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Volume 63, Issue 4


Article

Fortuity and Forensic Familial Identification

by  Natalie Ram

On July 7, 2010, Los Angeles police announced the arrest of a suspect in the Grim Sleeper murders, so called because of a decade-long hiatus in killings. The break in the case came when California searched its state DNA database for a genetic profile similar, but not identical, to the killer’s. DNA is inherited in…

Article

Guns, Fruits, Drugs, and Documents

A Criminal Defense Lawyer's Responsibility for Real Evidence
by  Stephen Gillers

A criminal defense lawyer may need to read a document, test a weapon, or analyze a substance in order to advise a client. Or there may be no such need but a client may show up at a law office with an illegal weapon, contraband, or stolen property. In either event, what should a lawyer…

Article

Fixing Unfair Contracts

by  Omri Ben-Shahar

Various doctrines of contract and consumer protection law allow courts to strike down unfair contract terms. A large literature has explored the question which terms should be viewed as unfair, but a related question has never been studied systematically—what provision should replace the vacated unfair term? How should a distributively unfair contract be fixed? This…

Note

Should the Supreme Court Stop Inviting Amici Curiae to Defend Abandoned Lower Court Decisions?

by  Brian P. Goldman

Forty-three times since 1954—approximately twice every three Terms—the Supreme Court has heard a case in which no party argued one side of the issue before the Court, generally because the party who prevailed in the lower court refused to defend its victory below. When faced with this unusual, nonadversary posture, the Court has tapped an…

Note

A New Approach to Nineteenth-Century Religious Exemption Cases

by  Wesley J. Campbell

Scholars frequently cite early nineteenth-century cases to ascertain the original meaning of the Free Exercise Clause. Previous studies, however, have ignored crucial trends in those decisions, thus leading to mistaken emphasis on the denial of religious accommodation claims. This Note argues that prevailing theological views, skepticism of courtroom declarations of religious belief, and contemporary notions…