Justice for Sale: Non-Prosecution Agreements as Instruments of Inequality
Recent high-profile sex crime cases such as the Bill Cosby case and Jeffrey Epstein case have catapulted the non-prosecution agreement into the public spotlight. Non-prosecution agreements (NPAs) are legally binding arrangements between government agencies such as the Department of Justice and companies or individuals facing a criminal or civil investigation. Under the agreement, the government refrains from filing further charges as long as the company or individual agrees to its demands, which typically requires that companies/individuals either pay a fine or cooperate with the government. [1] Given that NPAs are typically applied to cases dealing with corporate crime, the use of the non-prosecution agreement in the Cosby and Epstein cases was highly unprecedented.
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The Limits of Free Exercise: Examining the Constitutionality of Title IX’s Religious Exemption
The Department of Education (ED)’s recent proposed changes to Title IX regulations are missing a critical element: any mention of its controversial religious exemption. Title IX is a federal civil rights law passed in 1972 that prevents sex-based discrimination, including recent expansions to include discrimination on the basis of sexuality and gender. [1] The religious exemption to Title IX, codified by Congress in the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988, states that religiously affiliated schools are exempt from some Title IX protections that oppose their religious beliefs, regardless of whether or not they receive federal funds.
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Factory Farms v.s. Whistleblowers: Agricultural Gag Laws that Hide Animal Cruelty
Upon opening Iowa Select Farms’ main website, viewers are greeted by a heartwarming image of light shining through a cornstock field, with the words “Producing Pork Responsibly” centered in an elegant font atop the greenery. [1] When the rare curious consumer scrolls down, Iowa Select Farms assures them, “We believe in doing the right thing every day, operating with character and integrity and being stewards of our resources.” However, like other U.S. factory farms, their definition of “character and integrity” is vastly different from that of those reading their mission statement. To Iowa Select Farms, “Producing Pork Responsibly” means sanctioned tail cuttings, castrations without anesthesia, and smashing piglets against concrete floors. [2] Meatpacking in the U.S. accounted for $1.02 trillion in economic output and generated $256 billion in wages in 2016. [3] Further, due to the cultural fixation on and societal expectation of a meat-eating diet, the U.S. has developed a heavy reliance on factory farms, with an approximated 99% of livestock living at factory farms. [4]
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Can the U.S. Turn Away Asylees At Sea? A Legal Examination of the Migrant Interdiction Program
On April 12, 2022, the Coast Guard intercepted a vessel near the Bahamas carrying sixty seven Haitian migrants. [1] The rickety, U.S.-bound boat was stopped, its migrants were transferred onto a Coast Guard cutter, and ultimately, the entire group was sent back to Haiti. [2] This is common practice for the Migrant Interdiction Program (MIP)– the Coast Guard performs interdictions by intercepting refugee boats before they enter U.S. territorial waters and returning them back to their country of origin where many face imprisonment and torture, with insufficient determination of asylum eligibility. [3] Created in 1981 by President Reagan’s Executive Order 12324, the MIP was established as a “necessary and proper means” of enforcing U.S. immigration laws by preventing undocumented migration. [4]
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Religious Freedom For All?: Determining What is Left of First Amendment Protections for America’s Incarcerated
In March 2022, the United States Supreme Court handed down an important decision, setting a precedent for the role of clergy in death penalty executions. [1] The Court held that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) and “substantially burdened” death row inmate John Ramirez’s First Amendment right to practice his Baptist faith. TDCJ had earlier rejected Ramirez’s request to have his pastor “lay hands” and “pray over him,” rituals of the Baptist faith, while in the death chamber, as such actions would breach execution security protocol. [2]
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The UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons—Fruitful or Futile?
Since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has deployed nuclear intimidation to deter foreign intervention. From implicit orders to put Russia’s nuclear forces on alert to ominous threats that anyone in Russia’s way would face “consequences such as you have never seen in your entire history,” Putin has recklessly raised the nuclear stakes. [1] Russia’s aggressive behavior not only sets back decades of work on nuclear disarmament, but also poses new challenges for recent milestones such as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). First established in January 2021, the TPNW became the first international legal instrument that subjected nuclear weapons to a comprehensive ban. In addition to prohibiting nations from “producing, testing, acquiring, possessing or stockpiling nuclear weapons,” it “bans any transfer or use of nuclear weapons… and the threat to use such weapons.” [2]
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Breaking down the legal basis for ruling on West Virginia v. EPA: Standing, Mootness, and Implications
With heightened pleas from the scientific community to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, legal challenges to environmental regulations have taken on renewed importance. Last term, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the landmark environmental case, West Virginia v. EPA. [1] The case has vast implications for climate action– the ruling could fundamentally dismantle the federal government’s power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. [2] However, while the Court’s decision has been strongly rebuked by many, the larger question surrounding it remains whether the Court should have issued a decision at all. The U.S. Supreme Court has historically heard and ruled on cases only where they would resolve a standing injury or harm by ruling on a given case. [3]
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Rethinking the State Secrets Privilege After the War On Terror
In March of this year, the Supreme Court decided to block the testimony sought by Guantánamo detainee Abu Zubaydah. Zubaydah, allegedly a former associate of Osama Bin Laden, claimed that he was subject to unlawful torture at a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) blacksite located in Poland. His lawyers wanted the testimony of two former CIA contractors, which would provide more information about the conditions of Zubaydah's detainment; however, the Supreme Court ruled that their testimony would divulge classified state secrets, upholding the Biden administration's assertion of the state secrets privilege. [1] CNN Supreme Court analyst Steve Vladeck said that this ruling "will make it much harder, going forward, for victims of government misconduct that occurs in secret to obtain evidence helping to prove that the conduct was unlawful." [2] Indeed, by blocking the disclosure of the testimony, the Supreme Court sustained a dangerous trend in post-9/11 national security law: the Executive's overly broad assertion of the state secrets privilege to dismiss suits that could implicate the U.S. government in misconduct. [3]
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Unjust Civil Rights Stripping: American Felon Disenfranchisement
In Alabama, some felons, though solvent of all their debts to the state, return to free society as partial citizens, unable to participate in the democratic franchise. [1] Their crimes cover a wide severity of offenses, which fall under the vague category of “moral turpitude.” [2] Alabama allows felons to regain eligibility to vote if they fully complete the original terms of sentence, fees and fines included. [3] These vague definitions of qualifying crimes and fine print attempts at trapping weary felons in voting limitations prevail across the country—not just in the Cotton State—and are unusually and harmfully prohibitive to those attempting a healthy return to citizenship. Permanent felon disenfranchisement and abusive restorative policies for felons rejoining the fold are harmful, and an untenable infringement on American voting rights and democracy. Though opportunities exist for bringing about redress for millions of those without suffrage, especially involving applications of the Equal Protections clause of the 14th Amendment.
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