{"title":"Democracy's Destiny","authors":"G. Daniels","doi":"10.15779/z38bg2hb3q","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15779/z38bg2hb3q","url":null,"abstract":"From its beginning, America has had a paradoxical democracy, where \"all men are created equal\" while simultaneously denying the right to vote to anyone who was not White, male, or owned property. The pandemic exposed the fault lines of our democratic form of government. Those imposing barriers to the ballot are facing off against the advocates of access. It is not a new battle. In America, we seek ways to limit who can participate instead of expanding opportunities. We have dedicated our resources to dancing around the edges of democracy-by advocating for vote by mail or automatic voter registration, for example-while allowing states to develop blockades to the ballot that are confusing and quite effective. Without a doubt, America is at a crossroads. The shenanigans that this country has used to prevent access to the ballot box, such as the poll tax, grandfather clause, restrictive voter ID laws, voter purges, and felon disenfranchisement, are antidemocratic and harmful to our system. COVID-19 exposed the fault lines. We must repair them. A free, fair, inclusive, nondiscriminatory right to vote is essential to a healthy democracy. We are in the position to craft a true democratic system of government. Will this country live up to its democratic destiny or continue to deny our journey to a more perfect union?","PeriodicalId":51452,"journal":{"name":"California Law Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67442373","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Visible Policing: Technology, Transparency, and Democratic Control","authors":"Hannah Bloch-Wehba","doi":"10.31228/osf.io/4pcf3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31228/osf.io/4pcf3","url":null,"abstract":"Law enforcement has an opacity problem. Police use sophisticated technologies to monitor individuals, surveil communities, and predict behaviors in increasingly intrusive ways. But legal institutions have struggled to understand—let alone set limits on—new investigative methods and techniques, for two major reasons. New technologies of surveillance, often procured from or otherwise reliant on the private sector, tend to operate in opaque and unaccountable ways, augmenting police power while remaining free of meaningful oversight. At the same time, shifts in Fourth Amendment doctrine have expanded law enforcement’s ability to engage in surveillance free of oversight or scrutiny by courts or by the public. The result is that modern policing is not highly visible to oversight institutions, and is becoming even less so.In light of these informational dynamics, transparency litigation has become a core technique for rendering obscure investigative practices visible and holding police accountable. These new lawsuits form a criminal procedure “shadow docket”—they resolve important questions about democratic governance of policing without deciding on the constitutionality of searches and seizures. This Article builds on the government secrecy literature to explore the significance of this “shadow docket” and the relationship between transparency obligations and constitutional limits on police action. In the absence of meaningful Fourth Amendment safeguards, the Article shows, transparency makes policing practices increasingly visible to the public and to democratic institutions in areas in which constitutional criminal procedure today has minimal reach. These efforts to make policing visible bear important lessons for advocates and scholars of criminal procedure, criminal justice reform, and transparency itself.","PeriodicalId":51452,"journal":{"name":"California Law Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2020-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42213618","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"An Unstable Core: Self-Defense and the Second Amendment","authors":"Eric M. Ruben","doi":"10.15779/Z384T6F38D","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15779/Z384T6F38D","url":null,"abstract":"In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court announced for the first time that self-defense, not militia service, is the “core” of the right to keep and bear arms. However, the Court failed to articulate what that means for the right’s implementation. After Heller, most courts deciding Second Amendment questions have mentioned self-defense only superficially or not at all. Some courts, however, have run to the opposite extreme, leaning heavily on the platitude that firearms have utility for lawful self-defense as a rationale for effectively immunizing them from regulation. This Article examines that inconsistency and considers whether self-defense law itself could provide stability and much-needed guidance for when, how, and which weapons receive constitutional protection. This exercise finds support in both Heller and historical precedent, and offers a helpful lens through which to consider the intersection of the Second Amendment and its stated self-defense purpose. At the same time, however, it exposes a tension within Heller, calling into question whether a Second Amendment grounded in self-defense gives more protection to handguns than to less lethal alternatives.","PeriodicalId":51452,"journal":{"name":"California Law Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2020-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44113980","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Paper Terrorists: Independence Movements and the Terrorism Bar","authors":"Pooja R. Dadhania","doi":"10.15779/Z38MC8RH1B","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15779/Z38MC8RH1B","url":null,"abstract":"This Article explores the application of the terrorism bar in immigration law to noncitizens who have participated in an independence movement. It proposes a uniform standard that immigration adjudicators can use to determine whether a foreign entity is a state in order to promote accurate applications of the terrorism bar. The terrorism bar in the Immigration and Nationality Act is broad — it can bar most forms of immigration relief, including asylum, and reaches far beyond ordinary definitions of terrorism. For example, the terrorism bar can block immigration relief for noncitizens who nonviolently supported a militia fighting for independence against a repressive state or who received military-type training from such an organization. The terrorism bar applies even if that militia is supported by the United States. The bar can also ensnare a noncitizen’s spouse and children who have not themselves participated in those activities. Especially in light of its far reach and harsh consequences, it is of the utmost importance to accurately apply the bar, which can be challenging for cases on the margins. One such area is the application of the bar to noncitizens who have supported independence movements leading to the creation of new states, which are situations that often produce large numbers of asylum seekers and refugees. The complexity arises because the terrorism bar requires unlawful conduct, but participation in and support of a state’s armed forces are not unlawful. During an independence movement, a new state can emerge, and support of its armed forces is not unlawful even though hostilities may continue with the state from which it seceded. Adjudicators need to be able to determine when an entity achieved statehood because it could mean the difference between a noncitizen participating in unlawful rebellion, which could trigger the terrorism bar, and supporting the armed forces of a state, which would not. However, there is currently no uniform framework for analyzing questions of statehood in the context of the terrorism bar. Drawing from international law and domestic law, this Article proposes a standard that immigration adjudicators can use to assess questions of statehood to avoid the creation of “paper terrorists” — noncitizens who have participated in independence movements and are mistakenly labeled as terrorists under the Immigration and Nationality Act. This proposal stems from, and is consistent with, the statutory language of the Immigration and Nationality Act, and therefore does not require any legislative action. The proposed standard encourages immigration adjudicators to give full effect to the statutory language to promote more accurate applications of the terrorism bar.","PeriodicalId":51452,"journal":{"name":"California Law Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67504626","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Pump the Brakes: What Financial Regulators Should Consider in Trying to Prevent a Subprime Auto Loan Bubble","authors":"Andrew P. Schmidt","doi":"10.15779/Z389P2W65P","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15779/Z389P2W65P","url":null,"abstract":"The possibility of a subprime auto finance bubble gives financial regulators an opportunity to navigate a burgeoning crisis in real time. Lessons learned from the 2008 financial crisis and the implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act prompt the question whether financial regulators should adopt an ability-to-repay rule for auto lending similar to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Mortgage Ability-to-Repay Rule. In determining whether to adopt a rule, financial regulators should consider how, if at all, enforcement and adjudication could help stabilize the increasingly risky auto finance market. For both enforcement and rulemaking, the role of private attorneys general could prove critical to deterring abusive lending and cooling off a dangerously permissive market.","PeriodicalId":51452,"journal":{"name":"California Law Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2019-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42919768","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Wage Theft in Lawless Courts","authors":"Llezlie L. Green","doi":"10.15779/Z38FF3M08W","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15779/Z38FF3M08W","url":null,"abstract":"Low-wage workers experience wage theft — that is, employers’ failure to pay earned wages — at alarmingly high rates. Indeed, the number of wage and hour cases filed in federal and state courts and administrative agencies steadily increases every year. While much of the scholarly assessment of wage and hour litigation focuses on large collective and class actions involving hundreds or thousands of workers and millions of dollars in lost wages, the experiences of individual workers with small claims have received little attention. Furthermore, scholarly consideration of the justice gap in lower courts, more generally, has often focused on debt collection cases in which the individual denied justice is the defendant, not the plaintiff. \u0000 \u0000This article fills a significant gap in the literature by considering the experiences of individual low-wage workers who pursue their claims in the lower courts. In doing so, it identifies the difference between the law as written and the law as experienced by low-wage workers seeking to vindicate their substantive legal rights. After considering the challenges to adjudicating wage and hour cases in small claims courts, it argues that procedural informality and frequent absence of critical inquiry into the substantive legal issues create significant hurdles to low-wage workers’ ability to prevail on their claims. Indeed, despite the various protections provided by both federal and state wage and hour laws, courts adjudicating these claims often apply a breach of contract analysis that disadvantages vulnerable workers. This return to what I term a pre-New Deal, Lochnerian approach to wage and hour disputes runs afoul of Congress and state governments’ efforts to regulate the workplace and, particularly, to protect vulnerable low-wage workers. \u0000 \u0000This article argues that the challenge of injecting legal standards into small claims court requires the creative use of narrative and case theory to prevail in wage and hour claims. It also considers potential procedural changes, such as the introduction of specific pleadings and forms for wage and hour claims and state court judge trainings that would better enable pro se parties to assert their federal and state substantive wage and hour rights in small claims courts.","PeriodicalId":51452,"journal":{"name":"California Law Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2019-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46038827","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Americans, Almost and Forgotten","authors":"Tom C. W. Lin","doi":"10.15779/Z38513TW58","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15779/Z38513TW58","url":null,"abstract":"There are millions of Americans who are systematically forgotten and mistreated by our government. They have been described by the Supreme Court as “alien races” and “utterly unfit for American citizenship,” but they continue to fight and die defending our Constitution. They survive catastrophic storms, but do not receive the assistance that is freely given to other Americans. They are subject to federal laws and regulations, but have no meaningful voice or vote in Washington. They are the millions of Americans in Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the US Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands — the unincorporated territories of the United States. \u0000 \u0000This Article is about these forgotten Americans, their longstanding political plight, and the pragmatic legal policies that could improve their lives and make them fully and equally American. It begins by providing a brief overview of each territory. Next, it investigates the plight of the territories, focusing on how interconnected factors relating to political powerlessness, economic dependence, military presence, and geographic isolation have created heavy burdens for people in the territories. Moving from problems to solutions, this Article examines past efforts to aid the territories. In particular, it analyzes past pursuits of litigation, statehood, and independence. It explains why these prior paths did not lead to progress, and discloses critical obstacles that continue to obstruct these routes. Finally, this Article proposes three workable ways for the federal government to assist the territories in the near term. Specifically, it argues that the territories and their supporters should focus on working with the federal government to obtain: (1) an extended temporary waiver of the costly maritime law known as the Jones Act, (2) most-favored state status in federal veterans and disaster relief appropriations, and (3) special economic empowerment zone designations. Ultimately, this Article aspires to offer a new, workable roadmap for policymakers to think and act with greater urgency about the forgotten Americans of our territories.","PeriodicalId":51452,"journal":{"name":"California Law Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2019-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45000242","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The End of Intuition-Based High-Crime Areas","authors":"Ben Grunwald, J. Fagan","doi":"10.15779/Z388911R2Q","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15779/Z388911R2Q","url":null,"abstract":"In 2000, the Supreme Court held in Illinois v. Wardlow that a suspect’s presence in a “high-crime area” is relevant in determining whether an officer has reasonable suspicion to conduct an investigative stop. Despite the importance of the decision, the Court provided no guidance about what that standard means, and over fifteen years later, we still have no idea how police officers understand and apply it in practice. This Article conducts the first empirical analysis of Wardlow by examining data on over two million investigative stops conducted by the New York Police Department from 2007 to 2012. \u0000 \u0000Our results suggest that Wardlow may have been wrongly decided. Specifically, we find evidence that officers often assess whether areas are high crime using a very broad geographic lens; that they call almost every block in the city high crime; that their assessments of whether an area is high crime are nearly uncorrelated with actual crime rates; that the suspect’s race predicts whether an officer calls an area high crime as well as the actual crime rate; that the racial composition of the area and the identity of the officer are stronger predictors of whether an officer calls an area high crime than the crime rate itself; and that stops are less or as likely to result in the detection of contraband when an officer invokes high-crime area as a basis of a stop. We conclude with several policy proposals for courts, police departments, and scholars to help address these problems in the doctrine.","PeriodicalId":51452,"journal":{"name":"California Law Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2019-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48945777","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"'Spit and Acquit': Prosecutors as Surveillance Entrepreneurs","authors":"Andrea L. Roth","doi":"10.15779/Z38D21RJ7J","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15779/Z38D21RJ7J","url":null,"abstract":"A high-stakes debate has emerged around the legislative expansion of forensic DNA databases, a move that would assist thousands of criminal investigations but also raise profound privacy issues. In Maryland v. King, where the Court upheld the constitutionality of forced DNA sampling of arrestees, Justice Alito described the Court’s 2013 decision as “perhaps the most important criminal procedure case” in “decades.” But this debate fails to account for a different, less-well-understood practice: DNA collection by prosecutors, with the alleged consent of those giving samples. The Orange County District Attorney’s Office offers certain defendants charged with petty misdemeanors a deal: if you want a dismissal or a plea offer, give us your DNA. This innovative practice has come to be known colloquially as “Spit and Acquit.” So far, over 150,000 people — not otherwise required to give the state their DNA — have agreed. Their samples are then kept permanently in a prosecutorial database maintained with the aid of biotechnology companies and funded largely by federal grants and defendant fees. As the largest “consent”-based law enforcement DNA database in the country, Spit and Acquit is worthy of study in its own right. But it also offers a case study of prosecutorial policymaking in surveillance — an area beyond prosecutors’ typical expertise. \u0000 \u0000This Article draws upon original field research, including court observations, interviews with prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, defendants, and public records, to shed light on this understudied phenomenon. It then argues that Spit and Acquit compares unfavorably to existing legislative databases in terms of public safety benefits, privacy, and democratic accountability. The Article concludes by drawing lessons from Spit and Acquit for the future of genetic surveillance and the emerging field of “misdemeanor studies.”","PeriodicalId":51452,"journal":{"name":"California Law Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2019-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44777388","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}