In 1996, the Supreme Court handed down Whren v. United States, which prohibits inquiry into police officers’ subjective motivations in conducting a search or seizure when there is reasonable suspicion or probable cause on which to base the search. The Whren doctrine has largely restricted the availability of the exclusionary rule and 42 U.S.C. §...
In a copyright infringement dispute, when assessing whether a defendant’s work is substantially similar to, and therefore infringing, a plaintiff’s, a court must first determine which works to compare. A unique issue arises when a defendant has appropriated material from multiple works in a series or collection by a plaintiff. A court must decide whether to examine...
8 U.S.C. § 1324 prohibits, among other activities, harboring aliens who enter the United States without authorization. In the more than six decades since the law was passed, federal courts’ understandings of what “harboring” means have varied. This Note argues that recent decisions in the Second and Seventh Circuits, both of which narrow the scope of liability...
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...