The Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop left unresolved a central question running through the so-called wedding-vendor cases: Can the law ever grant religious exemptions to places of public accommodation without severely undermining antidiscrimination laws? The question is a difficult one, and people on both sides of these cases see the stakes as high. For supporters of same-sex marriage, these cases threaten...
Note
With the rise of cryptocurrency as a popular investment, cryptocurrency wallets and exchanges have proliferated, offering platforms that allow investors to hold and trade cryptocurrency. Because these platforms hold cryptocurrency on their customers’ behalf, they present problems associated with custody. Namely, how do investors ensure that these platforms do not misuse or mishandle their assets? And how will customer assets be treated if a platform...
On any given day, local jails detain nearly half-a-million people who cannot afford bail. Opposition to this status quo, and to monetary conditions of pretrial release more broadly, has reached a fever pitch in recent years. Critics from across the political spectrum decry bail as a wellspring of mass incarceration and acknowledge its profoundly discriminatory effects, particularly within low-income communities of color. Academic studies link bail...
The False Claims Act (FCA) is the primary statute used by the federal government to police fraud in government programs. In addition to providing the government with a means to recover civil penalties and treble damages, the FCA also contains a qui tam provision that allows private citizens—called “relators”—to sue on behalf of the United States and obtain a portion of the judgment. To prevent duplicative relator-filed litigation, Congress—as...
Federal campaign finance law prohibits foreign nationals from making contributions or expenditures of “money or other thing of value” in connection with American elections and prohibits anyone from soliciting such a contribution or expenditure. The revelation that officials from Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign met with Russian nationals after being told they would receive “information that would incriminate” Hillary Clinton,...
In the 2017 case Pena-Rodriguez v. Colorado, the Supreme Court held that the jury no-impeachment rule must yield to a criminal defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury when a court is faced with clear evidence that racial animus played a significant role in the jury’s decision to convict. Despite the Supreme Court notably cabining its decision to instances of racial bias alone, commentators have questioned whether...
Since its inception more than four decades ago, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has transformed from a relatively powerless monitoring body to a major regulatory hurdle for cross-border deals. This shift has been accompanied by increasing concerns from scholars and transacting parties regarding CFIUS’s lack of accountability and transparency. Yet, CFIUS’s scope has only continued to widen, as evidenced by...
Until recently, the Supreme Court interpreted the Federal Power Act (FPA) to draw an impermeable boundary between the jurisdiction of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and those of state public utility commissions. But the Court’s recent decisions in FERC v. Electric Power Supply Association (EPSA) and Hughes v. Talen Energy Marketing, LLC appear to relax the formalistic test traditionally used to resolve...
This Note assesses First Amendment freedom of speech claims with regard to online civil rights testing. Transactions that have conventionally occurred in person are now more often completed online, and providers transacting online have been increasingly using algorithms that synthesize users’ data. While these algorithms are helpful tools, they may also be yielding discriminatory results, whether intentionally or unintentionally.
In...
The opioid crisis in the United States has affected and continues to affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Driven by opioids and fentanyl, overdose is a leading cause of death. It has claimed more lives than guns, breast cancer, and car accidents. While some potential solutions have sought to strengthen criminal laws and provide harsher sanctions to drug dealers to combat drug abuse, harm reduction practices continue to best address...