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.
Category Archive: Notes
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.
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.
This Note proceeds in four parts. Part I briefly looks back at the FDA’s history and the impact of two significant drug crises in establishing the agency’s current framework before explaining the current drug development process. Part II recounts previous challenges to this regulatory framework, which ultimately led to the development of the current expanded access program. Part II also examines the current expanded access program and, more specifically, the evaluation criteria applied by three of its key decisionmakers: the treating physician; the manufacturer; and the FDA.
Part III traces the beginnings of the right to try movement, examining the rationale for the laws and exploring how social media and increased direct-to-consumer advertising of approved drugs possibly created an opening for widespread support of these laws. Part III also explores why the FDA’s efforts to address criticisms of the expanded access program were unable to dissuade enactment of the Right to Try Act. Part IV provides an overview of the Right to Try Act and how the Act differs from expanded access. Part IV further explores why, in general, mainstream industry likely will not adopt the right-to-try pathway, before arguing that pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies should avoid maintaining their current positions regarding pre-approval access, and instead address some of the criticisms raised during the right-to-try movement by (1) revising their existing expanded access policies and (2) improving clinical trial access.
In the courtroom environment, oral presentations are becoming increasingly supplemented and replaced by advancing digital technologies that provide legal practitioners with effective demonstrative capabilities. Improvements in the field of virtual reality (“VR”) are facilitating the creation of immersive environments in which a user’s senses and perceptions of the physical world can be completely replaced with virtual renderings. As courts, lawyers, and experts continue to grapple with evidentiary questions of admissibility posed by evolving technologies in the field of computer-generated evidence (“CGE”), issues posed by the introduction of immersive virtual environments (“IVEs”) into the courtroom have, until recently, remained a largely theoretical discussion.
Though the widespread use of IVEs at trial has not yet occurred, research into the practical applications of these VR technologies in the courtroom is ongoing, with several studies having successfully integrated IVEs into mock scenarios. For example, in 2002, the Courtroom 21 Project (run by William & Mary Law School and the National Center for State Courts) hosted a lab trial in which a witness used an IVE. The issue in the case was whether a patient’s death was the result of the design of a cholesterol-removing stent or a surgeon’s error in implanting it upside down.
This Note examines the arguments made in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard College, which allege that Harvard’s consideration of race is a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because it is not narrowly tailored to a compelling interest of diversity. The complaint filed by Students for Fair Admissions (“SFFA”) came off the back of Justice Alito’s comments in his dissent in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin (Fisher II), which proposed the possibility that Asian Americans may face discrimination in admissions. While this was an important inclusion of Asian Americans in the discussion, Justice Alito’s comments in Fisher II perpetuated the logical fallacy that Asian Americans are losing admission spots to African Americans and Hispanic Americans due to affirmative action, and may have encouraged the initiation of SFFA’s action against Harvard College. However, while the frustration experienced by many in the Asian American community over what feels like racial ceilings on Asian American admissions at elite universities is valid, these ceilings are the result of negative action aimed against Asian Americans, not the result of affirmative action. Prohibiting universities from considering race as part of a holistic admissions process will not eliminate the negative action felt by Asian Americans.
Americans recently awoke to a startling revelation: “Our country is getting ripped off.” Indeed, the purportedly deleterious effects of international trade on the United States domestic economy have claimed top billing in President Donald Trump’s nascent “America First” agenda. As the White House publicly excoriates international free trade for the first time in recent memory, global trade deals and domestic tariffs are cast in stark relief. China and Mexico, along these lines, are cast as chief culprits in a system of international exchange allegedly designed to subjugate American workers to nefarious foreign interests. Overall, recent politics underscore the practical importance of, and interdependence between, competition and cooperation in international economic regulation.
In the arena of hard-nosed international competition, it’s all fun and games––until somebody starts a trade war. But beyond the scope of trade deals and tariffs, sovereign states’ domestic antitrust laws are also critical regulatory levers. Americans at the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission have the power to influence incentives in markets across the globe. For example, although domestic by nature, U.S. antitrust laws do not exclusively apply to conduct in domestic markets—the Sherman Act may extend far beyond American shores to activities conceived and executed abroad.
In its recent decision in McDonnell v. United States, a case concerning corruption charges against the former Governor of Virginia, Robert McDonnell, the Supreme Court faced a seemingly simple question of statutory interpretation: what constituted an “official act” for the purposes of the bribery statute, 18 U.S.C. § 201(a)(3). In reality, not only did it answer a question far more complicated, but also, it provided far more than a simple answer.
In its attempt to reinforce democracy, the Court failed. Instead, it validated a pernicious definition of access, in which paid-for access, pay-to-play schemes, and bribery are the norm. Specifically, in claiming that this maligned form of access was necessary for a functioning democracy, the Court endorsed political norms that are, in fact, corrosive to society: stratified access to politicians and by association, democratic institutions. The Court ignored the reality of pervasive and systemic inequality—ranging from political, economic, social, and racial—in contemporary American society and the effect that inequality has on access. However, the Court did not arrive there alone—the many amici filing on behalf of the petitioner blinded it—at least partially—to the aforementioned realities and public opinion.
Recent antitrust decisions and policy initiatives by both the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and Department of Transportation (“DOT”) have shaped the current U.S. airline landscape. The consolidation trend is not unique to the U.S. domestic air transportation market. The emergence of three global airline alliances—together accounting for around 80% of air traffic across the transatlantic, transpacific, and Europe–Asia markets—has transformed the international air transportation market as well. This Note evaluates the results of the DOJ’s antitrust approach to U.S. airline mergers and reconciles these results with the DOT’s “public interest” emphasis in determining airline applications for antitrust immunity (“ATI”). Given the current domestic market, it is likely that the remaining legacy carriers will leverage their respective global alliances and seek ATI with foreign airlines for continued network growth.
Part I of this Note tracks the tumultuous history of the U.S. airline industry from deregulation to its current health. Part II presents the legal framework, including U.S. antitrust laws, that govern domestic airline mergers and international ATI. Part III proposes practical solutions for the DOT to improve the ATI regulatory process and incubate open market competition, thereby better serving passengers and airlines by edging closer to deregulation.
How can one be expected to demonstrate something they are incapable of, and what if that something meant the difference between freedom and remaining in prison? Thousands of inmates in California face this issue, and many are kept incarcerated for life without any recognition of their cognitive capabilities.
Take Maria’s story, for example; she is a client I became familiar with as a student working in the University of Southern California Gould School of Law’s (“USC”) Post-Conviction Justice Project (“PCJP”). Maria had extensive cognitive impairments that went undiscovered while incarcerated in a California prison for nearly three decades. Because of this, Maria was denied parole an astounding six times with the parole board citing lack of “insight” each time. Maria’s continued denials persisted despite state-issued psychological evaluations concluding that her intellectual functioning was minimal.
Unfortunately, Maria’s predicament is not uncommon. There are several similarly situated inmates who are unable to effectively advocate for themselves due to their cognitive impairments, yet they are not provided with necessary accommodations. As a result, individuals are denied parole even though they do not pose a current danger to society. This culminates in the gravest deprivation of liberty without due process—denial of their freedom.