Vouching, which developed out of the Supreme Court’s desire to protect the jury’s right to evaluate credibility, traditionally forbids prosecutorial statements designed to enhance or attest to the credibility of a government witness. This Note examines a flavor of vouching unique to cases involving cooperating witnesses. Prior to testifying, cooperating witnesses...
The Public Health Service Act (PHSA), codified at 42 U.S.C. §§ 201–300, confers federal authority to institute medical quarantine and isolation measures in response to outbreaks of specific infectious diseases. Congress’s authority to pass the PHSA is derived from the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Until recently, the constitutionality of the PHSA’s...
Since its enactment, the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1996 (PLRA) has obstructed prisoners from bringing suit in federal court. In the relatively uncommon cases where prison lawsuits do succeed under the PLRA, the statute authorizes courts to implement and enforce relief to curb the constitutional violation found in that case. In authorizing such judicial authority,...
An increasing number of states have passed laws aimed at preventing the costs of litigation from burdening legitimate petitioning activity. These laws frequently include procedural protections, such as a special motion to dismiss. When state law claims are instead brought in federal court, these laws and their procedural protections implicate the Erie doctrine and the Rules of Decision Act, which has led some federal courts not to apply...
18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(B)(ii) imposes an additional mandatory minimum sentence of thirty years for the possession of a machine gun during and in relation to a drug trafficking or violent crime. Prior to 2010, federal courts commonly excluded a mens rea requirement from § 924(c)(1)(B)(ii) by reasoning that machine gun possession was a sentencing factor, not an element...
The purpose of this Note is to analyze one widely enacted category of abortion regulations—parental involvement laws—and the effect of such regulations on their targeted group—pregnant minors. According to the Supreme Court, abortion regulations are constitutional only if they satisfy the undue burden standard, as expressed in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. By relying...
For almost two decades now, courts have struggled with a seemingly irreconcilable conflict between Rule 23 class actions and Rule 68 offers of judgment. The apparent tension between these two rules arises in the limbo between the filing of a putative class representative’s complaint and the court’s resolution of the class certification motion. During this time the...
Whether a right to payment is a “claim” is one of the most important determinations in bankruptcy because only “claims” are subject to the bankruptcy process, including the all-important automatic stay and discharge provisions. The Bankruptcy Code (“Code”) provides a definition of claim in § 101(5), but courts have differed greatly in what “rights to payment” are covered by that definition. For twenty-six years, the Third...
Under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), individuals can request certain agency records, including mug shots, from federal agencies. Until 1996, the policy of the United States Marshals Service (USMS) was to use FOIA’s broad law enforcement exemption, Exemption 7(C), to deny requests for mug shots. However, in 1996, the Sixth Circuit in Detroit Free Press v. Department of Justice found that a mug shot does not implicate...
The Immigration and Nationality Act contains a provision, commonly referred to as the “persecutor bar” or “persecution of others bar,” which prohibits granting asylum to an alien who, although otherwise meeting the criteria for asylum, is determined to have been a “persecutor” in her native country. Use of the persecutor bar by the Board of Immigration Appeals and circuit courts leads to situations of legal complexity because...