Category Archives: 92:3

Moral Panics and Body Cameras

This Commentary uses the lens of “moral panics” to evaluate public support for equipping law enforcement with body cameras as a response and solution to events in Ferguson, Missouri in August 2014. Body cameras are a generally good policy idea. But the rhetoric surrounding them erroneously treats them as the single guaranteed solution to theContinue reading “Moral Panics and Body Cameras”

Throwing a Toy Wrench in the “Greatest Legal Engine”: Child Witnesses and the Confrontation Clause

Cross-examination of witnesses has often been called the “greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth.” Enshrined in the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment, this most basic feature of an adversarial legal system guarantees criminal defendants the right to have the prosecution’s witnesses testify in open court and the opportunity to questionContinue reading “Throwing a Toy Wrench in the “Greatest Legal Engine”: Child Witnesses and the Confrontation Clause”

Gayffirmative Action: The Constitutionality of Sexual Orientation-Based Affirmative Action Policies

Twenty-five years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court established a consistency principle in its race-based equal protection cases. That principle requires courts to apply the same strict scrutiny to racial classifications designed to benefit racial minorities—such as affirmative action policies—as they do to laws invidiously discriminating against them. The new consistency principle, under which discrimination againstContinue reading “Gayffirmative Action: The Constitutionality of Sexual Orientation-Based Affirmative Action Policies”

Say on Pay Around the World

Shareholders have long complained that top executives are overpaid by corporate boards irrespective of their performance. Investors have traditionally been powerless to prevent these perceived abuses and have sought a way to gain greater influence over directors’ compensation decisions. Many governments responded by increasing the level of corporate disclosures on compensation packages and policies, andContinue reading “Say on Pay Around the World”

Resolving Intrastate Conflicts of Laws: The Example of the Federal Arbitration Act

Choice-of-law analysis is typically thought of as confined to the multistate setting. This is a mistake. To the contrary, conflicts often appear between statutes of a single state. Unfortunately, courts do not see these cases as “choice-of-law” cases. They see them only as problems of statutory interpretation and ignore conflicts of laws instead of resolvingContinue reading “Resolving Intrastate Conflicts of Laws: The Example of the Federal Arbitration Act”

(Mis)Trusting States to Run Elections

Recent Supreme Court election law jurisprudence reflects an unspoken, pernicious trend. Without identifying a specific new rule, the Court has been unjustifiably deferring to state laws regarding election administration, thereby giving states tremendous power to regulate elections. At the same time, the Court has diminished Congress’s oversight role. That is a mistake. Placing too muchContinue reading “(Mis)Trusting States to Run Elections”