The online proliferation of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), commonly referred to as child pornography, is a problem of massive scale. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), a private nonprofit specially authorized by Congress to serve as the nation’s clearinghouse for reports of CSAM imagery, works with law enforcement to locate perpetrators […]
Settling for Silence: How Police Exploit Protective Orders
The national outcry and months of Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality that followed the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor are a resounding demonstration of the public’s interest in combatting police violence, particularly excess force used on Black Americans. While media attention on police killings increased after Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson […]
Represented by a Racist: Why Courts Rarely Grant Relief to Clients of Racist Lawyers
Courts usually don’t grant habeas claims for criminal defendants who allege that their lawyer’s racism prejudiced their defense unless the racial animus is obvious on the cold trial record. In Ellis v. Harrison, the Ninth Circuit had the opportunity to relax this standard and grant habeas relief to a client of a known racist lawyer, […]
Broadening the Escape Clause: How the UCCJEA Can Protect Female Survivors of Domestic Violence
Under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA), U.S. courts must enforce a custody order from an international court unless the custody laws of that country constitute a “fundamental violation of human rights.” Historically, U.S. courts have rarely invoked this “escape clause.” However, this Note argues that this narrow construction of the escape […]
Creating a “Great Pro Bono Practice”
Pro bono at big law firms is often viewed as an altruistic way for attorneys to give back to society. But when big law firms partner with public interest law organizations (PILOs) to do pro bono work, conflicting interests among the parties involved may interfere with the aims of pro bono work. In this Note, […]
The Means and the End: Understanding the Right to Vote as a Tool in Protecting the Right to Representation
The right to vote and the right to representation are often, to each of their detriment, conflated. But to combat voter disenfranchisement most effectively and honestly, we must conceive of these as two separate rights with a distinct relationship. Part I defines representative government. It then highlights the differences between the right to vote and […]
A Domestic Violence Dystopia: Abuse via the Internet of Things and Remedies Under Current Law
Tactics of domestic violence are nothing new. However, as with various other aspects of modern life, technology threatens disruption. The increasing prevalence of Internet of Things (IoT) devices has given abusers a powerful new tool to expand and magnify the traditional harms of domestic violence, threatening the progress advocates have made in the past thirty […]
DNA Collection in Immigration Custody and the Threat of Genetic Surveillance
In October 2019, the Trump administration proposed a dramatic expansion of DNA collection from immigrants in federal detention. The final rule, which took effect in April 2020, eliminated a regulatory provision that had previously allowed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to exempt noncitizens from DNA collection if collection was “not feasible because of […]
Abortion Sanctuary Cities: A Local Response to The Criminalization of Self-Managed Abortion
You live in Mississippi, work an hourly, minimum wage job, have no savings, and have young children. You are also seven weeks pregnant and want to have an abortion. Technically, you can go to an abortion clinic. But even though you have Medicaid, it won’t cover any of the procedure’s costs because Mississippi generally follows […]
The Long Road to Hyatt III: What Happened to Full Faith and Credit?
In Franchise Tax Board v. Hyatt (Hyatt III), the Supreme Court overruled forty-year-old precedent that allowed a citizen to sue a state in another state’s courts.[1] The Court’s 5-4 decision creates another barrier for plaintiffs who seek to hold states accountable. Hyatt III expands the doctrine of sovereign immunity to provide states additional protection against […]