Month: August 2022
“Shake the Hand that Feeds You”: Creating Custom Food Safety Certifications for Farm to School Programs
Lauren Tonti, M.P.H Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, J.D. Case Western Reserve University School of Law, B.A. Wellesley College
The United States is home to approximately 14.4 million obese children. Federal government encouragement that schools “purchase unprocessed agricultural products, both locally grown and locally raised, to the maximum extent practicable and appropriate” with federal funds has fallen upon the receptive ears of administrators, whose schools often feed America’s youth two out of three meals…
Aug 2022
Scientific Evidence: Grand Theories and Basic Methods
Curtis E.A. Karnow, Judge of The California Superior Court (County of San Francisco)
California law requires judges to admit expert scientific testimony without resolving scientific controversies, which are left to juries. But case law does not provide a definition of “science” verses inadmissible pseudoscience. And typically juries are asked to resolve ‘scientific’ controversies based on studies never provided to them. The Essay discusses three common definitions of science,…
Aug 2022
Cop Tracing
Jonathan Abel, Associate Professor, University of California, Hastings College of the Law
What happens to an officer’s old cases when that officer is exposed as corrupt? Often, the answer is nothing. This Article calls for “cop tracing”: an effort to identify and investigate the past cases handled by dishonest cops. The Article first describes the existing action and inaction with respect to such tracing. Next, it examines…
Aug 2022
Voter Data, Democratic Inequality, and the Risk of Political Violence
Bertrall L. Ross II, Justice Thurgood Marshall Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Virginia & Douglas M. Spencer, Associate Professor of Law, University of Colorado, Boulder
Campaigns’ increasing reliance on data-driven canvassing has coincided with a disquieting trend in American politics: a stark gap in voter turnout between the rich and poor. Turnout among the poor has remained low in modern elections despite legal changes that have dramatically decreased the cost of voting. In this Article, we present evidence that the…
Aug 2022
Free Exercise Partisanship
Zalman Rothschild, Nonresident fellow at the Stanford Constitutional Law Center; Nonresident fellow at the University of Lucerne; Adjunct Professor of Law at New York University School of Law. J.D., magna cum laude, Harvard Law School; Ph.D., New York University; M.A., Yeshiva University.
This Article presents new data demonstrating that, in contrast to earlier periods, recent judicial decision-making in free exercise cases tracks political affiliation to a significant degree. The trend toward increased free exercise partisanship is starkly manifested by free exercise cases borne out of the COVID-19 pandemic: a survey of federal court decisions pertaining to free…
Aug 2022
Eating High on the Humanely Raised Hog: State Bans on Selling Food Produced Using Cruel Animal Farming Methods Do Not Violate The Dormant Commerce Clause
Emma Horne, Cornell Law School, J.D. 2021.
Most states’ laws minimally protect farmed animal welfare. However, a growing minority of states have enacted food-related sales bans that are designed to improve the lives of farmed animals nationwide. These sales bans are passed by states as a means to eliminate inhumane confinement of farmed animals. For example, California has enacted Proposition 12, which…
Aug 2022
Insanity Step Zero: A Modern Application of M’Naghten’s Question Four Test
Michael G. Mills, J.D., Cornell Law School, 2021; B.A., Siena College, 2018.
Defendants suffering from delusion currently are subject to inequitable treatment in our criminal justice system. They can genuinely believe, due to a delusion, that a person right in front of them has a gun and is about to kill them. Acting in what they believe is self-defense, they can draw a gun and kill their…
Aug 2022