It has long been said that a society’s worth can be judged by
taking stock of its prisons. That is all the truer in this pandemic,
where inmates everywhere have been rendered vulnerable and
often powerless to protect themselves from harm. May we hope
that our country’s facilities serve as models rather than
cautionary tales.1
Justice Sonia…[Read more]

For the last several years, criminal justice reform has been a pressing
political topic, and radical proposals to overhaul the criminal justice
system have gained traction.’ Nearly all of the candidates in the crowded
2020 Democratic presidential primary field introduced comprehensive
proposals to curb (or even eliminate) mass incarceration.2…[Read more]

In January 1917, a group of women led by Alice Paul began a twoand-
a-half year protest in support of women’s suffrage.1 As the first
activists to ever picket the White House,2 these women became known as
the “Silent Sentinels” for their practice of standing in peaceful silence
while holding banners displaying “provocative political slogans…[Read more]

It is no secret that American prisons and jails are often cruel and
degrading places to those who are forced to live or choose to work
within their walls.’ With the current political and social interest in
criminal justice reform, intrepid journalists are shedding some light on
what goes on behind prison walls.2 But the indignities suffered…[Read more]

In January 2000, three New York state prison officials refused to
provide Wayne Ford, a Muslim prisoner, one religious meal: the Eid ul
Fitr feast that marks the completion of Ramadan. 2 Mr. Ford sued the
prison officials for damages, claiming this refusal placed a substantial
burden on his religious practice without legitimate penological…[Read more]

Students enter law school to acquire the specialized
knowledge and skills necessary for legal practice.’ Their likelihood
of success in the legal academy is subject to many
measures: LSAT, GPA, and undergraduate institution and
major. However, for a variety of reasons, students often enter
law school without necessary fundamental skills to…[Read more]

When I irst started at MSU Law as the
Writing Specialist in 2006, I had several
questions about “the basics” of legal writing
pedagogy. I was inishing my Ph.D. in the
cumbersomely-named Critical Studies in the
Teaching of English, and I had never attended
law school. What I lacked in specialized legal
knowledge I made up for, I hoped, in…[Read more]

Years ago, I took a graduate course in critical literary theory. The irst day, the
professor opened class with a discussion of “physical and narrative space.” Her
irst proposition was for us to visualize how “readers” in a two-dimensional universe
might encounter a three-dimensional narrative object, speciically in reference to
the role of…[Read more]

This article is adapted from a presentation at the Legal Writing In-stitute One-Day Workshop at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, December 5, 2015. The conference addressed the topic of “Taking it to the Next Level: Your Course, Your Program, Your Career.” Parts of this article derive from an article in the LWI publication The Sec…[Read more]

Legal claims are inherently disruptive. Plaintiffs’ suits invariably seek to
unsettle the status quo. On occasion, the remedies to legal claims can be so
disruptive-that is, impossible to enforce or implement in a fair and equitable
manner-that courts simply will not issue them. In the area of federal
Indian law, American Indian tribal claims…[Read more]

For Animal Law’s twenty-fifth anniversary edition, David S. Favre is
back with an update on the state of animal law in the United States. This
piece covers the new, the changeless, the good, and the bad of the animal
legal landscape in the past five years, since Animal Law last asked Favre to
write a review of animal law. An overview of new…[Read more]

This article explores competing views on Michael Milken in order to draw insights about American law and culture. Milken has been described as a genius, a thief, an
industrial revolutionary, a rapacious predator, and the person you would want your children to be when they grow up. Some praise Milken for inspiring the use of high
yield debt to…[Read more]

Most scholars have missed the role of property in the U.S. regulation of insider
trading. Decades of scholarship have grappled with whether future iterations of
the regulation would be improved by treating insider trading as a property issue.1
Some scholarship relies on economic analysis aimed at determining which
allocation of rights in…[Read more]

Until recently, intellectual property (IP) scholars agreed that
patents were the prime innovation tool to aggregate decentralized
information. This case for the property approach, which argues patents
are appropriate when information about possible inventions and the
social value of inventions are hidden, is now also under pressure in…[Read more]

Kent v. United States required trial courts to conduct an individualized
assessment before transferring a juvenile defendant to criminal jurisdiction.
Several decades later, in Miller v. Alabama, the Supreme Court prohibited
imposing life without parole sentences upon youth offenders without first
conducting an individualized assessment. The…[Read more]

The school-to-prison pipeline too often places young people into a
hamster’s spinning wheel. According to the Department of Justice,
suspension from school diminishes a student’s chance to graduate from high
school and increases a student’s chance at entering the juvenile justice
system. The rollercoaster halts only when interrupted by a young…[Read more]

Over the last decade, the Supreme Court pieced together a clear
doctrine related to sentencing juvenile offenders transferred to adult criminal
courts: convicted persons eighteen years of age or younger may not receive
the death penalty, may not receive life without parole for nonhomicide
offenses, and may not be sentenced under mandatory life…[Read more]

Three landmark decisions drastically changed the sentencing standards
for juvenile offenders. In Roper v. Simmons’ and Miller v. Alabama,
2 the Supreme Court held that states may not impose the death
penalty and mandatory life without parole sentences in cases with juvenile
defendants. These cases vanquished the most severe consequences
for…[Read more]

This Article develops how the judiciary should play an instrumental part in
amplifying the parent’s voice as a citizenship broker for their child. The Supreme
Court scrutinizes school-board actions with little consideration of parents’ substantive due process right to control their child’s education through the political process. Through…[Read more]

The hundredth anniversary of Dodge v. Ford marks an occasion to reflect
upon what, if anything, has changed about shareholder primacy in a century.
Seizing this opportunity, in this Article I analyze new local laws and
ordinances that promote stakeholder governance and engagement, which seek
to protect the interests of non-shareholder…[Read more]