There is an aspect of criminal procedure decisions that has for too long gone unnoticed, unrecognized, and unremarked upon. Embedded in the Supreme Court’s criminal procedure jurisprudence—at times hidden in plain sight, at other times hidden below the surface—are asides about what it means to be a “good citizen.” The good citizen, for example, is willing to aid the police, willingly waives their right to silence, and welcomes police...
Issue Archives
Employers seeking to test job applicants for strength or speed while adhering to the mandates of Title VII often use gender-normed physical-ability tests. Gender-normed tests set different raw cutoffs for male and female applicants such that each class would be expected to have roughly equal pass rates. This practice has helped employers—especially law enforcement agencies—retain physical hiring standards while mitigating their disparate...
Introduction President Donald Trump has quickly marshalled the powers of the presidency to challenge President Barack Obama’s environmental legacy. Facing an increasingly intransigent Congress, the Obama Administration placed significant emphasis on rulemaking and other administrative actions to push its progressive agenda. Whatever the merits of this approach, many of these actions are not safe from […]
County of Los Angeles v. Mendez, the Supreme Court’s recent decision rejecting shooting victims’ excessive force claims, has been written off as yet another case in which police violence has no civil rights consequences. The Court found that the deputies who shot Jennifer Garcia and Angel Mendez fifteen times used reasonable force because Mendez was holding a BB gun. But the deputies barged in on Garcia and Mendez while they were napping...
Early in 2013, in the midst of interviews conducted by several upstate bar associations reviewing candidates for a seat on the New York Court of Appeals, I sat down at lunch and met Sheila Abdus-Salaam. I was not in my element, and I’m sure she noticed that when she decided to sit next to […]
Our lives are measured by the impact we have on the lives of others. We are valued when we labor not for ourselves alone, but with an eye toward building a world better than the one we have known. By that measure, Sheila was a giant. She inspired us with her vision and brightened […]
Historically, the legal system justified family law’s rules and policies through morality, common sense, and prevailing cultural norms. In a sharp departure, and consistent with a broader trend across the legal system, empirical evidence increasingly dominates the regulation of families.
There is much to celebrate in this empirical turn. Properly used, empirical evidence in family law can help the state act more effectively and efficiently,...
Legislatures often instruct judges to impose harsher punishments on people who have prior criminal convictions—for example, a conviction for a “crime of violence” or for a “crime involving moral turpitude.” But how are judges to determine whether a person has such a conviction? In Mathis v. United States, the Supreme Court clarified that judges can rely on only the legal “elements” of prior convictions, not the factual “means”...
Dozens of multimember agencies across the federal government are subject to partisan balance requirements, which mandate that no more than a simple majority of agency members may hail from a single party. Administrative law scholars and political scientists have questioned whether these provisions meaningfully affect the ideological composition of federal agencies. In theory, Presidents can comply with these requirements by appointing ideologically...
The All Writs Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1651, authorizes federal courts to “issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law.” The Act has applications in a variety of contexts, including law enforcement investigations, the detention of military prisoners, and the management of complex multidistrict litigation. Another important but less studied area is the Act’s use...