The November 2020 Presidential Election saw historically high levels of voter turnout, claiming the title of the most voted-in election of the twenty-first century. When looking at the data alone, it is easy to forget that the election took place during a global pandemic; however, it is precisely because of this pandemic that many voters became aware of their absentee and early voting options. The high levels of voter turnout were lauded across the nation, with activist organizations and election administrators alike celebrating the unprecedented use of the ballot. However, these celebrations have proved short-lived. During the Spring 2021 State Legislative Session, bills ostensibly concerned with “election integrity” appeared in virtually every state. These reform bills claim to address widespread allegations of voter fraud. To combat the alleged fraud, these bills uniformly use the method of limiting access to nontraditional methods of voting. This recent wave of restrictive legislation has significant parallels with the legislation passed during the Jim Crow Era, which disenfranchised virtually all Black voters in the South. Both sets of laws responded to a sharp increase in voter turnout from marginalized groups; furthermore, both created obstacles for those marginalized groups to obtain a ballot.

In recent years, the filibuster has been a mainstay of Senate deliberations and has prevented both Republicans and Democrats from passing bills even when the majority voted to do so. Some legal scholars argue that the filibuster actually violates the Constitution and is contrary to the Founding Fathers’ wishes. Though multiple sections of the Constitution implicitly oppose the filibuster rule, the filibuster is constitutional because the Senate is given the power to decide the rules of their own proceedings. Nevertheless, the filibuster should be amended because it has come to markedly hinder the Senate’s ability to legislate.

Stories about the impacts of climate change on humans have come to dominate the media, leading to the creation of the term “climate refugee.” A climate refugee is a person who has been displaced because of climate change-related disasters, such as droughts, monsoons, and sea-level rise. Though this term appears frequently in news articles about climate change, climate refugees are not currently considered refugees in the legal sense. According to the legal definition adopted by the UNHCR at the 1951 Refugee Convention, a refugee is “someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.” In the generally accepted legal interpretation, climate refugees may not appear to fulfill the legal definition of refugees because they do not appear to be actively persecuted by some group. However, because of the intentional decision to produce massive amounts of pollution, multinational corporations, along with complicit local governments, indirectly persecute those in developing countries, meaning climate refugees could be considered refugees under the existing legal framework.

Several prominent jurisdictions mandate, by statute or common law, that a decision-maker with a pecuniary interest in the outcome of a case be automatically disqualified from sitting on that case. However, there has not yet developed any unanimous response to the question of whether—and, if so, when—the pecuniary interest of a decision-maker’s spouse should also result in the automatic disqualification of the decision-maker. Case law in Australia predating the seminal restatement of the law on bias in Ebner v The Official Trustee in Bankruptcy suggested that the pecuniary interest of a decision-maker’s spouse does not result in the automatic disqualification of the decision-maker (the “narrow approach”). By contrast, the current federal statutory regime in the United States requires the disqualification of a judge for the pecuniary interests of his/her spouse (the “broad approach”). Finally, courts in England and New Zealand favor a more holistic, case-by-case approach that asks whether the pecuniary interest of a decision-maker’s spouse also amounts, in fact, to a pecuniary interest on the part of the decision-maker (the “compromise approach”). This article will analyze the policy considerations underpinning each of the above approaches. Ultimately, it will be argued that the flexibility of the compromise approach makes this approach preferable to the overly rigid regimes imposed by the narrow and broad approaches. In order to mitigate concerns of excessive judicial discretion when applying the compromise approach, a two-stage test will be suggested to help guide judicial decision-making.

It is imperative for the Supreme Court to maintain its legitimacy, the Court's source of power as an institution. Sometimes, Supreme Court decisions will respond to political pressure, overruling past precedent. The Supreme Court is legally justified to respond to political pressure in order to maintain the Court's legitimacy and reflects evolving, moral values of the country. This article analyzes past Supreme Court decisions that responded to political pressure, comparing and contrasting decisions that strengthened or questioned the Court's lasting legitimacy.

The Federal Trade Commission has brought a lawsuit against Facebook for exercising monopoly power in the Person Social Networking Services market. The site has astounding control over our daily lives and has bought out smaller sites to establish complete control over the digital space. The Federal Trade Commission v. Facebook, Inc. case has shown how current laws fail to accurately describe and detect these kinds of problems on the Internet. The digital world is increasingly important in our daily lives, yet preventing and prosecuting harmful behavior online is extremely difficult. This article overviews why the Federal Trade Commission has grounds to sue Facebook, why its filings have failed so far, and why FTC v. Facebook is a case that should be used to reconsider the definition of monopolies in the digital age.

Despite the insanity defense being an essential component of the American criminal justice system, it is only successfully used in about 30 cases per year. This poses an issue for the thousands of defendants with untreated psychotic disorders who face paranoia and delusions that lead them to criminal acts. This article discusses the history of the insanity defense, its present state, and its public misconceptions, such as it being used as a “loophole” for offenders to escape punishment. I proceed to present a moral argument as to why the insanity defense is crucial to justice, using past cases as evidence, and then propose methods to increase accessibility for successful usage of the insanity defense with the primary purpose of seeking justice for individuals with mental illnesses.

American politicians frequently run for public office on anti-crime platforms, and the criminal justice system is a common topic of debate between Democrats and Republicans alike. Because of the criminal justice system’s politicization, it is imperative that the United States legal institution act as a check to the executive and legislative branches of government that control aspects of the system, such as parole. When the legal system is involved, that is the only way the population can be sure that the granting of parole is fair and unbiased, as it was designed to be. The legal institution is better aligned with this goal than the executive-related branches of government because of its purpose as given by the Constitution: “judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made.” Additionally, the legal institution is not determined by votes from constituencies, so no underlying motivations available to the executive-related branch of government can be used by the legal branch against convicts seeking parole, such as appeasing tough-on-crime or the alternate mass-release-supporting constituents. Thus, as determined from historical precedent and constitutional intent, the executive-related branch of government and the legal system are not mutually exclusive in parole functions, and they must cooperate to keep the process fair and effective.

Racial bias in sentencing, particularly for juvenile defendants, is a critical and pervasive issue within the American criminal justice system. While previous Supreme Court decisions have cemented the unconstitutionality of mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juvenile defendants, the Court’s recent decision in Jones v. Mississippi marks a significant departure. Moreover, this transformative case may open the door to increased racial bias by judges.

Dred Scott was decided in 1857 and the Supreme Court held that people whose ancestors were imported as slaves cannot be citizens of the U.S, the Missouri Compromise is unconstitutional, and that depriving a person of their slaves is equivalent to depriving a person of their property without due process. However, Dred Scott was wrongly decided because at the time of the Constitution’s adoption, Blacks were considered citizens in most states such that they were a part of the people for which the Constitution was ordained and established. Additionally, the Missouri Compromise was not unconstitutional because Congress was granted the power to pass laws for new territories, and existing laws, such as the Northwest Ordinance, have existed in the past that prohibited slavery in certain territories. Taking this a step further, Sandford’s due process claim is further invalidated since federal laws that allowed slavery were unconstitutional in that they deprived a person of their liberty without due process.

Age-old employment classification tests cannot reliably determine whether app-based gig workers qualify as employees or independent contractors. The multi-factor common law control test seeks to establish whether the hiring party has the right to control how the worker performs their job, while the economic realities test analyzes whether the worker is dependent on the employer, as a matter of economic reality. Both control and economic reliance are highly ambiguous concepts, giving rise to considerable legal confusion. Judges have the discretionary power to interpret which factors of a certain test are most relevant in a specific case, which leads some judges to assert that gig workers are employees while others view them as independent contractors. An updated formulation of the ABC test reduces the degree of latitude judges have in making decisions about gig workers’ status, as it offers judges a set of guidelines that are less open to subjective interpretation. This three-factor test streamlines the classification of gig workers, but it still contains some ambiguities that need to be resolved. Nonetheless, the ABC test promises to remedy the misclassification of gig workers, once and for all. In these circumstances, the creation of a third employment category is neither necessary nor helpful considering that recent attempts of establishing an intermediate category such as Proposition 22 in California were deemed unconstitutional.

Many of the first European settlers came to America in search of religious freedom, fleeing state-established religious institutions such as the Church of England. Religious freedom is so central to the vision of American national identity that it was formalized in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, which provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” However, in the centuries since, the judicial interpretation of the Clause – judicial ruling on what constitutes establishing a religion or restricting free exercise thereof – has been fraught with contention. There are three main interpretations of the Establishment Clause: strict separation, neutrality, and accommodationism, which I explore and critique individually. I further analyze specific applications of the Establishment Clause, particularly in Engel v. Vitale, and conclude that modern governmental religious expressions such as the national motto and the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance – written with religious intentions, having developed little additional secular meaning of its own, and currently characterized as ceremonial deism – violate the Establishment Clause.

Distancing itself from a violent colonial past, Australia has—over the last several decades—moved towards a national identity of liberal multiculturalism. Nevertheless, an inquiry into the current state of affairs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait People—the original inhabitants and custodians of what is now known as Australia—exposes the deceptive underbelly of Australia’s so-called multiculturalism. Through various federal,state, and territorial laws, as well as legal structures, I argue that the Australian legal system—and Australia as a whole—continues to exist and function as a colonial entity. As such, the only viable pathway for Australia to truly undergo a process of decolonization is through a massive overhaul of its legal system, in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait People are granted the right to freely and autonomously practice their customary laws, in which they are paid reparations for the historical and modern violence inflicted upon them by colonial forces, and in which they are granted unconditional ownership of their indigenous lands.

The U.S.’s Espionage Act, a remnant of wartime struggles to hold morale in the face of anti-American sentiment, still stands as federal law today. With its history of restricting the communication of classified materials to the American public, the Espionage Act poses a threat to national security journalists, who face unique challenges when assessing the actual legality of the information they publish. While no modern-day journalists have been prosecuted under Espionage Act charges yet, their sources and they, themselves, have both faced scrutiny and threatened jail time by presidential administrations for collaborating in the leak of classified information. Through analyzing the legal discourse on the Espionage Act’s speech restrictions, this article argues that the Act actually prohibits itself from being weaponized against journalists. Lacking references to the act of publication as prosecutable, the Espionage Act leaves journalists outside of its authority, instead placing trust in the free press to hold government officials accountable for actions, both popular and unpopular, undertaken in the name of American national security.

This paper examines the Takings Clause in the Fifth Amendment that allows Congress to take private property “for public use” as long as the owner is justly compensated. The case at hand is Kelo v. City of New London (2005). This case held that the use of eminent domain to facilitate the transfer of private property from the owner of the property to a private developer for an economic rejuvenation plan qualified as a “public use.” This paper argues that the Court’s broadening of the clause is unfounded and dangerous. The court should return to the original meaning of the Takings clause, such that taking property for any given public purpose does not count as a valid public use. Despite existing precedent holding that public purpose is a valid public use, if a holding fundamentally undermines a constitutional doctrine, justices have the right to overturn existing precedent.

On September 27, 2021, the ICC prosecutor, Karim A.A. Khan, announced his intention to resume the court’s investigation into alleged war crimes committed within the territory of Afghanistan. This announcement comes with one important caveat. Unlike the initial probe that covered presumed violations committed by the Taliban, the Afghan government, and American forces, the scope of this investigation has been adjusted to omit American suspects. This change is not surprising, as the Trump administration openly challenged the court and opposed all efforts to charge American citizens. It is in the interests of justice to prosecute all possible offenders, especially those suspected of egregious crimes such as genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. To limit the extent of political interference with the court’s dealings, I argue that the ICC should strive to achieve the same degree of legitimacy as domestic courts have in their respective countries, most notably the Supreme Court in the US. Accordingly, the ICC needs to increase its legal and sociological legitimacy by responding to criticisms regarding the independence and integrity of its judges as well as the court’s efficiency, or more precisely the lack thereof. Only by asserting itself as an authoritative institution on international justice can the ICC send a clear message to all state actors that the court does not succumb to political pressure. As governments will be less inclined to defy a court that enjoys uncontested worldwide legitimacy, a reformed ICC will be able to prosecute any individuals under its jurisdiction, regardless of whether they are citizens of powerful states.

Arkansas has recently become one of the first states in the nation to propose and pass a bill restricting access to gender-affirming healthcare services to transgender children. This is just one decision within a greater legislative effort by the Republican Party working to target transgender individuals, specifically transgender children. This law is unconstitutional because it discriminates based on sex. It restricts a doctor's First Amendment Rights because it bans them from referring minors to providers who offer gender transition treatments and impedes parents' right to follow medical advice for their children. According to the American Medical Association, “Every major medical association in the United States recognizes the medical necessity of transition-related care for improving the physical and mental health of transgender people.” There are numerous reasons why this piece of legislation is medically dangerous for transgender youth, let alone unconstitutional.

In 2018, Justice Sotomayor likened Trump v. Hawaii (2018) to Korematsu v. United States (1944), sparking outrage amongst the justices of the majority. Justice Roberts quickly thundered back that Korematsu “was gravely wrong the day it was decided” and “ha[d] been overruled in the court of history.” Although worthy of further scholarly exploration, the “court of history” is a concept too expansive for legal scrutiny. Thus, to understand the legal arguments opposing General Dewitt’s exclusion order, this article turns to the oft-overlooked dissents of Justice Roberts, Jackson, and Murphy. The broad scope of internment’s atrocities and the clear racial antagonism of its sponsors were topics evaded by the majority opinion. Yet, nobody on the bench was quite ready – or committed – to forming a consistent and forceful opinion the other way. Most importantly, the dissenters joined the majority in sidestepping important considerations to advance their own argument. They, too, failed to create a sturdy framework for reconciling national security interests with civil liberty concerns. This article leaves open the question of how, and if, a Court concerned about public opinion could ever mediate these competing ideals.

Ruling in favor of the respondent in the case of Sharp v. Murphy (2020), the Supreme Court was lauded for what many described as a bold recognition of Native American sovereignty. In the case of respondent Patrick Dwayne Murphy, a Muscogee Nation member who murdered another Muscogee Nation member on reservation territory and was subsequently sentenced to death by Oklahoma State courts, the Supreme Court ruled that state courts did not have the jurisdiction to prosecute crimes committed by Native Americans, on Native American reservation land. Rather, in cases of murder (in addition to other "major crimes"), the Supreme Court ruled that federal courts would hold sole jurisdiction. In so doing, it is clear that tribal courts are not granted any kind of judicial sovereignty. On the contrary, this decision functioned to further cement the primacy of US courts over Native American courts, thus perpetuating the delegitimization of Native American judicial systems.

McGirt v. Oklahoma was a landmark Supreme Court case that tackled the important issue of Native sovereignty and US jurisdiction in Native land. By correctly recognizing 19th century treaties with the Creek tribe, a 5-4 Majority ruled that a large portion of eastern Oklahoma was a Native reservation, thus preventing the Oklahoma state government from prosecuting major crimes committed by a tribe member on that land. This decision was impactful because it secures Native land rights and limits the power and overreach of state governments such as Oklahoma. Additionally, after countless transgressions committed by the United States against land treaties with Native tribes, this decision reinforces the legal power of these treaties and holds the US government to its word, thus providing a path forward to Native Tribes to regain and reinforce their sovereignty.