This Note examines the claim that judges have improperly granted summary judgment where a reasonable jury could find for the non-moving party. It begins by reviewing the literature on summary judgment, particularly three opinions the Supreme Court issued in 1986, as well as claims about the propriety of summary judgment in fact- intensive civil rights cases. To test...
With a persistent and, in some places, increasing education achievement gap falling along lines of race and class, advocates have often turned to the courts to improve this nation’s public schools. Public law litigation has historically helped to remove some of the most invidious barriers to improvement, but traditional desegregation and school-finance lawsuits have not gone far enough to close the gap. This Note thus seeks to propose a new approach...
This Note argues that the Supreme Court’s decision in Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl creates an apparent tension in federal Indian law. The Court’s characterization of the broader aims of the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 and of biology’s role within it appears irreconcilable with previous interpretations of the Act—including...
Judges must consider domestic violence when determining child custody under state law. Many states guide the custody inquiry with statutory presumptions against awarding custody to abusers. With custody outcomes often hinging on allegations of domestic violence, judges increasingly turn to experts for answers. But expert assessments of domestic violence in the child custody context lack a uniform and reliable methodology. As this Note reveals,...
Over the past decade, the crime of illegal reentry has risen to prominence. It is not only the most common federal immigration charge, but also the most prosecuted federal crime. The cost of enforcing illegal reentry offenses has grown in kind, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is now particularly resource-strapped. Against this backdrop, this Note addresses an ambiguous provision in the statute governing illegal reentry, the...
In Bostick and Drayton, the Supreme Court announced that per se rules were inappropriate in answering the Fourth Amendment seizure question, “Would a reasonable citizen feel free to leave?” But when, if ever, can one factor in a pedestrian encounter with police be so inherently coercive that it becomes dispositive? The D.C. and Fourth Circuits explicitly disagree over whether police retention of identification documents constitutes...
The Mandatory Victims Restitution Act requires restitution for federal crimes involving property. In particular, the defendant is required to return any property taken, or, if return is impossible, to pay for the victim’s loss, which may be offset by a partial return of the property. In mortgage fraud cases, this usually entails calculating the lender’s loss—an unpaid loan—and offsetting that loss by the value of the collateral for...
The Delaware Court of Chancery is a unique court that specializes in transactional jurisprudence. Due to Chancery’s expertise in and exposure to corporate litigation, its decisions act as “rules” for most corporate actors. However, Chancery is not the only actor in the corporate law space, nor is it the most powerful. The SEC can—and has—intervened in state law by creating federal corporate law. In recent years, Chancery has issued...
In the nearly four decades since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, the average time between sentencing and execution in the United States has steadily increased to 16.5 years as of the end of 2011. In states like California, the total lapsed time from sentencing to execution exceeded two decades as of 2008. In response to these lengthening delays, scores of death row inmates have been raising Lackey claims over...
Tax fraud costs the federal government billions of dollars annually. Qui tam litigation, which features individuals bringing lawsuits on behalf of the government, is a powerful tool for the government in its fight against many types of fraud. The False Claims Act, the federal government’s most potent qui tam mechanism, however, expressly excludes tax fraud from its scope. Recognizing this gap in coverage, the Internal Revenue Service has...