Columbia Law Review

The right to have your day in court is foundational to the U.S. criminal legal system. Yet, many noncitizens in immigration detention facing criminal charges are denied this right when ICE routinely fails to produce immigration detainees to criminal court to resolve charges. In immigration proceedings, immigration judges regularly use those unresolved charges to detain and deport. This Article is the first to examine this obstruction of court access[...]

In vitro fertilization (IVF) presents a neglected puzzle. IVF is used to create nearly one in forty babies born in the United States each year. But it remains deeply underregulated and has rarely been subject to the usual wrangling on matters of reproduction. IVF’s regulatory vacuum gets chalked up to America’s polarization over abortion. Yet for half a century, our laws and politics have treated these practices nothing alike. Abortion’s[...]

Summary reversals have a long history at the U.S. Supreme Court. These short, unsigned opinions reverse lower court decisions on the merits without briefing and oral argument on the theory that the decisions below were plainly wrong. Summary reversals used to be a regular occurrence, most often reserved by the Roberts Court for decisions granting post-conviction relief to people who are incarcerated and denying qualified immunity to police and[...]

Often, private organizations composed of subject matter experts draft technical standards that describe safety recommendations or “best practices” for certain industries. Legislators and regulators on the federal, state, and local levels will, on occasion, provide legal weight to these privately created standards by incorporating them by reference into the law. Following these standards thus becomes mandatory, but the American people frequently[...]

Do criminal courts meaningfully accommodate psychiatric disability? A review of competency proceedings across the United States suggests not. In competency to stand trial (CST) proceedings, criminal courts offer a narrow vision of psychiatric disability that excludes many defendants. Ultimately, the institutional context of criminal court under-mines even the meager accommodations that the competency framework provides.

CST proceedings[...]