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...
Note
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...
In August 2011, President Barack Obama signed the Budget Control Act, allowing the United States to continue borrowing money to fulfill its legal obligations. The Act includes a provision that raises the debt ceiling by an additional $1.5 trillion if both houses of Congress pass a Balanced Budget Amendment.
This Note argues that the use of the Article V amendment process to achieve a legislative result is constitutionally suspect, and...
A relatively unheralded aspect of the Supreme Court’s controversial decision in Citizens United v. FEC is its strong affirmation of the constitutionality and utility of disclosure requirements for individuals and groups engaged in political advocacy. In both Citizens United and Doe v. Reed, decided a few months later, the Court issued prodisclosure holdings indicating its support for such laws. Nevertheless, the...
It seems almost beyond dispute that if the Federal Establishment Clause prohibits anything, it prohibits religious institutions from wielding governmental power. So thought the U.S. Supreme Court in Larkin v. Grendel’s Den, Inc. when it announced that the delegation of governmental power to churches amounted to an impermissible “fusion” of government and religion. Subsequent applications of the nondelegation rule have been...
The special damage rule—a component of standing doctrine requiring a plaintiff’s alleged injury to differ somehow from that of the general public—has long thwarted citizen challenges to inaction by government regulators, particularly in environmental suits. While courts in many jurisdictions have trended toward relaxing the special damage rule in environmental cases, the requirement has not been similarly adjusted in other areas of...
The Treaty Clause of the Constitution describes the mechanism through which the United States enters into treaties with other nations. Though seemingly straightforward, the Clause is unique in that it is an “explicit constitutional mandate to share power.” As such, defining the precise contours of this power has led to several conflicts between the executive and legislative branches. One such dispute concerns the fate of a treaty’s...
With its decision in Brady v. NFL, the Eighth Circuit interpreted section 4(a) of the Norris-LaGuardia Act to broadly shield management from injunctions in labor disputes. This decision adopted a position briefly supported by the Second and Sixth Circuits, but thoroughly criticized by the First, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits. This Note argues that the Eighth Circuit’s decision potentially protects management to the detriment of workers...
In antitrust law, the state action doctrine allows states to take regulatory actions that would otherwise result in violations of the federal antitrust laws. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has not always provided clear guidance in its state action jurisprudence, and lower courts have expressed frustration with this doctrinally confusing area of antitrust law. There is confusion among the lower courts over the relationship between state...
The economic substance and step transaction doctrines are two specific examples of courts’ general willingness to sometimes look past transactions’ technical form and impose taxes based on their underlying substance. As judicial creations, the two doctrines served as complements and functional equivalents. However, they also generated a wide variety of vague, overlapping, and conflicting formulations.
In 2010, Congress incorporated...