AuthorLRIRE

Free Speech Versus the First Amendment The digital age has widened the gap between the judge-made doctrines of the First Amendment and the practical exercise of free speech. Today, speech is regulated not only by territorial governments but also by the owners of digital infrastructure. This has made First Amendment law less central and the private governance of speech more central. When the free...

Abstract The abolitionist movement seeks to fundamentally dismantle the prison industrial complex. Modern abolitionists recognize that mass incarceration of Black and Brown people is twenty-first century slavery. True abolition, they note, cannot be realized by merely tinkering with the carceral state. Instead, the complete elimination of modern-day badges and incidents of slavery must occur. The...

Abstract To be incarcerated is to be deprived of the choices available to those in the free world. In the absence of those choices, carceral facilities dictate the ways that individuals may engage. If an incarcerated person wants to communicate with someone who is not in their facility, they have very limited options. Because of the extended erosion of attorney-client privilege, for years...

Abstract The United States is experiencing a significant rise in the prevalence of asthma and other debilitating respiratory and cardiovascular ailments that disproportionately burden low income and marginalized Americans. This is due in large measure to climate change, which is responsible for increasingly devastating air quality events—including wildfires and drought—that trigger these serious...

Abstract Nearly half a million people are currently held in pretrial detention across the United States. Legal scholarship has explored many of the actors and factors contributing to the deprivation of freedom of those presumed innocent. And while the scholarship in these areas is rich, it has primarily focused on certain system actors—including judges, prosecutors, and profit-seeking...

Abstract When corporations misbehave, the normal government response is to saddle the industry with more federal oversight requirements. But reactive policies fail to curb corporate misconduct and can incentivize corporations to ignore or break the law due to the ever-increasing cost of compliance. Even though shareholders have to foot the bill when the corporations get caught ignoring or...