Carson v. Makin: Can the Government Fund Private Religious Education?
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” These words comprise the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, a legal principle that influenced the United States since its creation and that promises a citizen the right to practice a religion of their choice. This clause and the Establishment Clause, which prohibits the government from “making any law respecting an establishment of religion,” have guided the approaches to religion and government taken by American lawmakers. Over the years, American courts have adjudicated over the question of where to draw the line between government actions and freedom of religion, for example, the debate over whether it is appropriate to utilize government funds for education at religious schools and to keep government funds from supporting religious institutions.
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Civil Asset Forfeitures: How Law Enforcement Profits from Constitutional Rights
In Las Cruces, New Mexico police officers are taught not to seize jewelry or computers but flat-screen TVs. [1] Whether it be cash or cars, officers are instructed to take assets that are profitable, easy to sell, or of direct use to the police department. These seizures are possible through a process called civil asset forfeiture, where law enforcement is able to seize property on the basis of “probable cause” that the property was involved in criminal activity. [2] Civil asset forfeitures, or in rem forfeiture proceedings, operate against the property itself and not the owner. Owners are considered claimants, and criminal charges or warrants against claimants are not required for law enforcement to seize a claimant’s property. [3] Without this burden on the government, civil asset forfeitures have allowed for the recovery of stolen artwork, enforcement of prohibition, and busting of multiple drug trafficking operations. [4] In addition to civil forfeitures, the two other types of asset forfeitures are criminal and administrative forfeitures. Criminal forfeitures require criminal convictions and are filed against the owner of the property whereas in administrative forfeitures, no convictions are required and the property is forfeited without filing a case.
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When Justice Is Not Served: The Lack of Rape Kit Testing and Insufficiency of Accountability for Victims
Across the country, there is a little-noticed but pervasive and egregious delay happening in government crime labs. Over 100,000 known sexual assault forensic evidence specimens, also known as rape kits, are currently sitting on shelves untested across the United States, some of which have remained there for decades. [1] Despite the fact that this DNA evidence could be used to find perpetrators and press charges, there is an alarming lack of due process when it comes to the justice system’s failure to test so many rape kits, leading some advocates to argue for reform on constitutional grounds. Ultimately, it is essential to eliminate the statutes of limitations on felony sex crimes and institute a new law requiring that rape kits are tested within a reasonable amount of time as determined by the courts.
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Who’s Representing Who?: SEC vs. Covington and the Sixth Amendment
For the United States, a nation deeply embedded in individualism and liberal rights, the trade-off between crime prevention and personal privacy has always been a contentious balance to strike. With the advent of emergent technologies, the battle over right-to-data between the state and the individual has continued to dominate legal theory. Can governmental and regulatory agencies legitimately demand that private firms provide information based on concerns of national security or suspicions of criminal offense? In 2020, the preeminent multinational law firm Covington & Burling LLP was subjected to a cyberattack carried out by hackers associated with Halfnium, an organization suspected of having Chinese state backing. Many of Covington’s high-profile clients – including two hundred ninety-eight publicly traded companies – were victims of this leakage. Due to the weight of these companies in the financial market, the Securities Exchange Commission filed suit against Covington in a D.C. federal court order to enforce a subpoena issued in March 2022 that would compel Covington to provide the names of the affected clients. Covington’s representative lawyer has preliminarily invoked attorney-client privileges as a defensive strategy. [1] SEC’s order to enforce the subpoena for disclosure of the clients’ names is not entirely consistent with precedent. Furthermore, Covington & Burling’s wide variety of legal strategies, mostly predicated on the attorney-client privileges established by the Sixth Amendment and other related cases and legal frameworks, are highly capable of shielding them from this intrusive and overreaching lawsuit.
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The Implications of Citizens United: The Threat of Corruption in Campaign Politics in United States vs. Householder
In the case United States vs. Householder (2023), the Ohio District Court determined that former Governor of Ohio Larry Householder engaged in racketeering when he took an illegal sixty million dollar bribe from nonprofit groups to support his and his peers’ political campaigns. [1] This case is consequential as it may have addressed the implications of Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission (FEC) (2010), which gave corporations, nonprofit groups, labor unions, and other organizations the right to free speech, including political endeavors, under the First Amendment. In particular, United States vs. Householder tested this decision by revealing two important implications through its finding: the presence of bribery within campaign politics and the influence of dark money, both of which Citizens United failed to account for due to its vague nature. If relying on legal precedent from FEC vs. MA Citizens for Life and McConnell vs. FEC in the final decision and sentencing, United States vs. Householder could dramatically change the landscape of campaign finance politics, as well as fix the loopholes created by the Citizens United decision. This is crucial for protecting the voting rights of the American people, as it removes harmful influences from elections such as racketeering (the act of obtaining money by an illegal enterprise, usually involving intimidation) and bribery.
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The Right to Housing & Forced Institutionalization of Unhoused Populations in New York City
In late 2022, New York City Mayor Eric Adams issued a new directive that would allow police officers to commit an unhoused person to a hospital against their will if they are perceived to be mentally ill or dangerous to themselves or others. Mayor Adams’ efforts, a stark change from previous policies that required further evaluation before institutionalization, have faced significant backlash. Some responded by calling for a temporary restraining order to prevent this policy from going into effect, citing concerns for further discrimination and criminalization of the already economically and racially marginalized populations. Others argued that the new directive violated the constitutional rights of New Yorkers. These legislative reforms, although done in the name of caring for unhoused populations, often result in their mistreatment, begging the question: how have new policies diverted policymakers from upholding constitutional and international standards for housing rights?
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Procedural Fairness as Prerequisite: The UK-Rwanda Asylum Relocation Deal and the Right to Non-Refoulement
As Hannah Arendt predicted nearly a century ago, the refugee crisis is the greatest test of the human rights paradigm. An estimated 103 million people have been forcibly displaced worldwide. In response to increased “small-boat” refugees, the United Kingdom entered a deal with Rwanda in April 2022 to allow the British Home Office, the state immigration and security department, to relocate asylum seekers from the UK to Rwanda. An emergency injunction from the European Court of Human Rights in June halted the first round of deportations, leading to a class-action lawsuit, R. v Secretary of State (2022), that challenged the policy. The Divisional Court subsequently ruled against the challenge in December, and individual appeals are currently underway. The case is complicated by complex refugee law, but procedural fairness during the asylum process underpins the key legal issues at stake as the prerequisite to upholding all other fundamental human rights. Under this framework, the Home Office can be held in breach of the asylum seekers’ right to non refoulement by failing to fulfill relevant procedural obligations and violating asylees’ due process rights.
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Evidencing the Implicit Identity: Dangerous Ambiguities in Queer Asylum Law
The LGBTQ+ community has endured a complicated history of discrimination in United States courts of immigration. Under U.S. law, a refugee is legally defined as one who can "demonstrate that they were persecuted or fear persecution due to race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group." "Particular social group" suggests an intentionally ambiguous, theoretically "all-encompassing" category. While its ambiguity may be used for purposes of inclusion, one may discern that such language risks bias infiltration and foster far more exclusionary practices. The history of queer exclusion is a long one: In the 1950s, queer immigrants—denoted as "psychopathic personalities''—were specifically forbidden from becoming U.S. citizens; the 1965 Immigration Reform Act referred to homosexuality as "sexual deviation;" the ban on HIV-positive immigrants endured until 2010. But in the early 2000s, the legal paradigm began a subtle shift for the better: under the category of "particular social groups'' of those seeking asylum, U.S. immigration increasingly began to recognize those who listed their LGBTQ+ identity as potentially belonging to a persecuted group that was qualified for refugee status. However, proving one's past or future persecutory risks on account of belonging to such a broad social category—a task known as the "Nexus" dilemma—invites discretion in what can constitute proof of membership to the queer community.
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Liberating the Nazis’ “Last Prisoners of War”: How Citizenship Considerations Can Challenge Recent Supreme Court Decisions on Holocaust Restitution
In February 2021, the Supreme Court decided two cases that threaten to narrow the avenues available to Holocaust survivors looking to obtain restitution for property stolen from them as a part of the larger Nazi genocide. The cases were remanded and are currently being heard by lower courts, where, if argued persuasively, the claimants can salvage a vulnerable avenue of restitution for their stolen property — the “last prisoners of war.” With every tick of the clock, the world is left with fewer living survivors and refugees of the Holocaust who can demand justice from the countries that deprived them of their humanity, rights, and loved ones.
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