a practicing lawyer, if you aren’t plagiarizing, you’re committing malpractice. Litigators copy forms and arguments from winning briefs rather than bill their clients for reinventing the wheel. Transactional lawyers copy enforceable agreements to ensure their agreements are enforceable too. Partners routinely present documents prepared by associates (and sometimes even paralegals) as their own work….
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