Category Archive: Notes

Judicial Overreach or a Necessary Check on Executive Power? The Implications of Trump v. Hawai’i and the Resulting Push Against Nationwide Injunctions

This Note will explain the constitutionality and legal scope of the executive order as a political tool of the president. It will then discuss the rise of nationwide injunctions and the judicial system’s changing attitudes toward such injunctions as a viable judicial tool. Next, it will explain the series of executive orders passed by President Donald Trump—which together constituted the Muslim ban—and the nationwide injunctions issued by district courts in response to these orders, culminating in the Trump v. Hawai’i Supreme Court decision. Finally, it will discuss the legislation for which Trump v. Hawai’i paved the way: The Injunctive Authority Clarification Act of 2018, which sought to prohibit courts from issuing nationwide injunctions.

Ultimately, this Note will argue that Trump v. Hawai’i was decided correctly, but that the consequences of the decision as they relate to expanding executive power and the case’s procedural history have serious implications for the future of judicial lawmaking. This Note will critically analyze arguments on both sides of the issue of whether nationwide injunctions should be prohibited. Additionally, this Note argues that while nationwide injunctions have positive effects, those effects are outweighed by the incentives they create for forum shopping and the judicial territorial clashes they create that undermine judicial decisionmaking. Finally, this Note argues that prohibiting nationwide injunctions entirely, as the Injunctive Authority Clarification Act would have done, is not the proper solution. Instead, nationwide injunctions should be limited in some way, such as allowing only district- or circuit-wide injunctions.

A Proposed Cure: More Expansive Conversion Therapy Legislation and the Limits of Parental Rights – Note by Nicole A. Meier

This Note will propose and examine the constitutional bounds of more expansive legislation that targets not just SOCE at the hands of state-licensed mental healthcare providers, but also at the hands of unlicensed providers—specifically religious leaders. Though more expansive legislation would likely trigger constitutional objections under the First Amendment, particularly with respect to free speech and free exercise rights, this Note will examine the constitutionality of this proposed legislation through the lens of parental rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.

This Note will proceed in the following order: Part I will examine the history and nature of SOCE, detail the current position of mainstream mental health professional associations regarding SOCE, and analyze current SOCE legislation and its deficiencies. Part II will propose more expansive SOCE legislation and establish that such legislation would not unconstitutionally infringe upon parental rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. Part III will analyze the limits that the Supreme Court has hitherto placed on parental rights, taking the defined limits of these rights in light of claims of religious freedom into special consideration. Parts IV and V will respond to anticipated critiques of the proposed legislation, focusing on the potential ease with which the legislation may be evaded and the ramifications that the legislation may have with respect to parental rights. Finally, Part VI will provide several policy justifications for the proposed legislation.

Moving CEQA Away from Judicial Enforcement: Proposal for a Dedicated CEQA Agency to Address Exclusionary Use of CEQA – Note by Ha Chung

Although CEQA plays an important role in protecting communities from significant adverse environmental impacts, its self-executing nature allows it also to be used as a tool to halt or impede development for the wrong reasons. While many CEQA disputes are based on legitimate environmental concerns, CEQA litigation is also used to prevent development for discriminatory or nonenvironmental reasons. CEQA litigation is an attractive vehicle for this purpose due to overly broad standing requirements, unpredictable judicial results, extreme remedies, and attorney’s fees awards. Projects impeded by CEQA litigation include multifamily residential projects, homeless housing, health clinics, youth centers, and a multitude of other quasi-public uses. Since CEQA lacks uniform standards, local governments and developers must resort to costly overcompliance and guess work when confronted with the threat of litigation. To remedy the problem of CEQA abuse and unpredictability, this Note proposes moving away from judicial enforcement of CEQA and creating a state or regional agency dedicated to regulation, enforcement, and adjudication of CEQA.

Part I of this Note reviews CEQA processes, the history of exclusionary and discriminatory land use policies, and evidence of CEQA’s misuse for discriminatory and nonenvironmental reasons. Part I of this Note explores why CEQA is such an attractive tool for people to oppose development projects for exclusionary or nonenvironmental reasons and concludes that the judicial system is unsuitable for primarily enforcing CEQA. Part II proposes a dedicated agency that would handle adjudication, enforcement, and legislation under CEQA and discusses how the agency may fit into the broader environmental review process.

Charity for All: A Modern Call for a Renewed Commitment to Charitable Giving – Note by Joey Bloodworth

This Note will center on the TCJA’s unpopularity, the charitable contribution deduction, and the adverse effect the TCJA is projected to have on charitable giving. It will conclude that now is an optimal time to expand the charitable contribution deduction. The expansion of the charitable contribution deduction would likely be popular for many of the same reasons that the TCJA is currently unpopular. The proposed expansion will also address some of the problems with charitable giving created or exacerbated by the TCJA…

This Note will use various tax-policy projections regarding the effects of the TCJA for tax year 2018. These projections cannot account for all outside variables, such as the state of the economy, which is affected by many factors besides taxation. With this in mind, the aspects of this Note that rely on the projections are tax policy specific, and the outside variables that affect the actual tax year 2018 statistics are not themselves within the scope of this Note. Therefore, unless there are significant, long-term, unexpected outcomes to the TCJA that lead to the alteration of tax policy projection methods, the projections can reasonably be used as data for the purposes of this Note.

On Immigration, Information, and the New Jurisprudence of Federalism – Note by Nathaniel F. Sussman

This Paper argues that in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision, Murphy v. NCAA —a case completely unrelated to immigration—there is now a single best answer to the constitutional question presented in the ongoing sanctuary jurisdiction cases. The answer is that the Trump Administration’s withholding of federal grants is indeed unconstitutional, but this is because Section 1373, the statute on which the Executive’s actions are predicated, is itself unconstitutional. Specifically, this Paper argues that the expansion of the anti-commandeering doctrine under Murphy provides a tool by which the federal appellate courts can invalidate Section 1373 as an impermissible federal regulation of state and local governments. By adopting this approach, courts can surpass the comparatively surface-level questions about the Executive’s power to enforce a particular federal statute, and instead address the more central issue: the existence of Section 1373.

This argument proceeds in the following stages. Part I provides a background for each of the central concepts in this analysis. These include (1) an explanation of the anti-commandeering doctrine in its pre- and post-Murphy forms, (2) a description of Section 1373, (3) a working definition of “sanctuary jurisdictions,” and (4) a brief overview of the sanctuary jurisdiction cases decided to date. Part II argues that, in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Murphy, there is no question that Section 1373 is subject to anti-commandeering claims. Part III then argues that, as a matter of doctrine, Section 1373 should fail to withstand such claims because it does not qualify for any exceptions to the anti-commandeering rule. Finally, Part IV argues that, aside from Supreme Court precedent, there are a series of independent, normative reasons to strike down Section 1373. This Paper concludes that Section 1373 should be held unconstitutional in its challenge before the higher federal courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States if necessary, and that such a ruling is the most desirable method of resolving the sanctuary jurisdiction cases.

Data Protection in the Wake of the GDPR: California’s Solution for Protecting “the World’s Most Valuable Resource” – Note by Joanna Kessler

This Note will argue that although the CCPA was imperfectly drafted, much of the world seems to be moving toward a standard that embraces data privacy protection, and the CCPA is a positive step in that direction. However, the CCPA does contain several ambiguous and potentially problematic provisions, including possible First Amendment and Dormant Commerce Clause challenges, that should be addressed by the California Legislature. While a federal standard for data privacy would make compliance considerably easier, if such a law is enacted in the near future, it is unlikely to offer as significant data privacy protections as the CCPA and would instead be a watered-down version of the CCPA that preempts attempts by California and other states to establish strong, comprehensive data privacy regimes. Ultimately, the United States should adopt a federal standard that offers consumers similarly strong protections as the GDPR or the CCPA. Part I of this Note will describe the elements of GDPR and the CCPA and will offer a comparative analysis of the regulations. Part II of this Note will address potential shortcomings of the CCPA, including a constitutional analysis of the law and its problematic provisions. Part III of this Note will discuss the debate between consumer privacy advocates and technology companies regarding federal preemption of strict laws like the CCPA. It will also make predictions about, and offer solutions for, the future of the CCPA and United States data privacy legislation based on a discussion of global data privacy trends and possible federal government actions.

Unlock Your Phone and Let Me Read All Your Personal Content, Please: The First and Fifth Amendments and Border Searches of Electronic Devices – Note by Kathryn Neubauer

Until January 2018, under the border search exception, CBP officers were afforded the power to search any electronic device without meeting any standard of suspicion or acquiring a warrant. The border search exception is a “longstanding, historically recognized exception to the Fourth Amendment’s general principle that a warrant be obtained . . . .” It provides that suspicionless and warrantless searches at the border are not in violation of the Fourth Amendment merely because searches at the border are “reasonable simply by virtue of the fact that they occur at the border . . . .” The CBP, claiming that the border search exception applies to electronic devices, searched more devices in 2017 than ever before, with approximately a 60 percent increase over 2016 according to data released by the CBP. These “digital strip searches” violate travelers’ First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment rights. With the advent of smartphones and the expanded use of electronic devices for storing people’s extremely personal data, these searches violate an individual’s right to privacy. Simply by travelling into the United States with a device linked to such information, a person suddenly—and, currently, unexpectedly—opens a window for the government to search through seemingly every aspect of his or her life. The policy behind these searches at the border does not align with the core principles behind our longstanding First and Fifth Amendment protections, nor does it align with the policies behind the exceptions made to constitutional rights at the border in the past.
In order to protect the privacy and rights of both citizens and noncitizens entering the United States, the procedures concerning electronic device searches need to be rectified. For instance, the border search exception should not be applied to electronic devices the same way it applies to other property or storage containers, like a backpack. One is less likely to expect privacy in the contents of a backpack than in the contents of a password- or authorization-protected devices—unlike a locked device, a backpack can be taken, can be opened easily, can fall open, and also has been traditionally subjected to searches at the border. Moreover, there are many reasons why electronic devices warrant privacy.

Confessions of a Teenage Defendant: Why a New Legal Rule Is Necessary to Guide the Evaluation of Juvenile Confessions – Note by Hannah Brudney

The cases of the “Central Park Five” and Brendan Dassey are two of the highest profile criminal cases in the past three decades. Both cases unsurprisingly captured the nation’s attention and became the subjects of several documentaries. Each case forces the public to consider how police officers could mistakenly identify and interrogate an innocent suspect, how an innocent person could feel compelled to falsely confess, and how our legal system could allow the false and coerced confession of a child to be the basis of a criminal conviction. While these two cases made national headlines, they are not unique. False confessions by juveniles are a common and even inevitable occurrence given the impact of the interrogation process on children and the inadequacies of the legal standard that currently exists to protect against juvenile false confessions.
Part I of this Note will discuss the prevalence of false confessions among juvenile suspects, and explain how juveniles’ transient developmental weaknesses make them particularly vulnerable to specific coercive interrogation techniques. Part I will also emphasize the impact that a confession has on the outcome of a defendant’s trial, thereby highlighting the weight that a false confession carries.
Part II of this Note will present the existing law governing the evaluation of the voluntariness of a confession—the procedural safeguards offered by Miranda v. Arizona and the totality of the circumstances test rooted in the concern for due process. Part II will also argue that the totality of the circumstances test is insufficient to protect juveniles because it does not give binding weight to a suspect’s age, but rather considers age among several other characteristics.
Part III of this Note will propose a new legal rule to guide the evaluation of juvenile confessions. The proposed legal rule extends and expands upon the language and holding from J.D.B. v. North Carolina, and requires that age be the primary factor in courts’ evaluations of juvenile confessions. Confessions offered by children during interrogations in which coercive techniques are employed must be presumed involuntary, given the effect that manipulative interrogation techniques have on juveniles’ likelihood to falsely confess. Moreover, given that courts often have no way of knowing the circumstances of an interrogation, confessions by all juveniles should be presumed involuntary until the prosecution can prove that no coercive interrogation techniques were used. Part III also proposes a series of policy reforms that aim to reduce the prevalence of false confessions.

The Wild West: Application of the Second Amendment’s Individual Right to California Firearm Legislation – Note by Forrest Brown

In its landmark District of Columbia v. Heller decision, the Supreme Court announced that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right of the people to bear arms. Although Heller answered a long-standing question about the Second Amendment’s meaning, there remain issues to be settled. One of the most pressing—and the main topic of this Note—is the proper method of review and application of this individual right. Without guidance on these issues, several circuit courts have followed different approaches. Although opportunities to provide some clarity have come before the Supreme Court, so far, it has denied certiorari.
This Note will not opine on the merits of the individualist or collectivist approaches to the interpretation of the Second Amendment, as this question has been answered conclusively in Heller. Instead, this Note will provide a suggested framework for the application of this individual right to keep and bear arms, and will progress as follows. Part I will offer a contextual history of the Second Amendment. Part II will make the case for why clarity on this issue is so desperately needed and is punctuated by a discussion of the Second Circuit’s particularly troubling application of the right. Part III will offer a proposed framework that, if adopted by the Supreme Court, can resolve the questions posed in Part II. Part IV will apply the framework to California concealed carry regulations. Finally, Part V will apply the framework to a new California law that is likely to make its way to the Ninth Circuit soon, thus allowing the Supreme Court to clarify Second Amendment jurisprudence further.

Patently Unjust: Tribal Sovereign Immunity at the U.S. Patent Office – Note by Christopher B. Phillips

The Indian Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution grants Congress plenary power to regulate Native American tribes. In the absence of congressional action, a “dual sovereign” structure exists whereby the tribes are allowed—subject to constraints imposed by Congress—to exist and regulate their own affairs independently of the states and the Federal Government. As a benefit of sovereignty, tribes possess sovereign immunity—an immunity similar to the immunity granted to states under the Eleventh Amendment. Sovereign immunity as a doctrine is based in the common law and allows the sovereign to avoid being sued without its consent. Tribal sovereign immunity, unlike state sovereign immunity, is subject to congressional abrogation, meaning Congress can decide the circumstances whereby tribes are subject to suit without their consent.

In September 2017, Allergan Pharmaceuticals (“Allergan”) made news when, in the middle of a challenge to its Restasis patent’s validity in Inter Partes Review (“IPR”), it assigned its patent rights in the drug to upstate New York’s Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe (“Saint Regis”). After receiving the patent rights, Saint Regis quickly licensed the Restasis patent back to Allergan for an immediate payment of $13.75 million, coupled with an additional $15 million per year in royalties. Because the transaction gave Saint Regis ownership of the patent, the tribe became the patent’s defender in the IPR proceeding. The tribe moved to have the IPR terminated, asserting their immunity from suit under the doctrine of tribal sovereign immunity.