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Essay

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Essay

The Emerging Firearms Hypocrisy of Terry: The Fifth Circuit in United States v. Wilson

by  Aliza Hochman Bloom  

Terry v. Ohio’s flexible reasonable-suspicion rule is colliding with the post-Bruen expansion of public carry. In United States v. Wilson, the Fifth Circuit held that suspected concealed gun possession—presumptively lawful in Louisiana—could not alone justify a stop, yet it sustained the seizure by relying on Mr. Wilson’s social associations and arrest history. Professor Hochman Bloom argues this emerging “firearm exceptionalism” elevates guns over other lawful acts and entrenches Terry’s racialized, hindsight-driven policing.

Volume 78 (2025-2026)

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Essay

A Remedy Inherited: State Law, Universal Vacatur, and the Meaning of “Set Aside”

by  Fred Halbhuber  

Introduction This past June, in a decision already heralded as marking a “landmark shift in administrative law,” the Supreme Court in Trump v. CASA, Inc. held that federal courts “likely” lacked the power to issue universal injunctions. Universal injunctions, the 6-3 majority concluded, likely exceeded the equitable authority that Congress had bestowed on the federal courts…

Volume 78 (2025-2026)

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Essay

Threats to Contraception

by  Deborah Tuerkheimer  

Many question the future of the right to contraception after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, but Deborah Tuerkheimer argues that the more immediate threats lie beyond the Supreme Court. Contraceptive access is eroding through three interconnected forces: post-Dobbs funding cuts and clinic closures, expanding parental- and conscience-based claims, and misinformation-driven cultural shifts that invite restrictive regulation. Together, these developments imperil contraception even as formal protections remain intact.

Volume 78 (2025-2026)

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Essay

Protecting Consumers in a Post-Consent World

by  Mark A. Lemley  

In Charting a New Course on Digital Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission, former FTC Chair Lina Khan and her co-authors Samuel Levine and Stephanie Nguyen set out a fundamentally new regulatory framework for privacy that seeks to move beyond the “notice and consent” paradigm that has dominated privacy law for a generation. They…

Volume 77 (2024-2025)

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Essay

The Coming Assault on Categorical Gun Prohibitions

by  Ian Ayres & Fredrick E. Vars  

  Introduction Lower courts are grappling with challenges to what were, until recently, settled Second Amendment laws—most notably, the federal laws prohibiting felons and those involuntarily committed from purchasing or possessing firearms. These categorical prohibitions are two of the most prominent so-called “federal prohibitors.” People who fall into one or more of the prohibited categories…

Volume 77 (2024-2025)

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Essay

California, an Island?

by  Lincoln L. Davies, Stephanie Lenhart  

Lincoln L. Davies and Stephanie Lenhart warn that the energy future of the Western United States will be determined by the choices California makes over the next two years. Davies and Lenhart urge California to move towards a regional western electricity market to improve energy efficiency, reliability, and sustainability, and to avoid isolating California’s electricity market.

Volume 77 (2024-2025)

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Essay

The Pardon Power and Federal Sentence-Reduction Motions: A Response to Yost and Flowers

by  Jaden M. Lessnick  

In his response to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and former Ohio Solicitor General Benjamin Flowers, Jaden Lessnick argues that the federal sentence-reduction statute (18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)) is not preempted by the presidential pardon power. Lessnick contends that the statute does not offend the traditional separation-of-powers principle, and preemption is not justified under the unitary executive theory.

Volume 77 (2024-2025)

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Essay

The Criminally Complicated Copyright Questions about Trump’s Mugshot

by  Cathay Y. N. Smith  

The mugshot taken of Donald Trump in connection with his Georgia criminal prosecution has become one of the defining political images of the time. In this Essay, Cathay Y. N. Smith discusses who owns the copyright to this iconic photo.

Volume 76 (2023-2024)

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Essay

Abortion, Blocking Laws, and the Full Faith and Credit Clause

by  Haley Amster  

In recent months, California and Washington have enacted statutes forbidding private corporations in their states from cooperating with other states’ efforts to enforce abortion bans. In this Essay, Haley Amster argues that such “blocking laws” do not violate the Full Faith and Credit Clause, and are constitutionally permissible.

Volume 76 (2023-2024)

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Essay

Interpreting Obstruction: The Capitol Riot & Donald Trump

by  Jennifer L. Portis  

The statute governing obstruction of an official proceeding—one of the charges brought against January 6 defendants and then-President Trump—faces a moment of reckoning. This Essay by Stanford J.D. candidate Jennifer L. Portis identifies a novel interpretation: § 1512(c)(2) reaches only direct obstruction, not those individuals who obstruct the official proceeding through another person's conduct.

Volume 76 (2023-2024)

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Essay

Long-Term Immunity: Protecting Drug Developers from Liability for Late–Occurring Serious Reactions to Emergency Vaccines

by  Aliya Sternstein  

In this Essay, Aliya Sternstein of Georgetown University Law Center argues that an international body must set a standard, five-year window, after an emergency vaccine is administered and when the recipient can seek compensation for an injury. Sternstein further argues that emergency vaccine developers should receive immunity against liabilities except for willful misconduct.

Volume 76 (2023-2024)

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Essay

A Congressional Incapacity Amendment to the United States Constitution

by  John J. Martin  

In this Essay, Prof. John J. Martin of the University of Virginia School of Law argues for a Congressional Incapacity Amendment to the Constitution, modeled on the Twenty-Fifth Amendment's provisions for Presidential incapacity.

Volume 76 (2023-2024)

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Essay

On Sordid Sources in Second Amendment Litigation

by  Jacob D. Charles  

In this Essay, Prof. Jacob D. Charles of Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law considers the use of history and tradition in firearm regulation following the Supreme Court's Bruen decision. He argues that courts should use an "Abstraction Approach" in considering historical analogues to modern regulations.

Volume 76 (2023-2024)

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Essay

The Role of Non-Adjudicative Facts in Judicial Decisionmaking

by  Timothy B. Dyk  

In this Essay, Judge Timothy B. Dyk of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit considers appellate courts' use of information from outside the factual record, i.e. "non-adjudicative facts," when making decisions. Although this practice is commonplace and often harmless, the Essay notes the greater potential for incorrect conclusions when relying on facts outside the record. It urges judges to use non-adjudicative facts with caution, and carefully verify them to avoid serious error.

Volume 76 (2023-2024)

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Essay

The Class Action Megaphone

Empowering Class Members with an Empirical Voice
by  Alissa del Riego & Joseph Avery  

Class actions are plagued by poor communication between class counsel and the masses of unnamed class members. In this Essay, Professors Alissa del Riego and Joseph Avery propose that these barriers be overcome by using the new technical capabilities of artificial intelligence, and by adding an express duty to communicate to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

Volume 76 (2023-2024)

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Essay

Rethinking Strategy After Dobbs

by  David S. Cohen, Greer Donley & Rachel Rebouché  

Now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the movement for abortion rights and access finds itself in uncharted territory, and the stakes could not be higher. For abortion rights defenders, this new, post-Roe playing field means adapting their strategy and mindset to confront a new environment without a tether to federal constitutional protection. This Essay, published in the immediate aftermath of Dobbs, offers some initial thoughts about what the changed legal landscape means for abortion rights legal advocacy. It offers several suggestions, all of which require a paradigm shift in movement strategy to one that is in some ways modeled after the now-successful movement to overturn Roe. 

Volume 75 (2022-2023)

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Essay

Legal Lessons from a Very Fast Problem: COVID-19

by  Eric E. Johnson & Theodore C. Bailey  

This Essay offers a look back on the initial phase of the COVID-19 catastrophe—a crisis that, at the time of this writing, is still expanding and deepening. We suggest three lessons: First, the free flow of information saves lives, an observation which sounds in constitutional free-speech rights, copyright law, and patent law. Second, politically accountable decision-making in the public health sphere has proven inapt in responding to the pandemic; this observation suggests a more prominent role in public health crises for independent administrative agencies and the judiciary. Third, pre-crisis regulations and rulemaking structures for approvals of medical products, and vaccines in particular, have not proven nimble enough in the face of the pandemic; this suggests an opportunity for congressional action to push agencies to move faster.

Volume 73 (2020-2021)

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Essay

Damnatio Memoriae and Black Lives Matter

by  Alex Zhang  

This Essay defends the recent scrutiny of civic symbols, triggered by police brutality and killings, against the Trump Administration’s criticism that it constituted a frivolous exercise in cancel culture. It examines links between recent destruction of monuments and the age-old Roman legal procedure of damnatio memoriae to show that condemnation of memory may serve legitimate purposes, especially in rehabilitating public spaces to express society’s disapproval of past offensive actions.

Volume 73 (2020-2021)

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Essay

‘Foreseeable Violence’ & Black Lives Matter

How Mckesson Can Stifle a Movement
by  Tasnim Motala  

This Essay draws from recent events to show how the Fifth Circuit’s “foreseeable violence” standard uniquely harms Black and racial justice protesters.  By contextualizing the Fifth Circuit’s opinion in Mckesson as part of a wider project spanning state and local legislatures aimed at stifling Black protest, the Author explains how even tort liability standards for protest can be, and will be, weaponized against those whose First Amendment rights are the most vulnerable.

Volume 73 (2020-2021)

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Essay

Contracts and COVID-19

by  Andrew A. Schwartz  

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020—as well as government orders to contain it—has prevented countless people, babysitters to basketball players, from fulfilling their contracts. Are all of these parties legally liable for breaching their contracts? Or are they excused due to this extraordinary event? What about payments made in advance, such as tickets bought for a concert that has now been canceled, or a dorm room leased at a college that is now closed?

Volume 73 (2020-2021)